Birth of the 10th! Kamen Riders All Together!! Is a one-shot live action TV special involving Kamen Rider ZX (pronounced as Zee-Cross), the cyborg created by the Badan Empire for their conquest for the world with the other nine Kamen Riders helping ZX defeat the said empire. Since I watched it on Hong Kong subs, I only understand 2/3’s of it, so here’s how I understand the story.
In the Amazon Jungle, Ryo Murasame and her sister are exploring the jungle via plane when suddenly, the Badan Empire attacked them because Ryo’s sister, Shizuka knows their plan of world conquest. They killed her so that no one outside Badan will know their plan and transformed Ryo into a cyborg called ZX. While inside Badan’s base, he befriended, Eisuke which was also modified into one of Badan’s cyborg, the Tiger-Roid. Because of one incident, Ryo remembered his past and sworn revenge on Badan for what they did to her sister, before doing his revenge, Badan switched their base in Japan.
Ryo returned to Japan and examined his body to his friend, a doctor in which they discovered what Badan did to him. Ryo’s thirst for revenge became deeper. Since he knows Badan’s plan, he decided to stop them with his abilities as ZX.
Meanwhile, at Badan’s base, the machine that they will use to fulfill their plan is complete and all it needs is the material known as Badanium to make it work. Ambassador Darkness, the cousin of Kamen Rider’s very own, Ambassador Hell, dedicates the machine to the previous organizations who aimed for world conquest, which started flashbacks starting from Kamen Rider - Super-1. The machine’s function by the way is to distort time and space and with this, it would cause destruction to reality. Wow. It sounds like Shaider’s time-space warp only creepier.
The Nine Senior Kamen Riders learned about this plan and decided to take action, by stopping the delivery of Badanium to Badan’s base. This were the plot starts to become interesting. Ambassador Darkness orders Tiger-Roid to kill ZX so that they would have fewer problems. Tiger-Roid agrees.
Three of the Senior Riders, Shiro Kazami/V3, Joji Yuki/Riderman and Kazuya Oki/Super-1 met and discuss the plan that was relayed to them by their leader, Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider No. 1. After the brief discussion, the three went to their designated area. Meanwhile, Ryo went to one of the areas were they will transport Badanium. Before he confronted those related to Badan, V3, Riderman and Super-1 already defeated them, so when Ryo arrived, he thought that these three are the bad guys! Ryo transforms into ZX, attacked them, the 3 tried to convince ZX to stop attacking them because they are his allies, until finally, ZX stops, and reverts into ZX.
V3 then decides to educate Ryo into their world, by showing him various battle footage from every Rider that exist that time, namely, from Kamen Rider No. 1 to Super-1. Ryo then tells his reason why he is fighting after that, V3 gives him an advice that at first, they were for revenge but as time goes by, the slowly realized that as long as the world needs them, they will continue to fight. This gives Ryo inspiration to pursue his goal on stopping Badan. They left the place and the three left for their destination, they will meet with the other seniors while Ryo went to Badan’s base, in which along the way, he met his friend, Eisuke.
Ryo doesn’t want to fight him considering that he still considers him as his friend. But he replied, his loyalty is for Badan alone and whoever comes in their way must be eliminated. Ryo tried his best to convince him that Badan are the bad guys but he replied, that there is no such thing as good or evil. Those who will win are the strong ones. Eisuke transforms into Tiger-Roid and attacked Ryo, Ryo then transforms into ZX and fights him, at the very end, ZX was victorious and defeated Tiger-Roid.
After his victory, he meets up with the other nine Riders who just finished their roll call and he declares himself: Kamen Rider ZX. Ambassador Darkness was let’s just say, not really surprised on what Ryo said, in fact he is willing to finish him along with the other nine Riders. He orders all his Kaijins to destroy all the Riders.
All the Riders fight the Kaijins and at the very end, they won. Ambassador Darkness pull of another trick on his sleeve, he calls his goon, who is guarding two of Ryo’s friends and warms them to surrender or else, they will kill them. V3 springs into action and easily defeated the goon and saved Ryo’s friends (Note: Never, I repeat, NEVER have a foot soldier take in-charge of important hostages).
Ambassador Darkness used his final trump card, using the machine (which was earlier loaded with Badanium that was slipped away from the Riders and the said machine was used earlier), and the nine Riders were transported into a dimension with a black backdrop with white smoke covered on the ground. The Riders used their final attack, which involves them forming into circle and with the light coming from their belts, releasing a strong energy that defeated Ambassador Darkness. At the climax of the special, Generalissimo of Badan that has an appearance of a giant skull appeared and said that someday, they will return.
With the Nine Riders entrusting the world in him, Ryo bids farewell with the Nine Riders.
On to the review, the special had all the basic elements of a Rider show in a one-hour TV special, they had the tragic start and the climatic battle. The only thing that I am disappointed with this special is some of the Rider’s voice acting, especially Amazon. He doesn’t sound like Amazon!
One thing that I find in this special weird is that were did they get the entire Rider’s stock footage? I mean they showed Ryo the tape with each Rider fighting a monster with no explanation on how they got the footage! Because of this, I theorize that Tachibana Tobei, before his character will appear to the Rider, what he does is to record each Rider’s battle.
On to the story, like I said earlier, ZX story has the basic and tragic Rider story but with a different twist this time. Unlike his predecessors, ZX has been brainwashed by the organization that build him AND befriended one of its members, which added to ZX’s tragic story making the worned out Rider Story interesting. While watching the special, with the story in my mind, this question came into my mind, “How will he fight his friend?” which was concluded at the climax of the special. Their battle, in my own opinion is near in the level of tragedy like that of Kotaro Minami/Kamen Rider Black and the person that he considered his brother, Nobuhiko Akizuki/Shadow Moon.
For the special’s finale, the Rider’s individual fight scenes are better compared to the latest Kamen Rider film that I watched, namely, All Riders vs. DaiShocker. I mean, in All Riders, when each Rider was focused, they didn’t show all most of their skills, what they did is pure brawl, while in this TV Special, each Rider got a chance to perform some of their tricks, namely, Riderman used one of his arms and Stronger did his infamous Electro Fire. The only thing that I hate in the final fight scene is the “Circle of Light” thing. It’s too cheesy.
Since most of ZX’s weapons are ninja weapons, I had this assumption that ZX can do ninja tricks such as hiding and doing illusions, but he didn’t if only the TV Special was followed by a series. If only.
Overall, the TV Special was enjoyable to watch and it left a lasting impression about the Showa Era Riders. Being a guy whose first Kamen Rider show was Saban’s Masked Rider, this show gave me a big impression on how badass the Showa Riders are before BLACK. Because of this, once I am done with Kamen Rider Amazon, I think I should start watching Kamen Rider V3.