Why I Feel "Kamen Rider" Became More Popular Than "Masked Rider"

As Christmas is around the corner, I still remembered one time I didn't want to grow up or still browsed for Bandai merchandise. Yeah, you know normies vs. "mutants", right? I remembered one time I went to a toy store. It was the time when that rather bad adaptation called Saban's Masked Rider (preferably called Mashed Rider to differentiate it from the real term) was there. There were some toys of Mashed Rider sold alongside the Kamen Rider BLACK RX vinyl toys (which was the source material). The salesperson said one was Kamen Rider and the other was Masked Rider. That time, people never knew they were both synonyms to each other. There were also some Kamen Rider SD toys. It was also that time when IBC-13 aired Kamen Rider BLACK as MASKED Rider BLACK. Though, it could be erroneously captioned as MASK RIDER instead of the correct translation as Masked Rider. These terms tend to get confused. I even wonder why Toei Ltd. even allowed Saban Entertainment to use the term Masked Rider instead? Hmmm... I guess for the same reason why Marvel Comics allowed Saban to title the X-Men: The Animated Series with X-Men on it? 

I felt Filipinos were too accustomed to the term "Masked Rider" for a very long time. Many of the Kamen Rider shows were aired under the title "Masked Rider". Well, until now, I still find it weird that Kamen Rider is airing in the Philippines but not Super Sentai. Kamen Rider is known as Ksatriya Baja in Indonesia. Heck, I even remembered a candy item before that had the caption "Kstatriya Baja Hitam RX" which is Masked Rider BLACK RX in English. Later, I remembered owning the Kamen Rider 1 game which the intro had the caption "The Masked Rider". Well, it's basically still the Masked Rider. Ichigo should be called The First Masked Rider. I only learned the term kamen meant masked from a Questor magazine. I already forgot the issue. So basically, Kamen Rider and Masked Rider are the same franchise just like how Rockman is known as Megaman to the international audience. 

It seemed the term Masked Rider started to gain less popularity worldwide for a reason. I don't blame the failure that's Mashed Rider for it. Kamen Rider Decade ended with barely half a year. Was it due to the poor ratings or did Toei Ltd. really have other reasons? I find it weird BLACK RX suffered from low ratings yet it had more episodes than its rushed predecessors like Kamen Rider X, Kamen Rider Amazon, and Kamen Rider Stronger. I mean, BLACK RX reached 47 episodes which effectively gave Kotaro Minami a total of 98 episodes if one would add BLACK's episode count into it! What was even weird was that Steve Wang called the Ryuki adaptation as KAMEN Rider Dragon Knight instead of Masked Rider Dragon Knight. Why Wang and Toei agreed to that is something. Maybe the term "Kamen Rider" sounded more unique than the English distribution title of "Masked Rider". After Decade ended rather abruptly (which may have turned Kamen Rider into Toei's Turbo Man) - the term Kamen Rider has been used more frequently.

Back then, I still wanted to use the term "Masked Rider" because I grew up with it. Then again Power Rangers was part of my childhood but I ended up disliking it. I can accept Toei is still behind it (that's why calling it bootleg is just stupid) while I'll now admit that blatantly am no fan of it. I still called Kotaro Minami "Robert Akizuki" for a long time - hence why I use Akizuki as part of my pseudonym. Though, I now refer to Kotaro as Kotaro these days. Heck, I can't even affectionately call Takeru from Hikari Sentai Maskman as Michael Joe - choosing the name TAKERU instead. What's bizarre also was how Chodensh Bioman's English dub called Hikaru Katsuragi as KIMBERLY. Yeah, weird and that name would be officially used in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I guess I'm glad that Samurai Sentai Shinkenger never aired in the Philippines or Takeru Shiba will be renamed, Michael Joe Shiba. It was good that Chojin Sentai Jetman kept the original names of the rangers. Though, I still referred to Gai Yuki as Guy Yuuki since there was a Street Fighter character named Guy whose romanization is spelled out as GAI. Though, I doubt Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger would've gotten the same treatment if it was aired on some other channel willing to air it when Mighty Morphin' aired. 

I guess the term got more popularized due to the digital age. I guess no non-Japanese fan would want to refer to the Super Sentai franchise as Super Taskforce. I think any Power Rangers fan checking out Super Sentai has embraced the term "Super Sentai" and wouldn't want to call it "Super Taskforce". Instead, Shout! Factory called the DVD releases Super Sentai DVD releases. Kamen Rider Kuuga and Kamen Rider Zero-One weren't released as Masked Rider Kuuga and Masked Rider Zero-One in the official DVD releases. I guess more of the non-Japanese-speaking fans now prefer to use Kamen Rider instead of Masked Rider. Over time, I myself prefer the term Kamen Rider over Masked Rider. I guess more people think the term Kamen Rider sounds more unique when it sounds like another generic title when you go to Japan.