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Originally Posted by Kiwami

I think I could find this out myself but maybe someone wants to share what they know about this: Around which episode or production time did Hiroshi Fujioka suffer the accident which made the creation of Kamen Rider 2 necessary?

I popped a random episode of Kamen Rider yesterday, number 11, and was surprised to see that Takeshi Hongo was barely in it. He appeared in his lab, a colleague reminds him he needs to go to a wedding, he doesn't make it there but arrives on his bike later when the bride and groom are attacked. Kamen Rider gets beaten, literally stuck inside a hill so that only his bottom and legs poke out, and just appears at the very end of the episode to defeat the monster, all in-costume with no dialogue whatsoever.

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but that smelled a lot like stock footage, Takeshi only appears in the lab and on his bike, both could be filmed without the rest of the cast, and once he transforms no dialogue happens between him and the rest of the characters. And of course, the mystery of the monster is solved by the side-characters, Takeshi does nothing. In one instance we even have a fight without suits as Takeshi's buddy kicks some Shocker-butt.

So it's obvious the accident already happened there, that surprised me as I thought it would be a bit later in the run. If anyone knows and could share around which episode the accident happened and when they started to rely on stock footage until Rider 2 came in, that would be cool.

Also, another question for general visitors of the thread: Do you believe the future of Kamen Rider would've been different if the accident never happened? As in, they were never forced to introduce a different Rider and maybe wouldn't have thought to create new characters and Riders for future shows?

My view on the situation is they would've probably continued Rider 1 as long as it was popular and then tried a new Rider like V3, but Rider 2 probably never would've had happened, but maybe a different sidekick to Rider 1 instead?

The accident happened while filming 9 and the last episode with new footage of Fujioka was episode 10. Episodes 11-13 basically try to just try to keep things up and running by bringing Taki into the fold and focusing on the supporting cast. Ichimonji debuts in episode 14. If you go to KITSubs' old site you can read some pretty good blog posts that accompany each episode and explain some of the production background of this era.

I imagine we still would've gotten new Riders even if Fujioka had stuck around. Kamen Rider was hugely popular by the time the original series ended, with a lot of merchandise and a big official fan club. Fujioka would eventually want to move on and Toei would still want to continue the franchise. I tend to suspect that V2 would've basically been the same show we got with V3 and I don't think the overall landscape of Kamen Rider would change that drastically.