May 13

Tokusatsu 101 Lesson 3, more Showa Riders

Related tags: Kamen Rider, Toku, Tokusatsu Written by: Barim

That last one didn’t go completely as planned… For those who were wondering who or what that is in the banner, it’s a mecha from Mahou Sentai MagiRanger, the origin of Power Rangers Mystic Force. But I’m going ahead of myself, Sentai and American Toku I’ll get to later. First, I’m continuing with the Showa riders.

October, 5, 1979 was the birth of the next Kamen Rider on Japanese Television. Simply called Kamen Rider, it greatly returned to the basics and mostly tried to use things more in line with the first series and none of the changes like in Amazon. The series was meant more as a revival or even remake, still, it went slightly it’s own way and was quite popular. The series is about SkyRider, who, as his name suggest, was the first Kamen Rider who could fly. He was also envisioned as the most powerful rider at the time and probably still is. With the return to basics it of course also came that he was again the same sort of cyborg 1, 2 and V3 were. Also, as the mentor of the original Kamen Riders was one person, Sky’s mentor would also go on to become the mentor of the next Kamen Rider.

Known as Super-1, I agree it’s a cheesy name, but remember, it’s Japan, they take all sort of cheesy english phrases and try to make them manly… and of course, Super-1 was a cyborg again. The US engineered him to be the first astronaut that wouldn’t need a spacesuit. Of course, nothing goes as planned in Toku land and the evil Dogma Kingdom completely destroys the army base, killing all Americans inside in the process. Of course, Super-1 isn’t American and so he survived. Okay, people rarely die on screen in toku, but so many was okay since they weren’t Japanese? Still, Super-1 returned to Japan to train under a martial arts master and later under the mentor of SkyRider. Also, where most series before hand used one group of villains, Super-1 saw the Dogma Kingdom destroyed only halfway through the series and saw it replaced by the Jin Dogma. While this may seem a simply change, this was reused in later series as well to keep things fresh. Also, don’t quite me on this one, but I expect the Jin Dogma to be named after the Jin dynasty of China, founded after the Sima family took power away from the rightful victor Cao Wei. The Jin Dogma’s rise to power halfway through the series might reference that by them only usurping the Dogma Kingdom’s after it is destroyed.

And for those that have counted, that were 7 series till now, with 9 Riders. Can you name all of them? Then a special came celebrating the arrival of the 10th Rider. Kamen Rider ZX. In this special the nine existing Kamen Riders battled a new evil, the evil Badan empire. Badan has done the old Shocker magic again and turned a dying human into a cyborg working for them, ZX. And once again this warrior betrays them after which he runs into other Kamen Riders, fights them and after an education film on the other Riders, joins them in battle against Badan. Badan’s tendency for the same mistakes as Shocker shouldn’t be that weird, as the leaders of both organizations are twin brothers… Also, after the defeat of Badan it was revealed that the same evil energy/identity was behind all evil groups…

Then came Black, who fought Gorgom. Once again because they had turned him into a cyborg. But that wasn’t all this time. He was born on the day of a solar eclipse together with his twin brother, both were kidnapped and turned into a cyborg on their 19th birthday, revered as the Black Sun and the, Gorgom wanted them to fight to the death so the victor could become their new king. Black escaped before they could brainwash him and vowed to save his brother. Unfortunately, his brother showed up completely mind washed as Shadow Moon to fight Black to the death. Shadow Moon met his demise after Black left him weakened in the Gorgom base that was about to explode.

5 years later(in story, next year’s series still), having built up a new life, Black was suddenly kidnapped by the Crisis Empire who offered him to join him or death. He refused to join them and was dropped into space. In space, under the radiation of the sun, he mutated and after surviving his re-entry onto earth he found out he had turned into Black RX. As such, this was the first direct sequel featuring the same protagonist in the series. He was also the first Riders to change form, and he didn’t even stop there, he also gained RoboRider and BioRider power-ups. Something that would become common in Toku series. Of course Shadow Moon couldn’t help but show ip, with new powers he also wanted revenge. This time, he was destroyed completely and even returned to his original self before dying. The Crisis Empire wasn’t so easy to defeat, Black RX required the aid of all the previous Riders to defeat them. I also feel the need to mention the Crisis Empire’s. For those that have been putting two and two together, yes, Black RX is the original series Saban’s Masked Rider was localised from, but that’s something for another day.

This is where the original series’ run of Kamen Rider ended. Black RX was aired in the year Emperor Showa died and with no series directly after it, this is by fans considered to be the end of the Showa Kamen Riders. While returning in a few odd movies during the 90′s, their true return in the 2000′s marks a big change in style and as such also truly defines the differences between the Showa and Heisei series of Kamen Rider.

With this I’ll end my run of Kamen Riders for now, next will most likely be the other creation of the creator of Kamen Rider, Sentai.

And as a special bonus to stay in the mood just a little longer:

An MV featuring the song honouring the first 11 Kamen Rider set to imagery that tells a very short version of their stories.