SIC Hero Saga - Kamen Rider W: Playback

Just like the previous Kamen Riders before him, Kamen Rider W will also has his own SIC Hero Saga treatment called, Kamen Rider W: Playback which commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the Kamen Rider franchise and surprise! Shotaro Ishinomori stars in this side story! Currently, two chapters of this story was translated.

Chapter 1: The Red Wind

It starts of with an introduction of Shotaro Ishinomori, how he made Cyborg 009 etc., and Shotaro Ishinomori is a character in this Hero Saga. Shotaro Ishinomori is just walking around in Futo. Futo Tower starts blowing a really strong wind, cars are flying and it's like hell on earth, but with wind instead of fire.

A young handsome man appears and says "Shotaro." The young man is called "Philip," Shotaro has no recollection of who this man is, but Philip is saying that the 2 of them are 1 Kamen Rider. Phillip takes out Double Driver and a Memory and tells Shotaro to transform. Shotaro Ishinomori takes the Joker Memory and transforms with the belt.

Chapter 2: The Man who Pointed Fingers

Shotaro, who went along with Philip, felt so surprised after transforming. Spending years in front of a desk wasn't good for his back. Yet, he felt like he was young again. He had so much energy. Although, one thing was bothering him. He wasn't happy with the fact that it wasn't completely green, why was the other half black.

Suddenly, Shotaro could hear Phillip's voice resounding in his head. "We need to get my body with the Revolgarry" he said. Shotaro refused, he insisted that a Rider shouldn't drive a car. "But Shotaro..." Phillip said. "We still have the HardBoilder."

Shotaro started explaining that this felt like the story of Don Quixote. When Philip hears this, he starts to realize that this Shotaro is a different Shotaro. The real Shotaro wouldn't mention something like that. But then a group of Masquerade Dopants appeared.

And since this SIC Hero Saga is still on-going, I better leave these words: to be continued...

Sea Jetter Kaito Cheers Up Kids in the Shotaro Ishinomori Manga Museum!

The Shotaro Ishinomori Manga Museum which was damaged due to March's earthquake and tsunami has just hosted a Children's Day event! Children's Day (Kodomo no hi) is a Japanese national holiday held annually on May 5th and is part of Golden Week.

The museum, which has been without electricity since the March 11 disaster, held a stage show featuring Sea Jetter Kaito, gave away popcorn, candy and cooked food. Donated toys were also given away. A nearby field was also cleared of debris by professional J.League soccer players from nearby-Sendai so that children could play soccer. In addition to Sea Jetter Kaito, the stage shows also featured Cure Marine from Heartcatch Precure!, and the J.League soccer players.

Too bad, Kamen Rider and the other Ishinomori heroes were not seen in the event, but seeing Sea Jetter Kaito cheering up the kids is still a cool sight to see.

Source: NPR via Anime News Network

Let's Go Kamen Riders Major Update!

So major that I actually waited for more info before posting this one! Anyways, just recently, asides from more info coming from magazines (after the jump break), the latest official poster of the upcoming, OOO - Den-O - All  Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders has finally been revealed! 

Asides that OOO Tamashii Combo, is prominent in the poster along with the Double Riders doing a Double Rider Kick, NEW Den-O weilding MomotaKen,  and the Shocker Medal, four of Ishinomori's other prominent works are found in the poster!

These guys found at the bottom right of the poster are: Kikaider, Kikaider 01, Inazuman and Kaiketzu Zubat (who is also portrayed by Hiroshi Miyauchi, who is also Ao Ranger of Goranger, Big One of JAKQ and Kamen Rider V3). This will be the first time these four are on-screen together with the Kamen Riders. As for Kikaider and Zubat, this would be their first movie appearance after 30 years.

Asides from that, it is confirmed Renn Kiriyama and Masaki Suda returns to reprise their roles as Shotaro Hidari and Philip of Kamen Rider W! As for hardcore Kamen Rider fans out there, it is confirmed that Naya Goro, the original voice of Shocker's Great Leader reprises his classic role!

Asides from that, Isao Sasaki (known to sing a couple of Super Sentai themes such as the Goranger Theme) will be in this movie as well, but currently his role is unknown. Hidekatsu Shibata is back to voice his famous role, General Shadow (on the left) from Kamen Rider Stronger, Shozo Iizuka will be back to voice Darom (I cried tears of joy) from Kamen Rider BLACK and Seizou Katou will voice General Jark from Kamen Rider BLACK RX.

One more thing, it is also confirmed that there are 50 Riders that will appear in the film! Let's hope that the other secondary Riders will make their appearance!

Also, there are several pictures of the Showa Riders fighting in the execution square, but none of Heisei Riders, aside from OOO and NEW Den-O. I guess the leaked execution scene (The Showa Riders, only, rescuing OOO, NEW Den-O and Ankh) is basically confirmed at this point.

On the side note, asides that this film celebrates the 40 years of the entire Kamen Rider franchise, this film also celebrates Toei's 60th Anniversary, so it is no surprise that they decided to go this far and added these four other Ishinomori heroes.

Anyways, here are some new information about the upcoming film!

The film starts with Kamen Rider OOO fighting the Mole Imagins. When OOO is fighting them, he starts wondering "why aren't they bleeding Medals?" The Mole Imagins then disappears through a 10 year old boy. Suddenly, the Denliner appears and Kotaro exits. Kotaro takes out his Rider Ticket and goes back to the past in November 11, 1971. But why would a 10 year old boy have memories from 40 years ago?

Eiji and Ankh sneaks aboard the DenLiner. They are advised by the DenLiner Crew not to leave the train when they get to the past, but Ankh decides to sneak out in order to find all the Core Medals before the other Greeeds woke up, however this causes some serious trouble.

Back in 1971, Shocker found a Medal and used its powers and took over Japan. This resulted to the appearance of the Shocker Greeed (voiced by Hideo Ishikawa). In the original timeline, this monster didn't exist. It is a Greeed created by Shocker by using the O Medal that Ankh accidentally dropped off. It's mainly based of eagles, but there's a snake sticking out of his right shoulder.

After the fight in the past, Eiji and Ankh returns and arrives at their own timeline only to see that Cous Cousier is now a restaurant called "Snack Amigo." By 2011, Shocker is already controlling over the whole world.

In order to repair time, Kotaro and Eiji travel back to 1971 once more. When they arrive in 1971, they meet Nokko, a member of the Rider Squad. They then discovers that Kamen Rider #1 and #2 lost the battle against Shocker and received a brainwashing surgery. They eventually became top soldiers for Shocker, and dubbed as the "Strongest and Most Evil Cyborg Monsters."

Can the Kotaro and Eiji able to fix time? That is for us to find out once OOO - Den-O - All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders will be released in Japan this April 1!

UPDATE 1: Added more cast info from Henshin Justice Unlimited, along with General Shadow pic.
UPDATE 2: Added more background info about Kaiketsu Zubat, Kikaider, Kikaider 01 and Inazuman in the upcoming film.

Source: JEFusion (Link 2), Henshin Justice Unlimited, Sponichi Annex via Tokyograph

Happy Birthday, Shotaro Ishinomori!

With all the hype we have for the 40th Anniversary of Kamen Rider and the 35th Anniversary of Super Sentai, we almost forgot the birthday of one important man who changed manga, anime and superhero shows forever, that man is Shotaro Ishinomori!

Born as Shotaro Onodera in January 25, 1938, he was 8 or 9 when modern manga first appeared, he started submitting his amateur works at the age of 12, it was until his 16 when his first story (the first manga he did was a picture story), Second Class Angel was published in Manga Shonen around 1955. Osamu Tezuka was impressed with his drawings thus, he ended up moving in Tezuka's new studio and became his assistant. That is why most of Ishinomori's early works kinda look liked Tezuka's.

It was at the year 1959 he set on his own and began using the pen name, Ishimori to inaugurate his "new life" as an artist. But it was in the year 1964 when he will become well known for his masterpiece, Cyborg 009 and like what they say, the rest is history.

Now you are wondering, how did he end up in making Kamen Rider?! Well it was because of a producer named Toru Hirayama who want to make a new kid's show and with a help of a friend approached Ishinomori for the character designs. Because of CrossFire's design (the name of the hero before Kamen Rider came to be), Toei agreed and thus, Ishinomori ended up having the Original Creator credit while Hirayama having the Producer credit.

But because of Ishinomori wanting to have changes in the last minute, we never have this hero but instead, Ishinomori wanted an adaptation of his manga, Skull Man! Since it is too scary for kids and it is not sure if the advertisers will buy it, they redesigned it with the grasshopper as an inspiration, thus Kamen Rider was born... and so is the partnership between the two which later created, Himitsu Sentai Goranger, JAKQ Dengekitai, Kaiketsu Zubat, Kikaida, Inazuman and more!

Asides from his heores, he also did serious and realistic manga titles back in the 80's such as The Cartoon Introduction to the Japanese Economy which became a surprise bestseller! It was later published in the US as Japan, Inc. This title talks about the boom of the Japanese economy back in the 80's. The other was Hotel which is an adult manga that talks about the lives and careers of the management and staff of Hotel Platon. It is also during that time on the 30th Anniversary of his career as an artist that he changed his name into, Ishinomori.

What makes this man awesome, asides that he created a lot of heroes that continues to inspire a lot of people, he is the current title holder of Guinness Book of World Records title for: Most Comics Published by One Author! What's amazing is that in Japan, he is hailed as the King of Manga, next to Tezuka who is hailed as the God of Manga!

Even if this man is gone for more than a decade, his spirit will continue to live on with his works as he continues to inspire a lot of people with his stories that are quite advanced during his time and the legacy of the heroes he created. So from all of us here, Happy Birthday, Ishinomori-sensei!

"When an era needs it, Kamen Rider will definitely return." - Shotaro Ishinomori

References: Anime News Network, Henshin Hall of Fame (Link 1, Link 2), Igadevil's Kamen Rider Page, ISHIMORI@STYLE, Skull Man Vol. 1 (Tokyopop), Wikipedia (Link 1, Link 2)

Also, special thanks to the people at 4chan's /m/ board for reminding me of his birthday!

Hi No Tori Fansubs Releases Robot Detective!

Hi No Tori Fansubs along with Deadfish Fansubs has just released the first episode of a classic tokusatsu series called, Robot Detective (Robot Keiji)! Like Goranger and the Kamen Rider series, this series is also created by Shotaro Ishinomori!

Unlike most of Ishinomori's heroes, Robot Detective does not have a human form, but can display emotion via changes in his face.

You can download the first episode of Robot Detective in their officil site!

Ishinomori’s Heroes Cameo in The Skull Man Manga

Can you identify them all?

Yes, you are not blinded. That is the last page of the final volume of the Skull Man written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. In case you are wondering, where is Ishinomori in it? Well, he was credited as the original creator and this manga was created as a follow-up of the original 70’s one-shot.

In case you are wondering, how Shimamoto ended up in it, here’s how. As revealed in the afterword in the first volume of Skull Man, after he agreed on collaborating with Ishinomori in Cyborg 009, one of his staffers asked him that Ishinomori wants to give Skull Man to him. Since he is a fan, he agrees. Of course, it’s a dream come true for a fan. After this, he was faxed with the notes and illustrations regarding the follow-up. He later discuss further details with Ishinomori, those details include the plot, the villains and some minor details. On one of their conversations, he was surprised to learn that Ishinomori-sensei wanted him to do what he would like to do with the manga.

Since you have a brief detail about the guy, you now have the idea why he decided to place the cameos in the end of the manga. Heck, all fans wanted to see cameos of older heroes in other Ishinomori related titles that is one of the reasons why Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. DaiShocker was a hit in Japan!

Aside from those heroes, in which I challenge you to identify all of them if you can, Kamen Rider made an appearance in the manga… well on a different persona. To give you a short answer regarding the Rider that appeared, let me burst your bubble. Skull Man had a different Rider. Instead of the Showa Riders, we have an original character in a form of a police officer named, Hioka who was kidnapped by the Syndicate to be turned into one of their mutants.

It was successful but his mind is stronger he was able to control himself and use his newfound mutant abilities to escape… and gets the hang of it. His first appearance when he escaped looked like a mix between Shin and ZO (Which Shimamoto created a manga version based on the film.). Which he use to fight off the guards in the lab in which he was taken, so is the rest of the praying mantis (As Hioka sees it, but it looks like a grasshopper to me.) mutants that would later appear in the final volume. He would later appeared wearing, I repeat, wearing the garments that looked similar to the design of Kamen Rider in THE FIRST movie. However, like THE FIRST, he never had a transformation sequence, instead, he just transforms into a grasshopper mutant if he wanted too.

Aside from that, in some chapters, Ryusei (the name that Tatsuo Kagura adopted later on after learning the truth) and his sister, Maya wear garments similar to the garment wore by the cyborgs from Cyborg 009.

As a fan of Skull Man and Kamen Rider, I am jealous on what happened to Shimamoto-sensei. Doing a sequel of a title created by Ishinomori-sensei, the King of Manga with his blessing will surely make one fan jealous… and one fan proud.

The Revival of the Ishinomori Franchises

From Ryoutarou of Ranger Board, we learned this rumor about Toei's plan for the future, according to him, the source fron 2chan is an insider from Toei who always gets the info right. The rumor is that Toei wants to revive the Ishinomori Universe via a compilation of 5 short stories.

+ Kikaider SLASH - This story takes place after the first Kikaider series.

+ Henshin Ninja Katsuhi - A sequel to Henshin Ninja Arashi and uses some thrown out ideas for when Kamen Rider Hibiki was to be called Ongeki Ninja Arashi.

+ Inazuman Spark - There was no information found on the Ranger Board souce.

+ Kaiketsu ZZ - A possible sequel to Kaitetsu Zubat.

+ Kamen Rider the Movie: Legacy of the Mask - This is the working title of this Kamen Rider film. This film has been on the works since before All Riders and Toei intends to do their best to bring back every title character this time. 

To show that the movie doesn't belong to any one series, the title screen will flash "Kamen Rider OOO the Movie" at first, with "OOO" pasted on top of the logo, then it will quickly scan back through each Rider series logo until we are left with simply "Kamen Rider the Movie"

UPDATE: The top part turned out to be a fake rumor. Like what Decade started last year, we will have a W X OOO Movie.

Mystery & Revenge. Skull Man 1970's Manga One-Shot Review.

The original one-shot manga created by Shotaro Ishinomori, known for his other creations such as Kamen Rider, Cyborg 009 and Kikaider. This story is said to have a dark-theme with an anti-hero as the lead character, who assumes the identity of the Skull Man… and considering the fact that this one-shot is created in the 70’s! Because of the word, dark-themed, anti-hero and revenge, I got a sudden interest about it aside that it is suppose to be the basis of Kamen Rider.

There are dozens of mass murdering cases and catastrophes that seem to have no connection, that’s what the masses thought. A detective agency investigating those cases came into one conclusion, it is done by him. The said “him”, is a psycho calling himself, the Skull Man.

A man named Tatsuo Kagura decided to help the investigation of the said crimes. As the manga progress, we learn that Tatsuo is Skull Man and he seeks answers about the death of his parents. After killing the cop, he with his partner, Garo who has the ability to shape shift, went to the place of the person the cop mentioned, Chisato Kogetsu.

He is about to do his revenge after he revealed the reason why he kills those “innocent” people who are not connected to Chisato. He said that they are not innocent, some get money from the people, took bribes, and other possible crimes you would like to think of. Chisato said that almost all people are connected to him. Skull Man replied in a sort that sounds, I don’t give a damn, I will kill them.

Skull Man said that he will kill him and her granddaughter. Her granddaughter said to him that don’t shoot brother. Ooh, the plot thickens.

Her granddaughter, Maya then revealed that Chisato is his grandfather. The readers then learn why his grandfather killed his parents. The reason why he killed his children is the fact that his son, a brilliant man who is considered more than a genius, is doing harsh experiments and creating mutants. To stop this madness, his father decided to kill his own son and his daughter-in-law. He is planning to kill young Tatsuo but he is rescued by one of the mutants, Garo. His grandfather later adopts his sister Maya.

After revealing the truth, Chisato then reenters the house with Maya. Skull Man noticed this and entered the house. On the next panel we saw the interior burning. Chisato then said, “We were born in wrong era!” and so, on the last page, we saw fire on the site, concluding us with a tragic ending. Skull Man, Garo, Chisato and Maya died.

On to the review, in my own opinion, Skull Man is the epitome of what a manga anti-hero supposed to be. At first, I thought he is the bad guy until at the last pages of the manga revealed why he is killing people. Skull Man is like Batman with a gun with a thirst to kill those who are evil. While reading every page, I was amazed with the darkness of the manga. The first few pages have no dialog which adds more to the darkness of the work. It really captures the reader to continue on reading this. Skull Man has this sort of element that is missing to the current stream of anime and manga anti-heroes. He has a dash of mystery yet he has a lot of showmanship that the media tried to hide from the general public.

Skull Man’s main theme is revenge. Skull Man is fueled by revenge, unlike Batman, who is in my opinion is the closest thing to compare to Skull Man. Bruce Wayne used his experience of losing his parents in becoming the vigilante known as the Batman. He wants people not to experience the same fate. While Tatsuo, while he is in the same level like that of Bruce except that he will kill and he will use a gun… unlike Bats. Cool.

To sum things up, Skull Man is one heck of a manga, even though it is created back in the 70’s, it has a theme that can be adapted into this current era. Skull Man is best read by people ages 13-up simply because kids can’t handle the darkness of this masterpiece.

Ukiya Was Bored: Kamen Rider Double/W

On this segment, I will give my thoughts about the said show/topic/etc. Simple. This week, I will put on analysis, Kamen Rider Double!

Based on my experience, the best way to say the show is crappy or not is by the first 5 episodes, or in Double’s case, the first 4 story arcs. While watching the first 4 arcs, I observed a lot of sorta homages to the Showa Era Riders and to Shotaro Ishinomori himself. Here’s the list.

Note: This list is not possible without researching a lot of data in the net. In case of inaccuracy, kindly inform me. :)
+ Return of the Hopper
It’s been a long time since the grasshopper is used as the design of the suit of a Rider (Not that long, if you watched Kamen Rider G, Wine FTW!). For the Heisei Era’s 11th series, they sorta returned to the insect that started the franchise, the grasshopper. To add the nostalgia, the color scheme is quite similar to Ichigo’s first suit. Plus, the Cyclone forms had the Wind element like of Ichigo. To add the fun, the kickass scarf is in the suit! Too bad, it is only present on the CycloneJoker, CycloneTrigger and CycloneMetal forms.

+ X! X! Eksu!
Speaking of color schemes, HeatMetal resembles X-Rider’s color scheme. To add more fun, HeatMetal has a staff. Cool. I think it is a way of saying sorry to X’s actor for not being part of the All Riders film. I think this is what happened when they are creating Double and they heard the X’s actor was not called in the last minute to do his Voice Acting for the film.
(Warning: This part is plain fiction.)
The Origin of HeatMetal… Bow.
*Production Room*
Guy1: The All Riders is almost to its completion. All the Riders have been voice acted; all we need to do is to promote the film.
Guy2: Uh, sir. We have a problem.
Guy1: What is it?
Guy2: Do you remember that *bleep* offered himself to reprise his role as X-Rider?
Guy1: Yes. Why? Did he reprise it?
Guy2: Actually, we didn’t contact him in the last minute.
Guy1: YOU DIDN’T CONTACT HIM?!
Guy2: Ye..yes.
Guy1: How can we say sorry to the fans?! Instead of hearing *bleep* as X, they will hear some random guy speaking!
Guy3: Sir, about that, that random guy’s name is, *bleep*.
Guy1: I don’t care who the hell he is! All I want is to hear *bleep* as X!
Guy4: We can… redub it.
Guy1: No way! It will delay the premiere of the film!
*Thinks*
Guy5: Ooh! Ooh! I know! What if we did a X homage in the next series?
Guy1: You mean Double?
Guy5: Yes!
Guy1: So what is this… homage for X?
Guy5: Let’s make one on his proper forms HeatMetal. Red is heat and Gray is Metal. Since it’s a principal form, it is like having X back.
Guy1: Yes. With that form, it is like saying sorry to *bleep* because we didn’t contact him!
And so, the production staff created the HeatMetal form, a tribute to X-Rider and a way of saying sorry to his actor. THE END

+ Transforming Bikes and the other vehicle
On Kamen Rider BLACK RX, we are introduced of Form Changes and a Rider car. I personally didn’t watch BLACK RX but I will once I find a decent sub in YouTube. In Double, we saw their garage-slash-car, the RevolGarry. This is the third series with a car on it. The second was Hibiki, but the car is not that cool since it’s just a regular SUV. Also, in BLACK RX, RX’s bike, the Acrobattler, also changes form once RX change his form. The same case in Double, since RevolGarry is also a garage, it holds the other forms of Double’s bike. Depending on the situation, Double goes to the car-like garage and changes the vehicle’s backside. The other two forms are a helicopter-like vehicle and a speedboat-like vehicle.

+ What if they fused? Meh.
Again, speaking of BLACK RX, RX’s two other forms aside from RX are BioRider and RoboRider. BioRider is blue while RoboRider is yellow. RoboRider had a gun while BioRider is sort of liquid which makes him flexible. Fast forward to Double, we have the Luna Memory for flexibility and we have the Trigger Memory for long-range purposes, put them together, we got LunaTrigger. A gun with flexible laser beams. Flexible laser beams? It sounds like RoboRider shooting a bio-ed BioRider!

+ His hair kinda looks like… Oh no.
In this series, we are introduced to the Watcherman one of Shotaro’s informants has this weird afro hairdo. Later on the 4th arc, Find the C, the manga-ka who creates dojinshis of Gokistar, the Cockroach Dopant and himself, the Cockroach Dopant has this weird afro hair. Last time, I read on Wikipedia about the show’s creator, Shotaro Ishinomori and found out that he had this awesome afro hairdo! Is this a way of the producers’ way of giving homages to Ishinomori-sensei’s Kamen Rider cameos? LOL.

+ Speaking of Shotaro Ishinomori…
One of the obvious homage or shout-out or whatever you like to call it is the name of Double’s one-half, Shotaro Hidari. Also, this is the third show related to Shotaro Ishinomori with a dual color scheme. The other shows are part of the Kikaider franchise. Also, thanks to usbcheater of the HJU Forums, two other characters are kinda related to Shotaro Ishinomori's other works, namely, Skull Man and Kaiketsu Zubat. For the his full post, click this.

+ Queen! Elizabeth!
Another of Shotaro’s informants is Queen and Elizabeth. And I think you get the shout-out in this one. LOL.

+ Double Riders, Redefined.
The concept of Double Riders came into scene thanks to Ichigo’s actor injury while doing a stunt. Because of this, they might cancel the show. To prevent it, the writers decided to create another Rider in the form of Nigo to fill-in for Ichigo. After his actor recovered from the injury, since Nigo is introduced, they decided to make them partners in saving the world. Thus, the Double Riders are born. Fast forward to 2009, we have another Double Rider, in the form of Shotaro Hidari and Philippe. These two fuses to form the half-half Rider called Double! I think this is the way the producers give tribute to the first Double Rider. Back then, these two have the same color scheme, giving a hard time for identification that is why, when the two upgraded, they where easily identified by the color of their gloves. Ichigo had white gloves while Nigo had red gloves.

+ Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider! Raida! Raida!
Back in the Showa Era, All Riders who appear as solo are identified as plainly Kamen Rider. If he appeared with another Rider or the villain feels calling him with it, he will be called by his Rider name. In the Heisei Era, this sort of tradition was dropped, till Double came along. On Double, Double is called Kamen Rider by the police… unlike Kuuga who is identified as Unidentified Lifeform something, something.

Special Thanks to Dedicated to Black for the BLACK RX info your site is a big help! Thank you!