Kamen Rider (franchise)

Kamen Rider Series
A statue of Kamen Rider 1 outside of Bandai Corporate Headquarters in Taitō, Tokyo
Created by	Shotaro Ishinomori
Original work	Kamen Rider
Films and television
Film(s)	See below
Television series	See below
Games
Traditional	Rangers Strike
Video game(s)	Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbaride Kamen Rider: Climax Heroes All Kamen Rider: Rider Generation Kamen Rider: Battride War
Audio
Original music	Rider Chips, Kamen Rider Girls
Miscellaneous
Toys	Super Imaginative Chogokin Souchaku Henshin S.H. Figuarts

The Kamen Rider Series (Japanese: 仮面ライダーシリーズ, Hepburn: Kamen Raidā Shirīzu, translated as Masked Rider Series) is a metaseries of manga and tokusatsu television programs and films created by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori. The Kamen Rider media generally features a motorcycle-riding superhero with an insect motif who fights supervillains, often known as kaijin (怪人). The franchise began in 1971 with the Kamen Rider television series, which followed college student Takeshi Hongo and his quest to defeat the world-conquering Shocker organization. Its popularity has grown; the original series spawned television and film sequels and launched the Second Kaiju Boom (also known as the Henshin Boom) on Japanese television during the early 1970s, impacting the superhero and action-adventure genres in Japan.

Produced by Toru Hirayama (平山 亨, Hirayama Tōru) and designed by Shotaro Ishinomori (creator of Cyborg 009), Kamen Rider premiered on April 3, 1971 initially intended as an adaptation of Ishinomori's Skull Man. He and Hirayama redesigned the main character to resemble a grasshopper. The hero Takeshi Hongo, played by actor and stuntman Hiroshi Fujioka, was described as a transformed human (改造人間, kaizō ningen) (cyborg). During the filming of episode 10, Fujioka was thrown from his motorcycle during a stunt and broke both legs. His character was phased out until the introduction of another transformed human, Hayato Ichimonji (played by Takeshi Sasaki) was introduced in episode 14. The return of Fujioka and his character, Hongo, in episode 53 united the two actors and Kamen Riders 1 and 2 appeared in every show of the first half of the Shōwa series. The series from April 1971 to January 1976 (Kamen Rider, V3, X, Amazon, Stronger) included a recurring mentor, Tobei Tachibana.