Kamen Rider BLACK RX

After the defeat of Gorgom at the hands of Kamen Rider BLACK,
everything seemed peachy keen. Minami Kôtarô took a job as a
helicopter pilot for the Sahara family, and even got himself a photo
journalist girlfriend, Shiratori Reiko. And perhaps most importantly,
he could finally buy some new clothes! (No, really. In Kamen Rider
BLACK he wears the same two or three outfits for the whole series.
Which he basically does again in this one.)

But it wasn't long before evil reared its ugly head once more. This
time, in the form of the Crisis Empire, aliens who plotted to conquer
the Earth. In order to do so, they made it their first objective to get
rid of Minami Kôtarô. Wouldn’t you? So they captured him and
brought him aboard their spaceship.

They offer him the chance to join them, which he flatly refuses, so the
bad guys jettison him into outer space, and open fire with energy
beams! This causes the King Stone in Minami’s body to split in two,
and as if things weren’t bad enough, he’s soon en route towards the
sun. The King Stone(s) react to the solar energy, and Minami makes
like a meteorite and falls back the Earth. Fortunately for him (and
us), he does not burn up on reentry, but instead miraculously
survives, and gets powered up to boot. He’s now the new and
improved "Child of the Sun"– Kamen Rider BLACK RX!

Name: Kamen Rider
BLACK RX (Burakku
Aaru Ekkusu)

Height: 198.8 cm

Weight: 88 kg

Human Identity:
Minami Kôtarô

Rider Machines:
Acrobatter, Roboizer,
Mach Jabber, Ridoron

Henshin Belt: Sunriser

Henshin Phrase:
"Henshin!"

Enemy: Crisis Empire

Combat Techniques:

-RX Punch
-RX Kick
-RX Chop
-Revol Crash
-King Stone Flash, etc.

Roborider Combat
Techniques:

-Robo Punch
-Robo Kick
-Hard Shot

Biorider Combat
Techniques:

-Bio Punch
-Bio Kick
-Spark Cutter
-Ekika Kôgeki
(Liquefaction Attack),
aka Bio Attack

Special
Equipment/Weapons
& Powers:

-Revolcane, a light
saber he can pull out of
his Henshin Belt.

-Can change forms, to
either Roborider or
Biorider. Roborider
uses the Vortech
Shooter and is
physically stronger than
the other two forms,
while the speedier
Biorider uses the Bio
Blade.

Once things are more or less under control again, Minami naturally
vows to stop Crisis and keep the peace that he fought so hard to
protect as BLACK. Fortunately for him, he’s got a veritable arsenal
of weapons this time around!

First off, RX can now use, in addition to the old Rider Punch &
Kick variations, the Revolcane, a sword of light that he pulls out of
his new double Henshin Belt. RX uses it for fightin' sword-wielding
enemies (and there are a bunch in this series) and mostly for striking
the killing blow. RX also gets help from an old friend– Battle
Hopper! Yep, no sooner than BLACK upgrades to BLACK RX,
than a beam of light comes down from the heavens (from the split
King Stone) to revive and regenerate Battle Hopper into the new
Acrobatter.

Acrobatter is able to talk with RX, as is another new ally– Ridoron,
the one and only Rider car. The latter shows up starting in episode
#4, and sports large extendable mandibles on the front for some
baddie-crunching action.

On top of all this, RX also gains the power to become two other
Riders, the "Prince of Sadness", Roborider (first seen in episode
#15) & the "Prince of Anger", Biorider (first seen in episode #17.)
BLACK RX can change to either of these forms and back at will,
although the first time he becomes either, he has to seriously feel the
respective emotion.

Roborider is the strong, slow, black & yellow Rider, who wields the
Vortech Shooter, and likes to walk right through explosions.

Biorider is a speedy blue guy, who attacks foes with the Bio Blade, and has
the power to turn into liquid, change size, and even take direct hits without
being injured (a concept that makes BLACK RX ungodly powerful if you
think about it.)

Whenever RX transforms, Acrobatter transforms with him. For Roborider it
becomes Roboizer, for Biorider it becomes Mach Jabber (or maybe it's
Mach Jabba, as in a nod to the Hutt, but who knows?).

RX gains a couple more allies along the way– Kasumi No Jô (Jô of the
Mist), a Crisis cyborg who RX rescues from the bad guys. He helps our hero
out in true sidekick style. There’s also Matoba Kyôko, a telepathic girl who
lost her parents to Crisis and uses her abilities to control water to assist RX.

Kamen Rider BLACK RX has to contend with several Major Officers of
Crisis throughout the series, all at once. There’s Bosgan, the Crisis Naval
Captain and leader of the Demon Beastmen; Maribaron, the Crisis
Intelligence Officer and leader of the Demon Spirit Tribe; Gatezone, the
Crisis Armored Corps Commander and leader of the Demon Robots;
Gedorian, the Crisis Fang Commander and leader of the Demon Alien
Lifeforms; and Jaaku Shôgun, the ringleader of them all (Jaaku means
"Wicked" or "Evil"). No, his name is not supposed to be "Jerk Shôgun".

Later on in the series, Colonel Dasmader is sent by the real power
behind Crisis to whip things into shape, and manages to get on
everybody else’s bad side. So much, in fact, that he gets killed a
couple times, yet mysteriously returns to life after each attempt...

Speaking of mysteriously returning to life, Shadow Moon also comes
back! He shows up in episodes #22 & 27. I guess you can’t have a
Kamen Rider BLACK show, in any form, without a Shadow Moon!
Here, he's obsessed with defeating RX, and isn't about to let anyone
stand in his way.

Towards the end of the series, RX begins cleaning house, taking
down Gedorian and Gatezone after vicious brawls. The Crisis
Empire sics its most powerful monster, Granzairus on our hero.

None of his powers or weapons have any effect, and it looks like the end for
RX. But, who should come to his rescue but the other 10 Riders! That’s right!
It turns out Rider 1~ZX had been spending some time over in the US, training
to gear up for this final confrontation.

With the 10 senior Riders at his side, it’s only a matter of time before RX
triumphs over Crisis, and the last few episodes see him taking down Bosgan
and Jaaku Shôgun, who has since been mutated by the Emperor of Crisis (the
organization's true ruler) into Jaaku-Midora.

The latter proves to be an expecially tough customer, tearing through guest
Riders (who also have to contend with several revived Crisis Kaijin) and
killing the parents in Minami's adopted family, which of course doesn't go over
well. BLACK RX defeats Jaaku-Midora after an epic battle in which our
hero must use nearly every trick he's got to take him down.

Maribaron eventually gets killed off by a ticked-off Emperor, and we find out that Dasmader is nothing more than host body used
by the head honcho himself. RX has a final showdown with the big ugly head, and finally emerges victorious. Consequently, the
Emperor of Crisis is voiced by Naya Gorô– the Great Leader! Whether there’s any connection between these two characters or
not has never been specifically stated, but of course it's led to many wild fan theories, including my own which...well, I'll get into
that some other time. Anyways, despite the loss of the Sahara 'rents, a happy enough ending follows, as Minami says goodbye to
all his friends and fellow Riders before taking off for perhaps yet another adventure.

Kamen Rider BLACK RX had a generally lighter tone then Kamen Rider BLACK, and it shows. Considering what he went
through in the last show, Minami Kôtarô is in pretty good spirits here. The overall storyline & plots are also generally of lighter
nature then the dark, apocalyptic feel of the later episodes of BLACK. Thus, fan reaction to the show has always been all over the
map. While it's not at the top of my list, there are still plenty of good stories and dramatic moments, and even if it couldn't be, say,
the end of Kamen Rider Stronger, I find the team-up in final few episodes to be pretty cool. Since it's the last time that so many
old Riders would appear on TV together, it's a highlight for me even if none of the original actors could be present, and the voices
are more than a little off (Amazon in particular! At least they kept his battle cries.) Overall, BLACK RX was a pretty light if nice
way to end things a few years, before the eventual 90's videos & movies, and of course, the revival of Rider on TV in 2000!

Movies/Specials & Guest Appearances/Cameos

~Movies/Specials/Other~

Kamen Rider 1 ~ RX Great Assembly (1988): Premiering between the end of Kamen Rider BLACK and beginning of Kamen
Rider BLACK RX, this short special is sometimes considered episode #52 of Kamen Rider BLACK (such as on the official DVD
release), and sometimes it isn't (such as still-recent books and magazines.) In any case, it's basically a clip show covering
everything from the beginning up to the end of BLACK, before giving us a preview of what's in store for our hero next. *Kurata
Tetsuo appears!

Kamen Rider: Running around the World (1989): Oh Snap! BLACK RX gets thrown back in time/into an alternate
universe/someplace, and reverts to BLACK. Fortunately, BLACK RX shows up (huh?) to save his own rear end, and before
long Roborider & Biorider (who are also the same guy) show up to help defeat a bunch of revived Crisis Empire monsters. So in
essence, ol' Kôtarô teams up with himself four times in this short little flick. *Kurata Tetsuo appears!

Kamen Rider: SD Riders (1993): BLACK RX is front and center in this animated spectacle. He’s love-starved (I guess things
with Reiko didn’t work out) and doesn’t exactly get much help from his fellow Riders (especially that smoothie V3.) He does get
the best line in the whole thing though, when he meets his old enemy, Sunshine– er, Shadow Moon.