(photo credit: Power Rangers Wiki)
Power Rangers may be known by non-fans a group of animal or sometimes ninja -looking superheroes with spandex fighting rubber monsters to save the day with a low budget. But what they may not know is that show is based on a Japanese TV series called Super Sentai in which Power Rangers gets its footage and costumes from. And the company that owns the franchise also owns the Kamen Rider series, another superhero series that is a little more than spandex.
(photo credit: Kamen Rider Wiki)
(photo credit: TV Tropes)
(photo credit: Kamen Sentai)
Kamen Rider aired its first season in 1971 and became an extremely popular TV show in Japan. The concept is a human who gets an operation to become a cyborg by evil forces but harnesses the power for good. The hero is known as “Kamen Rider” who wears a “kamen,” which means ”mask” in the Japanese language, and rides a motorcycle.
Kamen Riders used to have a quite simple design with spandex and a few armors until the series reached the year 2000, with the riders having a more armor-like design with a wide range of motifs. This includes: grasshoppers, vampire, Wizards, and even cars despite of the word “rider.”
(photo credit: JEFusion)
This year, the franchise celebrates its 45th anniversary with a rider nobody could have possibly imagined its debut: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. The show just started on Oct. 2, and three episodes have aired so far.
(photo credit: TV Tropes)
1. The Rider is a doctor. Protagonist Emu Hojo is a novice Doctor who's just too climbs but truly cares about his patients. He’s the kind who injures himself three times on the first episode but shows the most care to patients with his kind personality.
2. The doctor is a gamer. Know as the genius gamer “M,” Emu has won numerous gaming competitions in the past. In fact, he was chosen to become Ex-Aid due to his high level gaming skills (whether that makes sense or not). Once he's into the virtual world, his kindhearted personality becomes passionate and aggressive.
(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)
3. Video games grant the hero super powers. What’s hilarious is that Japan’s plan to obliterate the computer virus known as Bugster Virus to protect humans is using a freakin’ video game. Each Kamen Rider on the show has his own unique Rider Gashat, a device where the power is stored, and inserts it into the Gamer Driver to change into Kamen Rider. Ex-Aid in particular uses the Mighty Action X Gashat, a pink Gashat that is based on a new action game Mighty Action X that appears on the show. Other Kamen RIders posses Gahsats based on RPGs, shooting games, and more kinds that will appear in future episodes.
(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)
4. Level up! Just like how characters increase their levels in games, so does Ex-Aid and the other riders. At the chubby level 1, Ex-Aid utilizes the items scattered throughout the game area and conducts an “operation” to separate his patient from the Bugster Virus. When he levels up to 2, he is in full fighting mode to defeat the “boss” of the operation.
(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)
5. Doctors fight each other . The story focuses on “true heroes” that save people from computer viruses that started appearing five years ago, while the Doctor riders fight against each other for their own beliefs about being a doctor. As a matter of fact, the doctors start fighting against each other on episode 2. As of now, that’s all that is revealed is the rider battle and that the hospital Emu works at has ties with a video game company GENM which provided the doctors with their transformation devices.
So there you go, a little insight into Superheroes from the other side of the globe. If you are accustomed to the American rangers, this must be quite shocking in some ways, but believe it or not, fans are already used to Kamen Rider’s unexpectable ideas that actually make them who they are. I will leave the link to the theme song to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid because it’s so dang catchy.
So until I come back, good bye!
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