I’m enjoying Kamen Rider Blade a lot right now. I’m very close to finishing it, and while it had quite a rough start, it’s one of those shows that gets better and better the further in you get. It’s endearing how much of the show’s quality reflects its playing cards motif. The show absolutely had the deck stacked against it from the start, but a combination of perseverance and luck of the draw resulted in a wonderfully engaging experience.
That being said, do I regret writing this series before finishing Blade? No, not at all. Coming right off the heels of Faiz, which was very successful during its time, Blade attempted something that was new for Kamen Rider in the 2000s. Blade, in a sense, is a clean break from Kamen Rider‘s past.
Kuuga was the perfect distillation of what defined Kamen Rider in the past, but with a modern twist. Agito, Ryuki, and Faiz all build off of each other in unique ways, and all, in one way or another, owe their identities to Kuuga. But Blade makes few, if any, attempts to continue this tradition. No matter how good Blade ended up being, it would’ve been very difficult for it to be a part of this series I’ve written. It just doesn’t fit.
After all, there’s something very endearing about a flat circle. A perfect set that completes itself and loops endlessly. It’s funny, actually, that Blade has a playing cards motif. A standard deck has four suits, and Blade has four riders. It wouldn’t be right for a series where four is such an important number to dilute the catharsis of the circle of four that preceded it.
All that being said, however, I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I look at what most of the western Kamen Rider fanbase is like, I feel like a “fake fan.”
My experience with Kamen Rider is admittedly rather limited. Aside from the four shows I’ve written about for this series, plus Blade, the only other ones I’ve seen in full are Black and W, and I’m caught up on Geats. However, my imposter syndrome comes not just from the fact that I’ve watched a relatively small amount of Kamen Rider shows, but also which ones I’ve watched. Because in case it wasn’t obvious from the way I was talking about them, most of these four shows arguably aren’t all that popular anymore.
The truth is that most western Kamen Rider fans gravitate towards shows that are relatively newer. Geats is of course popular because it’s currently airing, but anecdotally, the most popular Kamen Rider shows in the English speaking fandom tend to be from the 2010s. W is a big one (though it’s technically 2009), but there’s also Build, Ex-Aid, Zero-One, and Gaim. This is a natural byproduct of the fact that Kamen Rider is rather niche in English speaking regions, where potential audiences must rely primarily on fan-written subtitles.
It’s not just that, though. Some Kamen Rider fans have even gone so far as to say that the identity of the series in the early 2000s, Kuuga notwithstanding, is entirely against what it stood for during its inception in the 1970s. That the shows are too grimdark and too edgy, that the inclusion of various melodramatic elements goes against the vision of the series’ creator, Ishinomori. And as someone who’s watched so few Kamen Rider shows, relatively speaking, who am I to object? Do I really have a leg to stand on in this debate?
But wait, there’s more. You see, there’s also the fact that I’m simply not a huge fan of tokusatsu in general. I don’t find myself particularly excited by the usual genre conventions, like the new forms, or the cool vehicles, or stuff like that. In fact, as I’ve hopefully demonstrated, my favorite aspects of these shows aren’t the action itself, but rather, what gives the action its stakes. I like the characters, the internal conflicts, the emotional stakes. These are the things that keep me personally invested in a story.
So, let’s lay it out. I’ve watched relatively few Kamen Rider shows. Many of the ones I love are sometimes libeled as being contrary to the series’ roots. And I don’t even have any real investment in tokusatsu in general. So why did I write this? Why did I write these four long posts, each one about a different show?
The answer is simple. Because they’re my heroes. Because each and every aspect of these four shows are my heroes.
Yusuke Godai is my hero.
Shouichi Tsugami is my hero.
Shinji Kido is my hero.
Takumi Inui is my hero.
But it’s not just the characters. The shows themselves are my heroes, too, as are the people that worked on them. Naruhisa Arakawa, Kuuga‘s lead writer, is my hero. Shigenori Takatera, Kuuga‘s main producer, is my hero. Yasuko Kobayashi, Ryuki‘s lead writer, is my hero. And yes, controversial as he is, Toshiki Inoue is my hero, too.
Kamen Rider is a series that means many different things to many different people. In the end, I don’t think it’s important which shows you love and which ones you don’t. Hell, even if you never watch any Kamen Rider at all, I don’t think your life is going to be substantially worse off for it.
But I urge you all to believe. Believe in the power to be heroes that rests within all of us.
I still haven’t gotten my diploma in the mail, but it should be arriving any day now. I know that no matter how old I get, I’ll always have that diploma, one way or another. Any time I interview for a job, it’ll come up. If I decide to go back to school and pursue further postgraduate education, it’ll come up. Being an adult means that my education will always be a part of me, no matter how timeworn it becomes.
So then, if that’s true, then I know that these four shows will also be a part of me forever. That whenever I look at my diploma and think about the effort it took to earn it, I’ll have Kamen Rider to thank. These four shows saved me, plain and simple. And after all, isn’t that what a hero is supposed to do?
Terrace Talks 