For a long time, in the three major tokusatsu series in Japan (Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Super Team), "Kamen Rider" is in a bit of an awkward situation and has always been in a tepid state.
While Ultraman was growing in popularity with popular characters such as Diga, and Super Team quickly gained popularity overseas through spin-offs such as "Dinosaur Team", Kamen Rider took an unusually "smooth" path.
After 50 years of precipitation, Kamen Rider, although not the most beautiful, has a small but stable number of loyal fans.
As tokusatsu IPs such as "Ultraman" and "Godzilla" continue to innovate (such as the launch of live-action movie versions), attracting more and more "cute new" to join the tokusatsu circle, Kamen Rider's IP certainly cannot stand still.
At the end of October, the tokusatsu drama "Kamen Rider Black Sun" directed by Kazuya Shiraishi, director of the popular crime film "Lone Wolf's Blood" series, starring veteran movie stars such as Hidetoshi Nishijima and Renya Nakamura, was launched.
This live-action version changes the Kamen Rider style of the previous "middle two fantasy", and instead uses large-scale violent scenes and a more realistic metaphorical style to tap the potential of this superhero IP.
"New Kamen Rider" will be released in Japan in March 2023
After the broadcast of "Kamen Rider Black Day", it was welcomed by fans and ordinary audiences, coupled with the warm-up of the movie version of "New Kamen Rider" by the great director Hideaki Kuno next year, the popularity of this image gradually heated up.
So today, let's look at the story behind this IP from the perspective of a "bystander", and what is innovative about this large-scale "Kamen Rider Black Sun".
1987 Kamen Rider Black
Before talking about "Black Sun", we might as well popularize the background and setting of "Kamen Rider".
In 1969, due to a long period of low ratings, Osaka Mainichiki decided to entrust Toei Corporation (the animator of Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya) to produce a new heroic work.
Since the budget was not sufficient, Osaka TV wanted Toei to use the human image as a model, abandon the popular gigantic tokusatsu style, and take a realistic battle line.
In 1954, Toho's film "Godzilla" caused a sensation throughout Japan
So after two years of intensive creation, manga artist Shotaro Ishimori, the original "Kamen Rider" created with transformation and masks as the main gimmicks came out and began to be broadcast on Japanese .NET TV.
Compared to Ultraman, who was born a "superhero", the early Kamen Rider's life is often more tragic.
Often mortally injured or coerced into artificial humans, they decide to incarnate "Kamen Rider" to fight the forces of evil after witnessing the cruel fate of human modification and weirdos.
In keeping with the theme of "makeover", the Kamen Rider figure is inspired by various insects.
This also explains why Kamen Rider's holsters have fly-like compound eyes, and even the special moves are flying kicks that jump high in the air, which are actually replicating the abilities of insects in reality.
In the mind of the original author Shotaro Ishimori, insects are the animals that best represent nature, and coupled with the popular discussion of nature destruction, people and the world in tokusatsu dramas at that time, insects became the best imitation objects for Kamen Rider.
To date, Kamen Rider has released more than 25 works, but its external image still maintains some common features, such as insect-like eyes, belts, motorcycles, mutations, and so on.
Although from the perspective of adults, the Kamen Rider series looks a little naïve in terms of the quality of the holster and the fight scenes, if you carefully study the spiritual core that the Kamen Rider series wants to express, you will still be infected by their personality charm.
The author, Shotaro Ishimori, paid considerable attention to the principle of "friend or foe" when designing Kamen Rider.
Knights are both great heroes who save the world and transformed people who are spurned by ordinary people, so they often get caught up in the dilemma of identity and embody the greatness of justice.
And this is also similar to the spiritual core of "Batman: The Dark Knight".
Speaking of the new drama, as a commemorative work for the 50th anniversary of the series, "Kamen Rider Black Day" is adapted from the classic tokusatsu drama "Kamen Rider Black" in 1987.
However, the new work does not simply reproduce the story and setting of the original, but reinterprets a new story with these classic images.
In the original story, Kotaro Minami, a young man transformed into Kamen Rider, fights wits with the ancient weirdo organization "Gorgom", which is trying to conquer the world.
In the end, he defeats his arch-nemesis "Kagegetsu" Nobuhiko Akizuki, while crushing the ambitions of the leader of the weirdo organization, the Genesis King, and lifting the crisis on Earth.
In the new work "Black Sun", the story revolves around the survival of the weirdo race and social problems.
In the rebooted world, weirdos are widespread in Japanese society and face severe discrimination and can only survive in the cracks at the bottom.
The villain organization "Gorgom" turned into a political party, fighting for the rights of eccentrics through movement struggles, and later colluded with the Japanese authorities, gradually revealing its ambitions.
Our protagonist, Kotaro Minami, as a reformer, will participate in a three-way struggle between politics, weirdos, and reformers, and the tragedy of the same origin of friend and foe will continue to haunt the justice he insists on...
As one of the few adult-oriented works in the series, the bloody action scenes of "Black Sun" are undoubtedly a highlight.
In the film, the fight scenes are extremely bloody, and pictures such as severed limbs and blood spraying are endless, it can be said that under the violent aesthetic style of director Shiraishi and Ya, Kamen Rider also has a cult film texture.
Putting aside the large-scale fight scenes, the large number of political metaphors and historical bridges in "Black Day" is also a major reason for the film's restrictive level.
Despite the disclaimer that "the story is purely fictional", this work can be regarded as a satirical work dressed in the guise of Kamen Rider.
For example, under the main story line of "racial issues" hides the hereditary system of the prime minister, the government's strong desire for war, and human experiments that have been carried out in secret.
This idea of combining historical reality with the sci-fi tokusatsu theme adds a certain depth and realism to "Black Sun", and is also very suitable for the image of Kamen Rider's own tragic hero.
At the same time, a large number of handheld photography and subtle empty lenses also add a sense of realism and presence to the work.
Paired with the overall cold tone, "Black Sun" completely got rid of the shackles of Kamen Rider's youth, and took a solid step for the entire series to come out of the circle.
If you've never been exposed to this series, you might as well start with this "Kamen Rider Black Sun", maybe it will make you regain the excitement of watching tokusatsu dramas like Ultraman as a child.
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from Douban and the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact us.