Shin Kamen Rider

Following the end of Kamen Rider BLACK RX, the Rider series
took a break, and no new Riders would appear on television for
over a decade. Nonetheless, the franchise kept going strong on all
fronts, and celebrated its 20th Anniversary with the announcement of
a new direct-to-video Rider movie, entitled Shin Kamen Rider:
Prologue. In this case, Shin meant "True" as opposed to "New", as
this was to be Kamen Rider re-imagined the way Ishinomori had
intended it to be. This last point has long been a source of debate
among fans for reasons that will soon become clear.

Kazamatsuri Shin was your average, everyday motorcycle racer,
who is supposed to have recently graduated from a certain Jônan
University. His father Daimon is a scientist hoping to find a way to
cure all infectious diseases by strengthening the human body through
genetic alteration. Being the good son that he is, Shin volunteers to
take part in his father's experiments. Unfortunately for them, his
father's research partner Onizuka Giichi has other things in mind for
their research. Namely, using it to create a new race of
grasshopper/human hybrids that he will lead over as a god because,
hey, wouldn't you? Unfortunately even for him, the guys who have
been funding all this crazy stuff, the ISS Firm, has dark motives of
their own. ISS is just a dummy front, a branch of the much larger
enigmatic organization known only as "The Foundation", which has
its eyes set on creating a program of super soldiers and probable
eventual world domination.

In any event, Onizuka has been experimenting on himself behind everyone's back, using the research he has done with the Senior
Kazamatsuri to advance himself to the third stage, aptly named Level 3. As a result, he is now a sort of proto-Shin Kamen Rider,
who's been runnin' around causing a ruckus late at night and killing unlucky witnesses to his rampages. To make matters worse,
now that Shin has been altered by the same super-science that Onizuka was fooling around with, our hero has a telepathic link
established with the grasshopper mutant, and sees all the murders as if they were done by his own hands. When he confirms that
the killings really did happen and were not merely a dream, he grows suspicious of Onizuka and trails him, leading to the same
thing happening again when Shin sees Onizuka become a monster and fight with several Foundation commandos. Knocked out
during the struggle, Shin wakes up in a room full of dead guys and relives the murders all over again via the mental connection to
Onizuka. And you thought you've had some bad days.

Yes, the Foundation is on to Onizuka, and they are far more aware of what's up with Shin than the main man is himself. They send
their thug Gôjima to eliminate him, but fortunately, the CIA is also on to the Foundation, and their agent Sarah Fukamachi saves
Shin's bacon by shooting the would-be-assassin, who mysterious rises once everyone else has left thinking he's dead. Shin confers
with his buddy Yuuki Takuya, as well as his father's assistant and Shin's lover, Asuka Ai. Believing that he may have been doing
the killing all along, he asks them to stay away from him lest they become his next victims. Obviously, Asuka isn't going to just
abandon him, and for some reason, this leads to a skinny-dipping scene, followed by some implied lovin', which is a definite Rider
first.

A series of events leads to Onizuka transforming once again before Shin's eyes, but dying shortly thereafter in a fire. As it turns
out, despite saving him earlier, Sarah and her CIA buddies have been ordered to put the cap on the entire Cyborg Soldier project
(which is what Daimon's research has essentially turned into, beyond his control) and are hellbent on dealing with these crazy bug
guys. However, Onizuka's death and reversion back to normal triggers a change in Shin, and he painfully mutates into Shin Kamen
Rider. To add to the confusion, Gôjima shows up and mutates into his own Cyborg Soldier state, Level 2, as he is an earlier,
less-perfected version of what Shin and Onizuka have/had become. Shin saves Sarah from a Level 2-induced demise, and a short
battle ensues. Everyone gets away more or less unscathed, and shortly thereafter Shin learns that Asuka has in fact been with the
Foundation from the start, ordered to observe him by the bigwigs. Of course, her love for him has become greater than her loyalty
to them and all that mushy stuff, so the bad guys imprison her along with Shin's father, which turns out to be a bad idea.

You see, Asuka is now pregnant with Shin's child, a grasshopper/human
hybrid (yeah, get in line, kid) who has a telepathic connection to daddy, so it's
only a matter of time before Shin comes tearin' through a metal door with his
superhuman strength, and proceeds to kill every hapless guards and
henchman in the immediate area. Unfortunately, Asuka is shot by the ISS
head and Foundation strongman Himuro Iwao, who soon meets a grisly
demise at the hands of an enraged Shin Kamen Rider. Level 2 shows up for a
rematch, and despite sporting a big bladed claw hand thing, gets his head
ripped right off by the grasshopper man, spinal cord and all! Shin and his
father manage to escape, eluding the CIA who have come to clean things up,
and the movie ends on a rather downbeat note with Shin carrying the body of
Asuka who in turn is still carrying that freaky Shin Junior.

Obviously, it's hard to decide exactly where to begin with Shin Kamen
Rider: Prologue. When it was originally released, it was met with a very
mixed reaction from Rider fans. Years later... it's still mixed.

For starters, Shin had been an attempt to make a Rider story strictly for adults. As the level of violence and gore (and the skinny-
dipping scene) attest, this isn't exactly for kids. The intended core audience of Shin were fans who had seen the older series as
children and were now grown up, and would thus expect a darker, more mature storyline with realistic and brutal fights. At least,
that was the theoretical idea. The truth is, 9 out of 10 times, people who grow up on something are probably going to want to see
a remake/reimagining capture the same qualities that made it so enjoyable when they were kids. Exactly how much it captures
those qualities depends on the person, and as a result, reactions to Shin Kamen Rider were all over the map. Some praised the
DTV flick for its bold departure from the Rider (and Tokusatsu) norms, while others were less charitable.

A common factor cited by critics is Shin Kamen Rider himself. You've probably read the complaints: no mask, no belt, no real
bike, no named attacks, etc. In other words, it's often hard to defend Shin's Rider Cred because, the truth is, he really is that
unconventional. To be fair though, a lot of those "rules" had been broken before or after the video's release, in other Rider
productions. Amazon started the trend of "Kamen" taking on a more metaphorical meaning. Even if the Rider is not literally
masked, the point is that their face is still somehow changed or altered, and they're taking essentially on a separate identity,
"masking" themselves to the outside world. Hibiki & later Riders did fine without the belts, and the FIRSTy Riders (who are about
as literal an interpretation of "Kamen Rider" as you can get) didn't have Henshin movements beyond "move shirt aside." The use,
or lack thereof, of the motorcycle is a littler harder to buy into, but Shin would probably be the one Rider where I'd say it's
believable that he wouldn't ride the motorcycle, seeing as how he can barely even form a sentence when transformed.

Which brings us to the fact that Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue is less of a real hero tale than simply someone trying to survive and
protect his loved ones. But then, if you think about it, that's pretty much the case with a lot of other Riders (especially the older
ones) at the start— they don't become heroes by becoming Riders, they become Riders and then become heroes based on what
they do with those powers. In Shin's case, the idea is basically that he can't become a hero like Rider 1 or Den-O or whoever.
He can't just hop on his motorcycle and fight the good fight. Shin is a monster, a tragic character doomed to a terrible fate, and in
his world, there isn't a happy ending on the horizon. Whether you actually want to see that in a Kamen Rider story or not, of
course is dependant on your tastes.

While I've always felt that the overall message of Kamen Rider (as a franchise) is, and should be, an optimistic one, Shin Kamen
Rider: Prologue is still an interesting deviation, and like any of the newer series it deserves more consideration than simply being
written off as another "Rider in name only". I actually like the concept of Shin (the Rider) a lot, and while I feel that Kamen Rider
Gills would do the organic, monstrous Rider idea better in 2001, Shin's still a unique character, sort of like Amazon on crack. The
movie itself, in terms of plot and pacing, is not anywhere at the top of my list, but like Shin himself, I think the phrase "Not as bad
as everyone says it is" applies. It's worth checking out, if for the historical context alone, as you can see the groundwork for future
Rider series and movies abstractly laid out. Although I wouldn't recommend watching it with the kids.

Unfortunately, seeing the flick will have to involve either getting it on VHS, VCD, DVD-R, or downloading it, as Shin's one and
only adventure has yet to see an official DVD release in Japan. Coupled with Toei's relatively ambivalent attitude towards him
(Shin even gets skipped or reduced to a footnote in some books) it doesn't seem like there's much else in store for the big, green
guy anytime soon. Well, at least he made it into SD Riders.