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Disclaimer: this article's filled with supposition, rumor, gossip, assumptions, speculation and my own theories and observations. Also: it's long and doesn't have pictures, so buckle up, kids.
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A show can't stay on top forever -- for as enormously popular as Kamen Rider was in the '70s, the franchise saw diminishing returns and was originally supposed to wrap-up with 1975's Stronger, which culminated with a big team-up of all Riders up until that point. But the character's popularity led to Toei trying to reboot the series just four years later with...Kamen Rider, aka Skyrider. Skyrider enjoyed popularity and was immediately followed-up by the divisive and cornball Super 1, and Rider was off of the air again. Other than the anniversary project debuting ZX, Rider would remain off of the air again for six years, until 1987 when the juggernaut Kamen Rider Black debuted.
Black, to me, is the best representation of Ishinomori's Rider concept. It was his Rider formula updated for the '80s and given a glossier look and more nuance thanks to where television writing, suit craftsmanship, designs, special-effects and suit-acting had all advanced. It was a serious show, a dark show. It was so popular that they decide to continue it with a sequel series which...tosses out everything Black accomplished by being lighter, kiddier, sloppily written. A sequel which has nothing in common with its predecessor other than the lead actor. And, surprise surprise, the franchise died again. And this time, it stayed dead for quite a long time...
Two attempts in the '80s to bring the franchise back since its glory days, both ending with lackluster sequels which killed the goodwill brought by shows like Skyrider and Black. (Super 1 and RX share a main writer, Takashi Ezure. Coincidence? I think not. He's the guy who says he had no interest in doing kaizo ningen stories. You know, a Kamen Rider's entire deal?) The franchise is dead. We get a handful of specials and short films in the '90s, but Rider stays off of TV airwaves for ELEVEN years.
The '90s was filled with rumors of Kamen Rider's television return, but nothing solid until the end of the decade, when Toei decided to haul the guy out again. It's a beloved character and franchise, so one can imagine the competition there must have been behind the scenes to be the one given the show. Toei decided to give what would become Kuuga to producer Shigenori Takatera, who had just enjoyed success as chief producer of Carranger, Megaranger, and Gingaman. Takatera was also an assistant producer on Kamen Rider Black and RX.
Takatera is a meticulous guy who cares about the attention to detail in his shows, the world-building. He takes things seriously and wants to make quality shows. A toku fan, he worships the detail-oriented '60s Tsuburaya shows, and is someone who always wants to do NEW things with these long-running franchises. There were a lot of rules set by Toei and sponsors about what Kuuga could or couldn't do, and yet Takatera had a clear vision of what he wanted and stuck to his guns. It's well known that he tends to work slower than the upper management likes and his shows tend to go over-budget, but...damn it, he's not going to budge from what he wants the show to be! It's not a disposable toy commercial to him; he puts more thought and care into his shows, because he's a fan of these shows. There's a reason why most of his shows tend to be fan favorites.
So Rider was off of the air for all of that time. I know I talk about James Bond too much, but it's my blog -- so I don't care. But it's a little reminiscent of the delay between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye in terms of people being unsure if there was still room for the character when the world changed so much. Takatera thought Rider needed a complete rehaul, saying that he didn't even think Black was all that different from the past Riders. There's quotes by Takatera where he talks about "breaking" the image of a henshin hero show. This is why I think the lyrics of the Kuuga OP applies more to the production than the show -- "Let's start from zero."
Inspired by American dramas like The X-Files and ER, Takatera and Kuuga writer Naruhisa Arakawa's idea was to make Kuuga a realistic look at the henshin hero. They decided to film in widescreen HD for a more dramatic look. They stripped away fanciful elements like posing and calling out attack names and also eschewed staples like stock footage and the predictable (cheap) filming locations, like Mt. Makuu or the Winspector Warehouse. The show would examine the toll it takes on its heroes, the government's response to these attacks, the public's reaction to being caught in superhero battles, what mysterious monsters might be like, and what their culture might look like. Kuuga looked and felt like no tokusatsu show before or after. It was fresh, and it DID break all of the typical stylings and cliches associated with a henshin hero. It rightfully won a Seiun Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2001. (Of the few tokusatsu shows which won that award, Kuuga was the only one deserving of it, IMO.) The show is groundbreaking.
Kuuga brought Kamen Rider back, but...for how long? Would history repeat itself?
Takatera's meticulous nature means that his shows often run behind schedule and over-budget, two things that terrify the higher-ups. Longtime Toei producer Takeyuki Suzuki had to join Kuuga's production in order to make sure it came in on time. There are rumors that he had considered firing Takatera halfway through the show's production. For all Takatera accomplished with Kuuga, Toei chose to go with a new producer for its next Rider show, Shinichiro Shirakura.
Shirakura had worked with Toei since the '90s, his biggest toku work at the time being the cult hit Changerion. Shirakura is a guy who has a nothing-is-sacred feeling of irreverence about him. Changerion was a unique show; I see it as the toku show equivalent of punk rock. It marched to its own beat, had its own attitude. You were there for the ride or weren't. (I fucking hate how that show's treated by modern fans, who think it's just fun to LOL at, not appreciating its uniquely warped view of toku heroes.) Shirakura's sensibilities worked for an outlier show like that. Shirakura joined the Kuuga staff at the halfway point as an assistant producer and is rumored to have been Suzuki's choice to replace Takatera when he was considering it. (A preview of what would end up happening with Hibiki.)
Takatera and Shirakura have two completely different viewpoints on the genre, conflicting ideals. One thing they share in common is the desire to do something different, to "break" the image of the shows. The big, big difference is that Takatera wanted to do that out of a genuine desire to help the franchise evolve. Shirakura's motivation is not so pure: it's more egotistical -- he just wants to ruffle feathers with his changes or try to put his stamp on a show.
So Agito is meant to be a direct sequel to Kuuga but with a mostly different staff. New producer, new main writer, new chief director. It keeps the dramatic visual style of Kuuga and some procedural elements but is mostly interested in doing its own thing. There are rumors that Takatera created a fuss behind the scenes, not liking that the show was a direct sequel and therefore would potentially undo any of Kuuga's successes. That led to Agito deciding to drop its connection to Kuuga. I feel like Agito main writer Toshiki Inoue would have eventually dropped the connection anyway, preferring to convey his own vision. Either way, Kuuga was mostly used as a springboard for the G3-side of the series before the series decided to go down its own road.
Kuuga and Agito are the only Toei toku shows in which its main writers are given the "series planner/creator" credit. I feel like, since it was his first turn at bat, Shirakura stayed out of Inoue's way with Agito, that Agito is totally Inoue's vision -- and that's why it was a work of quality. Arakawa certainly meshed with what Takatera wanted to do with Kuuga, but you know Takatera was the driving force and visionary behind that show. Nevertheless, both Kuuga and Agito were driven by creativity, the creator. They're both shows that wanted to break the mold and aim higher, and they succeeded. This wasn't a repeat of Super 1 or RX -- Agito's popularity led to the franchise's continuation! But a downhill trajectory does begin...
Shirakura returns to produce Ryuki; Yasuko Kobayashi, then of Gingaman and Timeranger fame, is chosen as its main writer. I think you can look at Kobayashi's shows and realize that she's adaptable to the producer working on it. I've always gotten the sense from her that she sees things as gigs and doesn't necessarily have a long term vision for what she wants to do. She's perfectly fine abandoning ideas if something new tickles her fancy, and she'll go with the flow if a higher-up orders her to do something. So with Ryuki, I feel like that's more Shirakura taking over, that it's more his show than it is Kobayashi's. They share a sensibility in terms of just liking to do things because they're cool/unexpected, and I think they tend to bring out the worst in each other.
Enjoying success from Agito, I think Shirakura wanted to push things even further. Agito was the first to have more than one Rider at three? Well, we're now going to have THIRTEEN! How far can we go with just having recolored alternate forms to sell? Well, let's try something new...by incorporating a gimmick wildly successful for animation, but never tried in live-action -- cards and monster pals! While Ryuki turned out to be an interesting show that I was really into when it aired (and it continued to stay true to the Rider spirit in new ways) the cracks began to show with Ryuki. I think a lot of the franchise's problems can be traced back to it. And what was the source of Ryuki's troubles? Greed. More characters, more toys, more gimmicks. It even went down to the casting -- Kuuga and Agito's male leads being popular with housewives, creating the so-called "ikemen boom," and so Ryuki was chock full of performers to appeal to that usually-ignored demographic, all for the sake of selling more photobooks and the like. Kuuga and Agito had integrity, an integrity that was slipping with Ryuki.
So we're beginning to lose the plot from Kuuga and Agito -- in more ways than that phrase suggests. All of the hard work Takatera did in order to change the face of toku, what one perceives as a toku, the whole grounded approach, raising the bar...Ryuki wants to retain the dramatic visuals, but when you get down to it, Ryuki is inching towards being a battle anime. That's the opposite of what Kuuga established! But Ryuki, in its own way -- in its own self-destructive way -- still managed to feel fresh. It was different; it did its own thing. It examined Rider ideas in a different way and worked in Ishinomori-like concepts in how it reacted to world events of the time. It was nowhere near as smooth as Kuuga or Agito, but I think a lot of its narrative problems came from Episode Final. Shirakura, being more of a hype man than creative producer, is always chasing trends and looking for a gimmick, and his gimmick for Episode Final -- the show's "end," revealing all of the mysteries at the halfway point -- really shot the production in the foot, as it could never figure out what it wanted to do after that. So a lot of later Ryuki relied on gimmicks and gotchas and audience manipulation and Memeable Moments to entice you now that the mystery is blown -- rather than good, dramatic writing.
Despite all of that, Ryuki was wildly popular. Shirakura's ego gets a boost. He turns to old pal Inoue to make Faiz. The difference between Agito and Faiz is night and day. Agito was meticulously plotted -- no storyline or character unneeded. Faiz is an aimless mess filled with extraneous characters. Was Faiz simply a case of writer burnout -- should Inoue have not returned so soon? Wasn't it too soon for him to return to a show and write EVERY episode? I think the difference is that Shirakura involved himself more with Faiz. Again, I feel like he stayed out of Inoue's way with Agito but felt more confident by Faiz to become far more active. Faiz has a lot of the hallmarks of Shirakura's other works, with more audience manipulation and trolling and gimmicks and shit that exists just for the memes.
Faiz has its fans but didn't seem to have the same reception as its three predecessors, didn't make quite as big of a splash, despite becoming a fan favorite over the years. Nevertheless, Shirakura decided to move on, focusing on developing shows like Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Sh15uya. (There are quotes from him where he claimed that Faiz would be the last Rider he, Inoue, and Tasaki would work together on...HA!) And here's where things get messy for Heisei Rider...
Kamen Rider Blade. It's a mess. Longtime Metal Hero and Sentai producer Jun Hikasa is tapped as Blade's main producer. He decides to get drama writer Shoji Imai as main writer. My theory is that Hikasa came to Blade a little cocky. He had successes when he took charge of the other franchises like Super Sentai. And I think he approached Blade in a way of "These new Riders want so hard to be dramas, but I'll bring a little more Showa-like heroics to the table, while also retaining the drama. It will be the best of both worlds, and I'll show everyone what a Kamen Rider should be like!" And not only does the pretentiousness of the Heisei DORAMA style not mesh with Showa-style fancifulness, but the drama side's not going to work when you cast the most inept, terrible actors you can find.
The Blade cast is to blame for a lot of that show's shortcomings. They're cast for the housewife demographic -- they weren't good actors. And they weren't believable as heroes, so they failed on both of Hikasa's goals. Drama writer Imai seemed totally lost in terms of writing a superhero show, and a lot of his scripts are muddier than a wrestling match with Jamila. Imai leaves the show halfway through, citing scheduling issues, with sub-writer Shou Aikawa taking over and the show attempting to course-correct with a soft reboot, but it's too little, too late. Blade remains an inconsistent mess best remembered for memes to ridicule it by. Show directors are rumored to blame Hikasa for having a lax attitude. Hikasa never returns to the franchise.
So where to go when your latest show is a punchline? Let's turn to the guy who was responsible for bringing Rider back after all of this time -- Takatera. This was perhaps a double-edged sword. Continuing his desire to do something new with the franchise, Takatera brings us a show...completely unlike any Kamen Rider or henshin hero series. When he did this with Kuuga, it worked, because it still had the core ingredients of Kamen Rider: it said what Kamen Rider needed to say, and it worked as a piece of superhero fiction. Hibiki veers into the direction of self-indulgence. No matter what you think of the show's quality -- I've come to like it over time -- you can't deny it's just bizarre. You have to do some mental gymnastics in order to twist it into fitting a Kamen Rider mold.
So I think Takatera, like Hikasa, came in a little over-confident. So he didn't give a shit about what was expected, just did his own thing and...it bit him on the ass. He was again working too slowly and over budget. His vision was so strange and against what was expected of Rider that Toei actually fired him -- AND his writers -- this time, which is pretty unheard of. They had to be VERY unhappy with Hibiki to do that. And who do they turn to save them? Shirakura, who brings in Inoue. And despite Shirakura promising that he wouldn't alter what the show was doing too much, he and Inoue go on to completely undo all the show had been building up to at that point, abandoning its entire purpose, leaving a lot of unhappy fans and cast members in its wake.
If you're a Hibiki fan, then the weirdness appealed to you. It was such a departure that, even if it didn't feel like Kamen Rider to you, you at least appreciated the fresh feel. And it does have a throwback kind of vibe to, maybe not Kamen Rider, but some tokus of old. The show had a unique pace and atmosphere that it just totally jettisoned once Shirakura and Inoue take over, with a visibly reduced budget. Maybe I'm harsh to say Takatera was self-indulgent, maybe it was a really personal work to him, because he's been quite bitter about the way things were handled and is rumored to have beef with Shirakura because of it. (Despite what you may think of Hibiki, you have to admit that it was a gutsy move by Toei to even make it. They certainly wouldn't take such a huge chance nowadays. That's why we've just been getting Gaim over and over and over again.)
It's 2006 and Rider's 35th anniversary. Let's not rock the boat -- that Shirakura guy's worked out well for us, so let's get him back. And this is a turning point for Shirakura, the beginning of his path to becoming a supervillain...
Shirakura strolls in for the big anniversary show, confident he'll save the day. He's had three successful Rider shows under his henshin belt. He was the one they turned to to salvage Hibiki. He had just remade the original Rider in his image with the buzzed about Kamen Rider The First. He's overly confident. He thinks he doesn't even have to make an effort, that anything he touches would be a guaranteed hit, anyway; cast some idols, have some flashy designs, and that's all you need. Not wanting to use Inoue yet again, Shirakura finally breaks free of him and brings in writer Souji Yonemura, who...honestly? The guy seems like he's just a puppet of Shirakura's. He's not a good writer with any sort of redeeming value or vision, and he just ends up doing a poor imitation of Inoue (who was already slipping into being a poor imitation of himself by this point).
It doesn't matter. As long as it's not weirdos beating monsters to death with trumpets. And, of course, Kabuto was a success, launching quite a few careers. Shirakura feels bullet-proof. Next up for Rider? Oh, boy... A show that's so un-Ridery that it makes Hibiki look like V3!
Kabuto was a goofy show. Unintentionally. It did a lot of stupid shit that people were uncertain if it was meant to be comedic or was accidentally comedic. The show spent most of its time thinking it was so cool; I think it was unintentionally goofy. But it was a complete self-parody of all of the worst parts of what was happening to Heisei Rider -- the soapy style, the trying too hard to get the attention of housewives, the muddled mysteries. So I guess the thinking with Den-O was "Well, let's do a show that's MEANT to be comedic." Shirakura gets Kobayashi again. Remember, at the time of Ryuki, Kobayashi boasted in interviews that she had never watched Kamen Rider. I don't think anyone who ever watched ANY Kamen Rider could have come up with the franchise-destroying Den-O.
It's the beginning of Shirakura the troll. He's like "I can do anything, and it will be a success. I can make the Rider a wheezing little twerp and give him a bunch of stupid Robocon buddies for Bandai, and we can just make the stupidest show imaginable! Everybody will eat it up! I can't be stopped! I think I might be God." And it, of course, was a smash hit.
Personally, at the time Den-O aired, I didn't like it but DID think Rider needed a cleansing by comedy. After getting bogged down with Faiz's teen angst and Blade's bungled dramatics and Kabuto being an unintentional parody, I thought Rider DID need to make a genuine stab at having a comedic series. But never did I think Den-O was good enough to STILL be clinging around. If it had just left after its year was up, I wouldn't have such vitriol for it. But Toei just won't let it go. And it gave birth to Shirakura the supervillain, who felt like he could do whatever he wanted to the franchise -- warp it beyond recognition -- and he'll just laugh and laugh while the yen rolls in.
After that, Shirakura protege Naomi Takebe steps in to produce Kiva. It's very evident she's a Shirakura pal, as her work feels very similar and she shares that "don't give a fuck" attitude that makes you question if she even likes this stuff. Inoue returns to write Kiva but is just going through the motions. Kiva, having the misfortune of following money-maker Den-O, tries to chase that show's success -- Bandai now looking for areas to shove more and more of their junk. Kiva splits the fandom and is mostly forgotten...
So, having worked on nearly every Heisei Rider production, it's a no-brainer to turn to Shirakura to produce Decade, the big Heisei anniversary celebration. Decade's an instant mess that I don't even want to go into. The obvious intention was to bring back old Riders, but since a lot of their actors were inexplicably popular, they went on to have success that took them to another tier from toku -- so there wasn't a chance they'd return. The idea of Godai coming back to be a mentor to the new Rider? That sounds pretty cool! Oh, shit, Joe Odagiri became too popular. (And he's Team Takatera.) Well, let's just make a new guy Kuuga! Shirakura, chasing gimmicks, decides to have Decade follow the trend of Hollywood reboots and decides to recast every Rider and make the show about parallel worlds, kind of defeating the purpose of even celebrating the anniversary of these shows. Even worse? Decade runs out of steam and abandons its entire purpose -- celebrating ten years of Heisei Riders -- by incorporating Showa Riders into the mix! These rebooted characters are often foolish, their shows mocked; Shirakura saying that these characters, these shows, aren't important. Not content to ruin just the Heisei heroes, he's found a way to ruin characters and shows of the past as well.
Decade's a big, flashy production that entertains the "turn your brain off!" types with its shininess and is therefore successful. However, a lot of longtime fans complain about the show's re-casting and parallel worlds. The show's not genuinely liked but liked for the sake of memes, mockery, or just style. Decade launched all of those terrible Taisen crossover movies, which brought the same shittiness and lack of respect for ALL Toei heroes of the past the same way Decade did as a series. And fans weren't really happy with those slapdash, lazy, disrespectful movies. And I think Shirakura, who thinks he's very hip and Hollywood and a god, was insulted by this. It was intended to be his last big hoorah before the franchise rebooted and went in a different stylistic direction and he rose to a higher rank at Toei, and...these longtime fans were questioning HIM?! Who are they?! Shirakura disappears, like Pennywise being injured in 1950...
W follows Decade, with producer Hideaki Tsukada bringing a more bright, light-hearted and anime-inspired style to the franchise. W is well-liked and its tone influences a majority of the subsequent series. From then on, Rider has a revolving door of producers and writers, as the real rulemaker in this post-Den-O age has taken control -- Bandai. Shirakura lurks, but has moved on, working on Rider movies and getting his jollies by further ridiculing heroes in promotional Net movies. He's critical of Rider at this stage, making the adult-aimed Amazons for Amazon Prime. He returns to produce the 20th anniversary celebration Zi-O, a culmination of all of the worst aspects of his work for the franchise: ridiculous designs, stupid character motivations, and ignoring legacy characters the show's meant to celebrate.
The downfall of Kamen Rider comes from hubris. And, surprisingly, not just Shirakura, but Takatera, for whatever the fuck he was thinking when developing Hibiki, not recognizing its potential to alienate viewers. But Shirakura's definitely the bigger culprit. Not only for his apathetic views, his cockiness, but also the bitterness when fans started criticizing his work. Trollish attempts at getting back at them or riling them up became a strong motivator of his. And that's just not a genuine creative reason to do something. It's empty. He's always been irreverent, his works lacking sentimentality and heart, but I've often wondered if Shirakura actually just hates tokusatsu and superheroes. On one hand, I can't picture anyone devoting so much of their life to working on these shows if they have such contempt for them. On the other...look at the evidence! (Especially when you look at Zenkaiger, which pisses all over sacred things, because Shirakura especially doesn't give a damn about Super Sentai. His "concepts of a 5 year plan" ended up killing the franchise in 4, and he was all too happy to pull the plug on it.)
So I think Shirakura felt bitter towards fans, and that egged him on to keep making things shittier. I also think, deep down, he would have probably preferred to go out on something "cool" like Faiz, and kind of resents that his legacy will be Den-O, that stupid piece of useless shit that has nothing going for it, no soul in its goofy husk. He's not happy that he won't have a work of quality to be remembered by -- a Jetman, a Kuuga -- but absolute shit like Den-O. And so his solution was to just set fire to everything. Make everything as dumb as Den-O. Destroy it all. Even older shows, through remakes and terrible Taisen team-ups. Lower the bar on everything so he has easier aim to piss on it. Den-O broke Kamen Rider and all it stood for. (Literally: remember that Shirakura-produced OOO movie where his Den-O idiots undid the entire history of Kamen Rider.) But all that matters in show business for the fuckos in charge is the business part of it -- it doesn't matter how bad Den-O is, just how much money it made. And, god, did it make a lot of money, so someone like Shirakura is their golden boy. Let's keep trying his style. Shirakura broke Kamen Rider, but as long as they just keep trying to chase Den-O's anime idiocy, hoping for that next success, making shows where quality isn't the priority, where the gimmicks become even more ridiculous, then there will be a lot of abominations and, guys, for the sake of the environment, we've GOTTA put a stop to Ishinomori's grave-spinning.
I've previously described Heisei Kamen Rider as a flash in the pan. While I enjoy shows like Ryuki and Hibki and W, for example, I think Kuuga and Agito are the best, the truly great shows. Two good shows. Rider may have survived execution this time, but in terms of quality, it died as quickly as the attempts at revival in the late '70s and '80s. All of Takatera's achievements at changing the face of the franchise -- taking it more seriously, making it more realistic -- have been undone. Kamen Rider went from wanting to be a serious drama to wanting to be a soap with anime elements to a plain soap to being like a video game adaptation of an anime to now being a TV-Kun bonus video. Kamen Rider has lost all of its soul, purpose and identity, all for the sake of yennies. It died out as quickly as it returned, but Toei's just seeing dollar signs and milking it by completely warping it. So it's also dying an extremely slow, embarrassing death. Kamen Rider was killed by Shirakura in the Den Liner with the candlestick.
I was thinking of past Toei toku producers and how long their runs lasted. There's someone like Toru Hirayama, a very important figure in shaping Toei's henshin heroes, whose reign was mostly the '70s. Susumu Yoshikawa worked on multiple shows at once, several of which are beloved, for about 15 years before moving on. Takeyuki Suzuki revitalized Sentai, working on the franchise for about 15 years. Jun Hikasa has a career dating back to the '80s, spending about 20 years in the world of toku. Shirakura's into his fourth decade as producer, working on shows he apparently loathes. (He's said he first got into Sentai in college because it was so stupid and weird -- you know those types. The guy spent his youth making toku parodies on 8mm. Probably all shit that's as funny as the Rider Net movies. That might be the worst part of Shirakura -- that he thinks he's so funny. ) He doesn't have the interest, passion, creativity, heart, or integrity of any of those other producers. He's become caught up in simply just making money and disposable shows that might please people as they watch but have no lasting effect or legacy -- they're instantly forgettable. The success of his superficial shows continues to affect the way modern productions are handled, he remains a lurking presence behind-the-scenes and the new guard that's hired are either his protégés or share a similar view of toku. He changed toku for the worse, tainting all areas of toku -- past and present. His lack of care and irreverence has warped Toei's henshin heroes -- poisoned them -- and, even after Shirakura retires, it will take a considerable amount of time for Toei's tokus to recover.
I think of what David Fricke once said about the Ramones, how they weren't financially successful but extremely successful in terms of changing a genre of music and inspiring people: "There's a big difference between selling a million records and changing history." (Paraphrased.) Someone like Takatera made good work and changed history, Shirakura just made money. Shirakura's one of his own protagonists -- destroyer of franchises.
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