Kamen Rider Heisei Era Series That Also Focused On Human Evolution!

Just a bit of art here...

Kamen Rider in the Heisei era started tackling human evolution, a topic not so touched upon in Kamen Rider Black. I did notice that while Kuuga had some hits on human evolution, the idea was taken into a huge leap in Kamen Rider Agito.


Agito was a Kamen Rider series that focused on the concept of human evolution, except it dealt with it in a theistic manner. The beginning of Agito felt like a mixture of several Middle Eastern mythos like the Lords look like the gods of Egypt, the concept of dual forces (Light and Darkness represent both day and night) and the concept of man's evolution. The whole question in Agito between the two Overlords is... to evolve or not to evolve, that is the question. The Overlord of Light wished to bestow the power of Agito upon some people while the Overlord of Darkness viewed that human evolution had reached its peak.


Kamen Rider Faiz was yet another series to tackle on the concept of evolution. Unlike Agito, Faiz focuses on mutations rather than theistic evolution. In Faiz, human life is reaching its next stage called the Orphnochs. This causes a war between the Orphnochs and the normal humans, as Smart Brain runs things with the ideology of "survival of the fittest" where only the strong may survive, the weak will perish. If a human could not reach the power of the Orphnoch based on forced evolution, they were not deemed worthy. The whole idea is that basically both Orphnochs and normal humans belong to a common ancestor. This seems to view the idea of natural Darwinism (which is letting the weak perish in due time rather than move forward to destroy them, while giving them the chance or adapt or perish on their own) vs. manipulation of life itself done by Smart Brain.


Kamen Rider Gaim itself was also a series that discussed on human evolution in the Battle Royale for the Golden Fruit. The ideologies are in conflict like Kouta and Kaito. Kouta wants to restore peace and Kaito believes in the survival of the fittest but wants to help the weak become strong enough. Like Ryuki, it also has the ideology of survival of the fittest. Whoever gets the Golden Fruit can decide the fate of humanity's evolution whether it's for the better for for the worse. In the past, the Helheim were also responsible for human evolution's progress. The Golden Fruit would grant anyone godlike powers to use either for good or for evil.