The Big Picture
- Shin Kamen Rider is a bold and crazy superhero reboot that captures the essence of live-action anime in a unique and exhilarating way.
- The film is part of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Japan Heroes Universe, which reboots classic Japanese heroes and kaiju, showcasing Anno’s unique and creative filmmaking techniques.
- Shin Kamen Rider explores dark themes and tackles existential loneliness, providing a radical departure from traditional superhero movies, making it a refreshing and exciting watch.
That Hideaki Anno (the creator of the cult anime phenomenon Neon Genesis Evangelion) is one of the boldest cinematic voices of Japan is no secret. His latest cinematic effort, a superhero reboot of the popular Japanese 1971 TV show Kamen Rider, is one of the craziest films that 2023 has had to offer. Given anime’s propensity for insanity, that’s certainly saying something. Any logic that you can find within that entire genre is strictly internal, with action scenes and exposition compromising much of the runtime. Anno’s reboot, Shin Kamen Rider, is the closest thing to a live-action anime in the best possible way, and the best part? It was released worldwide on Prime Video just weeks ago! If you’re looking for an Anno fix after 2021’s Evangelion swan song or simply want to see a different type of superhero movie (and believe me, this one bears no resemblance to its Western counterparts) then there’s no better midnight flick to watch than this.
While a standalone entry with no direct sequels attached, Shin Kamen Rider is actually the latest entry into Anno’s Shin Japan Heroes Universe. It functions similar to the MCU, though its emphasis is on rebooting classic Japanese heroes and kaiju rather than comic book properties (or in the case of Japan, manga, which are almost always self-contained). The loose franchise began with Anno’s own Shin Godzilla, the likes of which proves just as much of a bureaucratic farce as it does a monster movie with whip-smart and nigh-theatrical pacing, the aforementioned Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (that’s a mouthful of a title but then again, Evangelion as a franchise is a lot to take in), and lastly, 2022’s Shin Ultraman. While the latter film is the only one of the four to have currently not been directed by Anno (instead directed by Shinji Higuchi), his paws are all over the kaiju-fighting reboot, with many of the same techniques utilized on Shin Kamen Rider as well.
Who Is the Kamen Rider?
Kamen Rider translates directly to ‘Masked Rider’ and is part of the tokusatsu genre (Japanese films heavily reliant on practical special effects). The original TV series follows motorcyclist and biochemistry student Takeshi Hongo (the same character used for this installment of the film, played by Sosuke Ikematsu), as he’s transformed into a ‘Grasshopper-Aug’ against his will. He uses his unwanted abilities to fight his former captors, an evil terrorist organization known as SHOCKER intent on merging soldiers with insects to grant them superhuman powers at the cost of their humanity. While the 1971 iteration may look like a Japanese version of Power Rangers, the franchise wrestled with an array of dark themes, chief among them being the use of evil weapons and abilities to fight evil people. Think Oppenheimer but swap nukes for Spider-Man-like superpowers.
The Kamen Rider franchise would evolve to become an absolute titan in the Japanese entertainment industry, spawning dozens of series, video games, and theatrical releases. It’s credited for launching a second boom in the kaiju genre, popularizing the term kaijin which is used to describe superpowered, yet monstrous, humanoid supervillains who, unlike their colossal counterparts, are capable of speech. This resulted in the potential to explore a greater range of characters and themes as no longer were the villains primarily focused on wanton destruction, but had their own, intelligently speculated agendas.
How Powerful Is the Masked Rider?
It’s not uncommon for anime to go off the rails when developing their protagonist’s skill set and although the Kamen Rider franchise may not strictly belong under the anime umbrella, its approach appears no different. What’s remarkable about Shin Kamen Rider isn’t necessarily the Grasshopper-Aug’s actual abilities, or even how he uses them, but the way Anno captures them onscreen in a matter that both pays tribute to the old-school practical effects of the 70s and modernizes it for maximum brutality. When activated via his costume, the Masked Rider is able to utilize a life source known as prana to bolster his physical attributes to superhuman levels. While never far from his high-tech motorcycle, his most iconic attack is the Rider Kick, in which after weakening his opponent, he hurls them up into the air and performs a devastating flying kick to their torso. SPOILERS: It looks absolutely rad.
In depicting the Masked Rider’s fighting ability, Anno opted for an approach that isn’t nearly as polished as what Westerners may expect from the MCU. Instead, the entire film possesses an almost gritty, practical aesthetic, with whip-pans, jump cuts, and crash zooms being used with an inspiring amount of creativity to convey the Rider’s immense power. A punch delivered to a henchman will lead to a crash zoom and a massive amount of blood will come flying out of the receiver’s wound combined with a thunderous sound effect. By the time you figure out what’s taken place, you only know one thing: you don’t want to piss this guy off.
During a battle with Wasp-Aug (supervillains here are named after their insectoid enhancements), the Masked Rider shows off his super-speed, opting for an approach unique from both The Flash and Quicksilver from the latest X-Men installments. While the filmmakers behind the Marvel and DC speedsters opted to depict the rest of the world in slow-motion while their character runs at incomprehensible speeds, Anno instead decides to ditch the realism and depict super speed through the creation of countless after-images, an anime staple. This manages to convey the character’s speed without robbing it of any momentum for the audience. Instead of placing the audience into the hyper-accelerated mind of a speedster, the audience remains a spectator, able to appreciate just how quickly these fighters are moving through a scene.
It Wouldn’t Be An Anno Movie Without Existential Themes of Crippling Loneliness
Neon Genesis Evangelion didn’t become a cult phenomenon for being an outstandingly action-packed Mecca series. On the contrary, it garnered its fan base by exploring themes of grief, trauma, and most importantly loneliness. Piloting the meccas of Evangelion aren’t played off as a wish-fulfilling fantasy but a traumatic experience akin to that of a soldier at war. It takes as quickly as the opening of the original series’ third episode to depict protagonist Shinji Ikari’s (originally voiced by Megumi Ogata) depressive anxiety taking hold as he mindlessly practices his shooting ability, shell-shocked from the experience of fighting just one ‘Angel’ (the series’ version of kaijus). Shin Kamen Rider is hardly any different, as it takes but a single fight with Spider-Aug for the protagonist to confront the trauma of being unwillingly turned into a killing machine. The prana coursing through the Rider’s veins forces him to become more aggressive for the sake of survival, but the brutality he inflicts on his enemies very soon becomes impossible for his human mind to digest. This highlights the film’s Machiavellian conundrum of whether the ends justify the means, providing a radical departure from the idealistic, status-quo-oriented superheroes of DC and Marvel.
Further similar to Evangelion are the film’s villains. In Evangelion the main antagonists were Angels, only to be revealed to be the Human Instrumentality Project, the likes of which will merge all of humanity into one consciousness so that no one will ever feel alone again. Shin Kamen Rider’s plot unfolds as a billionaire assigns the most powerful AI in the world a single mission: to usher the world into an age of happiness. He then commits suicide, leading to the AI misinterpreting his message, with every Insect-Aug hellbent on delivering their own version of what that means. Naturally, the interpretations prove as cynically varied as possible, with some attempting to hypnotize entire cities into submissions or unleash epidemics so that only a few humans may survive and prosper. Beyond that, Anno’s trademark loneliness is deeply explored, especially in relation to the burdens of power and responsibility.
Riddled with explosive practical action, existential themes, and other Anno-isms throughout, Shin Kamen Rider provides an excellent taster to the departure from realism that Hollywood superhero movies tend to offer. It’s similar to the way that Into the Spider-Verse led to a departure from realism in CG animation (as wild as it sounds to say that Shrek was realistic, compared to the latest Puss in Boots, it certainly was), choosing instead to experiment and innovate for an aesthetic that might not be entirely believable, but proves even more of a joy to behold. With fans beginning to believe that the MCU is running out of steam, the franchise could learn a thing or two from the Shin Japan Heroes Universe (dubbed SJHU) in its consistently effective modernization of decades-old properties, as if there’s one thing that Anno always ensures that his movies do, it’s taking colossal risks.