仮面ライダー

KAMEN RIDER

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
4
RELEASE
December 26, 1971
CHAPTERS
8

DESCRIPTION

Fans the world over have long been enthralled by tales of Kamen Rider, the masked, motorcycle-riding superhero who protects the world from injustice. Kidnapped and experimented upon by the evil terrorist organization known as Shocker, Hongo Takeshi manages to escape their clutches and use his newfound strength to fight against their schemes. These are the first adventures in a legacy that spans dozens of television series and films, drawn and written by series creator and manga superstar Shotaro Ishinomori. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the classic 1971 publication, this collection is the first hardcover edition of Kamen Rider in English. It features the original Kamen Rider manga series plus special bonus materials and full-color inserts.

(Source: Seven Seas Entertainment)

CAST

Takeshi Hongo
Hayato Ichimonji
Taki Kazuya

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO KAMEN RIDER

REVIEWS

DoctorGlitch
90/100
The favorite super hero of your favorite japanese
Kamen Rider has a cult following, and its author Shotaro Ishinomori has done a lot for Tokusatsu, making his authorial fixations (armored heroes, futuristic technology, monsters, SF and cyborgs) quickly become genre codes, but even the biggest fans of the license mistakenly forget that this manga was the Rider's first foray into Japanese fiction, and that's a shame, because well, it's a great manga!

The Kamen Rider manga lays the foundations for the character: a man turned cyborg with the grasshopper as his motif, facing off against an evil organization (Shocker) and its cyborgs with links to animals, having to protect a character who is often female and linked to his creator, and questioning his humanity, which is now more that of a super-powered monster (reinforced by stylized scars on his body) than that of a fragile human.

The manga unfolds in two parts, the first in the first volume being pure Kamen Rider, with the introduction of the metamorphosed character (Takeshi Hongo) and his questioning of what little humanity he has left, since he's now a cyborg who can kill very (too) easily, various confrontations with Shocker's henchmen with their varied animal abilities (spider, cobra, bat, etc.), all tinged with iconic special attacks and topical themes in '71, such as ecology and the purity of the air caused by factories. It should be noted, and this applies to the entire manga, that while most Kamen Rider series are accessible from a very young age, with fights that are certainly choreographed and dynamic but light on violence, this manga is very bloody, with the Rider not hesitating to dismember his opponents or impale them, Despite this butchery, the character and even the author like to remind us that his monsters were basically human and therefore victims of modification, notably in the arc on the Cobra Man and his wife Medusa, an arc that begins to show that Shocker's monsters still have some humanity in them, the chapter ending tragically, Medusa accidentally kills her man in the hysteria of battle and can't live with his blood on her hands, preferring to end her life and join her man, followed by a scene in which the Rider gazes with great sadness at the corpses of his opponents, whose humanity has returned in the last moments of their lives, giving the work the advantage of not being Manichean.
The second part of the second volume is innovative: during the 13 Riders arc, in which the Rider confronts 12 of his clones, Takeshi Hongo is seriously injured during the confrontation and is temporarily replaced by one of the clones freed from Shocker's grip during the battle (Hayato Ichimonji), who takes on the role of Kamen Rider to continue the work of Shocker's traitor, A new, less tragic and brighter protagonist, as well as more investigation-oriented chapters tinged with Japanese mythology, Ishinomori also introduces in this second part that toys exist in the work's diegesis, as he begins his final arc (Masked World) with children wearing Kamen Rider and Spider-Man masks, far removed from the horror of murderous confrontation or the loss of one's humanity, and closer to the childlike innocence of seeing a classy good guy against a disgusting bad guy, It's also in this second part that we learn more about Shocker, and the manga doesn't hesitate to bring its reader back to reality: the manga's big bad reveals to the Rider that his plan to control the masses was in fact an idea of the Japanese government, and that Shocker has only taken this plan and made it better, showing the Rider that he's facing a dangerous enemy, but one that has distanced him from the real enemy since the beginning of the manga, if today this kind of "the enemy is the government that manipulates us" message has been overused and misused in a lot of fiction (and incidentally made laughable by boomers on facebook with 240p meme's) in 1971, in Japan, in a superhero manga that at the time of its end of publication was a TV series, the program that all children talk about, well, you had to dare, and he ends his manga with a cold pessimism and the final sentence

"We human have used science, "the weapon of civilisation", to fight the wrong ennemy"

Graphically, Shotaro Ishinomori makes no secret of the fact that he was influenced by Osamu Tezuka, whose assistant and close friend he was, and the manga has this pudgy chara design, with prickly silky hair and highly expressive characters that are more like the cartoon Tezuka is so fond of, and that screams 60s-70s when you see it. This is an era of the manga that I love artistically, but where Ishinomori is impressive is in the action scenes, His cutting is perfectly legible, using gigantic squares that we always (and wrongly) associate with Toriyama, and he doesn't hesitate to show moments of a fight like a fall from the sky in 4-5 pages to make us feel the intensity of the fall, He takes great care with computers, mechanisms, motorcycles, etc. It's clear that the author has mastered this field, and takes pleasure in creating "mecha-porn" during his motorcycle scenes, or during the final arc in a supercomputer.

Kamen Rider is an excellent manga classic whose influence and impact on Japanese culture is unquestionable
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Oshha
80/100
The relevance & influence of Kamen Rider

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Kamen Rider is a classic for a reason.
Positively brimming with creative panel layouts, well-flowing fights and cool spreads, Ishinomori's original vision succeeds at what it sets out to do excellently. Close-ups when they count, intimidating spread-pages and a great sense of speed are the manga's greatest strength, drawing his energy from the wind gets captured perfectly
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Essentially all of the conflicts Hayato and Takeshi have to face off against in this 1970s manga remain relevant in today's age. Timeless problems that have plagued humanity for decades; homogeneity, pollution, remaining trapped in old beliefs, government corruption and of course, that quick final jab at the healthcare industry. Kamen Rider is not subtle about it. But it doesn't need to be. Bring the problems to the forefront and, give them a good kick whilst you are at it.
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Conformity is the greatest enemy of Rider. Again, subtlety is out the window. Shocker are straight up Nazi monsters. The only thing different from Takeshi and them is that Takeshi kept his individuality. He considers himself a monster much like them, he has to be careful not to hurt the ones he loves due to his new-gained strength, just drinking a glass of water alone causes problems and self-loathing.
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But, despite abandoning his own humanity, Takeshi does not abandon humanity itself, the people. He takes this opportunity to fight for humanity, be a mouthpiece for it. Stand up against injustice and inspires us to do the same. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I admit, I have hardly seen all of what the television series has to offer, though I plan to watch all of the seasons moving forward. Every season I have seen tackles one or more of these problems. Despite sounding repetitive, every season is fresh and new, only reinforcing its point, or, more importantly: Introducing these issues to the kids watching their first newly airing season on a Sunday morning.
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