You might already be familiar with the Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight series currently showing in the US. Kamen Rider V3 was a live-action, superhero TV show that first came out in the early 70’s, around the same time as Kikaider. (See my Kikaida article for more info). A guy named Toru Hirayama got together with Ishinomoto, the creator of Kikaider, and put together a TV show based on a 
guy who wore a mask and costume that somewhat resembled a grasshopper. It was called Kamen Rider (which means “masked rider”).
The two shows follow a similar formula: a cyborg for a main character who fights a terrorist organization, a different monster to fight in each episode, an army of android pawns who seem to show up everywhere like ants, martial arts, and of course, motorcycles. Only in Kamen Rider V3, they ride Suzukis instead of Kawasakis and they must be enduros because Kamen Rider V3 does a lot of doughnuts in the dirt. In comparison to Kikaider, the violence is cranked up a notch and it’s a tad more bloody. Kamen Rider also seems to have more dialogue, more complicated camera angles and a more developed storyline than Kikaider. V3’s vulnerabilities are also more physical, as part of the suspense often revolves around whether he’s going to survive his injuries. The explosions also seem bigger somehow.
Kazami Shiro, the character who becomes Kamen Rider V3, is a biochemistry major who witnesses a murder and is inspired to turn vigilante after the murderer (who is part of this terrorist organization called Destron) targets his family. Shiro’s mentor just happens to be a guy who escaped the same people after they put cyborg implants in him and tried to brainwash him. Little does Shiro know that his mentor is the masked crusader Kamen Rider Ichigo (Kamen Rider 1). Another cyborged victim of the bad guys gets rescued by Kamen Rider Ichigo right before they brainwash him and he becomes Kamen Rider Nigo (Kamen Rider 2). When Shiro’s mentor is forced to transform in front of him to save him from Destron, Shiro decides he wants to be a Kamen Rider, too. 
This dynamic that plays out is a classic mentor/disciple story as well, where Shiro dreams of fighting Destron and avenging his family as a Kamen Rider but Ichigo is hesitant because of the sacrifices involved. After Shiro nearly gets himself killed saving the two Kamen Riders, they decide to go ahead and change him into Kamen Rider V3, saving his life in the process.
The Kamen Rider franchise is just huge. It’s so popular in Japan that a Japanese astronomer is said to have named planets after the first two Kamen Riders. Kamen Rider V3 ran for 52 episodes and was exceedingly popular in Hawai’i but not so much around the rest of the US. Which sort of makes sense because the Japanese channel wasn’t that easy to access. You would have to turn your TV to the UHF channel, then click around on that other dial to find it, probably sandwiched somewhere between a lot of static and a public broadcasting channel that very few people watched anyway. (This was obviously before cable). 
There have been 18 television series, several feature length films, a manga, a Playstation game, and a gang of action figures (like this one I took off my keychain). Since V3, Kamen Rider has taken on many forms and seems to have finally found his niche with American audiences. The Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight series is still being aired after its debut in January of 2009. That’s promising!
JN Productions out of Hawai’i has subtitled and remastered 52 episodes of Kamen Rider V3 and put them in a box set. The video and audio quality is first rate. If you want to see where it all began, check out www.generationkikaida.com for more information.
Loading ...