Kamen Rider
Japanese superhero media franchise
The Kamen Rider Series (仮面ライダーシリーズ, Kamen Raidā Shirīzu) is a Japanese superhero media franchise consisting of tokusatsu television programs, films, manga, and anime, created by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori. Kamen Rider media usually revolves around the titular defined group of motorcycle-riding superheroes with an insect motif who fight supervillains, often known as kaijin (怪人; lit. strange person).
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. 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.
Bandai owns the toy rights to Kamen Rider in Japan and other Asian regions. Bandai Namco Toys and Collectibles America, a subsidiary of Bandai, distributes Kamen Rider merchandise in North America.
Series overview
The entirety of the Kamen Rider franchise revolves around the exploits of the various enhanced superhumans and cyborgs bearing the title of the "Kamen Rider" (仮面ライダー, Kamen Raidā; lit. Masked Rider) and their one-man war against a multitude of opposing enemy factions seeking to take over the world for nefarious intentions, usually an evil organization responsible for their augmentation. Barring a few entries, each series' Rider(s) utilizes a transformation belt commonly known as a "Driver" (ドライバ, Doraiba) to transform into their enhanced Rider form — usually activated with the transformation phrase "Henshin!" (変身, Henshin; lit.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kamen Rider” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.