Lynxara
Nice post!!
There's a Kuuga art book that features the sketches, I think mattcomics has it.
If I was going to group the Rider production periods based on creative development instead of pure date, there is how I'd do it...
Golden Age: Original Kamen Rider thru ZX. Effects can be rough in this period, much as art in Golden Age comics can be crude, but this was also a period of wild creativity and originality. Characters and stories from this era are consistently repeated and revisited in later eras of Kamen Rider. Villains are often whimsical but very deadly, themes are very influenced by Western superhero material.
Silver Age: Kamen Rider Black through Kamen Rider Kuuga. This era is distinguished by a consistent approach to Kamen Rider as a "single hero" show, with an exception for Black RX's nostalgic team-up. The theme of this era is trying to find ways to take Kamen Rider in new directions and approach the concept more realistically (which Black, Shin, and Kuuga all do in different ways). In this era Kamen Rider loses most of its Amecomi-like elements and begins refining a purely Japanese approach to superhero storytelling. Probably the most important concept for Rider introduced here is form changing, something toyed with in Super-1 but not truly embraced until Black RX.
Bronze Age: Agito through Decade, along with the films The First and The Next. This era is distinguished by approaching Kamen Rider consistently as a multi-protagonist show. Even when not all Riders are protagonists, as in Ryuki, or not all protagonists are Riders, as in Hibiki, series consistently follow at least two main characters. This approach also deeply colors the approach to the material used in the First and the Next films. Power levels for Riders increase dramatically in this era, but there's also some wild creativity that happens in this era that is only paralleled by the creativity of the Golden Age. Just as a lot of comics fans date the ending of that medium's Bronze Age with Crisis of Infinite Earths, I feel Decade brings all of the themes of this era of Rider to their logical end (or, if you want to be more negative about it, their shark-jumping point).
W is still in production so I feel like it's too early to analyze it in any sort of depth. That said, it's very different in feel from what came before and in some respects actively rejects the Bronze Age approach to Kamen Rider. I feel like we're about to enter a decade of shows that will be similarly different.
If I was going to group the Rider production periods based on creative development instead of pure date, there is how I'd do it...
Golden Age: Original Kamen Rider thru ZX. Effects can be rough in this period, much as art in Golden Age comics can be crude, but this was also a period of wild creativity and originality. Characters and stories from this era are consistently repeated and revisited in later eras of Kamen Rider. Villains are often whimsical but very deadly, themes are very influenced by Western superhero material.
Silver Age: Kamen Rider Black through Kamen Rider Kuuga. This era is distinguished by a consistent approach to Kamen Rider as a "single hero" show, with an exception for Black RX's nostalgic team-up. The theme of this era is trying to find ways to take Kamen Rider in new directions and approach the concept more realistically (which Black, Shin, and Kuuga all do in different ways). In this era Kamen Rider loses most of its Amecomi-like elements and begins refining a purely Japanese approach to superhero storytelling. Probably the most important concept for Rider introduced here is form changing, something toyed with in Super-1 but not truly embraced until Black RX.
Bronze Age: Agito through Decade, along with the films The First and The Next. This era is distinguished by approaching Kamen Rider consistently as a multi-protagonist show. Even when not all Riders are protagonists, as in Ryuki, or not all protagonists are Riders, as in Hibiki, series consistently follow at least two main characters. This approach also deeply colors the approach to the material used in the First and the Next films. Power levels for Riders increase dramatically in this era, but there's also some wild creativity that happens in this era that is only paralleled by the creativity of the Golden Age. Just as a lot of comics fans date the ending of that medium's Bronze Age with Crisis of Infinite Earths, I feel Decade brings all of the themes of this era of Rider to their logical end (or, if you want to be more negative about it, their shark-jumping point).
W is still in production so I feel like it's too early to analyze it in any sort of depth. That said, it's very different in feel from what came before and in some respects actively rejects the Bronze Age approach to Kamen Rider. I feel like we're about to enter a decade of shows that will be similarly different.
