To be fair, for younger fans he sort of is obscure.
There hasn't been much in the way of fansubs for Metal Heroes to allow new fans access like there is for Rider/Sentai/Ultraman. Considering Rider is also pretty much used to fill the same niche, there's also been no real reason for Toei to make more Metal Heroes and thus keep its history noticeable.
Shirakura's a producer, and it's pretty much just an...assumption that he doesn't want to use older actors. I mean, I think you can look at his works and easily come to that conclusion. And I think he only brings in the old suits as really nothing more than a gimmick, he's all about the gimmicks.
I just always think of Fujioka in Project G4. Wasted. A pointless cameo. Why's he there? A gimmick to sell the movie.
Well, I have heard of the show Space Sheriff Gavan and the Metal Heroes but I had never seen him in action or even seen the suit (Though it did look familiar, so maybe I had and just didnt recognize it before hand)
Shirakura's a producer, and it's pretty much just an...assumption that he doesn't want to use older actors. I mean, I think you can look at his works and easily come to that conclusion. And I think he only brings in the old suits as really nothing more than a gimmick, he's all about the gimmicks.
I just always think of Fujioka in Project G4. Wasted. A pointless cameo. Why's he there? A gimmick to sell the movie.
The early Heisei movies often had cameos from the actors of previous years, due to the way they tried to avoid actual crossovers between series back then. It's not like the Heisei actors from past years returned in those movies playing their own characters either.
Fujioka was the police commissioner that briefly talks with the main cast right before the final battle. He had no official name, and the production said that it's nice to imagine that he's actually Rider 1.
However, his dialogue really doesn't sit well with me if that was really the intention of the movie's crew - he just tells Shoichi that Shoichi can do what he can't before leaving and not appearing again in the movie.