#i...do not know zx outside of kamen rider zx

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

so, as mentioned before, 30XX is a lot of fun. (i'm going to get back to updates soon, this game has simply siphoned my soul and now i am a child again experiencing the entire spectrum of megaman emotions at once.)

but one thing that's really starting to annoy me is the story. or rather, the complete lack of it. i guess it's true to the source material, given that the story in megaman isn't really all that great either, but at least it's straightforward before we hit the zero series. you know what you're doing, you're a little guy about three apples tall and there's a bad guy sending out robots you have to shoot. then you hit the zero series and it's just someone forgetting their meds and thinking Mechanical Violator Hakaider was a good movie (it was ok) then you hit ZX and fuck it we Kamen Rider now

point is, it's all pretty firmly straightforward shit. we know what's going on, there's an evil scientist destroying things with his robots. stop him. pls

30XX doesn't really tell you squat.

spoilers below, in case you're a moron like me and you're deeply emotionally invested in the story of megaman-alikes.

the opening tutorial cutscene features ace dying to wake up nina, who just says there's work to do. and then you hop out, shoot a robot, and end up in a space station base where a tiny lesbian tells you there's work to do. also ace is ok, you can jump into a capsule to turn into him. either that or nina is the fastest transitioning icon in media but go her i guess (go him??? idk how trans-ing works) you jump into the levels, shoot the bosses, and see a tall lesbian that tells you she's doing work and that you can't stop her work, and then the second largest cock i've seen comes out of the interdimensional hole and you mount it and you fight AU tiny lesbian and Alpha 1.0 pre-transition Nina and Ace in there.

what the fuck?

what am i doing? why am i here? what is happening? what the fuCK IS GOING ON???? WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR?????????

the cursory idea is that you have to find the data terminals to learn what's going on in the world, but near as i can tell the tall lesbian isn't actually an evil scientist destroying things with her robots, because the world is already dying and so that's different because but it seems the more i get into things, the more lost i'm getting

characters will just randomly appear on the ship and i'm just expected to accept it. who is Delta, outside of being a dashing, charismatic, sexuality-threateningly handsome cool guy who likes a challenge? who is the scrap salvager, outside of maybe being Vika from 20XX? tiny lesbian says that if i vouched for them then they're all right to havE AROUND BUT I DIDN'T VOUCHE FOR THEM I HAVE NO CLUE WHO THEY UFCKING ARE!!!!!!!!!!

i suspect it's because of the expansion in scope in trying to make a bigger game. there's not really a lot of ways to really justify the plot of a roguelite, there's only so many methods you can explain away death and rebirth happening in-universe. last time i asked my doctor about the cycle of samsara he just told me "you have to wake up, the accident wasn't your fault". in 20XX, you're just a pair of flash-cloned experiments doing experimental runs. and that's really all the context you need; you have a setup, a goal, an antagonistic force, and a reason to do things there's the question about how the game world continues after you win the game and destroy everything and escape the space station, but i didn't say it was perfect. but it was good! it made sense!

meanwhile, 30XX seems to be about multiversal collapsing and each run is a separate world disparate from each other. there's too many worlds and each world is trying to share in the same place because the infinite universe is actually finite. and nina was demonized after 20XX because of her super-power because despite Sharp and Flat both being idiots they were actually, like, super-geniuses that made the strongest robots ever. (these are the same guys that mass-produced buzzsaw hamsters) oh, and everyone's already dead??? man this sure is some tonal dissonance from how fucking goofy everything is. not three minutes ago i saw the universe's second-largest cock plunge through time and space. midgard? more like midhard hah hah hah hahhhhhh

at the end of the day they're focused on the gameplay instead of the story. and that's perfectly fine. admirable, even, for a megaman-style project. a lot of megaman fanstuff creators (myself included) tend to masturbate text out with forces rivaling the niagara falls. oh baby, expand that wordcount. it's good to see something that just wants to focus on jumping and shooting instead of trying to write the next masterpiece exploring the nature of the human condition. but i'll admit it's a little underwhelming. i liked nina and ace and i cared about what they were doing, and 30xx doesn't seem to be willing to really flesh them out.

oh well, time for another run! 9/10 game tbh

[agoddamn]

I honestly don’t know. I’ve been spoiled by having the option. I know what the devs want me to assume with Fates, but I’ve always liked being able to have Kamui as a sweet, idealistic young man struggling to bring peace through Nohr. In both games, Kamui is very emotionally driven and I like having that in a male main character.

But as a woman I think it’s practically illegal for me to argue against a female main--

Wait, I just remembered all the gratuitous Femui fanservice post-Fates. Yeah, delete Femui. I’m okay with this. Kamui being a man with a lot of traditionally feminine traits is more interesting, anyway.

Mamui's canon personality is that of a sheltered, naive keet and I think that's beautiful.

(it took me a moment to realize that the joke here is that he's thinking of collecting stuff from My Castle and assuming that's what a general use of "items" refers to)

[tokupedia]

Kamen Rider 45th Anniversary File: Mr. (and Mrs.) Kamen Rider

Fans of the franchise know that there is a certain special and sometimes unsung hero that makes the magic happen. We all appreciate them even if we don't know the names of all of them.

I am of course talking about the suit actors, those brave souls who dodge explosions, risk injury, do wirework, vehicle stunts, falls and martial arts choreography all in singular role and sometimes are never seen in person or given thanks for it in the spotlight. As they are covered in latex, foam rubber, leather, spandex and masks. Concealing their identities take on a silent solitary role: Japan's greatest superhero and an icon of toku fandom: Kamen Rider!

This all began after a tragedy, the infamous accident of the original series that shattered Hiroshi Fujioka’s leg in 1971. It was decided by the staff to hire a stuntman to do all the dangerous stuff so they could keep their actors safe.

The first suit actor to don the role of Kamen Rider after Fujioka was...

Masaru Okada, who played Kamen Rider 1 and later Kamen Rider 2 for certain episodes, though he often played the monsters.

The next to bear the title would be...

Yuutarou Oosugi, who played Kamen Rider 1 from episodes 65-96, he also subbed for our next man as Kamen Rider 2 in two episodes.

The next is the ORIGINAL Mr. Kamen Rider, the one and only..

Tetsuya Nakayashiki, one of the legendary suit actors of the Showa era. He pretty much played every single Showa Rider in suit up to Super-1. He decided to step down and retire as a Rider after donning Super-1 a final time in the ZX special. He also showed up in person to play Eisuke Mikage and voice his Kaijin form Tigeroid and later appeared in a bit role of a motorcycle shop owner in Agito as a fanservice for Kamen Rider’s 30th anniversary.

Up next is Mr. Red who got his start as a Rider....

Kazuo Niibori, a suit actor who would go on to define what it means to be a Red Ranger by playing the first 15 Reds, started out on Kamen Rider. He played the Showa Kamen Riders at random moments when Testuya wasn’t available but his defining suit roles were Kamen Rider X and Amazon (interchanged with his co-workers Testuya Nakayashiki and Bunya Nakamura). Much later, he played the villainous Kamen Rider Arc for certain scenes in the Kiva movie interchanged with Keizo Yabe.

Mitsuhoshi Shiroya was and always will be Kamen Rider ZX, but he did later go on to play Jack Moon on Ryukendo and villains in Rescue Fire before retiring.

When Kamen Rider revived in the late 80s, there was only one man for the job who would carry the torch as a Kamen Rider and later as Supporting Riders...

Jiro Okamoto! He is beloved by fans for bringing Kamen Rider Black to life, as well as RX, Shin, ZO, J and multiple supporting Riders and evil monsters. Currently, he is playing Oushi Black on Kyuranger and he shows no signs of slowing down!

By the new millennium, there was a new man chosen to be Kamen Rider and the role of the Cool Guy was bestowed to....

Kenji Tominaga!

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Kenji_Tominaga

The man who IS Kuuga and played him up to Superhero Taisen, Kenji puts on a suit to protect our smiles!

Next comes a guy who isn’t afraid to play second banana to the big star:

Makoto Ito!

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Makoto_Ito

Starting out his Rider role as G3, Makoto is one of the suit actors for secondary heroes. Though his coolest role is outside of Kamen Rider is when he had a howlin’ good time as Garo in the first series!

Then we have the man who has had the legendary title of Mr. Kamen Rider bestowed by fans to him and seen as the surpassing successor to Tetsuya Nakayashiki. The hero to the fans and often celebrated...

Seiji Takaiwa!

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Seiji_Takaiwa

What’s more to be said that I already haven’t said before? He is the man who has played 16 of the 18 Heisei Riders and shows no signs of giving up his title anytime soon, he’s got good acting talent to pull off complex roles and has been a Red Ranger a few times as well as Dragonranger.

Yoshifumi Oshikawa was a supporting suit actor who played supporting Riders and Deneb, but he has stepped down as a suit actor as of 2013.

Jun Watanabe is the junior of the group, having started in 2002 as Ryuga. But he has expanded into supporting Rider roles such as Kamen Rider Mach.

Eitoku is the current Secondary Rider Suit actor for the second half of the Heisei Era.

But enough about the guys, there are a few women who deserve a shout out too!

Kyoko Okada played Tackle herself both in and out of suit, but when her asthma made shooting scenes difficult, she called upon Maki Kiyota to do her stunts.

Anyone who is a fan of Super Sentai knows that some heroines are in fact played by men, but it is a rare treat to see a female Rider played by a female suit actor.  Yuki Ono was Kamen Rider Larc, Amaki and Kiva-la.

Sanae Hitomi is Kamen Rider Nadeshiko as well as Gokai Yellow! When she wasn’t Nadeshiko, Fusayo Fujita filled in for her!

Like Kyoko Okada and Hiroshi Fujioka before her, Minami Tsukui did her own stunts and action as Yoko Minato/Kamen Rider Malika!

I could go on and on, but I’ll let you discover who played your favorites:

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Suit_actors

So the next time you see a superhero dodging sparks and jumping from high places, think of those brave men and women who make our entertainment and continue the proud legacy that people like Haruo Nakajima and Bin Furuya established long ago for the genre of tokusatsu!

[tokupedia]

Kamen Rider 45th Anniversary File: The Expanded Universe

Any established and popular medium of entertainment have many franchises expand their world outside the canon of their shows and movies or could fit in if a little imagination is given, with Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who being prime examples.

Kamen Rider itself is no stranger to this, as it has stories that do no fit into normal canon but make enjoyable extensions of those stories or possibly could with that aforementioned imagination. The latter is possibly true if the people writing it are from the shows themselves, but a grain of salt must be taken as things, events or people might not match up properly to the source or outright be disregarded.

Manga

First and foremost is Manga, the medium the series was born from by way its creator being a manga writer and artist. 

Kamen Rider Spirits was already discussed and it got its own file...due to how massively long the book is now.

There are original stories such as 7 Riders Showdown, which from what data we have gathered is a WEIRD one: Basically, the Legendary 7 and Tackle battle General Shadow and Black Satan who plot to destroy the world by summoning Daimajin using King Kong and several famous giant landmarks  

These famous landmarks and the 8th Wonder of the World are then used to attack the Kamen Riders! 

At one point, Kamen Rider 1 battles the Statue of Liberty and later the Legendary Seven battle a sentient Great Sphinx of Giza! (Because Comics!)

However it is sadly not canon due to Tackle being christened by her seniors as “the 8th Kamen Rider” (This was before her death was planned in the Stronger TV show so that was not going to stick).

There is also the re-imagining of a series with Kamen Rider Kuuga, which tries to re-work certain events in the TV show or make brand new ones such as having the Agitos appear in Kuuga’s story and seeing the development of the G-Series exosuits with Kamen Rider G1. The story features more gore and violence than even the TV show would allow. (Based on scant images found in the search engines and HERO trailers)

Sometimes the manga previewed what was to come, but not in the detail the shows would go to and be drastically different. A prime example would be the original Kamen Rider manga, as it starts out the same as the TV series but then deviates. 

Both the Kamen Rider ZX manga and the Kamen Rider Shin manga came before their respective special/movie. In the case of ZX, his manga came a full two years before his TV special and a radio drama aired with yet more adventures of the daring ninja Rider. 

(Sorry, not much data on the Shin or ZX ones other than that yet, I can’t even find the ISBNs! The internet just tells me “It exists”. One of the pitfalls of older mangas of the pre-internet age.)

That time RX met ZO in the mid-1990s thanks to the creator of Beyblade. (No, really) 

Then there are adventures that are not canon in any regard, such as the secret origin of Kazuya Taki as Kamen Rider 3 or Hiroshi Tachikawa as the one-shot secondary Rider of Kamen Rider Black (and the only Kamen Rider to wear a leather biker jacket!). There is also the unauthorized Hybrid Insector, which due to legal issues with Toei cannot be published (outside of Comiket).

(Hibiki and the Seven Senki manga)

Lastly, we have adaptations of the Movies. Some are straight adaptations while other serve as a “Director’s Cut” unto themselves with small or major changes to the story making it a new experience. For example, in the All Rider vs. Dai-Shocker manga, Tsukasa Kadoya isn’t really the Great Leader, just a tool that the villains used to carry out their plans and Decade openly rejects them and does not go all evil. Also, no cameo from Double, so that’s kind of a bummer.

Novels

(The 1994 Kamen Rider J novel adaptation written by Shozo Uehara and Shotaro Ishinomori. It expands the story of the movie by giving the details left out of the main plot. It is also very rare and difficult to get a hold of. ISBN #: 978-4094401028 )

Books are written about the series, with the most recent being the Heisei Novel book series. The Heisei novels have alternate reality story versions of Riders or extra “Episode” stories written by the staff of specific series. Some of them are actually canon, as they explain details left out of the show or continue the stories of a hero or villain. 

For example, the Double Novel is set in-between episodes 32 and 33 and shows how Phillip got his Lost Driver as well as the first appearance of Kamen Rider Cyclone. 

An example of an alternate story is the Decade Novel, as it reveals that Narutaki...is a demonic red vampire who wants to suck the blood/energy of the 9 Kamen Riders. (Yeah, this was edited by Inoue so that makes absolutely no sense). One cool one is the Hibiki novel, which is set in an alternate Sengoku era and has the Hibiki of that world team up with Henshin Ninja Arashi!

Not all of them are fun though, Kamen Rider Faiz Seiden: Deformed Flowers is a novel the western fandom hates for introducing the dark subject of rape. To be more specific, the rape of Mari Sonada at the hands of Masato Kusaka aka Kamen Rider Kaixa. Not just any rape mind you, underage rape as Mari is a 16 year old girl in the series. (Yes, I know about the legality of consent in Japan but it’s still wrong). Inoue really wanted to push the idea Masato was an irredeemable monster. Thankfully, this kind of thing NEVER showed up again in the franchise as some saw it in poor taste.

SIC HERO SAGA

S.I.C. Hero Saga is a diorama story that uses figurines, sets and text to tell a story. They are a segment featured in Monthly Hobby Japan Magazine. All sorts of wild and crazy stuff happens in these stories and feature designs by Takayuki Takeya. Some stories are re-imaginings of events in a specific series or film while others are original ideas such as a Blade story where Garren and Leangle obtain King Forms or a story where Yusuke Onodera reveals that Garo is a TV show in the Kamen Rider Universe! 

(An in-joke reference to Masahiro Inoue as the villain of the sixth Garo season and Mr. Takeya is the character designer of the Horrors on that show)

We also get original Riders and cool ideas such as...

Kamen Rider Rebirth

Kamen Rider Gaim Natsumikan Arms

Shocker OOO

Kamen Rider G1

Shotaro Ishinomori as Kamen Rider Double’s right half

Kamen Rider Ouja Survive

Kamen Rider Ryuga Survive

Final Form Ride: OOO- OOO Armor

Final Form Ride: Stronger - Strong Zecter

And many more!

Video Games

Most video games in the franchise are basic and lack a story (a good portion of them are fighting games in terms of console games). 

But the most interesting are the ones that try to tell a story to go with the gameplay. The Battride War Series centers around the Riders having a new force challenge them in different ways from an agent of Foundation X abducting them and wiping their memories to Shadow Moon reviving and trying to erase all Kamen Riders from time out of revenge. 

The All Kamen Rider Series has the Riders being abducted by some malevolent force for the purpose of an experiment or the heroes need to stop a great threat that has revived their old adversaries.

Lastly, there is Kamen Rider: Seigi no Keifu , a crossover between Agito, Black, V3 and 1 and 2. An evil alien force joins with Shocker and opens distortions in time in a plot to bring the future and the past together so it can absorb the stone of the Century King to become all powerful. It is up to Kamen Riders from 4 different points in time to defeat those allied with the alien and save the world by destroying the extraterrestrial menace.

Hyper Battle Videos

Hyper Battle Videos are exclusive “bonus episodes” of the series that have no continuity with the main show (At least until recently with Drive and Ghost which had references to past events or the trinket of the video showing up again). They are silly at times and non-sensical, sometimes in contrast to the original show it is from. The main draw of these videos are the original power ups, gear and finishers the Riders pull off in the video.

(A montage of finishers and forms seen in this direct to video series up to Ghost.) *apologies if this no longer works*

Stage Shows

Stage shows are the hardest to cover as they are not well documented after a certain time period. The basis is that in a theme park, mall or stadium, a theatrical performance is shown featuring the Kamen Riders. The stories are original and sometime feature audience participation (ex. cheering on the heroes). There are also original Riders and villains that appear such as the evil Kamen Rider Maja. Sometimes, the Riders will get help from other superheroes such as Sentai Rangers, Metal Heroes or even Kikaider or some other hero!

Some Stage shows serve as a “Final Episode” to a show and are canon, though that is somewhat rare. Special stage shows feature the actors playing the roles themselves live, while others were staged with pre-recorded voices. Some even feature interviews with the cast to a live audience and special performances by artists who sing the theme songs or the cast themselves singing.

One of them was the first full musical of Kamen Rider: 

And with that, I wish you Arigatou for reading and see you next file!