Series REVIEW: Masked Rider

When Power Rangers was at its peak, children's television saw a massive influx of Japanese-adapted tokusatsu series. Other studios such as DIC tried their own shows, but Saban truly led the way with no less than four shows of this type. Power Rangers had Super Sentai covered, and the Metal Heroes franchise was channelled into VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. Meanwhile the Kamen Rider franchise saw a single Western release in the form of Masked Rider. The character himself appeared in Power Rangers season 3 for a 3-part story before appearing in his own 40-episode show between 1996 and 1997.

Prince Dex, who sometimes moonlights as Kotaro Minami

On the distant planet of Edenoi (where Power Rangers' Alpha-5 was created), Prince Dex has been given the powers of the Masked Rider by his grandfather King Lexion to battle his evil uncle, Count Dregon, who is intent on ruling the planet and taking the Masked Rider powers for himself. When Dregon sets his sights on planet Earth, Dex pursues and is taken in by a Hal and Barbara Stewart and their adopted children, Molly and Albee. Following Dex is Ferbus, a small furry creature with a mischievous personality.

Using the Masked Rider powers, Dex fights Count Dregon and his army of Insectivores while trying to learn more about human life and keeping his identity a secret. He is aided by two superpowered talking vehicles - a car named Magno and a bike named Battle Chopper (or just Chopper).

The Stewart family are rather surprised to have an alien land in their garden

To put you in the right frame of mind before this review even begins, Masked Rider is a pretty awful series riddled with flaws. The best place to start with is the beginning, and that's with the lead characters - Dex and the Stewart family. Much like the original Power Rangers cast, far too greater lengths have been gone to to make these characters "perfect". An idealised happy family isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't make for particularly interesting viewing. Dex is your run-of-the-mill alien on Earth, spouting out TV nonsense and misunderstanding Earth phrases. He also seems to pull a lot of powers out of nowhere when untransformed (such as telekinesis and super speed), which begs the (in-story) question of why the hell he never uses these when fighting as Masked Rider? The series even has its own Bulk and Skull-esque duo in the form of nosey neighbour Patsy Carbunkle and her stereotypical geek friend Herbie, but the less said about these two the better.

Masked Rider later gets two extra modes to call on, the originally named "Super Gold" and "Super Blue" modes.While their introductions are among the better episodes Masked Rider has to offer, the real potential of these abilities isn't really explained and its left to the viewer to draw their own conclusions. Both forms also have the power to upgrade Chopper, but nothing is actually ever done with these upgrades outside their first appearances.

Dex meets Magno and Chopper

Count Dregon and his band of villains aren't much better on the character front either. While the (ridiculously awesome looking) Spiderbase is manned by Count Dregon and his generals Nefaria, Double Face, Cyclopter and Gork, Dregon and Nefaria are the ones hogging the majority of the screentime (and also the only ones who actually appear in original footage). Since the show has no real conclusion, Dregon is an "all-talk, no action" villain and we never see him actually do anything than rant. It's a shame really, because Double Face and Cyclopter are great looking villains and actually engage Masked Rider when they have the opportunity to do something. And even though he doesn't get the spotlight very often, there's still too much of the rhyming Gork in this show.

The rather shiny Count Dregon

The use of source footage was always ropey back in the 90s (look at the first season of Power Rangers for plenty of amusing examples) but Masked Rider has to be one of the worst examples out there. While mainly drawing from the aforementioned Kamen Rider Black RX, the series also uses footage from two other Kamen Rider movies - ZO and J. With both of these film featuring riders with VERY different suits to Black RX you might think that careful editing is involved to make to footafe work, but the fact is most of the times it doesn't even feel like they tried. Masked Rider's suit changes every 30 seconds, with tiny bits of new footage added inbetween to (badly) make it seem like everything fits. Blink and you'll miss it moments they are not. The chopping and changing between American and Japanese out-of-suit footage is equally bad, to the point where you wouldn't be wrong for thinking the show starred both Prince Dex and Kotaro Minami.

Ferbus - not always the worst thing this series offers

And of course what Masked Rider review would be complete without discussing Ferbus, the furry little creature which many hold as the worst aspect of the series. Ferbus' antics do indeed ruin a lot of what could be considered the more "serious" episodes of the show, but his inclusion isn't the biggest misstep this series makes by any means. Had he been toned down a lot more (and perhaps not appeared in every episode), maybe the series could have struck a better balance between comedy and drama.

Masked Rider was a pretty big part of my childhood, and so when I set about rewatching it deep down I hoped it would still hold some charm for me despite knowing how universally disliked it is. But all hope was lost after the first few episodes, as the terrible characters, minimal fight footage and horrific editing became more and more apparent. The lack of a proper ending is just the icing on a rather horrible tasting cake. If you are by any way curious about this series, my advice is to simply watch episodes 1, 2 7, 8, 21 and 37 because they are only ones that are anyway decent (and funnily enough, the only ones that have any real bearing on the overall plot). Did you enjoy Masked Rider when you were young? Keep your fond childhood memories intact and keep away from this series at all costs.