Spoiler:

"Henshin!"

Anyone here a fan of the Kamen Rider franchise? I only just got into the fandom, and I've seen seven episodes of Kamen Rider Ryuki, as everyone says that's the best series. It's pretty good so far, though I don't know if I LOVE it yet. I'll need to watch more. Kamen Rider is pretty famous in Japan, airing for almost 40 whole years. Heck, some asteroids are even named after the first series and an actor who played the titular hero in said first series! I kid you not! Anyway, feel free to talk about your favorite Kamen Rider related stuff here!

Also...I'm planning out a Kamen Rider fan fic series called Kamen Rider Hope. I already have character designs down and fifteen chapters outlined in my little notebook.

Awwww yesssss.

I've been part of the tokusatsu fandom for 2 years now (and a fan of Kamen Rider for about 1 1/2) and I'm really glad to have found those shows because not only are they fun to watch, they also greatly cheer me up when I'm down.

So far, I've seen everything from Kuuga to Drive and Amazon, which makes a total of 17 seasons (Drive's the one that is currently on air) and also the movie-only riders, J (played by the wonderful Mochzuki Yuuta), ZO, Shin, The First, The Next and G.

I haven't watched any Showa Riders aside from Amazon yet, mainly because the only one fully subbed atm is Stronger, if I'm not mistaken and so far, I've felt more like catching up some older seasons of Super Sentai.

The first series I've watched was OOO (though I had seen a few episodes of Decade and W before) and OOO was my favorite for a long time. The story really pulled me in, the designs were wonderful and I love all the characters. But then I watched Blade xD And Blade had all that, but with a stronger impact- even though it took some months for me to come to that conclusion.

I've also done a Kamen Rider Cosplay before, I was the blonde version of Mai from Kamen Rider Gaim

Aaaanyway, glad you enjoy Ryuki so far :3

^ I think there are maybe only about five or six of us overall who like Kamen Rider J. Poor guy never gets any love otherwise, not even from the franchise itself! I also remember at Power Morphicon last year, Yuuta did get a few questions about working on it, but they were mostly about working with Keita Amemiya (as American toku fans seem ridiculously fixated on Garo *rolls eyes*).

Anyway...I've been trying to get myself into more and more Kamen Rider, but it's been hard, especially since a lot of the more recent series haven't grabbed me. My first series was Ryuki back more or less as it was airing in Japan in '02-03, although I had to watch it raw. Despite my very meager Japanese language skills, I really ended up enjoying it! (I also watched about a third to half of Faiz, but lost track of it after a while.) I also tried to track down whatever scattered episodes and movies I could find back then (some Kuuga and Agito here, some Shin and various Showa series there--I can't remember everything offhand), but it was harder to find when fansubs still weren't really a thing yet.

More recently, I watched all of Wizard and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it's not one of the more popular installments. (I liked the magic theme myself.) Gaim and Drive have been kind of a struggle to get into for me, never getting past the first handful of episodes at best. But currently, I'm going back to the Showa era and working my way through Kamen Rider Black, which I'm absolutely loving.

Once I'm done with Black, I plan to continue with its sequel Black RX, then go back and watch the original and more Showa stuff. What can I say? I like that particular aesthetic.

Out of the 90s movie trio, J is by far my favorite. Not just because he's played by Mochi, but also because I love Riders that have some sort of fantasy-theme (which is why I like OOO so much). The only thing I didn't like was his grasshopper companion. That thing looked kinda gross, despite being adorable character-wise xD
Many people seem to prefer ZO, but ZO is pretty much the same as J just with a sci-fi theme.

I can see why you have a hard time with Gaim. I was enjoying the show a lot at first (mainly because it was also the first show I watched from week to week and usually watched it with my friends), but I just don't feel that great when I'm watching Urobuchi's works. Madoka was even less enjoyable to watch than the last bit of Gaim. Drive is kinda okay, it has some great episodes here and there (mixed with some really dumb stuff too), but I love Gou (Kamen Rider Mach).

Wizard wasn't that fun to me, basically because it was a bit boring to watch. On the first watch, it was okay because most of the episodes are at least somewhat enjoyable when you see them for the first time. But most of them are pretty unimportant and the story progress itself is timed really bad throughout the show. Which is a pity, because I like the designs and the story conept and most of the characters and actors (I mean, Haruto's actor even shares my birthday Which is coincidentally the same as Mamoru's, so... Shiraishi Shunya playing Tuxedo Kamen would be awesome!).

My Favorite shows are Blade, OOO, W, Fourze, Agito and Kuuga, but I also like Ryuki, Hibiki (even though the last bit sucks) and Amazon a lot. Kiva, Den-O, Wizard, Gaim and Drive were also kinda cool. Kabuto, Decade and Faiz are my least favorite ones. Totally understand why you never finished Faiz and believe me, you didn't miss anything.

I think my next Rider will either be Stronger or Black, I haven't decided yet because atm, there's so much Sentai to watch

Has anyone seen Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue? I hear that's the darkest incarnation of Kamen Rider yet.

I've seen it. It's much like some sort of Horror movie, but I didn't find that dark. Though personally, the way the story was told wasn't quite my cup of tea. It was pretty violent (even more so than Amazon) and the transformation looked utterly gross... not to mention that it only happened after about an hour or something. I prefer the more action-heavy series with a classic transformation that are a bit less violent. Amazon was an exception because it was kinda violent, but in a pretty cheap and hilarious way, not the gritty dark type.

yush loving Kamen rider even if I've actually only seen one series fully through (W was my introduction and I finished it within days of watching cause Renn Kiriyama does that to me) but I'm also now finishing up the last handful of episodes of Gaim than going back and finishing Den-O, Kiva and Kabuto (Cause i can never get enough of staring at Kazuki Kato) I'll decide what to watch after that. but yea out of all of them so far W is my favorite with Gaim honestly being a close second they have just pulled me in a bit more (not to mention I'm a fan of Renn Kiriyama and Yuki Kubota) but I've also found I enjoy watching Kiva though it is taking me some getting used to so far though I've actually planed to watch the ones I know actors in before I go to the older ones never realized how many i know just from my second favorite musical series. 

In all honesty i'm actually dreading watching Decade wasn't to impressed with his actor in the only other thing I've seen him in and haven't been to impressed with Tsukasa as a character and the couple episodes I've seen it was a struggle to get through (not even Hiroki Aiba and Shogo Suzuki could get me through them any quicker) so yea so far I'm thinking when I get to it Decade will likely be my least favorite.  

But yea I do believe the older ones will be waiting a while I've got a long enough list of shows to watch just with the actors I actually know (and i just realized this was more of a ramble than anything)

Oh yeah, Renn is amazing! I've watched some other drama he played in, but out of those, W will always be my favorite because Shotaro is awesome.

If you go by Prince of Tennis actors, you have quite a lot to watch... Fourze (Ryuki Takahashi as Kengo) and Blade (Ryoji Morimoto as Hajime/Kamen Rider Chalice), for example. I'm always surprised how many Toku actors were in those musicals. Sometimes, I play Tennimyu bingo when a new show comes out xD

yes I've been noticing that (add super sentai to that and I'm going to be watching Toku till the day I die) but yea I've watched a few other drama's with Renn in them (one of which was freaking over run with Tenimyu actors as in every main role) but other drama actors i love also show up in some (Takeru Satoh in a dress is what brought me to Den-o)

I'm not a big fan of Takeru Satoh, tbh. But then again, I'm not that much of a Den-O fan overall, but I love the secondary Rider, Yuuto, played by Yuichi Nakamura. He's soooo likeable

Delayed response to an earlier post, but I watched Shin maybe about 10-12 years ago, although without subs. It was rather gruesome at times, but I found it oddly fascinating. I couldn't really tell you much more than that because it's been such a long time. I should try to find it again.

I think TV-Nihon still has subs for it. That's where my file comes from at least.

Btw, I just started another Rider series because my Maskman episodes were all broken. I watched the first episode of Stronger yesterday. I'm not quite impressed (to be honest, the episode was awful) but let's see what the show has in store. It's not that long either, just 39 episodes.

So Stronger is the second shortest series behind Decade.

Got up to episode 18, and we FINALLY meet Asakura Takeshi, the supposed villain of Ryuki.

Actually, Stronger is the third shortest, because Amazon has only 24 episodes- so Decade is second.

Well, the actual villain of the show is someone else. Asakura/Ouja, is a violent bastard, without a doubt, but he still isn't the big baddie.

Got up to episode 21, and BY GOD Ren gets on my nerves sooooo much!

Ren:

The one who freed Asakura from prison was Kanzaki Shiro, not Ren.

And I don't really remember that much about Ren, tbh (been a while since I watched Ryuki), but mostly I was rather neutral about him. I see why he does what he does- he wants to help his girlfriend, but he also starts to be friends with Shinji, despite knowing that he will have to fight him one day- but yeah, stories like that are better executed in some other series for sure.

Man, I am REALLY behind on Ryuki. PGSM sucked me in and I still haven't completed it.

Kamen Rider is easily one of my favorite series to date. I got started on Decade, been one of my favorite series since (mostly because it got me quickly introduced to the other Heisei Riders). I've seen nearly all of the Heisei era shows, including a few of the Showa era series (that includes the original Kamen Rider series). Personally, my favorite moment of the overall series is probably from Blade, the battle between Tachibana and Isaka.