Ok, this one’s gonna seem pretty negative at times, but don’t take it the wrong way! Especially if you spent $100 on the DVDs. I’ll concede that V3 is definitely a big deal; heck, it was the biggest Shouwa series until Black, but it’s also quite possibly the most shallow and unoriginal spin on the basic Rider concept ever.
Kamen Rider V3 – Best Cash-in
Kazami is nothing new conceptually, being essentially Hongou and Ichimonji’s kid, inheriting their battle against the exact same bad guy while they’re on holiday.
He’s ostensibly fighting to avenge his murdered family, but they’re never mentioned again for the whole series, and I don’t once get the feeling this was intentional character development. His colour scheme is even a simple, eye-catching inversion of the originals’- red body with green eyes- and his belt is just… double theirs.
But that’s where V3 really succeeds: it does everything the original series did, double. The action, horror, mystery, tragedy and unconscionably evil baddies are there in spades.
One of my favourite scenes in the whole series is a tiiiny one wherein an ordinary fella named Kuroda unsuccessfully hits on female lead Junko, and after accidentally witnessing Kazami henshin into V3 becomes a spiteful jerk and ‘outs’ Kazami to Junko. His reaction to her still rejecting him in favour of a ‘monster’ is spot-on dramatically, making him the perfect candidate for Deathtron.
But even this is really nothing new, and Kuroda’s ultimate death has negligible meaning or lasting effect. Like much of V3, it’s a bit style-over-substance, but maybe this was the best way to follow up the previous series, which wasn’t exactly deep either but had a distinctive style ripe for development.
Miyauchi Hiroshi was probably one of the few in the biz who could come close to filling the void left by Fujioka, and his flair is just over the top from start to finish. It probably doesn’t need to be said of a man who’s had so many prominent tokusatsu roles, but he loves his job.
Also like the original Riders, V3 himself hardly has an appreciable character arc, being just an all-round cool guy for the duration. To return to the concept of him being #1 and #2’s son figure, he often comes off as a combination of Hongou’s moral intensity and Ichimonji’s poignant whimsy, toying with his opponents one minute and brooding in the corner the next.
Possibly the greatest character moments in V3 come from the Rider’s brief rivalry and eventual friendship with Riderman. Now, I really like Riderman’s backstory. For those of you who don’t know, Yuuki Jouji was originally a ‘normal’ Deathtron scientist- the implication being he had no idea the organisation with a skeletal scorpion logo and faceless leader was a bit shady- but the jealous Marshal Armour dissolved his right arm in an acid bath. Rebelling against the organisation, Yuuki’s missing arm was replaced with a transforming mechanical one and he started going by the name Riderman.
What no one ever seems to mention is that it’s Yuuki’s generic science grunt underlings who save him from the acid bath and perform the lifesaving operation. It’s the kind of ‘nature of evil’ discourse we’d expect from Heisei, not Shouwa, and it really sets Riderman up as an antihero with a lot on his shoulders.
Unfortunately, save for one brilliant moment where Riderman instinctively protects the Deathtron Leader from V3, still subconsciously loyal to the only person who’d given his life direction, Riderman is killed off before he can see much actual development. Sacrificing himself by piloting a manned missile of untold destructive power away from Japan, he’s dubbed Kamen Rider #4 in what is the first death of a Rider. This would stand out today as a truly unique aspect of V3… were it not undone in the very next series.
And I don’t mean purposefully undone as part of the story. From the casual way everyone greets Riderman in Five Riders vs. King Dark, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was just coming back from a week off. So uh… why can’t Tackle come back and be an official Rider?
Yeah, I’m afraid I just can’t enjoy Riderman based almost entirely on how Tackle has been used in comparison. But I’m sure, back when V3 was actually on TV, he was a compelling antihero for his too-short role and did an invaluable job of expanding the franchise’s scope.
More positively, some of the series’ totally ostentatious monster designs really pushed the envelope, not only with their colourful appearances but their abilities, which allowed for lots of development of KR ’71‘s fantastic action. Seriously, headlocking a turtle monster with an extendable neck?
And the fantastically constructed Garmadillon (still one of my favourite suits) gets the bittersweet defeat that the aforementioned Kuroda really should have, but again, it’s little more
than a flashier version of the plot for the original series’ fourth episode.
It also features the scariest starfish kaijin ever:
All of these things, though- V3 as a legacy hero, Riderman’s still enduring uniqueness, the monster suits turned up to 11- pushed the envelope just enough that
the door was now open for more truly experimental future series. I’m no fan of V3 as a whole, but I doubt that anything else could have appropriately followed the original and made Kamen Rider the sensation it now is, complete with all the more original and fulfilling storylines we’ve seen since.
Also, Hongou in a beret.
V3 is pretty much the quintessential ‘Bigger, Better’ sequel, less concerned with advancing or reinventing the ideas and concepts of the series than it is with taking what they already had and just pushing the envelope with it. And I think it succeeds admirably on that level, successfully taking all the excess and entertainment value that defines toku as a genre and smoothing it into one quintessentially-identifiable product.
And how can you say Shiro forgot about his family? He mentions them every week in the theme song!
On the subject of Riderman, I don’t blame this show in particular for the uneven way he was treated re:later characters like Tackle. Writing-wise, it seems like a wonderful gesture to christen this character ‘Kamen Rider #4’ right at his heroic sacrifice, but at the time I don’t think they had any concept that they would want to bring back all the ‘Legendary’ Riders as a stunt later, and thanks to V3’s moment of honorable generosity, would have to include Riderman in that club from then on. But hey, every team needs its Aquaman, right?
You’re right, if I’m judging the show individually I shouldn’t complain about later stuff. Maybe I’m just biased against crossovers! …Wait, didn’t Aquaman have a hook hand once too?
He did have a hook hand for a while (The Justice League cartoon even had it). A lot happened since then: Magic Hand, Mutant, Dead, Zombie, Resurrected.