My Top Seven Aspects of My Top Four Kamen Rider Shows: Introduction

September of last year, I began a journey that would change my life. This journey is both unrelated and deeply intertwined with the fact that this September marked the beginning of my final semester of university, which has culminated in me currently being mere weeks from attaining a master’s degree. Indeed, the fact that this is my final school year as a student before I begin working full-time is a frightening one. All my conscious life I have been a student. The prospect of being a real adult with a full-time job, full-time responsibilities, and full-time expenses is frightening.

I didn’t want this to end. Part of me, truthfully, wants to stay a student forever. I know that’s not possible, and yet… I was depressed. I needed something to believe in. I needed hope. I needed…

Kamen Rider.

Okay, let me back up. For those that don’t know, Kamen Rider is a Japanese multimedia superhero franchise based primarily in television. It began in 1971 and has been on and off ever since. The series typically airs a show every year, and usually these shows are self-contained. It’s sort of an anthology of different superhero shows, all focusing on a different masked hero who rides a motorcycle. Hence, the name (kamen (仮面) is Japanese for mask). Kamen Rider is part of a genre called tokusatsu, which simply translated means “special effects.” Tokusatsu media rely on special effects both practical and digital to tell fantastical stories. Other tokusatsu franchises include Godzilla, Ultraman, and Super Sentai, the Japanese basis for Power Rangers.

In September I began watching Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000), and it very quickly became one of my favorite shows ever. Later that same year I watched Black (1987), Agito (2001), as well as caught up on Geats (2022), the currently ongoing Kamen Rider show at the time of writing. Earlier this year I watched W (2009), Ryuki (2002), Faiz (2003), and, as I write this series, I’m about halfway through Blade (2004).

All of these shows were enjoyable in some way, but four of them stand out to me as simply perfect. They aired, perhaps not uncoincidentally, all in a row, one after the other. My preference, neatly enough, is for these shows in reverse chronological order. In other words, I think that each one was progressively one better than the last.

These four shows are those that kickstarted Kamen Rider‘s run in the 2000s. After Black RX finished in 1989, Kamen Rider went on a television hiatus for some time. When Kuuga began in 2000, it was the dawn of a new age for Kamen Rider. After that came Agito, Ryuki, and then Faiz. These are my favorite Kamen Rider shows by a rather substantial margin. The way that Kuuga matures the Kamen Rider formula and brings it into the 21st century is incredible, and the way that Agito, Ryuki, and Faiz all build off of that is even more impressive.

But to be more specific, what attracts me to these shows so much is how genuine I find them to be. More modern Kamen Rider shows like Geats and even W put a lot of stake in their action. There’s a lot of focus on the flashiness of the special effects, so much so that I personally feel like it detracts from the more intimate moments, the bits of quiet character drama that I think make the early 2000s shows so great. There’s also the issue of promoting toy sales, which is admittedly a major consideration for all of these shows, including the ones I love, although I’d argue to a lesser extent.

Mostly, though, the early 2000s Kamen Rider shows feel like they were made for everyone, rather than just for children. Of course, “everyone” includes children, but that’s just the point. As a revival show, Kuuga was as interested in garnering new, young fans as it was in reengaging old fans who watched the shows in the 1970s. Most of the shows after Kuuga followed suit. The result is that these shows feel like the Japanese equivalent of something like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, or The Incredibles, or much of the DC Animated Universe, particularly Batman: The Animated Series. All of these examples tell stories that can be appreciated by audiences of all ages, young or old. They’re not too juvenile, nor are they too explicit. Modern superhero media tends to be too much of the former for my tastes, so these four shows fit just right.

For my first series in a while on this blog, I want to write about all four of these shows in some detail. Therefore, I’ll be doing just that. As the title of this series suggests, I’ll be taking an individual look at all four of my favorite Kamen Rider shows and writing about seven aspects of each that I love. My hope is that in articulating what it is that makes me so passionate about these shows, I might help others appreciate them more. But, to be honest, this is also for me as much as it is for others. Coming up with this list was a ton of fun, as was elaborating on it!

I’ll be posting the first entry, the one for Kuuga, on Monday. After that, I’ll post one entry a week. I do hope you’ll all stick around and see this through to the end. If I can convince even one person of the greatness of these four shows, I’ll consider this series a success.