2018-2019 Kamen Rider

So we went from Cowboy Cheeseburger Ninja to Kamen Rider Ninja? That's cool.

I gotta say I'm a little bit bummed that all three of the Legend Riders (Kuuga, Den-O and Double) weren't reprised by their original actors .

Except for Den-O . At least 1 out of 3 isn't bad.

Toei did a really good job keeping his return a secret. I knew they had something up their sleeves and keeping Den-O's return under warps as a surprise was great. This might be the first time they'd kept a movie so spoiler-free.

Happy new Woz

They really did put effort when create Kamen Rider Shinobi. Except his simple belt, it is hard to think Shinobi is reuse and mixmatch of old armor. He have unique way to store his belt even a giant CGI toad and sfx to his transform sequence.

The show's official twitter account has just revealed the next future Rider, Kamen Rider Quiz, and it seems that he will be portrayed by another former Sentai actor. This time it's Suzuki Katsuhiro, who previously played Hiromu/Red Buster in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters.

In addition, the Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club, which broadcast the '0.5' episodes, has announced that they will be broadcasting a spinoff based on Kamen Rider Shinobi this coming March.

First Starninger and now Red Buster are becoming Kamen Riders? Also missed opportunity to have Suzuki Katsuhiro reprise his role as Red Buster for the 4 week Sental battle tournament special. We could have gotten a forever red team!

Shinji Kido a.k.a. Kamen Rider Ryuki will be making an appearance in Zi-O. We can't call it a return as such, as supposedly he made some sort of appearance in the 'Heisei Generations Forever' movie. But this time he's bringing his boss Daisuke back with him.

However, instead of facing Another Ryuki the monster will be Another Ryuga, the dark counterpart from the mirror world that Ryuki faced in his movie. See how the name and year written on his chest have been flipped as if reading them in a mirror.

They will appear in episodes 21 and 22 which will air in February.

Huzzah for Shinji's return! At least will be a bit longer than Kitaoka's ten second appearance in Chou Superhero War.

More information has been released about the upcoming Toei Tokusatsu Fanclub (TTFC) web series that replaces Zi-O's "Contemplation Project" (aka the 0.5 episodes).

As mentioned earlier there will be one or more specials (it's not clear how many) based around Kamen Rider Shinobi. The official name of this is "RIDER TIME Part 1: Kamen Rider Shinobi".

The big news is that there will be another entry starring a past Rider - "RIDER TIME Part 2: Kamen Rider Ryuki". Yup, it seems Shinji is back for more than just a couple of episodes of Zi-O!

Also notable is that this project will be written by the infamous Toshiki Inoue. Inoue is best known as the head writer for Agito, Faiz, post-staff-change Hibiki, and Kiva. Along with that he wrote a number of the early Heisei Riders' summer movies, including Ryuki's (which could be why Ryuga - a character created for that movie - is appearing in the Ryuki tribute episodes of Zi-O). He also wrote a Ryuki novel in 2013 which provided a 'unique' interpretation of the series (in other words it's supposedly batshit crazy).

Aside from Shinji himself, the only other characters confirmed to appear so far are Sougo and Geiz from Zi-O. But it wouldn't be too strange to think that some of the other members of Ryuki's cast will appear, as a few of them have shown up in more recent Rider series and/or movies. Indeed, the very first project commissioned for the TTFC was the Kamen Rider Brave special that prominently featured Kamen Rider Ouja.

The third future Rider is Rento Makina A.K.A. Kamen Rider Kikai. He will appear in episode 23. He comes from the year 2121, where he fights to protect the last surviving humans against the 'Humanoids' - machines that look exactly like people (so even if they stop the rise of Oma Zi-O, doesn't this suggest that the human race is FUBAR anyway?). The suit of his transformed form is based upon a Guardian robot from Build (although I think the helmet comes from something else? Possible a highly modified Grease helmet?).

And if that double denim outfit and robot-based suit and backstory weren't all big enough hints that this is something of a tribute/reference to Kikaider, he is being played by Jingi Irie, who played Jiro/Kikaider in the Kikaider REBOOT film a few years back, and was most recently seen as the villainous Zamigo in LuPat.


Looking further ahead, the three Riders will combine their powers (in a way that reminds me of Den-O's Climax Form) to become Zi-O Trinity. That's Geiz's face on the right shoulder and Woz's on the left. The toy comes out in March so expect to see this quite soon.

He is going to have to wait until May, but Woz will also get another upgrade. It will, of course, come in the form of another power taken from a future Rider. In this case, Kamen Rider Ginga (seen in the small inset picture at the lower center). This will allow him to become Woz Ginga.

Finally, this gaudy monstrosity is Grand Zi-O, his final form. Thankfully, we won't be subjected to this until June.

Grand Zi-O actually looks Worst than Decade's Ultimate Form!

A quick update on both the Shinobi and Ryuki spinoffs. Both miniseries consist of three episodes. Shinobi will be on the Toei Tokusatsu Fanclub site while Ryuki will be on VideoPass. The first episode of each miniseries will be made available on March 31st. The second episode will be made available one week later on April 7th, and the third a week after on April 14th.