Kamen Rider's Identity Crisis Or Evolving Identity?

Kamen Rider might be a show that has possibly hit an identity crisis. A franchise is usually called to reinvent itself. Take Super Sentai having reinvented itself until it could no longer sustain itself. In fact, the period of 2021-2026 was a five-series finale for the series. Kamen Rider was a series that reinvented itself more often than it did -- resulting in a series of good and bad results. I feel the series may have an identity crisis (and funny enough, I'm PROBABLY ENJOYING IT). 

The Showa era reviewed 

Kamen Rider was a show that had that shaky start (during the Showa Era). One may notice that the Showa-era Kamen Rider entries were basically not a yearly thing. Just think how Kamen Rider Stronger and Kamen Rider Skyrider had a four-year gap. Kamen Rider Super-1 and Kamen Rider BLACK had a six-year gap. BLACK was supposed to be a reboot, but yeah, Toei got greedy and decided to create Kamen Rider BLACK RX. I believe that BLACK RX was supposed to end an era. BLACK RX was also a show that was caught in between the Showa Era and the Heisei era. Bringing back the Legacy Riders for BLACK RX's finale was really a closing-the-book act. There was an 11-year hiatus that happened between BLACK until we had Kamen Rider Kuuga. Toei chose to focus on Metal Hero until they decided to "close the book" with Robotack -- even giving a grim and gloomy clickbait title to tell the audience Metal Hero had just closed its book! 

The 1990s were a peculiar era. Did Toei really think that Metal Hero was more feasible or did they want to try new concepts? Metal Hero was the least uniformed -- it went from Space Sheriffs (the Trilogy) to the Rescue Police (and Kido Keiji Jiban was partly one), then we had the 1990-1993 era of Metal Hero were the shows are more mature than you think. For example, Tokosou Robo Janperson can come up more depressing than the Robocop TV series that came a year later. Think how Janperson was Robocop LITE but plenty of episodes aren't light. Toei could've even rebooted Kamen Rider in the 1990s, but chose to simply "cut down the workload".

Let's take a look at the history, shall we?

The Heisei era experimentation with continuous narrative storytelling

However, Shotaro Ishinomori died in 1998 -- three days after his 60th birthday on January 28, 1998, at ONLY 60 YEARS OLD. Two years later, Kamen Rider would have its first official reboot during the start of the new millennium. that show. I always felt that the Classic Henshin page isn't welcome to the badly-needed change. We need to be grateful to Ishinomori for bringing us Super Sentai and Kamen Rider. However, we also need to realize that a series needs to evolve or even end when need be. Kamen Rider was that show that had to make badly-needed adjustments.

Its should be amazing that 2000 A.D. brought for all of us. Super Sentai seemed to "end" when Mirai Sentai Timeranger was on air. Super Sentai seemed to have a reboot for several times -- until it finally went off with No. 1 Sentai Gozyuger. Apparently, Toei didn't want to wait until Kamen Rider turned 30. Instead, Toei chose a BLANK SLATE to be approved. The formula drastically changed from the more nonsensical theatrics of Kamen Rider villains to "more mature themes". Yes, even the most kiddie one like Kamen Rider Gotchard have that mature outlook while remaining a children's show.

Kamen Rider Kuuga dropped the old Ishinomori formula. A lot of stuff from the old era was gone, such as:

• The "Great Leader" has just become a punching bag for non-canon crossover series. Yes, talk about a massive demotion.
• Gone are the days of the cyborg hero that Ishinomori once created. 
• The heroes actually struggle a lot more than the Showa era. BLACK RX felt invincible. However, Kuuga was a hero who had to learn stuff before he mastered the craft.
• The Gurongi weren't dreaming of the typical half-brained plots. Instead, Kuuga must deal with the Grongi with their deadly predatorial ganes that are hard to predict. 
• Kuuga once dropped the whole concept of hyperspace to create weapons. The titular hero had to find objects to become his weapons. This concept was thankfully dropped despite Kuuga succeeding the reboot.

One may notice the formula went from episodic storytelling. The Showa era featured half-brained villains who kept creating one absurd plan after another. For example, BLACK had the Gorgom creating really scary but also convoluted plans for world domination. Gorgom was scary on paper; it's a threat on paper, but several plans like necklace unleashing bees or trapping people in silk coccoons, or a goat cult are scary but also convoluted. The sequel BLACK RX had Crisis Empire also creating really dumb plots for world domination. The Showa Era villains usually created dumb plans and went off focus. Why would we spend more time unleashing one idiotic plan after the other when the plan was to get the Kingstone from Kotaro in BLACK? Why spend so much time with absurd plans in BLACK RX if the Crisis Empire must migrate its invading army in less than a year? LMAO!

The Heisei Era started with crazy stuff like:

• Kamen Rider Agito tried to become a whole show where it's filled with so much spoilers. I still call this show Toshiki Inoue's magnum opus. I don't care too much what the later people said about Inoue. I blame Toei's overworking Inoue why screwed up much later on. Come on, give the man a break! I'm afraid Agito's getting flak only because well, Inoue! This was the first Kamen Rider to master the art of serialized storytelling better than its predecessor, Kuuga.
• Kamen Rider Ryuki was the biggest mold-breaking series. It didn't deal with the MOTWs but Kamen Riders fighting for that One Wish. I even felt Takeshi Asakura aka Kamen Rider Ouja was the show's version of Sword Saint Bilgenia from BLACK. This show was too ambitious for its own good. The Reset Button ending was most likely a product of executive meddling. Come on, it's too obvious that Shinji and Renn were supposed to die. Too many complaints probably caused the show's ending to be hit that way and it was a REAL LIFE WRITES PLOT.  This was the first with Yasuko Kobayashi as the head writer. Inoue was a secondary writer.
• Kamen Rider Faiz was entirely written by Inoue. Heck, Inoue even wrote the whole show from start to end. This was a series that explored the prejudice between baseline humans and Orphnochs. 
• Kamen Rider Blade was also all about the Undead and collecting them back. Pure nightmare fuel!
• Kamen Rider Hibiki was boring AF for me. Heck, not even Inoue replacing the head writer Tyuyoshi Kida changed anything. Yeah, Inoue stared to slip down here. 
• Kamen Rider Kabuto had Shoji "Patrick Star" Yonemura. It should be interesting that this series could be Toei's final word on why they canceled Metal Hero for good while honoring it.
• Kamen Rider Den-O moved from heavy nightmare fuel towards a lighter show. Once again, Kobayashi returned, and I feel like, if it's not Inoue, then it's Kobayashi that gets overused. This when back to the two-parter MOTW plot. 
• Kamen Rider Kiva was Inoue's well, low-tier moment. I love this show but I must accept that the fans can be divided. The show had great moments but Inoue wrote a hodge-podge because he was freaking tired. This was similar to how Hirohisa Soda ended writing Kosoku Sentai Turboranger and Chikyu Sentai Fiveman because he was too tired.
• Kamen Rider Decade was the 10th entry. I still call this the "spiritual successor" of Saban's Masked Rider (which I call Mashed Rider). The series itself lasted for only 31 episodes. Sure, it's miles better than Saban's Masked Rider but I felt that the show still did poorly. However, Tsukasa Kadoya still shows up in crossovers, unlike what happened to Dex in Saban's Masked Rider. Each arc had two episodes each. 

The second half created even more new stuff. Kamen Rider W began airing on September 6. This was probably done to prevent "cannibalism" of Bandai merchandise. The second half of the Heisei era was mixing stuff. We had the following:

• Kamen Rider W moved to the 2-in-1 hero approach. Shotaro merged with Philip's soul to become the titular hero. It's also amazing this was the first Kamen Rider series where defeating the MOTW reverted them back to human form. Kamen Rider Fourze would soon follow.
• Kamen Rider OOO was where I felt Kobayashi was "playing it safe". It would be interesting because it relied on some form of comedy. Most of the show played on two-parter stories in relation to human desires gone bad. The Greeed took advantage of that. I wonder why the Greeed never thought of using Kousei Kogami as a host?!
• Fourze repeated W's formula of MOTWs that were normal humans corrupted by the enemy. Fourze was the first to use a school environment for a Kamen Rider series. So yeah, this show in 2011 actually made Saban's Masked Rider crash some more.
• Kamen Rider Wizard decided to focus on magic as the theme. However, it went for the lighter and softer path -- a path that Kiva took.
• Kamen Rider Gaim repeated the Battle Royale plot from Ryuki. I may hate the ToQGer/Gaim crossover (it's still bad for me). However, I find Gaim to be quite good thanks to Gen Urobuchi and fixing Ryuki's apparently forced by censors ending. It was visiting an interesting concept and doing it right ten years and some months later! This used heavily serialized storytelling once more like W up to Wizard.
• Kamen Rider Drive was the first series to have a police station theme. Most of the plots here were two-parters per MOTW. A very standard formula. I somehow wished that this show took the Robocop plot by turning Shinnosuke Tomari into a cyborg after he was murdered by a Roidmude early on. Instead, they chose to use Agent Cody Banks and Knight Rider. Pfft! But still love this show!
• Kamen Rider Ghost was what I'd call nothing special. I'm better off watching Kiva again. If I want to watch history, I'll watch Discovery on YouTube.
• Kamen Rider Amazons was a mature spin-off not for kids. So yeah, these series were never meant for the long run.
• Kamen Rider Ex-AID was a series that got cut short to 44 episodes, presumably due ot the planned new Super Hero Time scheduling block. It was still mostly two-parter arcs for MOTW.
• Kamen Rider Build was the first series to slowly try moving away from the MOTW towards more dramatic storytelling. This series was an unusual return to the darker, edgier days of Kamen Rider without otherwise being as dark as Faiz.
• Kamen Rider Zi-O was a series that began in the Heisei era and then migrated towards the Reiwa era.

Part 2: The Reiwa era's challenge

This was when the Legacy Virus took hold. Kamen Rider Zero-One was a series that got hit by it. Zero-One felt like "a safe bet" (at the start) at times, and it had a hiatus due to the Legacy Virus. The series could've reintroduced the cyborg Kamen Rider concept, but instead chose to be "back to basics". However, during the Reiwa era, this can be explored:

• Zero-One, like Build, slowly moved away from the MOTW plot and focused on corporate warfare and politics. However, the Legacy Virus may have forced some "forced plts" like Gai Amatsu to be remorseful. I feel Gai's redemption was because of the Legacy Virus pandemic. The main actor, Fumiya Takashi, had caught the Legacy Virus, but thankfully, not Delta!
• Kamen Rider Saber was the first attempt at heavy use of CGI -- something that would be used in Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger later. Saber had a few MOTWs but then heavily focused on the conflict WITHIN Logos, such as Isaac, the current Master Logos, who went rogue. However, most of the story focuses on Megiddo and Storious. This series is a rollercoaster ride.
• Kamen Rider Revice may have some people split. I thought about watching it even though Subaru Kimura Bartsch had that plateface controversy. The series starts with some light beginnings, but it gets more and more intense towards the finale. There are times I feel like Sakura Igarashi unintentionally steals the show, not by her good looks but because Ayaka Imoto just kept giving her all. 
• Kamen Rider Geats returns to the Battle Royale, serialized storytelling. It also has that Squid Game feel of a watchable mess.
• I confess that both Kamen Rider Gotchard and Kamen Rider Gavv are times when I hit the taste-fatigue zone for the nth time. Gotchard had that Digimon feel. Gavv feels like it would probably sell Regent food cakes if it ever airs in the Philippines.
• The recent Kamen Rider Zeztz has a lot of gratuitous English. So far, this is where dreams can turn into nightmares. So far, the battle royale theme is kicking in some more. 

My own take?

It feels like Kamen Rider can't decide between these two formulas by the Reiwa era:

• The MOTW that lingers for two episodes. This was the formula that Kuuga started. Every arc finished has a cliffhanger to the next arc, most of the time. 
• The serialized storytelling, where MOTWs show up when the plot needs it, like Agito introduced the formula.
• Continuous narrative was introduced with Kamen Rider Ryuki. That's where every episode is a highly explosive battle with a cliffhanger towards the end.

I was thinking that the Kamen Rider series probably works for adults better. Apparently, Toei felt that the new Kamen Rider series was better off with the serialized storytelling. It actually differentiated itself from the Super Sentai standard storytelling (which King-Ohger tried to do with a continuous narrative over the standard storytelling). 

In my case, I believe that Kamen Rider has evolved its identity over time. If the show had stayed in the Ishinomori style, then the franchise wouldn't have evolved past and may have died with Ishinomori. Instead, the show knew it had to evolve beyond the standard formula. Right now, I'm viewing Kamen Rider's failures and successes as lessons in innovation.