Look, I love arranging the things I enjoy into strictly numbered lists of increasing value as much as the next guy, but here’s my problem with Top 10s: when you’re dealing with a franchise that has over forty years of history under its Rider Belt, how can you possibly do it justice with anything less than a Top 100? …A laborious, overwrought Top 100.

So here’s an idea: rather than wind up half the internet by claiming one Rider is ‘better’ than another, I’m going to wind up the whole internet by making a case for every series doing something the best. Enough preamble? OK LET’S GO RIDER KICK(S)

Kamen Rider (’71) – Best Action

No, wait, come back! I’m serious!

CG, wirework and movie-fu have their place. Used responsibly, they can push an already good action sequence over the edge, but recent Rider has relied so heavily on these techniques that the fights just tend to wash over me.

The original series’ scraps, though, are so charmingly rough-and-tumble, so messy and organic by comparison! Actors utilise the scenery, be it swinging from cables…

…jumping from actual rooftops…

…or emerging from under sand. They lose their footing and recoup, trust each other to improvise, ride bikes…

…horses(!)…

…and sometimes even get their suits damaged or their hair mussed. I know! Jirou Chiba (FBI agent Taki) bounces around the screen as if he’s actively trying to upstage his hardman brother Sonny.

I hear a lot of praise for the fight choreography in recent series, but I don’t think I see it the same way. Maybe I’ve seen too many martial arts flicks. Sure, a lot of Wizard et al’s fights look straight out of a 90s Hong Kong action movie, but… isn’t that what 90s Hong Kong action movies are for? The ’71 series’ choreography is sometimes so creative (read: risky)

so downright weird, that it makes ostensibly unusual contemporary toku like Robot Detective or White Lion Mask look positively pedestrian.

And the grappling, my goodness, the grappling. There’s plenty of hefty and complex Heisei monster suits I’ve loved, but one of the great things about these skinny old ones is that it lets the acts really get stuck in. Like the aforementioned Robot Detective, there’s fireman carries, suplexes, back drops, even simple tieups galore- it just looks so darn physical.

I’ve been called a Shouwa Snob for often preferring this era- for a bunch of reasons- and while that’s not strictly true, if I had to choose between a one-off ultimate form CG Rider jet-kicking a CG monster into the core of the CG Earth, and a real Rider tumbling a real bad guy down a real hill with a real throw (and going straight into the next fight sequence without a cut)…

I know part of the reason things have changed is safety regulations. We’ll probably never see another lead actor injure themselves on set like Fujioka (Rider #1, who initially did his own suit stunts) did, and that’s a good thing. And I’ll be the first to admit that the violence can sometimes seem a little overboard for a kids’ show- just the second episode sees Shocker grunts flung from a rooftop, followed by expressionistic blood splatters on cold cement.

But it’s not the violence I admire; it’s the sense of realism, the

idea that the audience may have genuinely feared for their hero’s safety at times, and that even taking an evil life isn’t easy, much less something a hero would do with a sense of superiority (cf. the final episode of Wizard, which left me a little cold). Yes, you might get blood on your shirt when you take a life. It might even make you a little sad. And you certainly don’t feel like talking about it.

But above all that, if there was something I’d like to see make a comeback, it would be for all the stunt actors who’ve committed their lives to making completely safe moves look convincingly unsafe for our entertainment to have a shot at showing what they can really do, and prove wrong those who prioritise marketability over ability.

I’m not arguing for a relaxation of safety, but I think it’s a shame they don’t seem to trust these people with their art as much as they used to. Sano looks to have been partly chosen as Gaim’s out-of-suit actor for his legit physical capability, and has already said he’d like to do a backflip henshin just for the heck of it, so to say I’m looking forward to what Toei help him do would be an understatement.

Next episode: Why! Gomess Doesn’t Like V3?!