Kamen Rider W Character Making Report File (Parts 1-3)
The first part of the report was summarize thanks to KouAidou of HJU. Here's the summary:
Afterimage of D
- Discussion of the post-Decade series began in Spring of 2008, before Decade even aired.
- Decade was to be a "party" series, and Toei staff had to figure out how to avoid the "post-party crash" with the series that would follow it. (The actual term used is "sadness after the festival", which I like to pretend is a Yoshida Takuro reference, but probably isn't.) Rather than having a concrete concept in mind, this was the primary issue around which early production was centered.
- The man who would shoulder the "unenviable fate" of following Decade would be Tsukada Hideaki as Chief Producer, who was with Toei working on Sentai but had not headed up a KR series before.
- Tsukuda decided that they should go back to the roots of Kamen Rider, and visited Ishimori Pro to discuss with them "What does Kamen Rider mean?" Ishimori Pro's representitive was Tajima Hideki, who worked on Ultraman Tiga and joined Ishimori Pro on the 2001 Cyborg 009.
- The first directive Tajima laid out was that Kamen Rider is "a hero born from evil". The second is that Ishinomori heroes don't like fighting, that they are "crying heroes," as evidenced by the "tear lines" that appear in their mask designs. They also talked about the trademark scarf.
- They went through several design motifs, and both Toei and Ishimori Pro wanted to work with the keywords "Kamen Rider-eqsue" and "simple." The chief designer was PLEX's Kobayashi Daisuke (Faiz, Hibiki, Kabuto, Decade)
- Some people wanted to make W bug-themed like Rider 1, but decided that they had already done a bug-themed rider back in 2006 with Kabuto (remember, it's still early in 2008 when they're talking about this), so they should go in a different direction. They decided to do a suit design without a clear motif, as they had only done that before with Faiz.
- While this was going on, they were getting various concepts from the toy department. The head of development from Bandai was Takahashi Hideyuki, who came up with the Engine Souls from Go-Onger. He wanted to use a similar concept of sticking small sound units into a henshin belt. They thought it might be more interesting if there were two units to insert instead of one.
- From there, it was the question of what kind of design that might result in. They had the idea of a Rider who was different colors on each sides. Since Heisei Riders need to form-change, changing the colors on each side individually would be a new way to go about it.
- The motif was finalized by Summer of 2008, around the time the Kiva movie was out.
A New R
- They settled on the 9 forms (three colors on each side) because four forms (two on each side) would be too few, but having too many forms would be difficult for the costume department, and also in terms of writing them into the show.
- Deciding what each color would represent was a real sticking point. People threw out all kinds of ideas, like having one half be animals and the other half be vehicles.
- However, for this "first step into the new decade", they wanted to make the design something that was instantly recognizable as Kamen Rider, with compound eyes, antenna, an O signal, and a scarf. If the motif was something like a lion or a car, it would be harder to keep the design simple.
- They also wanted the the two sides to have some connection to each other. Having the right side be "element" and the left side be "animal" wouldn't really be a cohesive theme. They also wondered "if he has a lion that breathes fire, would he really need one that shoots electricity?"
- They started thinking from the point of view of assigning meaning to each color, and settled on W's main form being green and black with a scarf, because those were the main colors of Rider-1.
- The designer team was originally against green being part of the main form, because it hadn't been done in a hero Rider before, and even Kobayashi (the guy in charge of the design team) was afraid to use it. He submitted the idea of using black and red as the main form, but Tsukuda pushed hard for the green form, saying "the fact that it hasn't been done before is all the more reason to do it."
- The idea of putting "USB Memories" into the belt came from the toy development team. The original idea for the Engine Souls in Go-Onger had been to make them smart keys, but they couldn't get the design to work. Takahashi had the idea to bring the idea back for W.
- When they settled on the USB Memory idea, it was followed by the idea of them being "Memories of the Earth," (Chikyuu no Kioku) which then evolevd into the word "Gaia Memories."
- "Cyclone" is named after Rider-1 and Rider-2's bikes, and was also a throwback to the idea that the original Riders transformed using windpower. "Joker" refers to the idea of the trump card, or "almighty" power.
Here are the design captions for the first two pages. I decided to translate them straight up since they were fairly short, and it was fun hearing what the various members of staff had to say about them.
Once again, it's funny to see Kobayashi (the designer Kobayashi, not THAT Kobayashi) being so hesitant to go retro with the design, but then finding ways to modernize it and make it totally kick ass. The idea of extending the traditional jawline pattern all over the body to make it look modern and also extend the W motif is nothing short of brilliant, and the lines themselves look amazing.
W Cyclone Joker Mask
"The concept of the Rider was to have each side be a different color, so we wanted to limit the colors on the mask itself. Blendmaster, the company that makes the suits, made several different models, adding and removing depth here and there, trying to get the most attractive shape." -- Kobayashi
W Cyclone Joker
"Out of all the Heisei Riders, I think this is the closest silhouette to the originals. It has everything you think of when you hear the word "Kamen Rider." First, there's the V-line antenna -- W is the first Heisei Rider to have the V-line antenna. Then there's the compound eye, the O signal, the "crusher" jaw pattern, and the chest muscles. Anyone can look at this design and know they're looking at a Kamen Rider." -- Tsukuda
"Mr. Tsukuda insisted on the "crusher" jaw pattern being there, but personally I thought just adding the jaw would make him look old-fashioned. So I decided to put the pattern not just on the jawline, but to make it a motif throughout the whole costume -- which would also add to the W motif. Blendmaster also asked for ribbing detail along the joints of the arms and legs, which would make the suit easier to move in. As for the material, the left side is metallic, while the right side is matte." -- Kobayashi
W Cyclone Joker Scarf
"We added the scarf to emphasize the Cyclone Memory's ability to control wind, but some people thought we were being way too nostalgic. People associate scarves with Kamen Riders, so we held firm. We wanted to establish for the new decade 'this is what Kamen Rider is'." -- Tajima
"Personally, I found the scarf to be really Showa Rider-y. I was afraid today's children might find it unsightly, so I was against it at first. But eventually, the other side won me over (laughs). I did ask that we at least make it a different material than the white scarf. Now that I think about it, having the scarf blowing in the wind really is a cool visual, so I'm glad we put it in (laughs)." -- Kobayashi
Chestplate/Bracelet/Anklet Patterns
"Cyclone's are patterned after air ducts, while Joker's are patterend after tribal markings. Joker is the base form, and it's hard to translate his powers into a visual, so I just wanted to make him look cool." -- Kobayashi
Once again, it's funny to see Kobayashi (the designer Kobayashi, not THAT Kobayashi) being so hesitant to go retro with the design, but then finding ways to modernize it and make it totally kick ass. The idea of extending the traditional jawline pattern all over the body to make it look modern and also extend the W motif is nothing short of brilliant, and the lines themselves look amazing.
W Cyclone Joker Mask
"The concept of the Rider was to have each side be a different color, so we wanted to limit the colors on the mask itself. Blendmaster, the company that makes the suits, made several different models, adding and removing depth here and there, trying to get the most attractive shape." -- Kobayashi
W Cyclone Joker
"Out of all the Heisei Riders, I think this is the closest silhouette to the originals. It has everything you think of when you hear the word "Kamen Rider." First, there's the V-line antenna -- W is the first Heisei Rider to have the V-line antenna. Then there's the compound eye, the O signal, the "crusher" jaw pattern, and the chest muscles. Anyone can look at this design and know they're looking at a Kamen Rider." -- Tsukuda
"Mr. Tsukuda insisted on the "crusher" jaw pattern being there, but personally I thought just adding the jaw would make him look old-fashioned. So I decided to put the pattern not just on the jawline, but to make it a motif throughout the whole costume -- which would also add to the W motif. Blendmaster also asked for ribbing detail along the joints of the arms and legs, which would make the suit easier to move in. As for the material, the left side is metallic, while the right side is matte." -- Kobayashi
W Cyclone Joker Scarf
"We added the scarf to emphasize the Cyclone Memory's ability to control wind, but some people thought we were being way too nostalgic. People associate scarves with Kamen Riders, so we held firm. We wanted to establish for the new decade 'this is what Kamen Rider is'." -- Tajima
"Personally, I found the scarf to be really Showa Rider-y. I was afraid today's children might find it unsightly, so I was against it at first. But eventually, the other side won me over (laughs). I did ask that we at least make it a different material than the white scarf. Now that I think about it, having the scarf blowing in the wind really is a cool visual, so I'm glad we put it in (laughs)." -- Kobayashi
Chestplate/Bracelet/Anklet Patterns
"Cyclone's are patterned after air ducts, while Joker's are patterend after tribal markings. Joker is the base form, and it's hard to translate his powers into a visual, so I just wanted to make him look cool." -- Kobayashi
Note: If you can translate or summarize the other two reports, it would be good for everyone. :D
UPDATE: Placed additional summaries from KouAidou! Thanks! XD