Kamen Rider Question

[Gildersleeve]

I got interested in Kamen Rider several months ago and since last month, I've seen only one show: Kamen Rider Amazon. And in that series Tobei says something to the tone of "This one will be tougher to train than the other Riders". My question being, is there any continuity between each series, (Showa or Heisei) can I just pick any series and start watching? Or is it like in Amazon where they mention other Riders but don't go into detail after that?

 

[Medivh]

In the Showa era there was a certain amount of continuity, mainly in Tobei himself. As I recall, he was a mentor of sorts to many of the Riders in that era. Otherwise I do believe most of the old stuff was pretty standalone.

the Heisei stuff was most assuredly standalone, with the exception of the movies/crossovers. The only other thing was they tried a bit of continuity between Kuuga and Agito. Which from what I understand it worked out pretty well. Currently however there's nothing linking the serieses....unless you count Decade...which most of us don't.

You can pretty much pick up any series and start. The only thing I might suggest is wait until you've seen a fair amount before you start Decade. The entire thing was, or can be considered, one big bit of fan-service and it's just plain old more enjoyable if you know the material it's drawing from.

 

[Herman the German]

Hm, well, apparently, from what I understand, they were trying to suggest Kiva and Den-O take place in the same continuity, just like they triy with W, OOO and Den-O now, it seems, though even if that were the case, it'd be a bitch to figure those connections out in greater detail. So, for the most part, it's safe to say that most inter-series continuity is fanservice at best and the shows are mostly standalone.

 

[Smilodon]

The Showa KR are loosely interconnected, the first couple are more intertwined than others, but anything past Riderman is really just a couple of team ups. But the team ups however, are canon, and the V3 that we see in the Stronger team up is definitely the V3. Not to mention the Great Leader and his connections.

Agito being a sequel to Kuuga didn't work out. Well not really work out per say, but they dropped in the first couple of episodes, as Toei did not want to undermine what happened in Kuuga, and more importantly, undermine the trials and tribulations that Godai went through and thus dropped the connections of Kuuga and Agito. Ichijou was supposed to be the original G3, but Katsurayam couldn't film, and they replaced him with Kaname Jun. Which worked out marvelously! I think Toei dropped the continuity thing because they didn't want to undermine the achievements of the characters in the previous series. It also probably gave them more creative space to create a varying degree of stories.

Imagine destroying the Grongi Chieftain N-Daguba-Zeba, and his 48 Grongi by yourself with nothing more than your fists, and nifty bike action. Then have all that you've done be undermined by Shouichi, who quite literally, Rider Kicked God. They probably didn't want that and dropped continuity in Heisei Rider.

 

[Aoi Kurenai]

I like to think that the first five shows can work as one long saga with six or so character arcs, as mentioned earlier, connected by the old man as the mentor. Outside of the team ups, though, they're basically stand alone series (maaaaybe V3 would be otherwise). Skyrider and Super-1 are still connected to the other shows, but they're a lot more independent. (though there's this whole...arc in Skyrider that deals with a lot of the older Riders coming back to train him)

There's supposedly some connection between Double and OOO, but it sounds rather tenuous from what I've read up on it.

 

[NeonZ]

My question being, is there any continuity between each series, (Showa or Heisei) can I just pick any series and start watching? Or is it like in Amazon where they mention other Riders but don't go into detail after that?

The Showa series had connections, although aside from Kamen Rider - V3, and Stronger's final episode, the main plots were completely standalone, even if there were other Riders running around and a recurring mentor character between the shows.

The crossovers weren't limited to movies, and, some Showa series (X, Stronger, Skyrider, Black RX) actually featured crossovers right in the final episodes, making them pretty important parts of the shows. Well, aside from Black RX.

Skyrider, starting from episode 20, actually had almost 20 episodes featuring older Riders in its tv show in addition to a movie with everyone, so the other Riders were almost recurring cast members there after their debut. However, no plot thread from their show is even mentioned, it's all focused on Skyrider's story itself.

From the new Rider series, Kuuga and Agito had some ties initially, but those are quickly ignored by Agito. Afterwards, there's basically no continuity again and the series are completely unconnected, until Decade (and later Den-O movies).

Crossovers between characters from different series start again, although this time mostly in movies (which sometimes are referenced in the tv shows, but not the crossover parts of the movies).

In addition to the movies, Double also had a brief reference to the next tv show, OOO, in the series itself (and OOO had appeared in Double's own movie). However, OOO itself has seemingly gone back to making no reference to any other show outside of its movies (which have all been crossovers so far though).