Will little boys will watch a main female Kamen Rider show?

Currently working on a female Rider concept. There are two main problems regarding this: merchandise and exposure. If it's purely to watch a show, I don't see a reason why little boys wouldn't watch it. Purchasing merchandise from the show is separate in my opinion. As far as exposure goes, most of us will be fine with it because we have seen enough tokusatsu to understand and appreciate the variety. Little boys who watch tokusatsu just for the action wouldn't appreciate the concept much, especially if the female Rider is the first show they are watching in their lifetime.

Like others said, I think little boys would watch but they may not want to buy toys based on female Rider, and I remember when I was young that I won't have brought any action figures who are female. I do think a secondary female Rider is very viable on a Kamen Rider series, just like female senshi in a Super Sentai series, but so far Toei doesn't seemed to agree since they either kill them off or have them as movie-exclusive characters.

Even the movie-only female Riders are generally not that powerful and don't get much screen time. I'd like to see a proper female Rider in the series itself but for now I'd settle for more and better-written female characters overall. With a few exceptions (Ozawa, Akiko) almost all Rider heroines are the stock "token girl/hero's cheerleader" type, whereas Sentai has a much wider variety of female characters. I would agree that things have improved over the last couple of years since W.

I don't think a young uber-kawaii female lead would work. But they could pull a new Shuki at us, and have an older woman play the female Rider.
Then the boys will have more of a mother-figure to look up to, and if they get a supporting cast of some guys they can relate to, then I think it could work.

The problem is that we have seen very few female Riders who were actually "normal" Riders.
When Toei gives us a female Rider, they always have to put the feminine level to the extreme in terms of suit designs.
Extra tight suits, high heels, boob-armor etc.

Put a woman in a male-Rider suit and you will hardly notice that it is a woman (especially since most suit actors are guys anyway)

jinscriba said:

Purchasing merchandise from the show is separate in my opinion.

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Most of these Toku shows are just glorified toy marketing. They've made whole movies based around new toys. So yeah, toy sales are a big deal.

There's a 50/50 chance.

My gut feeling is that chances of it working now are probably better than they have ever been, but if there is concern you could baby steps to it by having a season or two with a female secondary and then do a series with a female character as the main.

Basically get the idea of a female Rider out of being this once in a blue moon type of thing and into something little boys are used to seeing.

rangergod said:

Do you think little boys will like a main female rider?

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I don't see why not. It depends of the boy, if he's like really sexist and think all females should not be allowed to have a lead role in a superhero show, then obviously it's not gonna work for him. But I'm sure some boys don't mind having a sexy busty female Kamen Rider saving him from evil zombies and math teachers.. ..or something..

MattComix said:

My gut feeling is that chances of it working now are probably better than they have ever been, but if there is concern you could baby steps to it by having a season or two with a female secondary and then do a series with a female character as the main.

Basically get the idea of a female Rider out of being this once in a blue moon type of thing and into something little boys are used to seeing.

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Yeah, kinda like how it took 27 years to transition from spunky female sidekick to legally being called a Kamen Rider.

Oh Japan...

Black Ranger RX said:

I don't see why not. It depends of the boy, if he's like really sexist and think all females should not be allowed to have a lead role in a superhero show, then obviously it's not gonna work for him. But I'm sure some boys don't mind having a sexy busty female Kamen Rider saving him from evil zombies and math teachers.. ..or something..

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Most boys in the target age range are still at the point where they believe girls are, scientifically speaking, icky. Besides, Japan is still very much set in traditional gender roles. This is one of the things that's causing so much trouble for Power Rangers Samurai. Because it's a direct translation of Shinkenger some of the morals, especially the ones about the girls, come off as very backwards to American audiences.