[FairyKing]

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Originally Posted by Starman

I really liked this one, but I guess I'm just biased towards the pun. XD I've always loved the concept of Psychics and think this is cool, also kind of feels a bit like X-Men, but I might just have it on the mind.

Thanks, I'm really proud of the pun XD It's a three-way play on psi, psyche and PK! And yeah, as I was writing it up I realized "hey, this sounds a bit like X-Men!"

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I also like the concept of this idea overall. I think it's always neat when the main character is more of an audience surrogate. I didn't see a lot of it, but kind of reminds me of the OG Kamen Rider in the Rider and sidekick dynamic.

Yeah, it's not something we seem to see much anymore. W, Wizard and Build all had a bit of it in the beginning, with the rider already established and being introduced to us through the view of a side character who was new to their fight, but none of them stuck with that.

___

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I've held off on posting this, but I don't really think I'm going anywhere with this concept, so figured I'd put it out into the wild anyway;

The series would take place in Tokyo, or some kind of large fictional city that has a lot of neon lights that make the night as bright as a star. While from the outside, the city is a bastion of technological advancement. But every citizen is aware of the massive turf war going on.

With gangs?

You wish!

These are done by massive corporations. There are three main corporations fighting each other, with various smaller corps either being absorbed by the big 3, are trying to carve a small niche for themselves, or merging together to form a big enough power to topple the other 3. And how are these battles fought? Usually with what are called 'Mengu Core', a face mask that transforms employees into monster soldiers, with higher ups getting better masks that makes them look more like monster-like samurais. These constant battles are always bringing in the common folk into the middle, with the companies always sweeping you under the rug-one way or the other.

But, hold on, it seems one of the companies have done inventory and a Mengu Core is missing.

Well, that's because it was stolen and reverse-engineered into the 'Kage Driver', a special belt buckle and the transformation trinket that transforms Matsuba Edo, aka Codename Iga, into Kamen Rider Tokage!

Translator's Note: 'Tokage' is Japanese for 'Lizard', but 'Kage' on its own can also mean 'Shadow'.

Another Note: I'm partially aware that Gaim has a Warring States/Samurai theme going on, but I thought it'd be interesting if we took that theme, but put our hero in the role of a ninja instead of another warring lord.

Matsuba is effectively a ninja and the chosen champion of his clan to become the Kamen Rider in order to fight the Company Lords from the shadows and take them for the sake of the common man. Over the series, he'll get various 'Jutsu Batteries', effectively tube-like devices that he'll put into a holster on his hips for the Kage Driver to activate a jutsu. He'd also get various other tools outside of Jutsu Batteries that are legit ninja tools, like katanas, shuriken, caltrops, and so on.

I can't think of what secondary riders could be, but they could maybe be based off of other animals associated with ninjas, like a Kamen Rider Gama(Toad) and Kamen Rider Kitsune(Fox), perhaps chosen from other clans. Perhaps they could be enemy ninjas working for these Company Lords, as Samurais did have ninjas under their employ.

This sounds like an AWESOME idea! High-tech ninjas vs corporate samurai, I feel like I've heard that before somewhere, but regardless it's just so cool! And I'd love to see more series that cast the Kamen Rider as a heroic outlaw, I feel like Tokage would get along well with Camo.

If Tokage fights for the people and there's also the corporations fighting each other, that could lead to some really interesting scenarios where the other riders have their own agendas, and sometimes team up with Tokage because they share a common goal or enemy, but are never truly on the same side and don't firmly settle on hero or villain until the endgame. You could have a rider who shares Tokage's drive to bring down the corporations but doesn't care about protecting people, one who's loyal to a corporation because they genuinely believe it's the right side (obviously without knowing just how corrupt the corporation is), one who's forced to work for a corporation but will turn on it the moment they get free, and more...

[Starman]

Yeah, Camo and Tokage definitely are kind of similar to each other. That could make for a pretty cool team up!

And yeah, definitely intended for Riders to share a common goal of taking down the corporations, but I really like the idea of them not necessarily having the same motivations and a Rider being forced to work until they can get free of their grip. So many possibilities for different ninjas.

[FairyKing]

The discussion about the disappearance of the "remodeled human" trope got me thinking about how to revisit the idea in a way that was more favorable towards people who've had organ transplants or other serious medical alterations in real life. It's being slow to develop, since it's a subject I'd want to handle with care, but I have some initial ideas.

A secretive organization calling itself the Saisei (rebirth) Foundation reaches out to people with conditions that normal medicine can't help with and offers to remodel them into cyborgs. The cybernetics aren't perfect, they have drawbacks and limitations and part of the story would be showing how the cyborgs adjust, but to someone with an incurable illness or injury they can be life-changing or even life-saving. The surgery is free of charge, but in exchange, these cyborgs also have to fight for Saisei as Kamen Riders!

I haven't figured out yet why the Kamen Riders have to fight. I could copy Shocker and have Saisei be evil, with the hero riders being those who rebel against its control. But I think I prefer Saisei having a few questionable practices and corrupt members but ultimately good intentions, and pitting the riders against something worse. Maybe the villains have an origin connected to Saisei, or are connected to how the riders got their conditions in the first place, or both.

Anyway, I'm not sure who the individual riders are or what their forms and collectables are based on, but I like the idea that some parts of their suits are cybernetics visible outside their body and are also part of their civilian appearances. Like for example, if one had a prosthetic hand, that hand would stay the same when they transformed.

And I'm toying with the idea of the main rider having cybernetic legs that sometimes break and a motorcycle that changes into a wheelchair, but that might be too silly.

[Starman]

I don't know why, but I kept thinking this was going into some kind of Kamen Rider Repoman, but I guess it'd be messed up if Riders were violently ripping cybernetics out of people that skipped on the bill.

There could be a splinter group of Saisei who are evil. Like, traitors in the mix trying to take over the world. Perhaps someone who left Saisei and stole their secrets to create his own evil Cyborgs?

Perhaps Saisei is a straight up REVERSE Shocker? An Altruistic Organization that helps people with those cybernetics in the hopes of stopping perhaps some kind of alien invasion?

Hope any of these help!

[TheRaizin]

This more goes into parody ideas but me and my brothers always joked about this idea of a Kamen Rider General/Generik where he just uses a regular leather belt to transform and uses mundane items as weapons/upgrades. Washed out colors, grey bug eye, and just overall very plain.

[FairyKing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaizin

This more goes into parody ideas but me and my brothers always joked about this idea of a Kamen Rider General/Generik where he just uses a regular leather belt to transform and uses mundane items as weapons/upgrades. Washed out colors, grey bug eye, and just overall very plain.

That sounds like it would be hilarious as a parody, or it could probably be really cool as a serious show if it was done well, maybe a story about how you don't actually need to be special to fight for what's right. The Everyday Rider, Kamen Rider Generik!

[Starman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRaizin

This more goes into parody ideas but me and my brothers always joked about this idea of a Kamen Rider General/Generik where he just uses a regular leather belt to transform and uses mundane items as weapons/upgrades. Washed out colors, grey bug eye, and just overall very plain.

I think it could be a nice affectionate parody. Monster comes out of nowhere and maybe instead of transforming, Generik puts on a biker suit and helmet and picks up a baseball bat like Casey Jones.

If nothing else, it could be really funny to see some monster monologue about how humans are the REAL monster and he's here to do pest control...only to be interrupted by Generik just bonking him with his bat. He doesn't got time for this, his favorite show's on in an hour and he's holding up traffic.

[Androzani84]

I think one thing that would fit the parody elements would having one of the characters being genre savvy to the conventions of a Kamen Rider. And then doing something unexpected that breaks with that formula. Kind of like how Akibaranger didn’t have the giant battles

[FairyKing]

I really should work on developing one of the ideas I already have, but instead, here's yet another new one!

The Werewolf Rider, Kamen Rider Howl!

First I have to explain the monsters. They're called Phobias, manifestations of people's fears, who terrorize their victims to feed on their willpower, eventually destroying the victim's mind and allowing the Phobia to take over their body. The leaders are the Prime Phobias, born from humanity's primal fears. Each one has a different agenda regarding the lesser Phobias, and each one also resembles a classic horror monster:

- Sanguine, the Prime Phobia of blood, cultivates lesser Phobias and then cannibalizes them, getting willpower from them instead of directly from victims. He resembles a vampire.

- Abyss, the Prime Phobia of drowning, tests lesser Phobias, seeking the strongest one of all. She resembles a mermaid or fishman.

- Coffin, the Prime Phobia of darkness, is raising an army of Phobias to serve him as their king. He resembles a mummy.

- Storm, the Prime Phobia of thunder, at first appears to be a brute with no plan but later reveals that he's gathering data from other Phobias' battles to further his own evolution. He resembles Frankenstein's monster.

- Moonlight, the Prime Phobia of predators, originally planned to follow lesser Phobias to find humans to prey on, but something unexpected happened... She resembles a werewolf.

The main rider is Haruna "Runa" Kurosawa, an eccentric jeweler who might have some mild kind of insanity, she crafts her jewelry and lives her life according to strange rules which she believes bring good luck. She has massive amounts of willpower, drawing Moonlight to try to feed on her, but Moonlight is absorbed into Haruna's mind instead, forcing the two of them to share a body, with Haruna mainly in control but Moonlight able to take over if she loses focus. Because of Haruna's unusual mind and great willpower, her homemade good-luck charms can actually affect Phobia powers, and she uses these to stabilize their comination. Together they start hunting other Phobias, using a padlock-shaped belt buckle and special keys to unleash controlled amounts of Moonlight's power and transform into a Kamen Rider. Haruna's motivation is to protect people, but Moonlight only does it to feed on the other Phobias (though she gradually grows fond of Haruna).

Along the way, they also clash with H.U.N.T. (Humanoid Unknown Neutralization Taskforce), a shadowy government strike team who also fight Phobias but are more concerned with keeping their existence secret than with protecting people. I haven't fleshed out the other Riders yet, but one (Kamen Rider Slayer) is a loyal H.U.N.T. agent, and the other (Kamen Rider Magus) is a defector on a mission to find the truth being the Phobias' origin. The Phobias were created when a government experiment into harnessing willpower went horribly wrong, the Prime Phobias' human forms are the bodies of the scientists from that experiment, and the H.U.N.T. higher-ups' true goal is to find a way to control and weaponize Phobias.

The collectables are Luna Keys (a reference to Moonlight, mispronunciation of Haruna's nickname, and also a play on the word "lunacy"), key-like charms Haruna creates to unleash Moonlight's power. Slayer and Magus don't use Luna Keys for their base forms, but do need them for later power-ups. Howl has the following forms:

- Half Moon, tracking form with sharp senses, the first Luna Key created. Even after gaining other forms, this is still the one Haruna defaults to when facing an unfamiliar foe, using its enhanced senses to study them even in the middle of a fight and figure out the best way to beat them.

- Full Moon, brawling form with great strength, Howl's second Luna Key, made by Haruna when Moonlight convinced her they needed to unleash more power to defeat the Statue Phobia. In this form, Moonlight is the main one in control, with Haruna only able to hold her back. If they transform with Moonlight already in control, she defaults to Full Moon.

- New Moon, rushing form with high speed, Howl's third Luna Key made with technology Haruna swiped while escaping from a H.U.N.T. lab where she was captured and separated from Moonlight. Haruna can use this form by herself, but can only maintain it for twelve seconds at a time. After reuniting with Moonlight, Howl can stay in New Moon indefinitely, but the twelve second limit still applies to its top speed.

- Lunar Eclipse, ultimate form with balanced stats and limited telepathic abilities, including mind-reading and forcing weak-willed enemies to panic. Howl's fourth and final Luna Key, and the first one made by Moonlight herself, who created it and the Kamen Lock (an attachment to the Howl Driver) to save Haruna from turning into the Inhuman Phobia. In this form, Haruna and Moonlight both control their body, and need to work in harmony to use it effectively.

[Androzani84]

I’ve not really developed the idea, but I’ve got one.

A Rider based around the four seasons.