RETURN!

….Win.

Scarf Catching Love

My first chance encounter with Kamen Rider was watching a Laserdisc rip VHS of Kamen Rider ZO at my local anime shop (God rest its soul). When we got friendly with the owner, I borrowed the tape from him, made a copy, and watched the hell out of it until Kamen Rider J was released. The one thing that really stood out though was the work of the director, Keita Amemiya.

I’d later come to know him through films like Future Ninja, Mechanical Violator Hakaider, and my personal favorite, Zeiram 2….

….and in the pages of the now defunct B-Club Magazine with his manga, Red Mausoleum. God, thinking about that now really makes me feel old. Either way, he’s remained one of my favorite Tokusatsu directors since the moment I saw that first fight with ZO and Doras all those years ago.

Now with Kamen Rider Kiva sporting the same writer/director combo from Kamen Rider Faiz, I’m worried that we’re just going to get something that sells toys and is filled with enough pretty boy angst to make the average stereotypical Hot Topic customer look like an Abercrombie addict. In other words: “Faiz 3.0 – Now With Vampires!”. Yet another series in the trend of Flash And Angst that will make Bandai some money for the year and be nothing more than that.

It’s sad to see things go this route, I could go on for two whole entries about how I feel with the current state of things right now with Tokusatsu but I’d end up making my hands blow up from the flurry of keystrokes. Anyways, in attempt to lighten things up this weekend, I watched my newly obtained Future Ninja and Kamen Rider ZO R2 DVDs and I got to thinking. After this nostalgic double feature, I had a rather intriguing thought:

With the success of Garo, why doesn’t Toei just bring back Keita Amemiya for 2009’s Rider Series?

Can you even fathom the amount of awesomeness stemming from that concept? Kamen Rider ZO and J were two of the best Rider movies of all time and served as a gateway drug for a lot of the fandom. Take the scope and scale of ZO and J, expand that into 49 episodes, maybe even get some of the crew from Garo, and you would have gold right there.

If Toei can’t get him for a director, even if it’s just a Character/Monster Designer gig, Amemiya’s presence would make the show all the more worthwhile to watch. Look at Metalder for crying out loud, if it wasn’t for the designs of the Ghost Bank monsters, the show would truly be nothing more than a Kikaider-knockoff.

And if Toshiki Inoue must come back again, partner him up with Amemiya and let them run wild. Maybe then, Inoue will be tempted to actually write, you know, well. And before those that will say anything speak up, sure Hakaider wasn’t the greatest movie ever but it still worked….

As cool and fangasm-inducing as this concept is, the chances of it happening are close to nil in the current climate of things right now.

*sighs* Dreams are a really nice thing.