The Kikaider franchise has truly been the runaway success of the S.H. Figuarts line in the last year or so. While certain Super Sentai teams are still lacking a full lineup, Bandai Tamashii Nations have rather neatly made it through both Android Kikaider and Kikaider 01 and are only a couple characters short of the full "main" cast. Of course, it does help that for five of those figures all they need to do is repaint it. The second release to cover the Kikaider 01 side of things is Gill Hakaider - the second Hakaider who now contains Professor Gill 's brain inside his head. Not only is this version of Hakaider much more prominent in the show (appearing for the entirety of 01 ), but also has a radically different personality to his predecessor. Gone is the machine whose sole purpose is to destroy his rival, and in his place comes a thuggish, straight up villain Hakaider whose goals involve world domination as well as crushing the Kikaiders. In the toku Gill Hakaider...

While not every classic tokusatsu hero has proved to have the staying power of Kamen Rider or Super Sentai , one way or another many of them have been revived over the last few years. The Metal Heroes ' Space Sheriffs received continuation in the form of a new movie and a handful of v-cinema spin-offs, while the likes of Inazuman , Space Ironmen Kyodain , Azumaizer-3 and La Belle Fille Masquée Poitrine have all found new life in recent Kamen Rider movie outings. But other than a quick cameo in OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders , Kikaider and company haven't had a live-action project since 1995's Mechanical Violator Hakaider . This all changed in 2014, with the arrival of Kikaider REBOOT - a brand new cinematic reboot of the popular Shotaro Ishinomori hero. It's clear that the character's popularity hasn't wavered in Hawaii either, with Generation Kikaida officially releasing the movie on DVD in the US shortly after its home video release ...

In the live-action tokusatsu version of the Kikaider franchise, Jiro's story ends with the defeat of DARK and Professor Gill - with his older brother Kikaider 01 taking up the fight against the revived Hakaider and the forces of evil organisation SHADOW. However Shotaro Ishinomori's manga series takes a different approach to things, with Jiro remaining the main focus of the story as he meets his brother and fights against this new threat. The four-part OVA sequel to Kikaider: The Animation continues Jiro's story in the same way, however like the live-action sequel switches the name to Kikaider 01: The Animation to mark this new instalment in the story.

While the Android Kikaider  tokusatsu series wowed audiences onscreen in the early 70s, on paper creator Shotaro Ishinomori took the series in a darker direction with the accompanying manga published in a variety of children's magazines. In 2001 the manga was brought to life as a 13-episode anime series, straightforwardly titled Android Kikaider: The Animation . Animated by Studio OX and the now defunct studio Radix , the Kikaider anime even received an English dub and aired as part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. So for many American fans, this is perhaps the Kikaider  that they are most familiar with.

Having dived through a fairly extensive array of both Kamen Rider and Super Sentai shows but still having plenty left to watch, I decided it would be good to take a little break from the "big two" franchises and take a look at some of the lesser known tokusatsu heroes Japan has to offer. And having just received a reboot movie and guest appearance on Kamen Rider Gaim the Kikaider franchise seemed like the perfect place to start. Despite probably not being quite the household name Rider and Sentai are, Kikaider (again created by the the late great Shotaro Ishinomori) is still an incredibly popular hero and actually one of the more successful non-adapted heroes outside of his home country. Due to his huge popularity in Hawaii both live-action series have received an official DVD release , while the anime adaptations were also aired on Adult Swim. Anyway there's no better place to start than the beginning, so my journey through the Kikaider  franchise starts with th...