Let's Go Rider Kick!

OK, well, some brief remarks about what Kamen Rider is, with 8 x 10 colour glossy pictures and circles and arrows and a legend on the back explaining what the circles and arrows mean.

Kamen Rider (Wiki explains it with more detail than I can or could fit in here) Is a Japanese institution, begun in 1971 and continuing (more or less) for the past 43 years. There are 23 series, and each series tells its own individual story--after 48-50 weekly episodes, they finish up and move on to the next one so they can sell a whole new set of toys. Older Riders may appear in team-ups or subsequent movies, but hard series to series continuity doesn't exist as such.

 Episodes can be found on YouTube and DailyMotion (this takes a bit of digging, but whole runs subtitled are findable)

The current rider series, Kamen Rider Gaim, started last month and is on its 4th episode. I considered doing that series first, but it's very much a homage to previous series that would require going back and it's easier to just do it this way. I intend every Saturday to do a write-up of a whole series

 But first, let's talk about "Why Kamen Rider?" Why look at a Japanese kids show--sure it's an institution over there, but why should we care about it here?

 Because, to use a SAT analogy: Kamen Rider::Ultraman as Spider-Man::Superman. Ultraman was a huge hit in the previous decade, and while there are tons of Ultraman series past and currently, it's rather lost ground as compared to Kamen Rider, which managed to revive itself after ten years off TV. I assert that Ultraman shows tend to distance the hero from the main action--Ultraman in episode 1 is pretty much the same by the final episode--all the character development is offloaded to his human counterpart and his supporting cast. What's more, Ultraman is pretty much guaranteed to win the fight--he's a giant silver guy who can blast rays at anything. They have their charms, but they're very much beholden to their formula.

 Kamen Rider injects some Marvel Comics-esque angst into the proceedings. The original Kamen Rider is forcibly converted into a cyborg by Shocker, a group fixated on dominating the world (in ways that are a bit mad, if we're honest) He doesn't have a huge power set. He can lose. He's fighting single-handedly (for the most part) against a vast organisaton that far outnumbers him, and he has a few helpers at most.

 And sometimes they don't survive. Kamen Rider rarely shies away from showing the consequences of things. Civilians get killed, the hero loses from time to time and while the immediate crisis may or may not get resolved. Pretty heavy stuff for a toy advertisement delivery system, y'know.

 Also--the fights are pretty damn awesome.

 So! Starting next Saturday we'll wind the clock back to the year 2000. An ancient race known as the Grongi have been resurrected and have resumed playing the Gegeru, a sadistic game that puts all of humanity at risk, but the warrior that defeated the Grongi in ages past has returned as well.

 NEXT WEEK: Kamen Rider Kuuga