Inoue is the hero of every story, and that's never been a secret.

INOUE FOREVER! HE SAVED KUUGA FOR YOU INGRATES!

This is... fascinating, damn. Takatera taking ages to put something out and not keeping to schedule in the slightest makes me relate to him so much more all of a sudden

So this cool article talks about two cameramen who work on Kamen Rider and how the process and equipment had evolved. Even having a list of what camera were used from Hibiki onwards fascniating stuff

Super cool article! Thanks for sharing. Definitely worth a read for anyone even remotely interested in how Kamen Rider magic is captured.

I was thinking of watching the OG Kamen Rider. So any that's watched it, what do you think are the highlight episodes. One thing, it's 98 episodes long, so I know most of that will be episodic and mostly be repetitive which would just be a slog for me, so I was wondering if they are any must watch episodes.

Here what I consider "important" the first 21 episodes Episodes 26, 39-42, 49-53, 67-68, 79-81, 91-94, and the final two episodes.

And here are the epiosdes I just think are plain fun to watch 31,36,46,65,72-73,82-85,87 and the 2 original Kamen Rider movies ignoring the first one being an bigger aspect ratio version of episode 13.

Again this is just what I think so I think it up to you to watch whatever episode you want.

Are the official subs (Toei Tokusatsu World, TokSHOUTsu) using "Transform/Transformation" or "Henshin"?

TokSHOUTsu uses "transform" and Toei Tokusatsu World uses "Henshin".

Inoue has a reputation in the industry as that one person who will get things done for you, regardless of the end result and fan reaction. To you and those that worship him it was salvation, but for him it was a Tuesday. :lolol
Okay, but for real while I am in the camp of Takatera's Hibiki is all that matters I admire his work ethic and respect him for taking over a daunting task like that. Normally it probably is an episode or two but concluding the show till Kabuto shows up? Kudos to him.

Team Rider did interview with Takahito Omori.

Having two days in a row where I learned that y'all should be thanking Inoue for saving Kuuga and that the producer of two of my favorite Heisei series does not truck with Showa... What an amazing 50th anniversary gift to me personally! I am floored by the fandom's generosity, and it does not go unappreciated. Thank you to everyone who made this possible!

What happened with episode 13 ?

That seems like a bit of an overeaction. Omori just admitted that he grew up during the period between Showa and Heisei and saw more Super Sentai and Metal Heroes as kid. He even went on to say he got the spirit of Rider from working with the OG Rider. Plus Build was made to call back to Showa roots

Oh, nothing super crazy. It's just that 13/14 were the first episodes written by Inoue (1-12 were all by Naruhisa Arakawa), which I felt were pretty uneven compared to what came before, and I suggested that might be a direct result of them having to really crank them out. If Inoue was brought on to get the show back on track, I figure it would make sense his debut episodes didn't have time to receive the same level of polish that put the show behind schedule in the first place.

I think the thing I wasn't expecting out of that interview was the fact that Bloody Rose was imported from Los Angeles.

Team Rider did another interview with Takahito Omori this time all about Zero-One and a bit about how covid impacted the series.

SFX Fantasy Rayforce

As much as I hated Build's v-cinemas, man, this would have been really awesome.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eyc3yPSU...jpg&name=small

lol same, dude.

Following up just a tiny bit on Nobuhiro Suzumura's Kuuga tweets for now, I dug up one specifically about that aforementioned comic about the making of the show, which doesn't offer particularly crazy revelations (it was published in 2001 across two parts in some magazine, and was never collected anywhere afterwards), but there are some more pretty pictures, and I feel like I should mention it anyway for clarity's sake.

What I'm mostly here to do today is go over that proposal document a bit more thoroughly, as I've since read those couple of pages in their entirety, and still think they're a supremely fascinating look into the thought process behind the show's conception, well worth talking about more than I did last time. I don't have the skill for a full-on translation or anything, but I'd like to at least summarize those two pages and give some general thoughts.

The big one, the "Declaration of Transformation" lays out the mission statement for the show as a whole. It starts by talking about how the original Kamen Rider created a set of "golden rules" for hero shows that all of them have been following ever since. It goes on to posit that the extreme importance placed on those rules is causing hero shows to lose the awareness of reality needed in making any kind of filmed work, and that because of this, they're running the risk of becoming so removed from the world children live in that the genre might end up declining if it continues on that path. Hence, the need for hero shows to "transform", freeing themselves from the golden rules, and better reflecting reality to create "a show that doesn't lie".

Already, you can probably tell this is definitely something the people who made Kuuga would write.

From everything I've ever heard from or about him, Takatera in particular has always been someone with a very deep belief that hero shows exist to teach children what justice is, and the following chunk of the declaration starts detailing what that will mean to Kuuga. It stresses the idea of a hero being about self-sacrifice, working hard and enduring the weight of fighting for the sake of others and for what is right -- all of which is Yuusuke to a T -- and how that will be a message with meaning to a generation of children growing up with far more material luxury and far less strict discipline from their parents. It's then acknowledged how lofty all these goals are, followed by a final reaffirmation that having the attitude to take on the difficult task of creating this new breed of hero show that breaks the rules and speaks to the world the viewers live in will let Kamen Rider Kuuga "transform" hero shows the same way Kamen Rider did in the past. As I mentioned last time, the very last line on the page, summing it all up, is "the standard of the 21st century begins here".

The whole thing obviously has a certain layer of pretension to it, but it's also because of that self-confidence that I think you can really tell just how much getting Kuuga made the way they wanted meant to the people behind the series' creation. And of course, it's worth noting that just about every word in there DID end up being followed through on, resulting in a series that really DID redefine what a tokusatsu hero series could be like. If nothing else, Kuuga certainly became the standard for Kamen Rider.

The second page Suzumura shared goes over the outline for the show, which here includes two separate bullet points about what will be defining features for Kuuga. One, that he's a legendary warrior revived in the present, and two, that he'll have multiple forms with which he fights. (I'm sure if we could see it, the first bullet point on the next page would simply read "and we swear he's totally not Ultraman Tiga!") :p

The legendary warrior bit makes a point out of the apparent popularity of fantasy works among kids of the time, theorizing that they're looking less to science-fiction stories to dream as the rapid march of scientific progress keeps making so many sci-fi concepts into plain ol' boring reality. This is particularly fascinating to me because it shows the awareness, even in 2000, of how quaint so many of those previously fantastic ideas now seemed. Like, it's pretty telling that we got Zero-One more because of how plausible the AI concept is, rather than how much it isn't. Getting back to Kuuga though, the suggestion made is that since ideas like super bikes and cyborgs were tailored to the dreams of kids of that time, Kuuga's heroic fantasy theme would be the same for the year 2000, with the ancient legend concept making the hero more mysterious and cool while also providing fertile ground for engaging storytelling revolving around said mysterious past events. Again, this very much ended up being a part of the final product.

The blurb about Kuuga having multiple forms is interesting simply because it's so unthinkable that anyone working at Toei or whoever would need this explained to them nowadays. But yes, having multiple forms will, if you believe it, make the fight scenes more varied and interesting, but in a different way from simply having a team of heroes. More specific to Kuuga, however, a huge point is made about how Kuuga will not have all these forms right away, and will instead have to learn, through painstaking effort, how to use each and every one of them. Naturally, this is a way to impart the value of hard work to the kids at home. Once again, this idea is completely and totally reflected in most of the debuts for Kuuga's forms in some way or another.

So yeah, I always feel like I should apologize for STILL not being done rambling about Kuuga, but hopefully this look into what is essentially the bible for the show was interesting for everyone else too. I wish I could read the whole thing, honestly. Imagine if there's a whole bullet point in that outline about why they wanted to use cops or something, right? It'd be neat!

Never stop rambling about Kuuga. I love info like this.

Kuuga.....! (< bursting with admiration) I think Kamen Rider has steadily followed the beats and merch-based formulas started from Agito more than anything, but more media in general could take cues from the ambitions of Kuuga.

Please continue to ramble about Kuuga. The more you talk about it, the more it makes me want to watch it. And it's just really interesting listening to everything you have to say about it, even if I haven't watched the show yet.

This works way better than it should

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZleDGMgNfPc

As a guy who legit doesn't like Kuuga at all (I find it extremely boring & pointless) it's very interesting to read things like this. So don't hold back or feel bad about bringing Kuuga up so much. It's really intriguing.

Even the guest characters in Black are, I believe the kids would say, Chads.

https://i.imgur.com/f7aJb6c.png

I hope the next kamen rider is rainbow in color, so precure, sentai, and rider can all have rainbow protags.

Ya'll just have nicknames for certain Riders you use as shorthand?

The Discord I'm in has had a habit of nicknaming certain Riders certain things for various reasons.

Example's include Kiriya from Ex-Aid as Hawaiian Punch, and Ren from Saber as Green Bean.

I sometimes call Ghost DnD Session

I don't remember if I picked this up somewhere when Gaim was airing or came up with it myself, but Ryugen will forever be known in my head as "Sour Grapes" thanks to the way his arc plays out. It is the perfect summation of Micchi for a huge stretch of that show.

Kenzan is just "Green Man Group" because god do I not remember his Rider name. Garren is, of course, "TACHIBANA-SAN!". Knuckle is just Nutboy, for obvious reasons. Grease is the Potato Farmer. And I think I may have called Poppy "Kamen Rider Waifu" ironically back when Ex-Aid was on.

I hate to tell you, but Sour Grapes is something I've seen in quite a few places, but hey, could be convergent evolution.

No no, I'm glad to hear that! It's such an obvious joke I've always been disappointed I don't see more people making it.

Am catching up on Saber and just finished episode 31. I really love the sort of ultra-space thing they did in this episode, I really want to see more of that with the characters getting to show up out of suit during fights.

https://i.imgur.com/0kZHbJq.png

Hey, it's yet another cameo from Nobuhiro Suzumura('s hand), which means I'm here today to talk about more juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits from his Twitter account.

- The somewhat grotesque cameo in question this time is from episode 20, for starters. Kinda fun to think that Suzumura got to play (the mutant clone of) a Grongi, even if only for one shot. Also of note about episode 20 is that its original title in the script was "Comrades" (or however you want to translate 同志), rather than "Smile". They both work, but I definitely prefer the final choice. It just would've been a huge shame if the word smile didn't get used as an episode title somewhere, you know?

- Episode 17 may be but a humble recap episode, produced to give the show's production much needed time to breathe, but it also marks Suzumura's directorial debut. That being said, it IS just a recap episode, so the two bits of trivia I found most exciting are simply that Suzumura made Kuuga's suit actor Kenji Tominaga do that Mighty Kick 12 times (worth it!); and that Takatera apparently specifically requested the TryChaser get a new control panel for reasons that go unelaborated upon. Maybe the original one just wasn't modern enough for him?

- Suzumura also shared some pages of the script for 17, which is the kind of thing I probably find more fascinating than most people. But like, come on! You can even see that Grongi dialogue is written with the Japanese translation right next to it so the actors know what they're talking about! That's pretty cool, right!?

- He also had quite a bit of trivia regarding episodes 25 and 26, and just as I would hope, some of it was basically about how insane Hidenori Ishida is. When directing these ones, he was dead-set on keeping the camera moving as much as possible, which certainty helped sell the story's emotional tone better... and also made a ton of extra work for the crew as they were suddenly making much heavier use of camera dollies and jibs than usual!

- Suzumura was responsible for preparing the car that Buuro comes crashing down onto in 26, a process that involved smashing it from the top with an iron ball, as well as burning it with fire, because of course. What makes me really love this one is how Suzumura notes that it was his first experience lighting a car on fire without a camera rolling, which gave him pause to realize all over again what a crazy show Kuuga is. I've joked before that Ishida's favorite part of directing is telling people to go start fires, but what I hadn't considered was what must go through the minds of the people who get asked to light the matches.

- Of course, trivia like that is just how you everyone really cared about making a quality product, and especially thanks to Arakawa's poignant script, episodes 25/26 are some of the show's very best. Which is why I wasn't actually that surprised to find Suzumura saying that he looked over to see Joe Odagiri crying during the last scene while watching a rough cut of 26 that didn't even have music yet. It's powerful drama, man! Which is why you shouldn't be surprised that the last thing I'd like to call attention to is simply a very wholesome exchange where a fan got to personally thank one of Kuuga's staff 20 years down the line for making a story that left a huge impact on them watching it in middle school all that time ago. Kuuga is a really good show.

...Is this why Mighty Form's' element is Fire?

12 times for Mighty Kick, I wonder for a comparison between him and any other series as obviously, any Rider series has Rider Kicks too.

This post on Facebook manages to sum up the plot of Ex-Aid in a few pictures.

https://www.facebook.com/10711413414...2206886964423/

This isn’t wrong, I love it.

Edit: wait never mind Nico isn’t there 0/10.

Hilarious! The final scene was my favorite!

Anyone find it funny how next year, we'll have the same amount of electronic rider gimmick devices as non-electronic? Always thought of the former as a rarity, but we're up to 6 vs the latter's 7 now