Originally Posted by Fish Sandwich (Post 797203)

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!

Originally Posted by Enchilada645 (Post 799177)

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