Rambling about Kamen Rider pt 1
17 September 2024
i watched Power Rangers a lot as a kid but then for some reason stopped watching any kind of tokusatsu for 22 years... this was a huge mistake! After a single episode of Kamen Rider, an intense obsession took hold, and now i gotta write about it.
so first, some general notes! It's not a show about superheroes beating up monsters. It's always a surprisingly thoughtful character-driven drama with intricate interlocking character arcs spanning the entire season, and also they beat up monsters for 5 minutes as a way to viscerally show character development! They always get their power from the same source as the monsters, which i really like as a way to not just have "inherent good and evil". All the screencaps here will be of the Riders because that's the most visually interesting, and they're awesome, but... now i mostly watch it for the out-of-suit stuff! I wasn't expecting all of them to have such well-written characters and incredibly fun drama, but i wouldn't have it any other way 😄
each season is unrelated to all the others, so you can start with whatever one looks cool. Honestly they're all winners, so there's not much point in giving them "full reviews"! I'll just go through all the ones i've seen so far and talk about them a bit, i just wanna ramble. This account on archive.org has all of them english-subbed, so just grab one if it looks cool!
⚠ Big Post Incoming ⚠
Kamen Rider Kuuga (2001)
Kuuga isn't the first one i watched but i wanna write these in release order because i'm autistic. This is the EoSD of Kamen Rider, where it's the first one in a notably new style after a hiatus, marking the beginning of a new era, while still having some of the crust (positive) of the old style. I haven't seen any of the super retro ones yet, maybe i should! This doesn't make sense in the writeup order but it's really funny how edgy this one is in comparison to all the newer ones, it's like a slasher film where the monsters are all keeping detailed kill counts and competing with each other to see who can do the most stylish murders! It's one of those special pieces of media that's right on the edge of what i usually watch, so i can feel my tastes expanding in realtime 😆
It starts with the premise of "ancient evils get unleashed because archaeologists were messing with some ruins, but also that uncovered an artifact that people can use to fight them"... and then handles everything with complete realism from that point on, it's incredible. My favorite part is Kuuga having regular checkups with his doctor to discuss the medical ramifications of his new abilities that are slowly coming to the surface. Yeah, that's totally something important you'd need to do, but i've never seen media actually acknowledge it! So i really love the vibe here 😄
Kamen Rider Den-O (2007)
I started watching Den-O with a plural system i know, and it turns out... this is the plural one! It's the adventures of the world's most pathetic boy, and his ever-increasing squad of troublesome headmates. Their headspace is a time-travelling train where they all argue with each other for who gets to front today, and they all have different powers and weapons. It's also the funniest thing ever omg, the writing and acting is SO GOOD. You might've seen this gif before, this is where it's from! (The red one just got back from fronting really good.) I absolutely love this one and i can't wait to continue it!
Kamen Rider W (2009)
One thing that particularly stands out to me is the worldbuilding in this one. The wind-powered city of Fuuto is beautiful and detailed, it really feels like a place that deserves to be protected. The city itself almost feels like a character in a lot of ways – monsters attacking the city have the same amount of gravity as if they were attacking a named, beloved character. It's really inspiring as a writer!
Kamen Rider OOO (2010)
Oh man, i love this one!
The character drama is particularly heated in this one, with a lot of tough situations that need serious introspection on everyone's part to come to an agreement. This applies to all factions, i can hardly think of any two characters who unconditionally get along, no matter what side they're on!
This is my personal favorite! It just has so much fun with its characters and powers, it's one of my favorite things of all time. ❤
Kamen Rider Fourze (2011)
Fourze is the high school one! You can tell what you're getting into just from saying that, feel free to skip if that's a turn-off. 😆 You've got the jock, the goth, etc. They all go to the moon and fight constellation monsters. Gentarou is one of my favorite Kamen Rider protagonists, he is so incredibly friendly and likeable to a ridiculous degree, and the pose is infectious!
The transformation belt is pretty incredible in this one! It has 4 slots for different Switches, with each Switch controlling one limb. So there's one that turns your right arm into a rocket, there's one that turns your left leg into a drill, etc, they all get swapped out and the only limitation is "enabling too many means it's really hard to move"! Each Switch is physically unique too, like being a flip-switch, or a crank, or a mad scientist lever, or whatever else. I really want this as a stim toy.
Kamen Rider Wizard (2012)
Wizard is self-explanatory from the title! He gets 4 different elemental forms with different powers, plus a lot of miscellaneous spells. The spells are all in the form of "Flame Please" or "Small Please" because that's the magic word. The main character is nonverbal-ish and non-emotional and just kind of along for the ride, which is funny and super relatable for me.
An evil warlock and their minions are trying to drive people to despair to turn them into monsters, and Wizard has to stop them. Sometimes this doesn't even involve a fight, it's just... helping someone with depression! If someone is on the brink of shattering though, Wizard can travel into their subconscious and use his dragon which is also a motorcycle to fight a monstrous incarnation of their suicidal urges, which is sick.
The donut shop owner is a trans woman! Her appearance is probably "intended to be funny" since she probably hasn't started hormones yet but it's never actually brought up, she's just a well-respected and well-liked character by everyone, and uses she/her pronouns and everyone respects that. Absolute legend. 💕
Wizard is Cleru's favorite. 🍓
Kamen Rider Gaim (2013)
Oh man, Gaim is something. It's about competing teams of street dancers who fight for turf by summoning tiny monsters from a dimensional rift to engage in pokemon battles. But then, a mysterious dealer from Yggdrasill Corp sells one of them a powerful belt, and so the hero transforms in order to just hit the monsters with a sword and win every time. This innovative new battle strategy kicks off an intense rivalry, and leads everyone into an enigmatic forest...
Okay, i can't say much more than that without giving stuff away, but after seeing the whole thing i found out it shares its lead writer with Madoka which definitely explains a lot. It has a ton of different Kamen Riders all fighting each other and teaming up as alliances shift, there's like ten Riders total! They're all different fruits and one of the powerups is a smoothie belt so they can mix different ones together. This also has an openly-gay character, actively dating men onscreen as a major plot point! Hell yeah. 😄
Kamen Rider Drive (2014)
In a strange alternate universe where cops are cool, sentient computer viruses unleash a devastating pulse that slows down time for the entire world. And Kamen Rider Drive is the only one fast enough to fight back! Somehow, despite featuring cops and cars, my two least favorite things, this one's amazing. There's even a prominent subplot about the value of nonhuman friends, featuring a very hot autistic rival!
The protagonist Shinnosuke is so understated and boring-looking that i kept forgetting who was Kamen Rider in group shots early on, which i thought was dumb at first but it's 100% on-purpose, since this is the only one with a relevant secret identity! There's very important named characters who interact with this person every day without knowing he's Kamen Rider, and that's a really fun setup that i'm surprised doesn't show up more. He also wears a trans flag tie sometimes which i don't know if it's intentional but i'll assume he's had a very successful transition. This might be the most "standard" one i've watched, but i mean that in a really good way, it's right in the middle of "all the things Kamen Rider can be" so it's probably a great entry point!
The main character's partner is a sentient seatbelt who talks in the Copy Kitty menu font.
Kamen Rider Ghost (2015)
Ghost is about a kid who dies in the first episode, and also his two partners: a scientist who thinks nothing is ghosts, and an onmyoji who thinks everything is ghosts. The kid befriends the spirits of great luminaries, such as Miyamoto Musashi, and transforms into powerful new forms with them! One of his supermoves is Thomas Edison Omega Drive and i have never stopped thinking about it.
The ghost world is really cool, there's no curves so everything's straight lines and cubes. I always love seeing the humans react to the ghost world and the ghosts react to the human world. This show also has the best costume designs of any Kamen Rider as far as i'm concerned, it's absolutely the highlight! This is spoilers but check this out, omg! Absolutely fantastic 😄
This one's strange! It's one of those pieces of media where i was always noticing a thousand things that bugged me, but all in all i have nothing but good memories in the end once it had time to settle a bit! Such is the power of headcanons. If your headcanon isn't as powerful as mine though then you probably won't have a good time. BUT, either way, the Ghost x Drive crossover movie is my favorite single piece of Kamen Rider media, so if you wanna start with a movie instead of a full series then make it this one, even if you don't intend to watch either of these riders afterwards! It's an amazing standalone that has a lot of fun with everything.
Conclusion
Go watch it!
They're all right here, just pick the one that sounds coolest! (Download them ahead of time and watch them locally on VLC or potplayer, the archive.org embedded player is weird sometimes)