[Switchblade]

Okay, here we go.

Kabuto is a show I've been looking forward to because, as I've probably said before, this is one that didn't really stick in my long-term memory. I remember liking it, but a lot of the fine details have bled out over the years (including several character names, which it's nice to see confirmed again).

I'm probably going to save my thoughts on the premise and characters until we get to episode two, so let's focus on some production trivia instead!

Kabuto's head writer is Shoji Yonemura. This is the only show he served in that role on for its entire run (we'll come back to that in a few threads), but he'd go on to serve a major role as the go-to writer for the spring crossover movies between the current Rider and Sentai shows. His reputation is... not great. In particular, his films are pretty bad about reusing the same plot (heroes pretend to fight to trick villains) a lot. As far as Kabuto goes... at the risk of saying too much, Yonemura seemed to be a writer who focused more on the current arc than on the long term picture. That's kind of hard to assess fairly, though, given some behind the scenes stuff that we'll have to talk about later.

Tendou is played by Hiro Mizushima, who would go on to be one of the bigger name actors to graduate from Kamen Rider. He was actually educated in Switzerland and is completely fluent in English (see below). Fans of HBO's Girls will recognize him as the co-worker that one of the main characters (no clue, never watched it) dated while working in Japan, making him one of the very few Rider alumni to crossover to the American market (the only other one I know of is Blade's Mika Hijii/Orchid Undead, who was in a cheap direct-to-dvd ninja movie).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunred

Fun fact, Kabuto shares a few traits with the Showa era rider Kamen Rider Stronger; they are both modeled after rhinoceros beetles and both are the 7th rider to appear in their respectful era.

I was going to wait on this, but if it's coming up already...

(No real spoilers here; it's from a series of promos for the movie and half the actors in it are from that)