I've just seen an episode of Kamen Rider, and i've never seen a Superhero so dark, with such cool and dark villans. For a show made in the 70's,it can still attract newcomers. I think the only american superheroes that can come close to the darkness that is Kamen Rider are Batman, Spawn and Blade. I give this show a 10
6 Reviews
First 13 episodes are a 10
liam_mackay14 February 2022
The first 13 episodes with Hongo are genuinely incredible. Those episodes are dark, and though aged and campy, have great villains and character development.
Rider 2 though enjoyable, lacks the tone and charm of the original. His episodes are best when Hongo crosses over.
The first 13 episodes are the franchise high in my opinion, but the rest of the series still has a lot to offer. Check it out and just fall into the Kamen Rider rabbit hole.
Rider 2 though enjoyable, lacks the tone and charm of the original. His episodes are best when Hongo crosses over.
The first 13 episodes are the franchise high in my opinion, but the rest of the series still has a lot to offer. Check it out and just fall into the Kamen Rider rabbit hole.
My Favorite TV Show Of All Time
verokron30 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Kamen Rider is a masterpiece. Amazing story, action, and characters plus the amount of changes pact in to only 98 episodes. It changed Tokusatsu forever and will never be forgotten. Why? You ask. Well I'm going to tell you. For starters, the concept that a motorcycle rider and a scientist is turned into a monster with super powers by a terrorist organization and fights them and their monsters with his friends ( one of which got her father killed by them) is just a brilliant yet simple idea. Next, the characters are very entertaining with new ones being added every 15 episodes or so. My favorite is Ruriko who's actress (Chieko Morikawa) strangely left the show in episode 14 to join SWEET POTATOS. What the heck is Sweet Potatos? There is no information about it. Can someone tell me what this is? While I love Ruriko I hate Taki. He is some FBI agent who joins the show in episode 13. He is SO annoying. Takeshi who is the first Kamen Rider is pretty cool and has a good character plot as he tries to except that he is a monster. Hayato is the other Kamen Rider. He replaces Takashi in episode 14 and is a photographer. From episodes 40-52 Takashi makes guest appearances. In episode 53 he comes back and remains there for the rest of the show with Hayato guest appearing every so often including the finale. I do prefer Takashi over Hayato as he seems like a kinder person. The location of the heroes changes over time. Episodes 1-13 have Snack Amigo, a restaurant, 14-73 Tachibana Racing Club, and 74-98 Rider Kid Corps HQ. The owner of the club Tobei is also the Kamen Riders' trainer. He has a funny running joke about him being old. The club members include Ruriko's friend Hiromi, Michi, Yuri, the oddly funny Mari, Emi, the fortune teller Mika, the food loving Choco, Yokko, and the hilarious kid character Goro. The Rider Kid Corps members Naoki and Mitsuru are very annoying and boring. Some disappear into thin air. Others make it to the end of the show. Now to the villans. Shocker is a huge organization with many members. The combatman which are the soldiers and the scientists are in every episode. The Kaijin are the monsters who come in many forms. They are humans fused with animals and are very weird but awesome in look and power. Each episode having it's own monster. My favorite is Gillzames from episode 67. He is a saw shark monster who was killed by Kamen Rider 1's Drill Shoot. His design and episode are what makes him my favorite. My second favorite is Haotori Bachi from episode 92. He is a venus fly trap/ bee monster with acid spit who is killed when Kamen Rider 1 pulls him off a cliff with him. I like him for his design and how close he gets to killing Kamen Rider. My third favorite is Siomonking from episode 73. He is a fiddler crab monster who is killed by the Double Rider Kick. He has a good episode and design. Over the course of the show Shocker commanders are introduced. Colonel Zol 26-39, Dr. Shinigami 40-52, 61, 63, and 68, Jigoku Taishi 53-62, 64-67,and 69-79, and finally Gelshocker's commander General Black 80-98. Gelshocker is a fusion between Shocker and the mysterious Geldam in the last quarter of the show. They all have a Kaijin form Colonel Zol- Golden Wolf Man, Dr. Shinigami- Ika Devil, Jigoku Taishi-Garaganda, and General Black-Hilchamelion. These are all used in the same episode they die in. Jigoku Taishi is my favorite because of his episodes and death episode. Then I'd go with Dr. Shinigami with is creepy nature and supernatural abilities. Next Colonel Zol with his very over the top acting. Finally General Black because he has NO personality. Now it's time to talk about the worst and best episodes. I don't have a least favorite episode but the worst episodes are 51,56,70, and 84 just for being boring. There is a recurring theme of a scientist making something and shocker tries to steal it. 12,23,45,51,57, and 58. The best episodes include 5,13,16-17,19,26,27,34,39,40-41,45,50,53,55,62,65,67,68,72-73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80-81,87,91-94,97-98. The best being 79 where Jigoku Taishi who is suspected to have leaked the rattle snake monster Garaganda's plan to Kamen Rider is supposed to be executed but Takashi who wants to know why he became a traitor saves him and learns that the shocker Leader created a Kaijin without telling Jigoku Taishi, Ganikomoru. Jigoku Taishi who in a very well done scene is revealed to be Garaganda who capture Kamen Rider's friends revealing that the whole thing was staged. Kamen Rider and him fight and he is defeated by the Rider Kick exclaiming "Long live the Shocker army!" before exploding. The Shocker leader dismantles shocker continuing the wonderful mystery of episodes 78-80. With all of that I hope that you understand why Kamen Rider is my favorite show of all time. I think that it will live on forever as a classic. And as Jigoku Taishi once said, Long Live The Shocker Army!!!!!!
an overlong, boring, repetitive slugfest that is recommended ONLY to Kamen Rider Completionists
TooKakkoiiforYou_32111 November 2022
Unfortunately, being a newbie of this franchise I though that starting with its first series ever it would have proven the right choice since usually by doing that I've found a lots of gems people tend to not consider because of their age, in both the comic medium and the anime one. This is not one of those gems, except the first 10/13 episodes that are interesting because they show you how originally the series was intended to be, I. E. akin to the american golden age of comics with lots of blood and dismemberment (something I'm not particularly fond of except when it has a meaning behind and it's not just for gore's sake). After that, what you're going to see if you stick until the end (something I don't recommend doing) is a progressively kiddified affair that is really, really and I can't stress enough REALLY repetitive and way more repetitive, boring and hamfisted than a lot of classic 100+ or 200+ episodes repetitive animes I've seen from front to end (fillers and recaps included) without being bored once with nothing particularly engaging if we exclude the occasional campy glimpse (provided you're a sucker of camp like me), the nice eye-candy chicks who start by factually fighting the minions and end being treated like nothing more than props and a couple of interesting episodes, in particular episode 84 which is the way I personally like superheroes to be. Other than that there is nothing here for newcomers, so as a newcomer to this franchise myself I can't recommend this to anyone in my situation. Go down on other series of the franchise before this, not on this one.
An innovation to the Japanese superhero genre!
Ryuusei18 May 2000
Rarely was there ever such a hero as Shoutarou Ishinomori's MASKED RIDER in the tokusatsu field before that time. Manga/anime characters such as Kazumasa Hirai/Jirou Kuwata's EIGHT-MAN (the granddaddy of the genre) and Ishinomori's own CYBORG 009 were similar to MASKED RIDER, but the more popular superheroes in tokusatsu was ULTRAMAN, its sequels (notably ULTRA SEVEN) and imitations. Toei producer Tooru Hirayama, attempted to bring back the Masked Superhero genre, but their drafts were unsuccessful, until Ishinomori published a 100-page one-shot comic-book story called SKULLMAN in early 1971. Though the character of Skullman was more of an antihero than his resulting TV counterpart, the comic was successful enough for Hirayama to request changes from Ishinomori, turning Skullman into a grasshopper variant (a design chosen by his then five-year old son Jou) called "Masked Rider Hopper King," which was shortened to just "Masked Rider," and the rest was history!
The show concerns a runaway cyborg grashopper-man who sets out to avenge the death of his teacher and the loss of his humanity (he is, in reality, scientist/motorcycle racer Takeshi Hongou) by fighting the evil forces of Shocker, the Nazi-like organization that transformed him in the first place (he was meant to be the perfect weapon against society). As the "Masked Rider," Takeshi Hongou rides the super motorcycle Cyclone, and with super-speed and super-strength, performs high-flying rechniques such as the Rider-Jump to reach the top of buildings, or his killing technique, the Rider-Kick!
The show began as dark, serious and violent, but many complications (including star Hiroshi Fujioka temporarily leaving the series due to a stunt-related accident) forced the series to change into the more kid-friendly and somewhat comical series that everyone's more accustomed to. However, it's still a fun, action-packed series with plenty of monsters and henchmen that Masked Rider and Masked Rider 2 (a similar Masked Rider, Hayato Ichimonji, played by Takeshi Sasaki, took over from the fallen Fujioka as star for a time) fight each week!
The series ran for 98 episodes, and would be impossible to do a detailed review here, suffice to say that I thought the less-complicated sequel series MASKED RIDER V3 (1973) was even better than the original! Still, MASKED RIDER was the one that started it all for morphing superheroes (or "henshin" heroes) as we all know, and is the most important show in this genre! I highly reccommend the early episodes, from 1-13, but the rest is still fun and action-packed to watch! HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED!!!
The show concerns a runaway cyborg grashopper-man who sets out to avenge the death of his teacher and the loss of his humanity (he is, in reality, scientist/motorcycle racer Takeshi Hongou) by fighting the evil forces of Shocker, the Nazi-like organization that transformed him in the first place (he was meant to be the perfect weapon against society). As the "Masked Rider," Takeshi Hongou rides the super motorcycle Cyclone, and with super-speed and super-strength, performs high-flying rechniques such as the Rider-Jump to reach the top of buildings, or his killing technique, the Rider-Kick!
The show began as dark, serious and violent, but many complications (including star Hiroshi Fujioka temporarily leaving the series due to a stunt-related accident) forced the series to change into the more kid-friendly and somewhat comical series that everyone's more accustomed to. However, it's still a fun, action-packed series with plenty of monsters and henchmen that Masked Rider and Masked Rider 2 (a similar Masked Rider, Hayato Ichimonji, played by Takeshi Sasaki, took over from the fallen Fujioka as star for a time) fight each week!
The series ran for 98 episodes, and would be impossible to do a detailed review here, suffice to say that I thought the less-complicated sequel series MASKED RIDER V3 (1973) was even better than the original! Still, MASKED RIDER was the one that started it all for morphing superheroes (or "henshin" heroes) as we all know, and is the most important show in this genre! I highly reccommend the early episodes, from 1-13, but the rest is still fun and action-packed to watch! HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED!!!
What every superhero should be like!
KmnRdr28 December 1998
The first Kamen Rider series, titled "Kamen Rider" is what every american superhero series should be like. It's dark, it's action packed, it has a gloomy atmosphere. All the Kamen Rider movies and shows are like that, but this series went under fire for the excessive violence. This show is great, Hiroshi Fujioka and the rest of the cast do a great job in this 98-episode saga against Shocker, and Gel-Shocker. The action is great, but gets better as the show progresses. Hiroshi Fujioka did most of his own stunts in and out of costume, but got into a stunt accident early in the show, and left for a while. So they brought in a couple new characters, Special Agent Taki, and the next Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider 2!
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