仮面ライダーへの情熱
I get that Japanese people like bugs a lot more than Americans,
but I still find it just strange like which bugs they picked.
Why not like a praying mantis?
Maybe not as cool as grasshopper.
I will never understand the sentence you just said.
Welcome back to 2AM OTTACK!
I am your host Mayu, a born and raised Japanese non-otaku, and...
I'm Cisco, an American otaku.
In this podcast, we share our reviews of anime and manga
through our distinct perspectives with commentary on Japanese culture,
history, and language.
Cisco.
Yes.
Like we were not trying to watch this anime.
That's true.
We just randomly found this on Netflix and it looks pretty appealing to me.
But I don't know about to you.
I think a different part of it was appealing to me than to you.
Yeah, the reason why it was appealing to me was because I know about this sentai.
That word is like known by maybe like people who are really familiar with the genre.
I don't know that everybody will know it, but you can call it that.
Okay.
So sentai that I kind of used to watch when I was a little kid,
just because I have a younger brother and he was obsessed with the sentai.
So I was like, okay, let's give it a try.
And then we started watching.
And how was it?
It was hilarious.
I'm really glad we decided to watch it.
The first episode was so good.
And it was so great.
Even though you don't know anything about the sentai.
Well, I wouldn't say I don't know anything about sentai because
I did watch some of Power Rangers.
But the one we are talking about.
That's right.
Okay.
So today we are going to talk about.
Today we'll be talking about Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider.
In Japanese, Tojima Tanzaburo wa Kamen Rider ni naritai.
It's long.
Yeah.
I mean, it's long in English too.
But yeah.
So we're going to talk about this.
Like very kind of nostalgic for me and new to you.
Yet really, really funny.
Very, very funny.
Yes.
Yes.
Before we start, we'd like to hear from you.
Share your thoughts, ideas, questions, or even suggestions that we should talk about.
Send us a message to the email in the description.
Or you can use Spotify and the YouTube comments section as well.
Okay.
Let's dive into it.
So far, there are two episodes we watched.
Right.
And it's a third episode is about to come up.
There are 16 Tanko Bones.
That's a lot.
That's what I thought.
It doesn't seem like they're going to be able to stretch this out for 16 Tanko Bones worth of
material, but I guess you never know.
It's a popular thing.
Could you give us summary?
Sure.
This is really only a summary of the first and second episodes.
There's a guy named Tojima Tanzaburo, and he's obsessed with Kamen Rider, which is a
Sentai show from the 70s.
As a kid, he was really into Kamen Rider.
And then even as a teenager, he was still really into Kamen Rider when a lot of other
people were like, dude.
So he kept training himself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he trained in karate, I guess.
Everything.
Martial arts.
He's muscly.
Kamen Rider fighting styles.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anyway, yeah, he trained.
It really seems like he was in high school in the 80s, right?
Like from the everything.
Maybe early 90s.
Not 80s.
He is 40 right now.
This is actually set in like the early 2010s, like about 10 years ago is like the setting.
You don't get that sense?
So anyway, as a teenager, he was still really into Kamen Rider.
He fought some local thugs.
They beat the crap out of him because, you know, there was one dude against like a bunch of
dudes.
So it's got kind of like a realism angle to it.
He winds up being 40 years old, single, and he works as a construction worker and he throws
Kamen Riderの夢と現実
out all his Kamen Rider stuff.
So he seems kind of like sad and a little pathetic.
But then he encounters, he sees online.
Yeah.
On the news that there's robbers.
Yeah.
Some like kind of Yakuza chimpanzees, like thugs hitting up stores and like using masks
to commit crimes.
And the masks they're using are the masks of the bad guys from Kamen Rider's like, you
know, story.
And he's like, wow, that's ridiculous.
He doesn't really react to it.
He doesn't go looking for trouble, but then he's just like chilling at a festival and
he happens to like run into the guys wearing those masks who are committing crimes, like
busting up somebody's, you know, festival stall.
And the stall next to it has popular hero masks and stuff like which, you know, people
wear in Japan.
And one of them is Kamen Rider.
So he just takes the Kamen Rider mask, puts it on, and then proceeds to like beat this
crap out of the guys who are like busting up the stall.
Because it's, I guess it's said in at least the 20 hints because people have video phones
that like record him and then post it on social media of him like being Kamen Rider.
Then in the second episode, we're introduced to a woman who is obsessed with a female
character from the Kamen Rider series and who is trained to be like her, but she doesn't
just have a mask.
She has like a full body suit.
And so in the second episode, she also encounters the people dressed up like the Shocker organization
from Kamen Rider.
And then she fights them in the second episode.
That's it.
Yeah.
So I think he's been dreaming about being Kamen Rider, but you know, in real life, there's
no Shocker or like there's no bad guys.
Bad guys.
I mean, well, there's plenty of bad guys, but there are no villains from Kamen Rider
to fight.
It was kind of funny to see at the beginning of the first episode that he encountered a
bear.
Right.
And he's like, oh, it's just bear.
Right, right.
He fights the bear.
Yeah.
And it was like, right now, like Japan has like bear crisis.
Yeah, you're right.
Oh, yeah.
43 people have been attacked by bears this year in Japan.
No, not in Japan, just in my prefecture.
Oh my God.
So all over Japan, there are like bears attacking people.
I mean, there's a reason why, right?
It's like they don't have...
Habitat loss.
Yeah.
And then not enough food.
It's like they come to the town and then, you know, people are not used to bears in
the town.
So people get injured.
And then I think seven people killed so far in Japan this year.
That's a lot.
So like it's not funny that people get killed, but it was funny to see him fighting bear
in the first episode.
Because that's now apparently kind of realistic.
We need him.
We need bear fighting otaku to like save Japan.
We need him badly.
And he doesn't use a gun.
That's true.
He just uses his fists.
Okay.
Kamen Riderの特徴
It was really funny because I know, not a lot, I wouldn't say a lot, but like I have basic
knowledge of Kamen Rider watching when I was a kid.
And then there are like images of Kamen Rider with like a mask always and a bicycle.
Not bicycle, motorbike.
Yes.
Right.
Cool one.
Motorcycle.
Motorcycle.
Yes.
Right.
And they have a special belt.
And there's this like special movement when they change into Kamen Rider from a regular
person.
And the shockers are like everywhere, everywhere.
And they keep saying something like that.
It's always the same pattern.
Like a hero thing is kind of the same.
Not now, but like old days, it's always, always the same pattern.
カメンライダーの魅力
And you know, he's going to win.
Right.
Yeah.
But it's still satisfying as a kid to watch.
Totally.
And then like what's more funny to me was I know my own brother who is about to be 40.
He still watches Kamen Rider.
And then let me explain.
Kamen Rider when we were kids, it was for little kids.
And at a certain time, I don't know, like 20 years ago or so, it became like an adult
thing.
OK.
It's like a more like drama.
Yeah.
Every Sunday morning.
Like Sunday morning drama.
Yeah.
OK.
It's more like it's more dramatic.
And I think the target people for that kind of Kamen Rider was people who used to be kids
and used to watch old Kamen Rider.
Right.
So like he still watches Kamen Rider to this day.
OK.
And I like I can't help like overwrapping my brother in the main character.
I mean, my brother is not working out like he's not training or anything.
You don't know that.
But it's true that I don't think he could beat a bear in a fistfight.
That would be awesome.
He could.
He could do that.
Right.
I would respect.
Anybody could do that.
I don't think they would need to be your brother.
If anyone was able to be a bear in a fistfight, you'd be like, oh, damn.
Yeah.
So like my brother is the closest person and the expert of Kamen Rider that I know.
And I really want to ask him what he thinks about this anime or if he knows about it.
OK.
Yeah.
And then meanwhile, you've never watched Kamen Rider before.
No.
Like I said, the only Sentai show that I watched any of was Power Rangers, which is a really
weird example because only half the show was actually Japanese.
They reshot all of the scenes where the people have their masks off and are talking to each
other with American actors.
And so I'd never seen like a fully Japanese Sentai show.
And that one's it's pretty different than Kamen Rider.
Like the parts that are similar are everybody's in like a jumpsuit with a mask.
But I was aware of Kamen Rider because anywhere you go in Japan, you'll see Kamen Rider even
if you don't know what it is, because its reach is very broad.
And I was always sort of perplexed by Kamen Rider.
Like, does he have actual powers?
Does the mask give him any powers?
Or he's just a regular dude who happens to wear a mask?
I mean, I think what I remember from the old Kamen Rider, a regular dude is strong, but
he gets even stronger with the suit.
OK.
How does he get the suit?
Is it from aliens?
I think the belt.
He built it?
The belt.
The belt.
You know, he wears a special belt and they turn it on and you get...
It transforms him.
OK, but how did he get the belt?
Did he make it or is it like a gift from like aliens or something?
I don't know the details.
OK.
Yeah.
So he has a magic belt.
Yes.
Or maybe a very advanced technological belt.
Maybe.
That transforms him into Kamen Rider.
And is his face supposed to look like a bug?
Oh, yeah.
It's a grasshopper.
He's a grasshopper.
What a weird choice.
Because it's not like grasshoppers are that strong or anything, right?
I don't know why.
Yeah.
So he looks like a grasshopper.
Yeah, the whole...
There are like different kinds of Kamen Rider, but pretty much most of them look like grasshopper.
But the girl looks like a ladybug.
Ladybug.
It's different.
It's just a weird...
I mean, like I get that Japanese people like bugs a lot more than Americans,
but I still find it just strange, like which bugs they picked.
Why not like a praying mantis?
Maybe not as cool as grasshopper.
I will never understand the sentence you just said.
Kamen Riderの魅力
Praying mantis not as cool as a grasshopper.
Well, praying mantis is kind of evil.
OK, I actually agree with that.
Right?
Yes, but cooler.
A lot cooler.
More like villain side.
Maybe they have praying mantis, you know, villain.
OK, well, whatever.
So Kamen Rider doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I'm going to say that.
Like, I think...
Also, does he have a scarf?
Yes.
Like scarf plus motorcycle equals you probably die accidentally when your scarf goes in the
wheel of your motorcycle and kills you.
I've never heard about that.
It's a fashion.
Because I think there's like a famous person in America who actually died when she was
in like an open air convertible and was wearing like a scarf around her neck and the scarf
got caught in the wheels of the car and like killed her.
Really?
Broke her neck or something.
Yeah, maybe I'm making this up, but I think I'm pretty sure that happened to like a famous
person in like the 20s or 30s.
So to me, the idea of wearing like a super long trailing scarf as you ride a motorcycle
seems like just on the surface, like an incredibly bad idea.
That tells you that that was definitely fashion back then.
Long scarves?
I guess so.
Anyway, it's got like a lot of like elements that just to an American audience, I think
probably don't make any sense, which is why it like never got brought over here.
What a shame.
But somehow this show works really well because it's got that element of like trying to live
out your childhood dreams.
And I think for like all of us otaku who like, you know, were kids in the 80s and 90s.
Now that we're over 40, some of that idea of like wanting to be the heroes of our youth
isn't really gone.
But we at the same time recognize that having that desire is kind of cringe and weird.
And so this show I think does a good job of sort of like threading that needle.
Like it's funny.
I hesitate to describe it as serious, but it's like somewhere in between being realistic
and being like a parody.
And the the way that it manages both of those things at the same time is actually quite
good.
I also insist on referring to this show as Yonjuusai kara Kamen Raida, which I think
is a sorry, which means a Kamen Rider after 40.
That's what you've been calling?
That's what I've been calling it.
I think it's coming from some of the same place of like trying to speak to this generation
of people who like grew up with this medium and these sort of dreams or goals or ideas
or whatever you want to call it and are now reckoning with their own midlife crises of
I'm still not Kamen Rider.
I still haven't like ever had a relationship, you know, whatever.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So that's why I call it Yonjuusai kara Kamen Raida as like as a point of pride, sort of.
And I think your point about how the Kamen Rider show has changed over time to stop being
like a kid's show and start being like an adult drama show is also a response to, you
know, not wanting to let go of your love of this thing, but needing it to change with
you as you change.
And so in a way, I think that's kind of cool.
I like your perspective, especially because when the main guy, Tojima, finally put on
the mask and about to fight, he burst in tears.
Right.
Because he's so happy.
Right.
He just can't stop crying and like all the tears are like leaking out of the mask and
it's kind of gross.
And then he's like beating people up at the same time.
That's amazing.
It's really funny.
Like his dream came true, right?
That's right.
And he can finally like, you know, show off his skill.
Kamen Riderの定義
Like he's probably watched too many Kamen Rider over and over since he was like five
or six.
Right.
He kept doing the training and now it's the time to reveal.
But it's also at the same time, those like heroes usually don't show their faces in public.
They kind of, you know, hide it somewhere.
Right.
Like Spider-Man too, right?
Yeah, I guess so.
And then like turn it into the hero and everybody's like, oh my God, thank you so much.
Him, he just put on the mask in public.
Yeah, it's not even a good mask is the whole point though, right?
It's like a $1.50 mask.
Oh no, maybe 500 yen, you know, in the festival.
It's not that cheap.
Okay.
Yeah.
But it's so funny.
And then like he's so strong.
Right.
He does like, these are like names for each attack.
They're Kamen Rider names.
I mean, it's very simple.
Like Rider Punch, Rider Kick.
Right.
That's it.
Maybe there are more, but like those are like a basic one.
Sure.
And it was like Bear Fist.
Bear.
Oh, Bear Fist.
Sorry, I thought bears.
I was still thinking about the bears.
Yes, without any gloves on or anything.
Right.
Well, I do like one of my favorite moments from the second episode is when the girl who
has like the whole costume sees him and is like outraged that he hasn't designed an entire
costume and is only wearing like a cheap mask.
And she's like, how dare he?
He's not a good cosplayer at all.
Right.
We saw her story, right?
Yeah.
She also watched like a later Kamen Rider because she seems, she's like 20 years younger.
Right.
I guess, how old is she supposed to be?
25?
24.
Something like that.
Yeah.
But she's watched one where there's a female Kamen Rider.
I guess the other thing that like always gets me about this is the English titles.
Tojima wants to be a Kamen Rider, not Kamen Rider, a Kamen Rider.
What's the difference?
Well, so I don't think there are that many characters in American comics.
I mean, I guess like it's sort of like Tojima wants to be a Green Lantern.
Like in the Green Lantern lore, there are many Green Lanterns all over the universe.
And so there's not just one Green Lantern the way there's only one Superman or one Batman
or one Spider-Man, right?
There's like many Green Lanterns.
Kamen Rider, because it's been around for so long, there've been like tons of different
people who are Kamen Rider, but it's not like a singular hero that's been rebooted all the time.
And I think actually in most of the Kamen Rider stories, there's like other guys who
also get picked as Kamen Riders, but they have like, they're like, are they also grasshoppers
or they like ants and stuff?
I think grasshoppers.
I feel like sometimes Kamen Rider like gets like allies who are other bugs.
See, this is why we needed my brother.
He can explain it.
You're right.
Okay.
But well, like in the girl, she's a ladybug, right?
And so that's what I mean is like, I think like they have slightly different masks, but
they all ride motorcycles.
I don't know.
I don't know the backstory of Kamen Rider.
Anyway, I think like, you know, my way of relating this is to like want to be a specific
superhero.
But in those cases, you want to be like particularly like one or the other.
They're very individual.
They're not like under this, like, I mean, I guess it's like he wants to be a superhero,
right?
But it's like a show, but there's like many different types of Kamen Riders.
So anyway, I always think of it wants to be Kamen Rider as like, but maybe it's because
I don't know anything about Kamen Rider that like, I don't want, I don't think of it as
仮面ライダーの概念
like a job title.
I think of it as like a particular person.
So apparently that is not true.
It is more like a job title.
Like you could be many different kinds of Kamen Rider.
So there's Kamen Rider Amazon.
What do you mean?
Type of Kamen Rider.
Amazon?
Yeah.
Like in the Amazon?
I don't know.
That's the name.
Kamen Rider Amazon.
Is it like a female Kamen Rider?
Because she is an Amazon.
Okay.
All right.
I don't know.
Anyway, I guess like if it said though, like Tojima wants to be a power ranger, I guess
it would make total sense.
So I just need to think of it as like, it's one of these things where there's no plurals
in a lot of Japanese things.
So they're not like the Kamen Riders.
They're just Kamen Rider, but like actually it means something.
Anyway, yeah, you can take this out.
仮面と日本の演劇
All right.
There's beetle too.
There are beetles.
That's what I knew there would be frigging beetles.
Japanese people love beetles.
Yeah.
What is impressive about this anime is Ishimori Puro and Toei are involved.
Well, yeah, because Toei owns the rights to Kamen Rider, right?
And Ishimori Puro is the Kamen Rider, like a founder.
He's the person who made it?
Yeah.
The production.
Got it.
Yeah.
So that's pretty amazing.
The very, very first Kamen Rider actor joined the first episode as a voice actor.
So who do you recommend this anime?
I think anybody who watched, for sure, if you've ever seen Kamen Rider.
But even if you grew up loving anime, heroes, comics, and ever wanted to be a superhero
of any kind, there's something for you in the story.
Yeah, I highly recommend it.
It's so funny.
Let's do today's word of the day.
Otaku, word of the day.
What is today's word of the day?
I think it's got to be Kamen.
Kamen.
Which means mask.
And actually, that's all it means.
Is there a special thing associated with the Kamen Rider Kamen?
Are there other masks that are important culturally in Japan?
No Kamen?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
So does everybody in a no play wear a mask?
Not everybody.
Who doesn't?
The musicians.
Okay, yeah, but they're not in the play.
Does anyone in the play not wear a mask in Noh?
I don't think it's necessary to wear.
But there's like lots of specific masks in Noh, right?
Yeah.
Like the Hanya mask?
Yeah.
I feel like there's a lot of female masks for some reason, right?
I don't know much about like that side of culture.
Like I'm not familiar, sorry.
Okay, well, so masks are a thing in the Japanese theater.
Why does Kamen Rider wear a mask?
視聴体験とアニメ
Like any other heroes?
He doesn't want people to know who he is?
Yeah.
Why is it a grasshopper?
That's what I don't know.
I can't believe we don't know this.
Okay, we're gonna have to redo this episode once we talk to your brother and be like,
what the hell is going on in Kamen Rider?
Okay, well, so his name is just means a masked rider, right?
And he's a rider because he has a motorcycle.
Yeah.
You know, it's not like you can watch whatever your favorite show, whatever you want.
Like when you miss the first couple episodes, you'll never, ever know how it started, right?
There's no way unless you go to like a rental store for like VHS.
I mean, given that I watched most of the anime that I ever watched on rental VHS,
this doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem to me.
Really?
Yes.
I don't know.
There are like many animes like I started watch halfway through or like, you know,
I don't know why, but it's fun.
Right, right.
That's fair.
Yeah.
Well, they have special motor bikes.
仮面ライダーの特徴的なアートスタイル
But what I remember was like pretty normal.
Okay.
I mean, as it gets older, not older, like a newer, I think their bikes can do more things
like they can fly or go underwater or whatever.
I think.
And I like what I remember was whenever they fight, they fight at the same location where
they like an outside field with rocks, like a little rocks, like where you, you know,
cut the rocks.
Quarries?
Quarries.
Yeah.
Why?
I don't know.
Always, almost always like gray background.
That's where they, the studio owned like shooting permission or something.
No.
I mean, I agree with you.
I can totally picture like where all the battles of like sentai things happen.
And yeah, like they look like.
I mean, they never fight like at a riverbank because I feel like that's like when I think
about like places where like fight scenes happen in like Japanese stuff, like next to
a ripper is like a good chunk of them.
But I think you're right that like I can I can totally picture like it just looks like
like outside.
Outside and then like has space.
Right.
You can rent for cheap.
Right.
Nobody else was doing anything there at the time.
So they're like, OK, guys, we got two hours to make this shot happen.
Yeah.
Let's do this.
Yeah.
OK.
Fair.
Yeah.
You should watch the original Kamen Rider.
I guess I probably should.
Yeah.
Just to see what it's like.
OK.
Yeah.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I think the other thing to say is for whatever reason, the character art on this is like
really highly unusual, particularly characters blushing.
It looks I don't know why I think this, but it looks somehow like not very Japanese or
like not very anime.
OK.
Do you or maybe it's like just very 70s or something.
The art style looks like wildly different from most other anime.
Yeah.
And I know that like this is going to be an unusual and weird thing to say, but I feel
like somehow like the female characters in this one are like much more like full bodied
than like most other anime.
Like they are not slim.
No.
They look in some way to me American.
Does this make sense?
OK.
In terms of like the is there somebody who's blonde?
Is the first girl he's fighting for in the first episode blonde?
No, maybe not.
I don't know.
Just like something about like the way that the female characters in particular are drawn
in the series strikes me as like like Texas.
It's like they look like the kind of stereotypical American women as portrayed in anime.
OK.
OK.
And like it's been really throwing me off that they like don't look more stereotypically
like and like and the and the blushing blushing is like out of control.
It looks like they're wearing like an unbelievable amount of rouge or something.
Right.
It's such a hot red.
It does not look like the sort of anime blush of like, you know, some like diagonal like
red lines.
Like it's like these huge like it's like the accent.
They're wearing like apples on their face.
Like it's so intense.
So it's got it.
It's sort of a distinctive art style that like really sets it apart from other shows.
And I can't I don't think I like necessarily like it or don't like it.
It's just really different.
Yeah.
Maybe going for like more like American cartoon style.
It feels that way to me.
So it's like the main guy is not too much macho, but.
No, he's pretty macho, especially as like Japanese.
Right.
Main characters go like he's very ripped.
And then she has big breasts.
Yeah.
But like in some way, they're somehow not anime style.
Big boobs.
キャラクターの体型表現
Right.
What do you mean?
I can't like a round like a balls.
I don't know.
Like I think like very often female anime characters have large breasts.
Yeah.
Fine.
That's like a trope, you know, but like the rest of their body is like insanely skinny.
And I mean, like for her, that is not true.
That's what I realized, too.
She does have like huge breasts, but she's also been working out a lot.
And she has like a wrestler's body.
She looks strong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I don't know, but that's what I mean about like, I think like Japanese people portray
Americans this way frequently as like sort of like ridiculously like over muscled and
like huge bodies and like, OK, Americans as a, you know, as a population do have large
bodies and like every way we might mean that.
But like it's unusual to see them portray Japanese characters that way in anime.
So that struck me about the show.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode.
If you liked this week's episode, please give us good reviews on Spotify and Apple
Podcasts or like and leave a comment on YouTube.
Make sure to subscribe and follow 2amOTAK and 3amOTAK which won the grand prize.
Have we said this?
I think so.
OK.
Yeah.
Oh, we did.
Yeah.
Grand prize.
3amOTAK.
Yes.
Yes.
So if you speak or know Japanese, please check it out.
It'll keep us making more fun episodes.
See you next time for more 2amOTAK.
Peace.
