TOKUSATSU TRADITION, AND WHERE TO START YOUR RIDER KICK-OFF

YOUR KAMEN RIDER BASICS

WHAT IS KAMEN RIDER? LIKE, WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

Kamen Rider is, on a big picture basis, a long-running franchise of tokusatsu series, originated by prolific mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori in 1971, produced by television supergiant Toei in close partnership with toymakers at Bandai. having been running on-and-off for over fifty years, the shows feature costumed superheroes, classic 'rubber suit' monsters, and a plethora of pyrotechnics, wire works, and other special effects to create larger-than-life fight sequences.

to an outside observer, it might seem like Kamen Rider is a title so broad as to be meaningless. each year brings a new season with its own largely self-contained premise; new cast, new worldbuilding, new suits, new everything, with a few loose patterns imposed by the franchise's needs as a toyline. you can hop into basically any season of Kamen Rider and watch it on its own merits without paying any thought to what came before or after, aside from some anniversary milestones and maybe a handful of standalone crossover specials.

much like fellow Japanese icon/Bandai flagship/chronic re-interpreter Mobile Suit Gundam, though, even if new iterations might vary wildly, there's a core thematic underpinning dating all the way back to Kamen Rider's roots that's stuck with the show to this day. Shotaro Ishinomori was fascinated with the idea of a hero defined by tragic irony, someone who had something taken from them and had to use power granted through evil to protect the innocent. the original Kamen Rider, Takeshi Hongo, was kidnapped by fascist scientists and turned into a cyborg, stealing away his life as a promising young student while ultimately creating their own downfall. even now in the 2020s, this same foundational ideal is rethought and remixed for every new season of Kamen Rider, and while different seasons might emphasize it to different degrees, "Kamen Riders use the same power as their enemies to fight for peace" is generally applicable to any given version.

of course, there's also just the name itself. "Kamen" literally translates to "masked", and "Rider" is increasingly a bit of an oddity, carried over through years of tradition. the original Kamen Rider was an avid motorcyclist, with his iconic red-and-white Cyclone proving to be the perfect way to generate enough wind power to activate his transformation. the fact that lead actor Hiroshi Fujioka broke his leg doing his own stunts within the first dozen episodes and had to pass the mantle off to Rider #2 for almost thirty episodes was probably a bad omen for how long motorcycles could remain a core pillar of the franchise, in hindsight. Japanese road safety laws mean that nowadays, the bike is largely a formality reserved for the first handful of episodes, no matter how elaborate the workarounds get, including investing in a real-world cutting-edge hoverbike. in short, don't worry about it too much.

HOW DOES THE WHOLE TOYLINE THING FACTOR IN?

over the years, Kamen Rider has proven to be an incredibly lucrative way to sell lots of toys, and modern Rider is essentially built in tandem around its toyline in such a way where you can identify patterns year-to-year; patterns which, in turn, inform the way fans talk about and compare seasons.

a new season of Kamen Rider generally starts around September, and right off the bat, the toys are often one of our first glimpses at what we're in store for, debuting a month or two ahead of the actual television series. this initial rollout will include things like the new protagonist's transformation equipment (almost always a belt, although Zeztz is mixing things up by wearing his cross-body style), some weaponry, a bike that's compatible with new action figures, and since around the 2010s, the all-important collectible items that work with all these other toys to produce all sorts of lights and sounds. recent collectibles have ranged from trading cards to snack-themed monsters, with 2025's new gadget being gashapon-style capsules that use a spinning core to create the optical illusion of animated pixel art.

one reason i want to put such a fine point on the toyline side of Kamen Rider - aside from the fact that you could collect the gear from the show, if you're willing to deal with importing everything from Japan - is that being savvy to how the pacing of new toys affects the pacing of the narrative is kind of taken for granted by long-time fans. you might see things like "Q1 upgrade" thrown around, and while it's not hard to connect that to the context of a character receiving a power-up in the show, the fact that it almost always happens within a specific range of dates every year is predicated on the idea that the toys are coming out at a predictable, carefully tuned cadence. even the 'Q1' in there is referring to fiscal quarters, partially as an artifact of the days when entire toy catalogs would leak every three months and often provide our first look at a new season.

once you spot this pattern - a Q1 blowout ending with an upgrade around December, an additional Rider arriving with their own gear in Q2, a final form debuting in summer as part of Q3, movie tie-in toys filling out Q4 as the show winds down to make way for a new cycle - you'll start to notice how it provides a framework for the narrative of any given season. different seasons might handle these elements more-or-less gracefully depending on the writer and how well-equipped they are to plan things out with all aspects of the show's production, but there's a remarkable consistency that then becomes the standard language die-hard fans use to contextualize the show.

I SAW SOMEONE TALKING ABOUT "SHOWA" AND "HEISEI", WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

you mostly don't need to worry about this, but it does come up just often enough that i should probably explain it? it basically just means 'old' and 'new, but in the way things from 2007 are still new'.

like a lot of other tokusatsu franchises such as Godzilla, Japan's imperial eras often get used as shorthand by both fans and creators to draw dividing lines between different eras of production. Kamen Rider started in the Showa era, made a comeback in the Heisei era, and has been on the air ever since, rolling directly into the current Reiwa era. as you can probably guess by me dedicating any amount of time to explaining this, it's not exactly that simple, though.

first of all, in both cases where the era changed over, Kamen Rider was still actively on the air as it happened. the literal, actually-recognized-by-the-government Heisei era kicked in about ten episodes into Black RX, the last televised Rider of the 1980s. meanwhile, in 2019, everyone knew the emperor was stepping down in advance, so Kamen Rider Zi-O got to use the start of the Reiwa era as a metatextual element to its time travel anniversary shenanigans.

more importantly for the matter of shorthand, though, when Kamen Rider evokes the Showa era, it actually means 'from 1971 to about 1994, five years deep into the Heisei era'. with the television series in cancellation limbo for the third time, Shotaro Ishinomori instead helped develop future concepts as one-off movies, with Kamen Rider J being the last of the three to release before Ishinomori passed away in 1998. as a result, the line gets nudged over to include the three theatrical riders of the 1990s, and instead serves as a distinction between Shotaro Ishinomori's creations and later adaptations.

Heisei and Reiwa proved to be a much cleaner, less dramatic split, with Kamen Rider having stayed on the air consectutively the whole way; 25 years straight, as of this writing. all the same people still produce the show, so the distinction is really just technical. you might see people bring up 'Phase 2' or 'Neo'-Heisei, referring to everything between W and Zi-O, but as far as i can tell, that's just a fan-created subcategory that's caught on. those shows do happen to cover the period where you really see collectible devices start taking off as a core component that spans the entire toyline, so it's not an entirely useless term. you're just less likely to see that level of granularity when it comes to things like big crossovers or the usually-toy-exclusive 'Legend Rider' items that pay homage to past seasons.

WHERE CAN I WATCH KAMEN RIDER, AND WHY IS IT SO GODDAMN HARD?

this is where we start getting into why Kamen Rider has really struggled to find a foothold outside of Japan! as i've already gone over, international releases are very rare, and simulcasts are literally just now becoming an option in 2025. the situation is improving, but it's still a little sparse and scattered.

the retro anime juggernauts over at Discotek Media have started covering the Showa era over the last few years, with V3, X, Amazon, Stronger, Black, and Black RX all seeing full Blu-Ray releases since 2023. this seems to be a bit of a secondary partnership, though, as Shout! Studios has generally received a more diverse catalog and had more leeway with how they distribute the show in America. through Shout!, you can watch the 1971 original series, Heisei fan-favorites Kuuga and Ryuki, and recent Reiwa releases Zero-One and Geats. these are all available as Blu-Ray box sets, or through a variety of weird streaming releases, showing up on places like Tubi, the world's fakest real website.

of the major streaming outlets that get any Kamen Rider, Amazon Prime is probably the 'realest'; some of the Shout! releases are available there without any secondary subscriptions needed, and it's also home to two pieces of spinoff media. Kamen Rider Black Sun is a modern 'prestige' miniseries that i'd describe as "Black by way of Logan", while Hideaki Anno's Shin Kamen Rider fits into the director's franchise-hopping run of tokusatsu reboots. if you have Crunchyroll, you can also check out Fuuto PI, an anime following on the events of Kamen Rider W... which you can't go watch.

perhaps the strangest of these first steps into distributing Kamen Rider in the west - and, coincidentally, the most useful for the purposes of this article - is Toei Tokusatsu World Official. originally launched as a companion to a full-fledged Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club service in Japan, this YouTube Channel mostly hosts a variety of classic series from the 20th century, such as the Metal Heroes franchise. what you might really find interesting, though, is that they also have the first two episodes of almost every season of Kamen Rider. for free! with official English subtitles! official English subtitles that, according to the description, were subsidized by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, for some reason!

Toei Tokusatsu World Official is, to be blunt about it, underbaked. i haven't scrubbed through every available episode for myself, but there's consistent reports that as uploads continued, subtitle timing and synchronization got sloppier, and there's often video quality issues, especially with a few Kamen Rider movies thrown onto the pile at 480p. it's hard to find any reliable reporting on the whole initiative, but fandom hearsay seems to be that the intention might've been that fans could use YouTube's community-driven subtitling tools to carry on Toei's work... only for Google to discontinue that feature and for Toei to stop uploading altogether. no matter why it exists, this weird little YouTube channel, for all its flaws, is somewhat invaluable, in the sense that it's the only outlet Toei has ever given western audiences to actually try a sampling platter of Kamen Rider's fifty-year history. if nothing else, it's probably the most low-commitment way to just throw a season on and see if it's grabbing you.

and then there's our newest Rider, our cutting-edge foray into the world of simulcasting. unfortunately, it's not going to be without its own caveats. Shout! Studios has the rights to livestream new episodes of Kamen Rider Zeztz on YouTube day-and-date with their Japanese airing, but the catch is that, for the time being, it's only livestreams, with no means to watch episodes on-demand outside of these timeslots. the latest episodes will run three times a week; once at the same time as the Japanese premiere, a few hours later on what is Sunday morning for Americans, and a final catch-up on Friday before the cycle begins anew. apparently, these streams will loop the episode six times before shutting off, and there's already talk of throwing on previous episodes before a premiere or organizing mini-marathons, but when you really step back and look at the whole thing, it's undeniably a pretty limiting way to watch television in 2025, one that's almost certainly informed by internal policies and existing deals on Toei's end.

with all that broken down, it's also worth mentioning that fansubs exist. fansubs exist! they're out there! it's a long and storied artform! the people who've been doing it the best for the longest have always been very clear about their willingness to back off any time Toei wants to step up and sell Kamen Rider directly to English-speaking audiences, and they've generally followed through on that promise where relevant. i'll just leave it at that, for this website's sake. fansubs sure do exist. sometimes they even do all sorts of wild text rendering magic to make the belt jingles pop. they sure are out there, somewhere.

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there's plenty of other weird little franchise tidbits i could dive into all day, but i think this seems like a good enough place to call it. hopefully this gives you some sense of what Kamen Rider's all about, the unique circumstances of its production, and maybe it can help chip away at some nerd talk that might seem a little impenetrable if you're just jumping in for the first time.

now comes the fun part, where i get to step out of informational mode and get all opinionated! as someone who's now seen multiple seasons of Kamen Rider, i want to give each one i've watched its own time to shine, and go over why you might want to check them out for yourself. basic beginner plot run-down, lay out some of that year's toyetic fun factor and how it might influence the design work and narrative, and make my own case for what makes it stand out from the rest. sound good? good!

KAMEN RIDER DEN-O

THE BACK-OF-THE-BOX BEATS

Ryotaro Nogami, the world's unluckiest guy, discovers a mysterious train pass that puts him onboard the time-traveing DenLiner. the wish-granting Imagin are tampering with the past, but a few key defectors help Ryotaro become Kamen Rider Den-O, overriding his meek personality with their own quirks and ticks, whether that means turning him into a violent punk or a suave charmer. as they begin to form unlikely friendships and protect people's cherished memories, the arrival of new interlopers throughout the flow of history reveals deeper machinations that hit far closer to home for Ryotaro.

THE NEW TOYS

of the seasons i'll be going over here, Den-O is by far the least toyetic; it was still a few years out from those major collectible devices that plug and play with every part of a Rider's equipment. that's not to say that it doesn't have its own merchandise to push, of course. each of Den-O's Imagin allies grants a unique form, loosely themed around Japanese folklore, with its own configuration of the modular DenGasher weapon. the real thing you can tell the show really wants you to buy, though, is the DenLiner itself. while it mostly serves as a home base for the Imagin, every once in a while you'll see it start deploying increasingly absurd weaponry in massive CGI battles with foes too big for Den-O to handle alone, and the debut of new Riders and upgrades often means a new addition to the train set.

WHY WATCH THIS ONE?

what Den-O lacks in dense narrative, it makes up for five times over with character. it's not hard at all to see why this show in particular saw such an extended impact on Kamen Rider, both in a literal sense with its years of follow-up movies and by way of becoming sort of a template for future Rider casts. it's also not hard to see why its lead actor, Takeru Satoh, became such an astonishingly big star that it's hard to even book him for a return anymore, as he effortlessly layers the Imagin's larger-than-life personalities onto his own performance at the drop of a hat. Den-O can feel a little directionless as you wait for the story to kick into high gear, but when it wants to hit hard, it can go to some pretty surprising lengths to twist the knife and make you feel for the characters. if you're looking for a funny, over-the-top show with a sort of gag manga appeal to its ensemble cast, and you don't mind realizing you're starting to care too much about these dudes' emotions halfway in, check out Kamen Rider Den-O.

KAMEN RIDER OOO

THE BACK-OF-THE-BOX BEATS

ancient mummies driven by sheer desire awaken in the modern world and quickly resume their business of exploiting humanity. one of their own, Ankh, ends up in an strained partnership with Eiji Hino, a kind-hearted and selfless wanderer who takes on the mantle of Kamen Rider OOO. entangled with the grudges between Ankh's fellow Greeed, the previous life of his new human host, and the enigmatic Kougami Foundation which seeks to harness the power of desire for themselves, Eiji and Ankh find themselves amidst a battle between the heights of human ambition and the lows of apocalyptic nihilism.

THE NEW TOYS

it's all about the Medals. using matching sets of animal-themed coins, Kamen Rider OOO can mix-and-match his head, torso, and legs, hotswapping between chimeric suits on the fly or going all-in on a powerful full combo. the imagery of coins in a season all about greed and ambition doesn't go underutilized either, and winds up dovetailing into the toyline nicely; OOO himself basically only has the powers of his Driver to work with, so the Kougami Foundation provides the yearly staples, such as a bike that doubles as a vending machine to store helpful 'Candroids' and a sword that loads up Medals like quarters in an arcade machine.

WHY WATCH THIS ONE?

of the three seasons of Kamen Rider i've watched, OOO is the one i would most unambiguously describe as good television without many qualifiers beyond needing to open your heart to the campy appeal of tokusatsu. it does an exceptionally good job of balancing 'monster of the week' plots with a big-picture narrative that's constantly moving forward, with rivalries and alliances always feeling just fluid enough to keep you wondering what'll happen next. i would also say it feels the most thematically well-rounded, as a story and as a piece of media that's dealing with the tropes of the genre. its toyetic qualities blend seamlessly into its narrative needs, and even the strange choice of a ska-influenced soundtrack works for setting a vivid mood.

most of all, though, its core themes about unchecked ambition, the isolation of depression, and how one balances their big dreams with their capacity to inflect real change upon the world have all stuck with me deeply. it also does all this without losing sight of how silly Kamen Rider can get, with many of its most fascinating characters also being the funniest; this is a show that made me say "as far as he’s concerned, he has always been The Dinosaur Man in every way that philosophically matters" with full emotional investment. i think if you're already primed to love, say, Spider-Man - particularly interpretations that lean into how a hero beyond ordinary human limits must confront the ways in which they're still very much human - Kamen Rider OOO is the show for you.

it's also like, REALLY good if you're a fujoshi. Kamen Rider always has primarily male casts, because it's a show made to sell toys for boys and Bandai are cowards, so it's never difficult to find a pair you want to imagine kissing, but it's really front-and-center in OOO. primo enemies to lovers yaoi.

KAMEN RIDER FOURZE

THE BACK-OF-THE-BOX BEATS

Gentaro Kisaragi is determined to spend his high school days befriending the entire school, but it won't be that easy with misguided and misunderstood students using Astroswitches to transform into monstrous Zodiarts. as Gentaro assembles an unlikely band of buddies and starts the Kamen Rider Club out of an abandoned lunar base, they do their best to solve students' problems and keep Amanogawa High safe, not realizing that the school staff themselves are orchestrating the Zodiarts crisis to serve their own mysterious ends.

THE NEW TOYS

if the rocket-shaped helmet didn't tip you off, Fourze is definitely 'the astronaut season'. the collectible gadgets of the year are the Astroswitches, which, more than any other Rider toy, are harder to describe as anything other than 'little gizmos'. they're doohickeys. they're thingamajigs. i guess in a more modern sense, they're kind of fidget toys? to tie into the milestone of 40 years of Kamen Rider ('four-zero', get it?), Fourze can plug four of these switches into his belt at once and activate various attachment modules. each slot has a shape, each shape is associated with one of Fourze's four limbs, and there's 40 Astroswitches total, making for a wildly varied arsenal with everything from a leg-mounted drill to a grappling winch.

WHY WATCH THIS ONE?

maybe i'm just saying this because Fourze was the first season of Kamen Rider i finally sat down and watched, but i think it's a solid entry point for the franchise. its take on the classic good-and-evil duality takes a bit of a backseat, but its big, bold, feel-good energy is no less valid than the tortured heroes who came before and after, and its very intentional mix of Japanese and American high school story tropes makes it easy to hop right in and understand the framework of these characters' friendships. especially once the series's secondary Rider arrives, the show does a good job of expanding on its dynamics and doling out memorable love-to-hate villains who's extended presence leaves a lasting impression. it's got its moments of emotional catharsis throughout, but if you're looking for an easy-going watch that embodies the weekend morning feelings tokusatsu might call to mind, Kamen Rider Fourze is a great place to start.

KAMEN RIDER GAIM

THE BACK-OF-THE-BOX BEATS

in the company town of Zawame City, the youth are enraptured with the underground culture of the Beat Riders, who mix breakdancing with monster-summoning "Inves Battles" to claim turf acrosss the city. little do they know that the Inves and the Lockseeds that summon them are all part of an interdimensional breach into the forest of Helheim. as the Yggdrasill Corporation studies the rift and grants unsuspecting citizens the ability to transform into "Armored Riders", Kouta Kazuraba must balance a full-on war between the Beat Riders with chasing after the nefarious truth behind his new powers and the nature of Helheim.

THE NEW TOYS

there's like, three different layers to what Kamen Rider Gaim is doing from a design standpoint, and they're all pretty in-your-face. padlock-shaped fruits allow regular folks to open interdimensional "cracks" (they're zippers, for some reason) that summon monsters, and when 'sliced open' with a Sengoku Driver, grant fruit-themed armor to the show's cavalcade of Riders. underneath the surface of these botanical motifs - as in, literally the base suit underneath the armor - Gaim also revolves around the idea of war. marketed as a "Rider sengoku jidai", the show's plot will occasionally evoke some classic feudalism, and its many Riders have a loose 'history's greatest warriors' thing going on. most of the primary cast shares the same model of Driver, but a faceplate plugged into the side will trigger different fanfares, and you can identify some different sub-types shared between Riders; Gaim and Zangetsu both resemble samurai, while Baron and his vassal Gridon have a more European-influenced knightly aesthetic.

WHY WATCH THIS ONE?

so, this one's a bit of a harder sell, namely because i myself haven't finished it yet! this article is going up on September [date], 2025, and as of that date, i've just finished episode 20, putting me just a little bit short of halfway through the series. so far, though, i can say i'm enjoying it quite a bit.

there's a low-key infamous post from the age of Tumblr confession blogs about how Gaim should air on HBO, and while it's largely clowned on for representing a complete lack of perspective about Kamen Rider's target audience and the innate absurdity of the fruit samurai season being compared to The Sopranos, i do see why Gaim of all seasons would be the one that people latch onto in that way, even if it's an incredibly shallow assessment. more than any other season i've watched, it lays the innate tragic irony of Kamen Rider on incredibly thick, no doubt thanks to its head writer Gen Urobuchi, who you might recognize better as the writer behind Madoka Magica. characters joyously join in on the Beat Riders' petty turf war, only to quickly begin discovering that the situation was bad all along and only getting worse. so far, Gaim is exceedingly blunt and straightforward about its themes, but they're interesting themes to deal with; does absolute power corrupt absolutely? does might make right? in what ways does the next generation perpetuate the cycle of war, particularly when the adults pulling the strings are themselves far more childish than they'd care to admit?

don't get me wrong, the aesthetics of Gaim are perhaps some of the most absurd in Rider history, to the point where it loops back around and becomes diegetic just how dissonant it seems. this is still a show where a guy sticks some kind of mecha-fruit into a waist-mounted juicer that yells "SODA..." and turns him into a viking man with a laser longbow. to imply that it should air next to The Wire is, on its face, an extreme misread of what Kamen Rider is, on a fundamental, break-it-down-to-its-core-elements level. if you can be clear-eyed and honest with yourself about what this show is and isn't, though, Kamen Rider Gaim is a great example of a show that doesn't shy away from the heavier underpinnings of the franchise. its worldbuilding is some of the most thorough i've seen out of the franchise, its web of dynamics is full of fascinating characters, and my impression so far is that i can't wait to see what happens next.

those four shows are just the ones where i've got the hands-on experience to tell you my own personal takeaways on why you might like them. there's about three dozen other iterations of Kamen Rider waiting out there that are just as valid a place to start, with premises ranging from 'what if your doctor was a secret esports champion who had to turn into Mario to cure your gamer disease' to 'battle royale for a wish, and also there's a world inside all mirrors and it wants you dead'. there's really not too many bad places to start, and an extremely stacked history, so get out there and find one that you think seems neat.

as a sort of franchise-wide argument for the appeal of Kamen Rider, i think tokusatsu coincidentally fills a gap in the crumbling husk of western television. if you're tired of waiting three years to see ten new episodes, of inflated effects budgets that often lead to shows getting cancelled before they can find their footing, or of your favorite superheroes getting Surf Dracula'd, Kamen Rider is, in a lot of ways, the exact opposite of all that. seasons tend to be around 48 episodes spanning an entire year, its position as a cultural touchstone and the ability to go after multiple generations of fans' wallets with merch makes its place in Toei's lineup fairly secure, and above all else, Kamen Rider is extremely unafraid to get silly with it. everything about it is unapologetic, and it's often that ability to be sincere amidst all the boldness that winds up getting you hooked when you least expect it.

i've seen a smattering of discourse here and there lately about the nature of adult fans latching onto a kids' show and deciding they're the target audience and extrapolating its themes out with intense grown-up seriousness; the "this show's not just for kids... and its also surprisingly marxist" effect, to quote a really good post that me and friend of the site vicvipress love and can no longer seem to find. it's something i increasingly find myself trying to be at least slightly aware of, given how much of this very site is dedicated to cataloging and analyzing interests i've had since i was a kid, or covering cartoons i've discovered in my 20s.

having a 'balanced diet' of media is important, for exposing yourself to new perspectives both about the world as depicted, and about the ways art itself can take shape. it's key to developing a well-rounded sense of media literacy. it's definitely something i'm not always perfect at doing myself. at the same time, though, i do think much like what i said about Gaim specifically, if you're willing to be honest with yourself about what tokusatsu is and isn't, it can be really fun to enjoy. for as much as superheroes have hijacked mainstream pop culture in the west, it's interesting to dive into a whole different approach to the same basic ideas, one with an incredibly large influence in Japan that's largely stayed untapped internationally aside from the messy, culture-shifted approximations of Power Rangers.

Kamen Rider is, in a very literal sense, not for us. to me, that's always underpinned the way Toei seems reluctant to put the show on the international stage, because the audience who cares enough to ask them in the first place is an unintended secondary demographic, one that only knows enough to ask because they've taken matters into their own hands to watch Kamen Rider in the first place. that's definitely not the only reason it's been such a long and often backwards process, but it seems like a weird position to be in, huh?

if you can make your peace with all that - the campiness, the hoops you'll have to jump through, and the important fact that a show being good doesn't automatically mean you're partaking in Serious Big Boy Business - maybe give Kamen Rider a shot sometime. if it's good enough to get a nod from James Gunn, maybe there's something to it, after all.