[Fish Sandwich]

So this is something I kind of wanted to do in my Kuuga thread, but it's an idea that quickly grew beyond the scope of just that one show, it's something I've kind of talked about in here before already, and also, it's been rattling around in my head for a while and I still can't bring it to any kind of unified point. This is mostly something of a thought exercise, but hopefully there's at least something in here worth thinking about.



I talk at pretty much any given chance about the thematic underpinnings Kamen Rider was built on way back at its inception, and enjoy thinking about how those themes reverberate throughout the franchise. One of the big things at the center of Rider, as Ishinomori originally created it, was the idea of him as a warrior of nature. A freedom fighter with an irrepressible desire to stand against forces that seek to dominate and control. The grasshopper motif, the association with wind, it's all part of that. Shocker represented fascist regimes, but there was also an element to them of simply being an organization. They were all about advanced technology, and structure, and everything else that would inherently be repugnant to a hero conceived, essentially, as a positive force of chaos. I mean, heck, the word "chaos" in its original sense, a void, could even refer simply to open air. Not a deliberate connection, I'm sure, but I still think it shows how deeply baked together these ideas were. They even loop back on each other accidentally. This is what Kamen Rider was all about for the longest time. No matter the specific incarnation, they were heroes who proudly rejected authority. Ones who refused the evils of society in favor of the harmony of the natural world.





And watching Kuuga again got me thinking, did they lose that somewhere along the line? Because at a glance, you could argue Kamen Rider's big revival not only threw all of that out a window, it replaced it with something diametrically opposed. What's one of the most notable things about Kuuga as a series? That he works directly with the police, right? And what are cops if not the very symbol of authority? But Kuuga spends an inordinate amount of time emphasizing the police as an entity of righteousness. Their hierarchy, their order, each cog in the machine, they're all working to help Kuuga save people from the threat of the Grongi, who ironically are themselves the rebellious element in the equation here. Even though it's Japanese society, instead of Shocker, they're still trying to tear down the establishment, just the way a Rider would, right?



Well, no, of course they aren't doing it "just the way a Rider would". The very notion is absurd. But what exactly is the difference? What's the common denominator that connects Kuuga with his predecessors? Why doesn't it feel more incongruous than it does? Surely you can't be a part of any kind of system that exists to govern people and still be living up to those same ideals. Or can you? What if those ideals are both more complex than you might think, and yet also as simple as can be?




And that's really the secret to all of this. Kuuga, it flips on its head that old tradition on a surface level, but the part of it that actually means something, I'd argue is completely the same, just expressed from a different angle. Society now represents that same harmony nature used to. Instead of focusing on elements of it like pollution and oppression, the emphasis is on how it's the result of people working together to strive for something greater. The technology and science that were once wielded by the forces of evil are now employed by the police, and their many collaborators, for much more noble purposes. Meanwhile, the Grongi, barbarian throwbacks who live almost entirely on impulse, now represent the same selfishness those old power structures did, their bestial instincts still showing the problems with a system of values that makes no room for the feelings and desires of others.

What's essentially going on here is that the old notion of freedom is being applied on a meta level. Obsessing over the labels was never the point. Good and evil aren't simply about being on some particular side of a fence, and that's as Kamen Rider as you can get. The actual reason Kamen Riders stood up for freedom was because it was a means to protect the hopes and dreams of those people that would otherwise have them stolen away. When you get down to it, their motivations were never any different from Yuusuke, who fights as Kuuga against the chaos the Grongi bring to the society he's a part of so that he can protect the futures of the people living in it. Giving Yuusuke the explicit driving goal of "protecting smiles" isn't an innovative change from the way the Showa Riders were, but a distillation. Something that gets to the absolute core of what truly makes not only Kamen Riders, but anybody with a desire to do good, a hero. It's just about being willing to care about the lives around you as much as you care about your own. The Grongi and Shocker are both the villains because they refuse to do that. Rider 1, Black, Kuuga, Drive, all of those guys, they're the ones we root for, because they refuse not to, no matter how much harder that path is. They all deeply believe in the inherent sanctity and beauty of life, and that philosophy is something that's still at the center of the franchise to this very day.




I guess I did end up kind of making a point here? I don't know how good it was. Obviously I'm probably oversimplifying some things, and, in the opposite direction, I suppose "heroes are selfless" isn't something that needs this much elaboration, but, I don't know. This was something I've been thinking about for a while, and I figured it'd be worth putting out there.