Internet traffic is apparently increasing because of the "stay home" policy to combat the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic. Any other year, I would have happily gone out during the Golden Week holiday period, but this year I had no choice but to stay home.
So I watched "Kamen Rider" again for the first time in a long while via a streaming site. The tokusatsu sci-fi superhero TV drama franchise started in 1971 with this series and has led to the present-day Reiwa "Kamen Rider" shows. The original series featured Kamen Rider and Kamen Rider 2-Go, or No. 2, in their prime.
Kamen Rider's human persona is Takeshi Hongo, who was played by Hiroshi Fujioka. The actor was injured in an accident during filming and Kamen Rider 2-Go, or Hayato Ichimonji played by Takeshi Sasaki, stepped in. After Fujioka recovered, the two Kamen Riders appeared together in several "Double Rider" episodes, which were very popular.
The drama is nearly 50 years old, and visually, you can tell. For example, since there were no visual effects, if you look closely -- you don't actually have to look that closely -- you will see that an enemy boss, who appears to make an eerie entrance with his men while saying something menacing and then disappears, is just him standing up and squatting again. Since it was before modern cell phones were invented, the characters often found themselves in trouble after missing each other. The stories were pretty simple as well.
It's all very interesting nonetheless. I obviously know that Kamen Rider will prevail in the end since I've seen the show nearly 50 years ago, yet I still found myself a little nervous while watching a deadly battle between Kamen Rider and a kaijin monster villain. I even unwittingly screamed, "Ushiro! Ushiro! [Behind you! Behind you!]." Transformation sequences of Kamen Riders still make me feel excited. I don't know how to put it in words, but I can still feel the passion from the production team, even half a century later, and it still tugs at my heartstrings.
Of course, it's not a bad thing that superhero shows today have sophisticated visual effects and discuss modern subjects, such as the cohabitation of humans and artificial intelligence. But their extremely analog and primitive ancestor is timeless. Why don't you watch the show using technology from nearly 50 years after it originally aired, like via a streaming site?
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