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xaq_the_aereonSince I inadvertently brought up the topic of Kamen Rider with xyzzysqrl the other day in a response to kjorteo's latest HGSS playthrough entry, I figured I'd take a few minutes to go into some stuff I like about the franchise as a whole.
For those not familiar with Kamen Rider: Japan's tokusatsu genre of superhero TV shows are primarily dominated by 4 franchises:
Metal Hero: The heroes are robots, cyborgs, or humans wearing metallic suits of power armor. It's sadly dropped off the radar of late, and only 1 attempt was ever made to Americanize it: If you were to show a 90's kid stills of Juukou B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto, they might recognize them, respectively, as the regular and "Metallix" versions of Big Bad Beetleborgs.
Ultraman: The heroes battle giant monsters, not by using giant robots, but by simply becoming humongous themselves. It's still going strong, and some attempts were made to bring it over to America. My personal favorite attempt was when Denkou Choujin Gridman was Americanized as the 90's-tacular Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. Horrible name, excellent casting choices (Kilokhan being voiced by none other than Tim Curry!), a kicking intro theme, but above all else the thing that gave me my greatest love ever, beast-mecha: Draco, aka Dyna Dragon.
Kamen Rider: One of the two kings of tokusatsu. The heroes transform into themed superheroes known as "Riders" (sometimes the themes get ridiculous, such as when Kamen Rider Gaim's Riders were themed on fruit...) and do battle against whatever malicious force is attempting to conquer/destroy the world. More often than not battles are done on foot, even against the occasional giant monster. However, quite frequently the enemies they face are Riders themselves. Two attempts were made to Americanize the franchise: the ill-fated Masked Rider chose solid source material with Kamen Rider Black RX, but even a Power Rangers crossover couldn't save it. The other, Masked Rider Dragon Knight, was a localization of Kamen Rider Ryuuki and met with a fair bit of success.
One thing of note is that the franchise is commonly divided into 2 distinct eras, based on who was Emperor when they were produced: The Showa Riders include such classics as Ichigo/Nigo (the first two), Black, and Black RX. To this day the first 7 Riders are immensely popular, to the point where they often appear in the current era, the Heisei Riders era, which started with Kuuga. Some fans designate Riders beyond Decade as Neo-Heisei Riders. With Heisei's reign possibly coming to an end soon, it will be interesting to see where the next generation of Riders go.
Super Sentai: The other king of the genre, and the most successful over in America overall; Super Sentai serves as the source material for a decently-known US franchise known as Power Rangers, which means I shouldn't have to explain anything here. :b
There's been one other contender to the genre, a horror-themed series called GARO that I'm quickly falling in love with...anyway, back to some personal stuff about Kamen Rider.
FAVORITE MAIN RIDER: I'd have to go with Faiz. I love the suit's design, the voice of his transformation device, and above all else, his secondary mode is my favorite in the whole franchise:
Faiz Axel. For 10 seconds, Faiz can accelerate to speeds that are almost impossible to keep up with. This fight scene demonstrates its usefulness quite nicely.
FAVORITE SECONDARY RIDER, and favorite overall: Kamen Rider Birth. You can't go wrong with that design, the powers, or that character song. Birth = Best Rider, hands down, end of discussion. MOVING ON.
FAVORITE EVIL RIDER: Saga. That finisher still gives me chills...and he did it on one of his own minions.
FAVORITE RIDER THEME: Kabuto. The series itself got a bit boring since Kabuto himself was severely overpowered, but the design of the ZECTER suits was beautiful. They had two forms: "Masked" form encased the user in a suit of power armor that offered solid defense and some fighting power, but was a bit slow...until two words came into play:
"CAST OFF." At this point, the user switches to "Rider" form by detaching the outer shell of the armor...quite explosively, making it an excellent attack strategy.
The feather in the Kabuto designs' cap, however, is the fact that this is the one I opted for when going full fanboy and designing my own Rider: Kamen Rider Mukade. Each Kabuto-series Rider is themed on an insect, called a "Zecter" that acts as the transformation device. Mukade's Zecter is a centipede, which not only serves as the device, but skips the need for attaching the device to a belt by serving as the belt itself. When summoned, the Mukade Zecter crawls up the user's leg and wraps around their waist. Connecting the two ends (yes, it sticks its tail in its mouth) exposes the slots on the side where its weapon will materialize and the Clock Up trigger will be located. Upon switching from "Masked" to "Rider" form, a pair of fangs rotate out from the side of the helmet.
Mukade's weapon is a dagger in Masked form, which extends into a whip in Rider form. It possesses two unique attacks in Rider Form: Its finisher, the Rider Lash, charges energy into the whip to slash through enemies like razor wire. Its other attack charges an inversed charge of the Clock Up energy into the Rider's left fist, where a pair of fang-like projections come out; the Rider Venom attack then hits an opponent with energy opposite that of the Clock Up system. An enemy in Clock Up status is immediately knocked out of it...one who is not finds themselves slowed down to the point that years will pass by them in mere moments.
Yeah, I made my fanboy Rider a villain. :b
Anyway, that's about all I can think that I wanted to say here...should've been in bed quite a while ago but I got going on this and HOO BOY DID THAT GO PAST A FEW MINUTES. X_x;
xyzzysqrl the other day in a response to kjorteo's latest HGSS playthrough entry, I figured I'd take a few minutes to go into some stuff I like about the franchise as a whole.For those not familiar with Kamen Rider: Japan's tokusatsu genre of superhero TV shows are primarily dominated by 4 franchises:
Metal Hero: The heroes are robots, cyborgs, or humans wearing metallic suits of power armor. It's sadly dropped off the radar of late, and only 1 attempt was ever made to Americanize it: If you were to show a 90's kid stills of Juukou B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto, they might recognize them, respectively, as the regular and "Metallix" versions of Big Bad Beetleborgs.
Ultraman: The heroes battle giant monsters, not by using giant robots, but by simply becoming humongous themselves. It's still going strong, and some attempts were made to bring it over to America. My personal favorite attempt was when Denkou Choujin Gridman was Americanized as the 90's-tacular Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. Horrible name, excellent casting choices (Kilokhan being voiced by none other than Tim Curry!), a kicking intro theme, but above all else the thing that gave me my greatest love ever, beast-mecha: Draco, aka Dyna Dragon.
Kamen Rider: One of the two kings of tokusatsu. The heroes transform into themed superheroes known as "Riders" (sometimes the themes get ridiculous, such as when Kamen Rider Gaim's Riders were themed on fruit...) and do battle against whatever malicious force is attempting to conquer/destroy the world. More often than not battles are done on foot, even against the occasional giant monster. However, quite frequently the enemies they face are Riders themselves. Two attempts were made to Americanize the franchise: the ill-fated Masked Rider chose solid source material with Kamen Rider Black RX, but even a Power Rangers crossover couldn't save it. The other, Masked Rider Dragon Knight, was a localization of Kamen Rider Ryuuki and met with a fair bit of success.
One thing of note is that the franchise is commonly divided into 2 distinct eras, based on who was Emperor when they were produced: The Showa Riders include such classics as Ichigo/Nigo (the first two), Black, and Black RX. To this day the first 7 Riders are immensely popular, to the point where they often appear in the current era, the Heisei Riders era, which started with Kuuga. Some fans designate Riders beyond Decade as Neo-Heisei Riders. With Heisei's reign possibly coming to an end soon, it will be interesting to see where the next generation of Riders go.
Super Sentai: The other king of the genre, and the most successful over in America overall; Super Sentai serves as the source material for a decently-known US franchise known as Power Rangers, which means I shouldn't have to explain anything here. :b
There's been one other contender to the genre, a horror-themed series called GARO that I'm quickly falling in love with...anyway, back to some personal stuff about Kamen Rider.
FAVORITE MAIN RIDER: I'd have to go with Faiz. I love the suit's design, the voice of his transformation device, and above all else, his secondary mode is my favorite in the whole franchise:
Faiz Axel. For 10 seconds, Faiz can accelerate to speeds that are almost impossible to keep up with. This fight scene demonstrates its usefulness quite nicely.
FAVORITE SECONDARY RIDER, and favorite overall: Kamen Rider Birth. You can't go wrong with that design, the powers, or that character song. Birth = Best Rider, hands down, end of discussion. MOVING ON.
FAVORITE EVIL RIDER: Saga. That finisher still gives me chills...and he did it on one of his own minions.
FAVORITE RIDER THEME: Kabuto. The series itself got a bit boring since Kabuto himself was severely overpowered, but the design of the ZECTER suits was beautiful. They had two forms: "Masked" form encased the user in a suit of power armor that offered solid defense and some fighting power, but was a bit slow...until two words came into play:
"CAST OFF." At this point, the user switches to "Rider" form by detaching the outer shell of the armor...quite explosively, making it an excellent attack strategy.
The feather in the Kabuto designs' cap, however, is the fact that this is the one I opted for when going full fanboy and designing my own Rider: Kamen Rider Mukade. Each Kabuto-series Rider is themed on an insect, called a "Zecter" that acts as the transformation device. Mukade's Zecter is a centipede, which not only serves as the device, but skips the need for attaching the device to a belt by serving as the belt itself. When summoned, the Mukade Zecter crawls up the user's leg and wraps around their waist. Connecting the two ends (yes, it sticks its tail in its mouth) exposes the slots on the side where its weapon will materialize and the Clock Up trigger will be located. Upon switching from "Masked" to "Rider" form, a pair of fangs rotate out from the side of the helmet.
Mukade's weapon is a dagger in Masked form, which extends into a whip in Rider form. It possesses two unique attacks in Rider Form: Its finisher, the Rider Lash, charges energy into the whip to slash through enemies like razor wire. Its other attack charges an inversed charge of the Clock Up energy into the Rider's left fist, where a pair of fang-like projections come out; the Rider Venom attack then hits an opponent with energy opposite that of the Clock Up system. An enemy in Clock Up status is immediately knocked out of it...one who is not finds themselves slowed down to the point that years will pass by them in mere moments.
Yeah, I made my fanboy Rider a villain. :b
Anyway, that's about all I can think that I wanted to say here...should've been in bed quite a while ago but I got going on this and HOO BOY DID THAT GO PAST A FEW MINUTES. X_x;
no subject
Date: 9/29/17 12:36 (UTC)That said, let me have a swing here...
Favorite Main Rider: OOOs. As much as I love Den-O, Den-O has kind of been diluted by endless crossover appearances. Eiji's straightforward good-nature and desire to protect people makes him maybe my favorite. Faiz does have an AMAZING belt voice, but I will never get "TA TO BA!" out of my head.
Favorite Secondary Rider: Rider G3/G3-X. In a cast that included a dude awkwardly ascending to godhood and a biocreature capable of ripping powerful monsters to bits, Kamen Rider G3 is just a police officer in a hardsuit trying to keep things calm with good intentions and some basic weapons. For crying out loud, his "transformation sequence" is that he runs into the back of a truck and a team of cops help him get armored up.
Favorite Evil Rider: ...does Ankh count? No, probably not. Uh. Kamen Rider Tiger maybe. Huge spoilers though. Also I don't like to think about Ryuki much. I think that show gave me PTSD.
Favorite Rider Theme: In spite of everything, I still love Den-O and its support cast of goofy-ass Imagin. Momotaros is overexposed though. Let Ryutaros have the spotlight for a while dangit. Fun dance dragon wants to play. *sulk*
In general I love the show when it's being unabashedly fun and weird, when it's showing the best side of heroic humanity or when it's letting inhuman monsters have a heart and soul.
no subject
Date: 9/29/17 19:58 (UTC)I definitely can't argue with your choice on OOO, that was a VERY good series! Plus, like I said, Birth is my favorite rider of all time. :D
And yeah, Den-O definitely got overmilked...if they're gonna keep doing that, I wish they'd just make a new series, this time focused on Kotaro/New Den-O. It'd be nice to see series based on some of the movie-only Riders, like New Den-O and Aqua. Aqua I think has some real potential...I mean, a water-themed Rider who's afraid of the water? There's a lot they could do with that, especially in the "unabashedly fun and weird" category. XD
no subject
Date: 9/29/17 20:20 (UTC)I had to look up Aqua, and wow I'd totally missed the OOO movies and such. I didn't realize they would still be going with him. Each Rider is kind of their own little franchise now I suppose. He seems kinda cool, though. Now I'm wanting to see more. ... I guess I have something else to download.