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Franchise / Kamen Rider

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Kicking evil in the name of love, peace and justice since 1971!

"Won't you believe in him? Even if there is no God or Buddha... there is Kamen Rider."
— Kazuya Taki, Kamen Rider Spirits

The Kamen Rider Series, simply known as Kamen Rider (also known under the English translated title of Masked Rider in shows prior to Kamen Rider Doublenote ), is a franchise of tokusatsu series created by Shotaro Ishinomori and produced by the Toei Company in 1971, and has since then become one of the milestones in Japanese pop culture, greatly revolutionizing the Japanese superhero and action genre, effectively becoming the figurehead of classical superheroes and the idea of "poetic justice" in Japan.

Kamen Rider famously launched the "Second Monster Boom" or "Henshin Boom", a period in the 70's that saw the birth of many imitating superhero shows (specifically, that of the Henshin Hero variety), moving tokusatsu from the film industry to television. The subsequent domino-effect made Kamen Rider's influences in the current Japanese media deep rooted. Shows such as its brother-show Super Sentai, Devilman, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and to go even further, Sailor Moon (and the Magical Girl Warrior genre as a whole) wouldn't be possible without Kamen Rider, just to name a few.

The central concept is that a lone hero suffers some great tragedy at the hands of an evil far bigger than they are (usually a large organization with a secret and sinister agenda), but rises to use the technology of the villains against them and as a general force for good. While the interpretation of this theme can vary wildly from year to year, every single Kamen Rider series embodies this in one way or another. Another important theme is that the hero regrets the act of fighting, but is forced to do so for the sake of humanity; this is shown by the iconic "teardrops" coming from the eyes of the helmet.

It typically has a smaller main cast than the relatively more well-known (in the West) Super Sentai (the title of each series refers to a single main Rider instead of Super Sentai's Five-Man Band), but not always. Some series feature huge numbers of Riders, with the most extreme examples being Kamen Rider Ryuki and its 13 Riders, Kamen Rider Gaim with 18, and Kamen Rider Geats with over 30 (with dozens more implied offscreen, though many are short-term Red Shirts).note 

Another thing that Kamen Rider is also known for is for its Darker and Edgier themes. Almost half of Heisei and all of Reiwa have dark plots regarding the villains (heck, 2 of its shows are known for being full-on Cosmic Horror Story). In one way or another, this reason is why adults watch Kamen Rider than kids nowadays.

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    Kamen Rider shows 
The Kamen Rider franchise is generally divided into distinct "eras", mainly based on the division of the Japanese era system of naming years after the reigning emperor.

Showa Era (1971-1989):The original run of the Kamen Rider franchise in the 1970s and 1980s comprise the Showa Era.note  All series in the Showa Era were developed in some form by Shotaro Ishinomori.

In the 1990s, while Kamen Rider wasn't broadcast on television as it had been in the 70s and 80s, a trio of movies was made. Though they were produced after the end of the Showa period (1989), they are generally included amongst the Showa Era series, due to the involvement of Ishinomori during their production. Their inclusion amongst the older generation of Kamen Rider was made official in the 2014 Kamen Rider Taisen movie. These three films are:

Heisei Era (2000-2019):After Ishinomori's death in 1998, Kamen Rider was revived as a television franchise in 2000, beginning the Heisei Eranote  run of the franchise. Each show still credits Ishinomori as the original creator of Kamen Rider.

Decade had a protracted 31 episode run, and its status as the Heisei Era's Milestone Celebration allowed the franchise to have a mini-reboot in 2009 in the next 10 years of shows to follow. These shows, referred to in Japan as "Phase 2 Heisei Rider" (第２期平成ライダー) and in some English-speaking circles as "Neo-Heisei", set themselves apart from the prior run of shows by having a different production staff, a different tone, a different broadcast schedule (beginning in August or September rather than January), and a switch from using "MASKED RIDER" to "KAMEN RIDER" in the English portions of the logos.

Reiwa Era (2019-present):The Reiwa Eranote  is the current state of the franchise. After Zi-O was set to be another Milestone Celebration it was also publicly advertised as the definitive end of the Heisei Era (not just because Real Life determined that a new Imperial Era would begin in early 2019).

    Other Kamen Rider Media 
Anime and Manga

TV and Movies

Nearly all series also have various tie-in episodes and movies; these are listed on the individual series pages.

Video Games

  • Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbaride (2008-2013), later renamed Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbarizing (2013-2023) and then Kamen Rider Battle: Ganba Legends (2023-present) (Arcade)
    • Kamen Rider Ganbaride: Card Battle Taisen (2010, Nintendo DS adaptation)

Western Adaptations

Other Media and Related Links

Tropes with their own pages:

Universal tropes of the series are

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    A to M 
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • Several movies include villains that are updated versions of heroes created by Shotaro Ishinomori. At least one movie combined this with Adaptational Heroism by including characters based on villains from the older show, who turn out to be good.
    • In crossovers, expect at least one Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain monster from a Kamen Rider show to just be downright evil.
  • Affirmative Action Girl: The series is usually reluctant to get girls involved in its battles, so any woman that actually does so becomes one of these. They've gradually become more common, with the Heisei era having several token female Riders, and the Reiwa era launched with one as a regular cast member in Zero-One.
  • All There in the Manual: Especially from the Heisei era on, though how much gets left in the supplementary material varies from series to series. Regardless of the series, expect the supplementary material to be filled with Technology Porn explaining each individual part of the Rider's armor and gear. Kuuga was notorious for this as most of the backstory, including the form names, was in several separate sources.
  • Animal Motifs: While not as prevalent as Super Sentai, Kamen Rider still has these on the grounds that most of the Showa Riders were themed after insects as well as having many animal monsters and having a few series utilizing motifs based on other animals; Ryuki does this with its Riders, OOO with its titular Rider and his forms, Build with most of the Organic Bottles and Riders, Zero-One with the Riders and their forms, Revice with mixing random animals with Legend Rider themes for the Vistamps and the Riders using them, and Geats with the Riders' animal masks. Even if the season doesn't show at first glance, it is still shown with the animal-based arsenal such as Blade's Rouze Cards, Hibiki's Disk Animals, etc.
  • Anyone Can Die: The series does not shy away from death. Both main characters and background ones can and have died. Not every season features this, but on occasion, you will get people dropping like flies within the last ten episodes. Heck, even Fourze, one of the most idealistic and saccharine series of the franchise, couldn't get away without killing off a few characters or putting them in a worse condition.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Heisei and Reiwa have a notable tendency to make one of the heroes fight their father near the finale, with seasons like Kiva, Double, Wizard, Drive, and Ex-Aid having fathers as the Big Bad, while fathers in Ryuki, Blade, Ghost, Amazons, Build, Zero-One, Saber, and Revice have inadvertently created the conflict in the first place.
  • The Artifact:
    • For part of the Heisei era, the Rider Kick finishers have tended to become this. Every main Rider gets one just out of tradition, but they usually only get used once at the start of the series, and then are immediately forgotten in favor of finishers using the Rider's weapons until around the end of the series when you might get another use of them just to remind the viewers they exist. They do get used a bit more in team-ups or other situations with multiple Riders fighting on the same side, as it's really cool to have multiple Riders kicking the enemy at the same time. However, later Heisei Riders, especially the main ones, have a kick finisher in addition to their weapon based finishers, giving them multiple finishing moves that even occasionally get strung together. Grand Zi-O's final finishing move is all 20 Heisei Riders performing their Rider Kicks together.
    • The same goes for the motorcycles. Every lead Rider (and some secondary Riders) still gets one, but they're rarely given any focus. Part of this has to do with increased government restrictions on filming bike stunts. Drive went ahead and dropped the bike from the main Rider's arsenal for once, getting a car instead (though it did include bikes owned by the show's other Riders).
  • Artifact Title:
    • Some of the main Riders don't actually go by the "Kamen Rider" title in-universe at first. Showa Rider series like Stronger popularized the practice of 'earning' that title via a crossover with previous Riders (though both he and Tackle are still shown to have chosen their respective titles in their second episode); Kuuga and Agito revived this practice in the Heisei era, which got pretty inconsistent after that (Hibiki is the best known aversion). Fourze plays with it by having one of the Secret Keepers be a closet Kamen Rider otaku who immediately recognizes the hero as one, and Fourze then names their group the "Kamen Rider Club". Gaim plays the issue oddly, as the common term used there is Armored Rider until Gaim earns the title from Hongo himself in a crossover movie.
    • For a more literal version, some of the Riders don't use their bikes that much (Drive doesn't even have a bike); and others like Amazon, Shin, and Hibiki don't wear masks at all, they physically transform into their Rider alter-egos.
  • Ass Kicking Pose:
    • Earlier series usually depend on a series of this in order to transform.
    • There are some exceptions, though: Hibiki and Ryuga do not pose when they transform, for example.
    • BLACK (later BLACK RX) is pretty extreme with this. Not just transform, they use them AS! EMPHASIS!
  • Back to Base Form: Despite the many forms, Mid Season Upgrades and Super Modes that post-Showa Riders gain throughout their series, you can expect some of them to finish the battle with their base forms instead; with good examples being Den-O, Fourze, Wizard, and Ex-Aid. Zero-One and Saber even finished with the hero getting a new 11th-Hour Superpower that has enough strength to confront the Big Bad but still looks like the base form.
  • Badass Biker: It's there in the title, after all. Again, more apparent in the Showa series where more attention was drawn to them. Special mention goes to Lazer from Ex-Aid, as his primary henshin form is a bike.note 
  • Badass Normal: In the original series, Taki Kazuya regularly faced cyborgs hand-to-hand despite being completely human. Riderman (V3's Rival) was, in his original appearance, basically a Mook with a swappable right forearm - he Took a Level in Badass between that and SPIRITS.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Most of the Showa Era Kamen Riders didn't use any weapons.note  Instead, they relied on good old martial arts and some devices embedded in their body. When Kamen Riders 1 and 2 did use weapons, they were usually stolen from enemy soldiers.
  • Bat People: As the second ever Monster of the Week was Bat Man, bat monsters are often the first or second monster to be fought in each new Kamen Rider series in homage.
  • Beast Man: Accounts for a great many villains and a bunch of heroes as well.
  • BFS: Most Heisei-era Riders get a sword as part of their powerset. If not at the start, then as part of a Mid-Season Upgrade; or even one at the start and another with the upgrade. Saber even used swords as a series motif.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Reiwa era shows seem fond of having at least two Big Bads, with one usually being part of the monster group of the season and the other a human. Several Heisei era shows also had multiple Big Bads, but with Reiwa it seems to have become a recurring trend.
  • Big Good:
  • Blessed with Suck: More prominent in Showa Riders (almost all of them are transformed into cyborgs, usually against their will); Gills is a prominent Heisei example. Some Heisei Riders get retconned to invoke this for Decade. Then there's Shin...
  • Body Horror: Implied in any season where the Rider is created on the Big Bad's operating table. Played completely straight with Shin Kamen Rider, in ways that Amazon and Gills can only hope to accomplish. His face broke open!
  • Boring, but Practical: During crossovers, Showa Era Riders are capable of keeping up with their Heisei counterparts. This is due to the fact that while they lack the fancier powers of their modern successors, many of them are heavily modified cybernetic beings with enormous amounts of durability and strength while Heisei Riders mostly consist of ordinary people in Powered Armor.
  • Breakout Character: If the Secondary Rider or any of the extra Riders are popular enough, they're bound to get their own direct-to-DVD film once the series is over.
  • Breakout Villain: Quite a few villains have become every bit as popular as the heroes they fought against, and as such have gone on to make future appearances. Kamen Rider Eternal and Ryoma Sengoku are two particularly notable examples, as both got their own movies based on their popularity.
  • By the Power of Grayskull!: "Henshin!", and variations thereof.
    • Modified with Amazon, whose transformation cry is his own name: "A-MA-ZOOON!"
    • Mach says "Let's Henshin".
    • Averted with the Riders (actually Oni) in Hibiki, who don't have transformation calls. The lone exception to this aversion is in the second to last episode of Decade, where the alternate reality version of Hibiki uses the familiar "Henshin" cry while transforming.
  • Calling Your Attacks:
    • RIDER KICK!
    • Every Showa TV series use this trope.
    • In general, the Heisei and Reiwa Riders themselves don't do this, but their Transformation Trinket does it for them.
  • The Cameo:
    • Traditionally, every year there is usually at least one cameo by one of the suit actors outside of costume (or at the very least, a martial artist from JAE, the martial arts organization where the suit actors come from). This also happens regularly in Super Sentai as well.
    • Shotaro Ishinomori made several cameo appearances when he was alive. For more info, see Creator Cameo.
  • Camp: A lot of the motions in the series are exaggerated in order to provide greater effect. This especially comes into play once the comedy kicks in, with everyone, suited or not, starts exaggerating everything.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Writer Toshiki Inoue includes extremely heavy doses of this, with tragic results, in every single series or movie he writes. Inoue was the head writer of Agito, 555, the second half of Hibiki, and Kiva, plus The Movies based on those four shows, Kamen Rider The First and The Next, and the Non Serial Movies for Ryuki and Blade, in addition to fill-in episodes on many Heisei Rider series he wasn't head writer of. You can guarantee that if a Rider series or movie involves tragedy resulting from the main characters not wanting to simply sit down and explain the situation to each other, it was written by Toshiki Inoue. Or Shouji Yonemura, who has made a career of copying and Flanderizing Inoue's style. Of course, if characters do confront each other over something, either a Rider vs. Rider battle will ensue, or one character will punch the other in the face and leave the room. Neither will resolve anything.
  • Car Fu: The series used to be built on Motorcycle Fu (he's called Kamen Rider for a reason), including the finishing move consisting of a ramming charge through the monster, known as Rider Break. It tapered off at times, but Double really brought it back, and the film Let's Go Kamen Rider has a truly epic moment when the Great Leader of Shocker's One-Winged Angel was defeated this way courtesy of ALL the Riders in the entire series. They called it the All Rider Break.
  • Catchphrase:
    • Several characters; by far much more prevalent in the newer series. A fine example is Momotaros' Ore, Sanjo! (I, have Arrived!) in Den-O.
    • Den-O as a series, while not the first to have catchphrases, was the most well known for them; and started a trend of just about every Rider after it having a catchphrase (though not always stated by the Rider himself, as is the case with "Kivatte Ikuze" (Let's go Kiva!) wherein Kivat says the phrase instead).
    • Some particularly famous catchphrases besides Momotaros' are Double's "Now, count up your crimes!", Fourze's "UCHU KITAAAAAA!!!" ("Space is heeeeere!!!"), and Woz's "IWAE!" ("REJOICE!") in Zi-O.
    • Most Showa Riders have "Rider ______" as their attacks.
    • Heisei Generations Final has a humorous moment where Ex-Aid starts of one of his catch phrases, seemingly expecting the other Riders present (Build, Ghost, Gaim, Fourze, and OOO) to join in and finish it together. However, instead they all deliver their own individual catch phrases, resulting in a barely-understandable cacophony of shouting, followed by them all looking at each other while saying "Huh?" "What?" and the like.
  • Central Theme: Most series have a main subject that it looks at; with the main franchise theme asking what the line is between being a man and a monster. For some specific series themes:
    • Kuuga: Violence
    • Agito: Evolution
    • Ryuki: Wishes, Survival
    • 555: Coexistence, Dreams
    • Blade: Fate and Evolution
    • Hibiki: Training, Self-improvement
    • Kabuto: Pride, Identity
    • Den-O: Time, Memory
    • Kiva: Destiny, Love
    • Decade: Journey, Fate
    • Double: Partnership
    • OOO: Greed
    • Fourze: Friendship
    • Wizard: Hope and Despair
    • Gaim: Power
    • Drive: Emotion, Strength, Partnership
    • Ghost: Bonds between People, Human Potential
    • Amazons: Ruthlessness, Survival
    • Ex-Aid: The Value of Life
    • Build: War and Peace, and Science's role in them
    • Zi-O: Future, Predetermination
    • Zero-One: Technology, Free Will, Malice
    • Saber: Stories, Promises, Trust
    • Revice: Family, Inner Demons
    • Geats: Risk and Reward
    • BLACK SUN: Discrimination, Prejudice
  • Character Tic: Most of the Riders have at least one, especially if Seiji Takaiwa is in the suit. For example, it distinguishes who's using the Faiz gear: a hand flick for Takumi and adjusting the collar for Kusaka. Since the character's face is hidden, this can sometimes be used to show that someone is Not Himself or a quick way to Spot the Imposter.
  • Cliffhanger:
    • Rider series are notorious for showing something cool and unexpected in the next episode previews, and then not revealing said cool thing until the last 30 seconds of the episode.
    • The original series (and especially V3) would sometimes show the Rider mere moments from death at the end of the episode... then be doubly awesome in the next one.
    • Decade ends the last episode on a cliffhanger, with the finale only being available in theaters months later.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: It depends on the show and the person wearing the suit, but the general rule is that Riders are only able to use their powers after transforming — and if they did have powers before, the suit makes them even stronger.
  • Conflict Ball: When it comes to Rider-versus-Rider battles. The original happened back in V3. Exaggerated with Ryuki, Decade, and Gaim; which have pretty much everyone fighting everyone else. Justified by Ryuki and Gaim though, as the antagonists specifically picked the Riders that could escalate conflicts. Double and the following series largely avert this. Post-Gaim series vary.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: If a Rider's family situation is brought up at all, usually he's this. In some shows, V3 in particular, it's his primary motivation to fight evil. Notably averted in Revice, where Ikki is pointedly a family man and very protective of his parents and siblings.
  • Cool Bike: They're not called "Riders" for nothing; every season has at least one nice motorcycle in it. Even when the series broke tradition and denied Drive a bike in favor of a car, his supporting cast (Mach and Chaser) still had bikes. More directly, Kamen Rider Lazer is a motorcycle in his main form, and Accel and Vice can each turn into one. Vice's bike form goes a step further as he becomes a hoverbike.
  • Creator Cameo: Shotaro Ishinomori has been on screen a few times. He's the guy with the afro planting the bug in the beginning of Shin Kamen Rider. He also played the fisherman who tells Kohtaro Minami about Onigashima in the Kamen Rider Black movie Hurry to Onigashima. And he made an appearance in #84 of the original Kamen Rider series, playing yet another fisherman who encounters Isogin Jaguar, that episode's Monster of the Week. Though he looks different from how people might remember him because he doesn't have the afro or glasses.
  • Crisis Crossover:
    • Decade for the early Heisei Era, Zi-O for the full Heisei era, SPIRITS for the Showa Era, and Super Hero Taisen for Toei's toku as a whole.
    • Phase 2 Heisei era made it a tradition to have crossover movies where multiple Riders band together.
  • Crossover Finale:
    • Averted in V3, while the original Riders were recurring characters, the finale was left to V3 himself. More closely averted in X, while V3 and Rider 2 returned to assist X-Rider in the latter episodes, all three Riders split up to find the Big Bad. Of course, it is X-Rider who takes down the Big Bad in the very last episode, which doesn't even feature as much as cameo from the other Riders.
    • The last few episodes of Kamen Rider Stronger brings back the previous Riders one by one before all seven assemble to take down the Great Leader. Also counted is the Post-Script Recap Episode which sees the seven dealing with The Remnant.
    • Kamen Rider: Skyrider brought back the seven Riders as recurring characters mid-season, with all eight assembling again to face the Great Leader in the finale.
    • Kamen Rider Zi-O, the final series of the franchise's Heisei era, is a season-long crossover with every past Heisei series.
  • Crossover Punchline: Super Hero Time idents of recent years have Rider and Sentai casts meeting and interacting in their respective hang-outs and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Darker and Edgier: Compared to Super Sentai, Kamen Rider has numerous character deaths sprinkled throughout each series, has plenty of tragic and nightmarish moments, and tends to be aimed at older audiences. Although it should be mentioned that Kamen Rider is older than Sentai.
    • The adult-oriented Amazon Prime web series Amazons is more focused on violence and straight-up horror that's not for kids anymore. This is why Amazons was streamed on web service first.
    • There's even an entire darker and edgier toyline, S.I.C., which reimagines the Riders in a more organic form. More recent entries are tamer, but the initial figures in the line were somewhat twisted.
    • Black, already at the dark and gritty end of the spectrum for the series, has a manga adaptation drawn and written by Ishinomori himself that's straight-up terror.
  • Deadly Game: These show up from time to time. Ryuki and Geats revolved around such competitions that the Riders were participating in, while Blade had the monsters involved in one (and the Riders were outsiders interfering with it) and Ex-Aid had an arc involving one as well.
  • Deadly Upgrade: When Riders have multiple forms, it's pretty common for one form to be dangerous for the user to use. These include Stronger's Charge Up, Kuuga Ultimate Form, the first version of G3X, the G4 Armour, Gills Exceed (subversion), the Kaixa and Delta Gear in 555, Blade King Form in Blade, Double FangJoker in Double, OOO Putotyra Combo in OOO, Kiwami Arms and Yomotsuheguri Arms in Gaim, Build Hazard and Grease Blizzard in Build, Zero-One MetalCluster Hopper in Zero-One, and Saber Primitive Dragon in Saber. Fourze and Drive, however, have complete inversions where the key to activating their Super Modes actually revive Gentaro and Shinnosuke from clinical death!
  • Deconstruction: Though the series itself has other examples and can vary sometimes. Ryuki, while not as brutal as Shin really tears into the concept of Mons and what is a Kamen Rider, and Kuuga itself is a Deconstructor Fleet by being a more realistic take on the genre. Gaim has a ton of deconstructions as well.
  • Deuteragonist: A common trend in the Heisei era is that in addition to the lead Rider, there is usually a secondary main character, who may or may not be the secondary Rider.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Nearly every movie villain exists outside of the main series plot until the movie comes around, at which point they interfere with the current plot for about an hour before they're killed off and the story continues without their existence ever being acknowledged in the series, save for an Early-Bird Cameo in an episode close to the movie's release. The notable aversions include Smart Brain (as Paradise Lost is a Bad Future), Albino Joker (as he's part of the collective of Undead), Orochi (to an extent, as the Orochi in the show was an event, not an actual monster), ZECT (as God Speed Love is a Bad Future and Prequel), Dai-Shocker (as they were an enemy during the final few episodes of Decade) and Roidmude 108 (as he's part of the collective of Roidmudes).
  • Diving Kick: The Rider Kick, easily the Trope Codifier (if not the outright Trope Maker) in all of Japanese media, and any other that shouts out to it usually is a reference to the Rider Kick.
  • Dorama: Much as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are Days of Our Lives With Punching, post-Kuuga Kamen Rider shows are heavily influenced by Dorama in terms of tone and characters. They often share cast members with famous dorama, too.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: A recurring trope, particularly in the Showa Rider series, in the form of our heroes, whether they be the Badass Normal or a Rider themselves, disguising themselves as an enemy Mook.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: It's become tradition for the tie-in movies to have these; the upcoming Rider will make a cameo in the summer movie, and the secondary Rider will make an appearance in the following Movie War installment. Starting with Wizard, the upcoming Rider will either make a cameo during the last couple episodes, or those episodes will be an epilogue to the main story that acts as a full crossover.
  • Elemental Powers: Some Riders have them, and here's a notable list.
  • Evil Twin: The series has a proud tradition of including evil Riders who use recolored versions of the heroes' suits. Some of them are even twins underneath the suits, too.
    • Rider 2 was this, in the original manga. The original series also included a squad of Shocker Riders.
    • Ryuga was a literal mirror image of Ryuki. Its adaptation Dragon Knight played with it with A) the "evil" twin took over the Dragon Knight suit while the "good" twin got the black Onyx repaint, and B) both characters were actually good at heart; the "evil" one just made a selfish mistake.
    • Dark Kabuto.
    • Dark Kiva is arguably an inversion, as he came first in-story and the regular Kiva could be considered his good twin.
    • Den-O had the rare monster version with Momotaros and Negataros. Of course, the latter also gets to be Nega Den-O.
    • Bujin ("Warrior God") Gaim in the Wizard x Gaim movie. His homeworld also has "Bujin" twins of the other Heisei Riders, but Bujin Gaim is the only outright evil one. One of the post-series DVDs also features Black Baron. (While an evil Gaim Yami also shows up in a movie, that one's just regular Gaim Brainwashed and Crazy.)
    • Drive has two, Dark Drive and Gold Drive; though Dark Drive is a little more elaborate than just a black repaint of the original. He's also a subversion, as he's really a hero who had his identity hijacked by the villain.
    • Ghost duplicates all three of its Riders in its summer movie, with Dark Ghost, Zero Specter, and three evil alternate-colored Necroms. The series proper also had a series of evil Specter clones running around.
    • Ex-Aid features a black repaint of the hero from day one with Kamen Rider Genm, though the two eventually get different upgrades that reduce the resemblance. Cronus also shares the same basic suit design as Ex-Aid and Genm, but with extra elaboration like a Badass Longcoat. Brave and Para-DX get evil twins in tie-ins, called True Brave and Another Para-DX.
    • A second, antagonistic Build showed up late in Build (though he turned out to be The Mole in the enemy camp and not evil himself). Unlike most cases here, he used the exact same armor as the original Build since the "black repaint" concept was already taken by Build's Deadly Upgrade, Build Hazard.
    • Thanks to Time Travel, Zi-O manages to be his own Evil Twin, as his future self is a tyrant with a similar suit only decked out with Bling of War. The monsters of the series are also "Another Riders", twisted "twins" of previous Heisei Riders. And then you have a second Woz from an alternate timeline showing up (both Wozes frankly have a claim to be evil, in different ways; but the second one proves to be worse).
    • Revice involves inner demons, so there are cases where one's demon becomes an evil twin to the original. Daiji's demon Kagero takes on Daiji's appearance and becomes his twin, even on occasions where they're split into separate bodies (though their Rider forms, Evil and Live, are quite different); while Aguilera has her own demon emerge in a spinoff as Dark Aguilera.
    • The villain of the Geats movie is X Geats, whose suit is a retooled form of Geats' Super Mode Geats IX that's been repainted from white to black.
  • Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: In The Movie, the main cast will often perform complex fight scenes untransformed, displaying fighting abilities that they've never had before in the TV show, nor will they display them again once the movie's over. This is partly because Rider movies have a greater budget, but also because regularly setting up fight scenes with non-stunt performers on a TV show is difficult, time-consuming, and risky. The very first Kamen Rider series ran into trouble when its lead actor (who did all his own stunt work) broke his leg, so basically every series since refuses to risk the same thing happening again. (There has, so far, been one exception to this — Yoko in Gaim was played by a stuntwoman who did all her own stunt scenes.)
  • Eviler than Thou: You might be a mutant, a demon, a ghoul, a warlock, an alien, or even just a regular human with villainous ambitions. But make no mistake, Shocker will always find a way to be far more terrifying and far worse than you should you ever cross paths.
  • Exponential Potential: The franchise flirts with it from time to time. The Heisei Riders are often Swiss Army Heroes with Multiform Balance, and some shows give them more forms than they know what to do with. This is often explained as the forms they do use being more powerful than the ones they don't.
    • Decade could Power Copy and take on any of the previous Riders' (non-Mid-Season Upgrade) forms, plus his own Super Mode. As of Zi-O, he has the forms of late Heisei Riders as well.
    • Double could mix-and-match his powers, two slots by three options each, for nine forms plus some Super Modes.
    • OOO had three slots by five options each for 125 forms, before his own Super Mode and additional promotional powersets.
    • Fourze dialed this back by giving him a large arsenal - 40 weapons to choose from - but not anything combinable, outside of using two weapons in conjunction (Rocket and Drill for his Rocket Drill Rider Kick, Radar and Launcher so he can actually target things, etc.). His Super Mode could also combine the traits of two weapons, such as Launcher plus Freeze producing a freeze missile launcher.
    • Ghost had ten alternate forms of his own, could borrow five others from Specter and Necrom (though he didn't actually do so), and got a number of additional ones in tie-ins.
    • Ex-Aid and his cohorts (who use the Gamer Driver) have one slot for their base form and a second slot for any of a number of interchangeable powerups, although most of the Riders stick with one set of powerups for themselves.
    • Build uses Double's mix-and-match system, but has several more options - thirty in each slot as opposed to Double's three; putting his combinations in the hundreds.
    • Zi-O and Geiz have 19 Rider Armors between them that are based on the other Heisei Riders. The Decade Ridewatch can even double up with another, giving 37 total different Armors (since it can't be doubled up with itself).
    • The main Riders of Saber use a three-part system like OOO, though they usually stay with their own designated set and Saber himself is usually the only one to try mixing and matching.
  • Fake Crossover: Most Super Hero Time idents have the contemporary Riders and Sentai posing side-by-side, while recent years have the casts interacting in their resepective hide-outs, giving the impression that they are all good friends. Of course, this has no canonical bearing on their proper crossovers, if they have them.
  • Fanservice: Here and there throughout the Heisei shows, mostly in the form of bishonen Riders and leggy female sidekicks.
  • Finishing Move: Rider... KICK! (and Punch, Chop, Slash, etc.)
  • Freeze-Frame Introduction: A freeze-frame intro shows up whenever a new suit is introduced, whether it's a new character or an existing one getting an upgrade. Gotta show off all the pretties (so the audience knows to buy the action figure) before the new character kicks some ass!
  • G-Rated Drug: A few of the later Heisei series (Double, Fourze, and Gaim) has applied a drug metaphor to whatever turns people into the Monster of the Week.
  • Genre Motif:
    • For a number of years starting with Kiva, each show's background music has a distinctive genre. This also shows up in the releases of the opening and ending songs, which usually get a remix in the style specific to the show. Kiva has violins, Decade has both a full orchestra and hard rock, Double throws in some jazz, OOO's seems to be ska and Fourze uses both techno and classic rock. Gaim has different Riders having different motifs based on their costume.
    • The trend was probably started with Den-O and the innumerable variations of the battle theme "Double-Action". The standard version (for Sword Form) has a rock feel with guitar, "Rod form" uses horns, "Ax form" has obvious enka/kayokyoku motifs with more strings, "Gun form" has hip-hop stylings, "CLIMAX form" has a mix of all of the other forms' motifs, "Wing form" has an Arabian feel for some reason, "Coffee form" (for Naomi and Airi) is sugary pop, and "Strike form" (from the Trilogy movies for Kotaro and Teddy) has more guitars. Then there's the two variations of "Action-ZERO" for Zeronos with its own musical motif and "Real-Action" for Liner Form's solo fights.
  • Girl's Night Out Episode: The Girls Remix three part tie-in to Revice, which focuses on female Riders and other prominent female characters throughout the franchise.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Depending on the show, a Kamen Rider's mask may or may not have its own oxygen supply and air filters, potentially making a Rider susceptible to suffocation, drowning, or poisonous gas attacks.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: Across the franchise, gold is typically reserved for the more formidible Riders of their respective series, whether they be The Hero's Super Modes (Kuuga Rising Ultimate Form, Blade King Form, Kiva Emperor Form, Double CycloneJoker Gold Xtreme, Wizard Infinity Dragon Gold, Ex-Aid Muteki Gamer, Grand Zi-O) or enemy Riders (Odin, Caucasus, Sorcerer, Mars, Gold Drive). One does not have to be a Rider to use this trope, as the Roidmudes from Drive can attest to once they reach their Super Evolution. Certain cases of this trope (Wizard Infinity, Roidmudes and Gold Drive) may appear more on the yellow side.
  • Good Is Not Soft: Like many other Japanese fictional heroes, the Riders are often nice people who won't hesitate to pummel and kick the monsters of the week and their Mooks to death.
  • Gorn: The manga of the older series gets quite gory at times...
  • Gotta Catch Them All: A few series involve this kind of plot. Ghost featured 15 Eyecons that the heroes had to collect, while Build featured 60 Bottles that everyone was after, Zi-O involved 20 Ridewatches, and Gotchard had 101 Chemy Mons. OOO and Fourze had downplayed versions: In OOO everyone was after the same Medals and they frequently changed hands, but there was nothing particularly special that would happen if anyone got all of them. Meanwhile, Fourze made a point of the heroes needing all 40 Switches to activate something, but they always had the complete set and just had to finish building them; and the villains didn't want them (because they were going after their own separate set of 12).
  • Gotta Kill Them All: Multiple series have premises where a specific number of enemies must be defeated. In Blade and Drive, it's the 52 Undeadnote  and 108 Roidmudesnote  respectively. OOO and Fourze have specific ensembles to target (five Greeed and twelve Horoscopes) while still allowing for unlimited numbers of lesser monsters. Ex-Aid plays with this in later arcs, as the protagonists have to clear all the involved games; this usually involves the defeat of the associated Bugster — but not always, and Bugsters don't stay dead anyway. Ryuki and Decade provide the heroes with hit-lists of other Riders to wipe out, though they tend to balk at crossing that line.
  • Hammerspace: It's not always entirely clear where on their person the riders keep their belts (and their Merchandise-Driven trinkets for that series) when they're not wearing/using them. If no in-series explanation is given for this, then expect to see the belts getting pulled out of seemingly nowhere on a weekly basis.
  • Heel–Face Turn: While many secondary Riders start out in antagonistic Anti-Hero roles, since Gaim it's become more common for characters who were out-and-out villains at first to join the heroes' side later on.
  • Henshin Hero: Trope Namer and Trope Codifier. Nearly every rider since Rider 1 has used the cry of "Henshin!"
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Virtually every Heisei Kamen Rider either uses a sword as one of their weapons, or has a primary/ultimate form where a sword is the main weapon. Though how often they utilize said sword is sometimes a matter of contention (such as in OOO).
  • Hijacked by Ganon:
    • If it's a Massive Multiplayer Crossover and it's written by Shouji Yonemura, the series' original Nebulous Evil Organization, Shocker, is normally involved. Most notably in Decade, which features the similar organization Dai-Shocker, an alliance of villains from across the Kamen Rider series.
    • In the Showa era, Shocker's Great Leader turned out to be behind any number of evil organizations.
    • Phase 2 Heisei shows produced by Hideaki Tsukada (which, so far, include Double and Fourze), the villain faction Foundation X is usually involved. The other Phase 2 Heisei shows' staffs seem less keen on using Foundation X: They had little to no presence in OOO's series (despite foreshadowing in The Movie of Double) and absolutely no involvement in or after Wizard. In Movie Wars MegaMax, the Big Bad of OOO's segment is not related to Foundation X in any way, until the very end. They eventually resurface in Ex-Aid, but only in a tie-in special.
  • Hot-Blooded: One of the Trope Codifier in Japanese pop culture, in fact.
  • Horrifying Hero: While definitely not the case anymore, during conception Kamen Rider was designed to be a more fearsome and grotesque figure compared to the comtemporaries at the time, which initially led to the Skull Man-esque design. Producers thought this would be too intimidating to the kids, so it was toned down to the grasshopper design we all know today. Even still, Shin, Amazon, and Alpha were intentionally made more fearsome both in and out of universe. Then there's Tsukasa, who frightens other Kamen Riders.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played With. While the series acknowledges that humans are capable of evil, humanity as a whole is shown to be good and as being something which transcends the physical body, while evil-doers tend to forsake their own humanity in pursuit of self-serving ends. In the Showa era, the Cyborg heroes had their conversions forced upon them by the villains but sought to hold onto their humanity in spite of it, while the Big Bads tended to be inhuman forces which tempted the human villains to consort with it and use cybernetics to transcend their own humanity and rule over their fellow humans. Even in Heisei era series, where monsters are portrayed with more nuance and not just as Always Chaotic Evil, humanity as a whole is portrayed as an inherent good and a metaphysical concept through which even inhuman monsters like Roidmudes can redeem themselves by embracing.
  • Humongous Mecha:
    • King Dark from Kamen Rider X.
    • Castle Doran and Powered Ixer from Kiva. (The former isn't quite a mecha, but the intent is there.)
    • The DenLiner in Den-O can assume this role too, especially when combined with the KingLiner. The former is a train, and the latter? A train station. And in Kamen Rider Taisen, the DenLiner combines with a Super Sentai Combining Mecha.
    • In the crossover movie with Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, Wizard's Dragon Phantom becomes one to combine with the Kyoryugers' Kyoryuzin for the Zyuden Brave Strike End Rider Kick.
  • I Have Your Wife: Showed up a lot in early seasons. The earliest English-language resource on the show even points out the frequency of this in one episode summary ("Shocker once again is using its make-scientists-do-what-it-wants-by-kidnapping-their-relatives strategy.").
  • In the Name of the Moon:
    • Most of the original series does this, but Stronger took it to the next level by giving the main character a tell-tale whistle whenever he wanted to drop in on the bad guy, and an entire speech - from higher ground! Later, he does this while handing out beatings.
    • Decade also does this when he's about to take down the Big Bad of each world he visits. It's usually a Patrick Stewart Speech about why the Rider of the arc is awesome and how Decade has learned from them, followed by a team-up fight.
  • Japanese Beetle Brothers: Characters with contrasting beetle themes can appear either as heroes or villains, depending on the series. This is most prevalent in Blade and Kabuto with the main protagonists, Blade and Garren, and Kabuto and Gatack respectively.
  • Kiai:
    • Many of the Showa Riders tend to say "TOH!" while fighting, while Amazon instead has a high-pitched "KIIIII!" Blade has "UEEI!"
    • Kamen Rider Meteor has "WAZAA!" to match his jeet kun do inspirations.
  • Last Villain Stand: Many of the Generals/Commandants/Warlords, whatever they were called in their specific organization, would face down their Rider after he'd slaughtered their armies and ruined their plans enough, transform into a monstrous form with incredible power behind it, and fight the Riders one on one.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: With the start of the Heisei seasons, the production people have tried to make each Rider start out red, but the trope has been zigzagged with a vengeance, with some Riders saving their red variant for a form change (Agito, Faiz, Hibiki, Decade, Double, Fourze, Gaim), while some never do at all (Blade).
  • Lettered Sequel: Showa era series has many unexplained letters behind the titles (and Rider names): X, ZX, RX, ZO, and J. Heisei era also has W, OOO and the unofficial G.
  • Lighter and Softer: Dependent on perspective whether it's happened or not. While it is still darker and has more character deaths than Super Sentai or western superhero TV series, and the writers generally have stated in interviews a preference to cater to an 'all ages and demographics' audience; the content has been viewed as having gotten more kid-friendly since Den-O, compared to the early Heisei shows that had the monsters brutally killing people in many episodes. This is primarily due to changes in broadcast standards in Japan following a series of brutal murders and terrorists attacks in the late 2000's requiring content in live-action series be less graphically violent, unless it is broadcast past certain times of day. The writers of Phase 2 Kamen Rider have since compensated with that by adding more elements of Psychological Horror, sickness and abuse which makes the content more cerebral-storytelling-focused in its darker elements than that of the prior period's visual violence. To those who that appeals to, Heisei phase 2/Neo-Heisei and Reiwa series are darker than ever.
    • Zig-zagged with the Showa shows... while they do have more graphic violence, they also have a lot more Camp and focus on child characters due to differences in storytelling expectations of the eras.
    • In general, Rider shows has some side media that tend to be more comical and zany than the actual series themselves, namely from the yearly Hyper Battle Videos, the Net Movies that occured from Kiva to Wizard, Zi-O's Supplementary Plans meta miniseries for its' first 16 episodes, and a few chibi anime specials (which include Kamen Rider SD, Den-O's Imagin Anime shorts, and miniseries accompanying every Reiwa show so far).
  • Long Runner: 2021 was the franchise's 50th anniversary, sharing the Milestone Celebration Super Hero Senki with Super Sentai's 45th anniversary. Like another popular science fiction franchise, The '90s marked a long period of absence during which the franchises' only screen presence was in the form of movies.
  • Magitek: In W, Gaim, Build, Revice, and Gotchard; both the monsters and the Riders derive their power from a mystical or otherworldly source (the memories of the earth/Gaia Memories in W, Helheim fruit/Lock Seeds in Gaim, Nebula Gas/Pandora's Box in Build, inner demons in Revice, Alchemy and alchemically-created creatures in Gotchard). In the first two shows, the characters must utilize the human-made technology of transformation Drivers to wield the power without mutating or going insane. Ghost similarly revolves around soul-manipulating technology.
  • Masquerade:
    • Most seasons include enhanced humans or monsters trying to pass themselves off as normal people until the hero uncovers them. Also the whole point of the Riders needing to transform - giving meaning to the title, Kamen (Masked) Rider.
    • Generally averted in a number of Heisei series, though; as while the Riders don't call attention to themselves, they also don't keep Secret Identities and don't try to keep up a ruse that the monsters don't exist. A few like Kuuga, Double, Gaim, Drive, Ex-Aid, Build, Zero-One, and Revice take the aversion further by having the general public aware of the monster attacks; either from the start or the police/government go public once incidents start piling up.
    • Incidentally, Double has a Masquerade-type Dopant. Instant faceless henchmen.
  • Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Decade and Zi-O were series devoted to this, and the former began a tradition of Movie Taisen winter films (later rebranded Heisei Generations) which crossed the currently airing Rider over with their direct predecessor, often (though not always) featuring a number of other past Riders in supporting roles. The predecessor Rider's storyline will often act as an epilogue for their series, while the current Rider may receive Foreshadowing of upcoming twists. The All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker and Let's Go Kamen Riders films, succeeded by the Super Hero Taisen films, instead feature all of the Riders as well as Super Sentai and various other Ishinomori creations, including Inazuman, Kikaider (both of them) and Zubat. These films typically forgo a strong central narrative in favor of an The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
  • Meaningful Name: Plenty there, if you're really knowledgeable in Japanese. The name of the franchise for instance means "Masked Rider" when fully translated into English, and the heroes wear masks and ride motorcycles.
  • Merchandise-Driven: Like Super Sentai, individual shows are made to be broadcast across a year, financially divided into quarters of about 12 episodes, each accompanied by a new wave of toys.
    • Anything from multiple Riders to multiple power-ups, season depending. Much more pervasive in the newer series.
    • Many series will have the official toys as their props.
  • Messianic Archetype: Many recent series feature a protagonist who is unafraid to sacrifice themselves for the greater good and displays extraordinary capacity for mercy and Forgiveness. However, their disregard for their own lives is almost always portrayed as a negative thing.
  • Mid-Season Twist: While not every Rider show has one, Heisei Phase 2 saw a move to stronger central narratives that brought with them this trope. A typical Rider show from this era will have at least two or three twists that change the structure of the central conflict, occurring roughly at the end of each 13-episode cour. The first twist will usually, though not always, coincide with the defeat of the Starter Villain and/or arrival of the secondary Rider, the second with the acquisition of the main Rider's second-strongest form, and the third with the acquisition of their final form. Gaim, Ex-Aid and Build are particularly notable for having many more twists than this, but still save their largest for the end of each cour.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade:
    • Heisei and Reiwa-era Kamen Riders normally have at least one upgrade that sits between their initial loadout and their eventual final form. By the end of the era two major midgame upgrades had become standard, with each getting roughly one cour's worth of focus. As of the Reiwa era, at least one of those upgrade tiers will itself have a two-step process (for example, Zero-One receiving a Shining Hopper upgrade, then enhancing it to Shining Assault Hopper). On rare occasions a secondary Rider will also get one intermediary upgrade, but almost never more than that.
    • Among Showa Riders, Stronger is the only one to get a noticable upgrade in the sense of having a disparate upgraded form. Black RX also gets his Roborider and Biorider forms, though the original for is still used for finishing moves. Other Showa Riders did get upgraded powers over the course of their shows, but they were otherwise permanent with the one hero form they could assume just being stronger than it was originally.
  • Mons: Noticeably embraced by the Heisei Riders from Ryuki to Ghost (though Gouram in Kuuga can also count). Ranging from Deconstructions (Ryuki, Kiva, Gaim), played straight (Blade, Hibiki, mechanical ones in 555) and parodied (Den-O). Several of the late Heisei series shifted somewhat to Robot Buddies instead.
  • Monster of the Week: Or in the case of some shows like Kuuga and Den-O, Monster of the Fortnight (thanks to two-week mini-arcs). Monsters in the Showa series were almost always altered humans (sometimes willingly, sometimes not) except for Black RX which used alien warriors instead. The Heisei shows have more variety.
    • Kuuga has the Gurongi, an ancient demon civilization.
    • Agito has the Lords, an ancient angel tribe.
    • Ryuki has the Mirror Monsters, monsters who live in mirrors.
    • 555 has the Orphnochs, the next step in human evolution or so they think, they're really just revenant zombie-like mutants.
    • Blade has the Undeads, immortal beast creatures representing the organism they're based on.
    • Hibiki has the Makamou, human-devouring demons.
    • Kabuto has the Worms, identity-stealing Insectoid Aliens.
    • Den-O has the Imagin, fairy tale-based time creatures.
    • Kiva has the Fangire, glass-escque vampire demons.
    • Decade has all of the above.
    • W has the Dopants, transformed humans (willing).
    • OOO has the Yummies, coin-based homunculi.
    • Fourze has the Zodiarts, more transformed humans (willing).
    • Wizard has the Phantoms, demons born from despair.
    • Gaim has the Inves, extra-dimensional invaders.
    • Drive has the Roidmudes, rebellious androids.
    • Ghost has the Gamma, evil extra-dimensional ghosts.
    • Ex-Aid has the Bugsters, video game computer viruses.
    • Build has the Smash, yet more transformed humans (unwilling).
    • Zi-O has the Another Riders, humans transformed into monster-ized Kamen Riders.
    • Zero-One, unusually, has two sets; the Magia (hacked androids) and the Raiders (hacked humans).
    • Saber has the Megid, storybook-based extra-dimensional demons, later derived from transformed humans (unwilling).
    • Revice has the Deadman, inner demons unleashed from humans forming contracts with them. They can fuse with their human hosts into a Phase 2 form though a secondary contract (willing).
    • Geats plays with this trope by making it Deadly Game of the week due to its Battle Royale Game focus. As such the enemies the Kamen Riders face each round are a mix of Jyamato monster Mooks, Elite Mooks and an occasional Boss Battle, all of which have variations tailored to the goal/theme of the game being played at the time.
  • Mooks: Kamen Rider has a more sporadic relationship with this trope than Super Sentai; it's used in the Showa series except for Black, shows up again during the Heisei series with Kabuto, used in some episodes of W, OOO and Fourze and then used regularly again in Wizard onward.
  • Motorcycle Jousting: Happens infrequently in the franchise. A prime example occurs during the final battle of Fourze's movie.
  • The Movie: Heisei and Reiwa series have a number of feature film tie-ins. It's grown to the point that there are three a year:
    • The first is a double-feature with the current year's Super Sentai movie in a "summer roadshow" (aka Super Hero Time: The Movie (insert year here)).
    • Starting with Decade and Double,note  there have been annual Christmas-time "Movie War" or "Heisei Generations" movies involving two lead Riders meeting each other.
    • Fourze introduced Super Hero Wars films that combine Kamen Rider and Super Sentai (and in one case, Space Sheriff Gavan).
  • The Musical: There's been a few, including a 2010 show simply called Masked Rider Live & Show 2010 which is a Decade themed show, but actually focuses on the that show's version of Kuuga and a not-so-evil member of Dai-Shocker who eventually does a Heel–Face Turn. It also features gratuitous appearances by Riders from just about every possible show, from both eras.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The villains of the first two episodes of the original series were cyborgs based on a spider, and a bat. Starting with Amazon, it became an in-joke to do that with the first pair of monsters that appear. Blade turned its one spider-based MotW into a recurring villain of sorts, while the first episode's monster was based on a grasshopper, much like the first Kamen Rider was. And the first use of a Giant Spider in Hibiki paved the way for more massive CGI monsters, after the one in J had been all but forgotten.
    • Kiva had both the spider and bat. The spider was technically the first monster to appear, but wasn't the first MOTW and in fact managed to survive for almost half the series. Being vampire-themed, the bat motif was used for Kiva, Kivat, and the King Fangire.
    • Blade actually has Kamen Rider Leangle, a spider-themed Rider. We are through the looking glass.
    • Double and Ghost have gadgets based on a spider and a bat, among others.
      • Movie War Core shows that when Sokichi Narumi first became Kamen Rider Skull, his first opponents were indeed the Bat and Spider Dopants.
    • Den-O, on the other hand, had a bat monster first, and didn't have a spider monster until much later on. Instead, the first few monsters parallel the Contract Monsters of several Riders from Ryuki (bat for Knight, chameleon for Verde, crustacean for Scissors, crow for Odin, and rhino for Gai).
    • Ryuki also had an example: The first monster was a spider while the first Rider, Knight, was a bat.
      • Thinking about it; if Shinji had used his Contract Card on the spider, he and Knight would have become the first (anti-)heroic example of the spider & bat combo.
    • Drive has its basic monsters come in three varieties: Spider, Bat, and Cobra.
    • Agito has another gag. Being direct sequel to Kuuga, the first two monsters are jaguar and turtle. Just like V3, the first sequel of Showa series.
      • Kamen Rider G3/G3-X doesn't transform. He's a Badass Normal in a suit of Power Armor, similar to Riderman being a Badass Normal who fights monsters using gadgets instead of superpowers.
    • Build has Night Rogue and Blood Stalk, two long-term antagonists present from the start who have bat and cobra motifs respectively. The first Night Rogue (Gentoku) subverts it by undergoing a Heel–Face Turn (and adopting a crocodile motif) while the second (Utsumi) plays it straight; meanwhile Stalk (Evolto) ends up becoming the Big Bad. Spider eventually gets represented by Killbus, the Big Bad of the direct-to-DVD post-series movie Build New World: Kamen Rider Cross-Z and Evolto's brother.
    • After running the gamut of belt designs in the Showa era, the Heisei era begins with Kuuga and Agito, whose belts may have been all about the bells and whistles, but in fact maintained design elements from the iconic Typhoon belt - a horizontal oval structure with a spinning circular hub, and two boxy units at the side with some important function built in. In addition to this, the silver straps on Kuuga's belt were a parallel to Hongo Takeshi's original white belt while Agito's red straps similarly mirrored Hayato Ichimonji's belt.
    • The Greeed from OOO have belts that look somewhat like golden versions of the Typhoon belt.
    • See Ass Kicking Pose above. Rider-1's right-arm-thrust-to-the-upper-left pose is so iconic that it's been reused several times - every other Showa Rider, and Kuuga, Ryuki, Blade, Den-O in concept art, even Double to a small degree (just Shotaro). That's not counting the examples under Shout-Out. In fact, most of the main Rider poses are variants of it, with one arm extended away from its body.
    • Mentor characters named Tachibana, in homage to Tobei Tachibana from the original series; Blade and Fourze both indulged in this. And in inspiration to Blade's rather memetic use of it, Tachibana will always be, in one form or another, a traitor.

    N to Z 
  • Non-Serial Movie: Lots of early Heisei series have them, specifically Ryuki, 555, Blade, Hibiki and Kiva. Later Heisei series tend to fit their movies into the show continuity instead.
    • Subverted in Kabuto. 99% of the movie is set in an After the End alternate universe, but at the end Tendou goes back in time and alters history, creating the TV series timeline. Rather than creating a Timey-Wimey Ball, this time travel actually explains some of the plot points of the series (i.e. how Tendou got the Rider Belt and Hiyori's obsession with drawing bug-winged people).
    • Movie Taisen Core averts this trope and plays it straight simultaneously, being a crossover between Double and OOO. While it fits neatly into Double's continuity, trying too hard to work it into OOO's chronology will just give you a migraine. This is due to very little of the OOO series having been etched in stone as the movie was being written - imagine a decent fanfic taking place after episode thirty... of a series you've only seen episode one of. That's what the writer of Core had to do and there was no way for it to work out better than it did; Toshiki Inoue gets Mis-blamed for it, however.
    • All Riders Vs Dai-Shocker is particularly baffling, because while the events of it don't seem to fit anywhere in Decade's continuity, it also contains massive revelations about the whole plot, and events from it were mentioned in Decade's finale movie, which is canon to both Decade and Double. The worlds were probably merging.
  • Not Using the "Z" Word: Many of the Heisei era shows tend to avoid using the term "Kamen Rider" in series, except for the purpose of Crossovers. This was much more common in Phase 1 than in Phase 2: Phase 2 shows alternated between using "Kamen Rider" and not using it every other year, and now they use it consistently.
    • The only Phase 1 Heisei shows that averted this trope are Ryuki, Blade, and Decade, though Kabuto played with it:
      • Since Ryuki is all about the idea that There Can Only Be One Kamen Rider, they have to use the phrase to identify the participants in that conflict.
      • One of the recurring themes of Blade is that the Kamen Riders are an urban legend.
      • Kabuto never used "Kamen Rider", but instead referred to the technology that powers the Riders as the "Masked Rider System", in English. This, however, is a reference to every Rider in the show (except the Hoppers) having both a Masked Form and a Rider Form.
      • Since teamups use the term and Decade is about teamups, this trope never stood a chance. Decade and company always call other Riders Riders, and his Catchphrase is to refer to himself as a Kamen Rider who is 'just passing through'. Diend also refers to himself as a Kamen Rider throughout. This series is the only time you'll ever hear the words "Kamen Rider Kuuga" and "Kamen Rider Faiz" in-show.
    • In the first few Phase 2 series, this trope was either averted or played with by shows that premiered in odd-numbered years, Double, Fourze, and Gaim:
      • Averted in Double. In the beginning the titular Rider/Riders were just called "Double" by their friends, but the public eventually started referring to the mask-wearing, motorcycle riding hero as a "Kamen Rider" and since then all the Riders in the show introduced themselves as Kamen Rider so-and-so. However, Shotaro and Philip are quite protective of the term the people gave them; you have to uphold the ideal to earn the right to call yourself a Rider.
      • Also averted in Fourze, where past Riders are an urban legend, much like in Blade. Fourze is called just Fourze until Tomoko points and says "A Kamen Rider!" Gentaro adopts the name, and they and their friends become the Kamen Rider Club. (Tomoko is also so far the only one to call Wizard a Kamen Rider thus far; in his own series, Wizard is right back to the Heisei series norm of never using the phrase.)
      • Played with in Gaim, where most of the warriors are named "Armored Riders" thanks to a local DJ. Furthermore, the Riders using the Genesis Drivernote  as their transformation device are referred as the "New Generation Riders"note . Furthermore, "Rider" part also has nothing to do with vehicles - the initial public users were from street-dancing groups collectively called "Beat Riders" by that same DJ. "Kamen Rider" is as usual restricted to crossovers.
    • Starting with Drive, this trope is consistently averted.
      • In Drive, where the Roidmudes coin the term for the one hunting them. Drive himself made a conscious decision to adopt the title in honor of his fallen predecessor.
      • In Ghost and Ex-Aid, the title is granted to the protagonists along with their transformation gear. While there's little significance in-universe for Ghost, in Ex-Aid it has a somewhat more prominent significance early on, as originally only those that have a special surgery to receive immunity to the Bugster virus can transform into a Kamen Rider.
      • In Build, the term is used for individuals with a Hazard Level 3 and above, in addition to using a driver to transform.
      • Zi-O is an anniversary series like Decade and meant to be the grand finale of the Heisei Era.
    • Even Kamen Rider The First and Kamen Rider The Next don't use it. Riders 1, 2, and V3 are Hopper Version 1, 2, and 3 respectively (the V in V3, whose meaning is never addressed in the V3 series, actually stands for 'version', even.)
  • Numerical Theme Naming:
    • The original Kamen Riders are officially designated #1 and #2, and right after them was V3 (Version 3).
    • The Kamen Riders from Decade to Fourze all took on number-related names: Decade (10), Double (2), OOO (3) and Fourze (40; "four-zero"). The following Riders don't have number names, but still seemed to continue the theme: Wizard's belt symbol is a hand with five fingers and he had five variations of his main form, while Gaim uses padlocks which resemble a 6, and "lock" can be pronounced "roku" which means six... but the producer of Zi-O confirmed that it was never intentional and fans were just looking too hard.
    • Several other Riders took numerical names as well, like ZO (which is shaped like 20, signifying the 20th anniversary of Kamen Rider), Faiz (which sounds like Fives, as in 555, though it's also based on the greek letter Phi), Zi-O (for the 20th Heisei show, similar to ZO), and Zero-One (being the first Reiwa Rider and a Mythology Gag to #1).
  • "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase: Most series have them. "Awaken the soul!" (Agito) "This clinches it!" (Double) Saying "Next time on [show name]" is rare, and not nearly as awesome. Except for the Gratuitous English "Open your eyes for the next Faiz!" in the voice of the Faiz Driver. For the Grand Finale, it became "Open your eyes for the final Faiz."
  • Orange/Blue Contrast
    • Kamen Rider Agito: G3 the Secondary Rider has blue armor with orange eyes.
    • Kamen Rider Kabuto: Gatack the Secondary Rider is predominantly blue with orange accents, including the eyes.
    • Kamen Rider Den-O: Rod Form, Urataros' Den-O form and the second Imagin form, is predominantly blue with orange accents including the eyes. Urataros himself has a blue Imagin body with orange eyes.
    • This trope, and the former three examples, are highlighted in Test! The Rider Look-Alikes!!, an installment in the Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders Super Spin-off webisode series.
    • Kamen Rider Gaim: Gaim's primary form, Orange Arms, consists of bright orange armor worn over a dark blue bodysuit. In his more powerful Kachidoki Arms form, the orange overtakes the blue in most areas.
    • Kamen Rider Ghost has the main riders with these as the color scheme: Ghost the Main Rider is the Orange, while Specter the Secondary Rider is the Blue, and the both of them have contrasting kinds of personality.
    • Kamen Rider Ex-Aid gives Emu a Literal Split Personality form, Mighty Brothers XX (Double X), that represents the two sides of his personality: the teal-colored left side is him as a compassionate doctor while the orange right side is him as a fun-loving professional gamer. The colors also serve as Foreshadowing: if you invert them you get red and blue — the colors of Kamen Rider Para-DX's two forms, hinting that Parado is Emu's personal Bugster. After this is revealed Parado takes over the orange half of the Mighty Brothers since he was "Genius Gamer M" all along.
  • Palette Swap: For budget reasons, monsters in the new-gen series are sometimes given repaints or differently colored wardrobes to make "new" monsters. Sometimes happens with Riders too, particularly the movie-only Riders. Justified on occasion, where the monsters are representatives of the same type or species - an example being that the first three monsters Agito fights are essentially siblings.
  • Parent Service: As is common in the rest of the toku genre, Kamen Rider casts attractive young men in the lead roles for the benefit of the moms in the audience. This casting practice is Played for Laughs in Zero-One, where it's a Running Gag that Gai is Older Than He Looks — he claims to be "eternally 24" (which is close to his actor's actual age), but other characters will embarass him by revealing that the he's actually age 45.
  • People in Rubber Suits: The extent to which they are rubbery depends on the series and design, not so much on the era. Played straight with the Mooks from The First and The Next. they wear gas masks and corresponding uniforms, being quite creepy, until you find that they still shout "yee!" a lot.
  • Phantom Zone: A few series have this. Most notably, battles in Ryuki take place in the mirror world.
  • The Present Day: Most Kamen Rider series take place in the year they air. Kiva is unique in that it is partly set in 1986, 22 years before its present day of 2008, while Den-O and Zi-O also use Time Travel to hop up and down the timeline.
  • Product Placement:
    • Suzuki makes all the bikes in the Showa era and Honda in the Heisei and Reiwa eras, with a few exceptions in the latter (Gas Gas made the bikes in Kuuga, an A.L.I. Technologies hoverbike was customized for Revice, and while main rider Shotaro/W rides a Honda in Double, second rider Ryu Terui AKA Accel rides a red Ducati named Diablossa). Also, all Riders tend to wear Shoei helmets.
    • Sony has had a few collaborations where their products stand in for those made by an in-universe company, with the PlayStation VR in Ex-Aid and their Aibo line of Robot Dogs in Zero-One.
    • Ex-Aid, being themed on video games, also notably cross-promoted Bandai Namco Entertainment games on a few occasions (thanks to Bandai being the series' toy manufacturer).
    • Going in the other direction, Televi-kun magazine regularly promotes Kamen Rider, and ever since the Heisei era started they've distributed a "Hyper Battle" invokedBonus Episode DVD each year (and for a few series they've released multiple Hyper Battles). These episodes in turn often reference Televi-Kun, and many later series include promotional Transformation Trinket collectibles featured in the episodes and packaged with the magazine. In Saber, said trinket is a toy version of Televi-Kun itself.
    • The Reiwa era has added Toys R Us cross-promotions to the list, with the retailer distributing giraffe-themed collectibles for Zero-One and Saber based on its mascot Geoffrey Giraffe; and a "Toysaurus"note  one for Revice.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: After the "Rider Break" incident in Skyrider (see that show's entry on this for details), it's been a requirement that anyone who plays a main or secondary Rider has to have a motorcycle license and prove they are proficient in riding one, to avoid further accidents.
  • Real Time: While the episodes aren't filmed in a real time format, dates in the Kamen Rider universe sync up with the broadcast dates. (For example, when Japan is celebrating New Year's, the Kamen Rider characters are celebrating New Year's too. The same with Christmas, often with ...amusing... results.) Ghost in an exception, taking place in much less time since a 99-day time limit is a plot point: that time runs out after 12 episodes and is then reset, and the second 99 days spans three times that many episodes. It ultimately covers a six-and-a-half-month timeline that's aired over a year.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning
    • Inverted with Kuuga: Kuuga's Ultimate Form having red eyes is a good thing, since it shows that Yusuke is in full control. When they turn black, however, that's when you should start running. Similarly, in Kamen Rider OOO, Eiji's eyes turning purple (whether he's transformed into OOO or not) is a sign that the Purple Core Medals have taken over and he's about to go berserk.
    • In the Hyper Battle DVD Ryuki vs. Agito, Agito's Evil Counterpart is identical to his Burning Form with the exception of his eyes, which are colored red rather than yellow.
    • Fourze's Big Bad was initially known as "The Red-Eyed Man", even in official in promotional materials, before they revealed his true identity: Mitsuaki Gamou, the chairman of the high school attended by all the heroes.
    • In Wizard, Haruto's Inner Phantom, WizarDragon appears in human form within his Underworld, looking identical to Haruto but distinguished by his red eyes. Of course at that point, WizarDragon was the Token Evil Teammate who aspired to break out of Haruto's body.
    • In Gaim, humans who transform into Inves get glowing red eyes, this fate befalling Ryoji Hase. Gaim himself, Kouta Kazuraba, starts to get red eyes as a sign that the Kiwami Lockseed is making him more than human.
    • Drive inverts this trope; Shinnosuke's eyes flash red, both in human form and as Drive Type Tridoron, to indicate that Mr. Belt is borrowing his body.
    • Ex-Aid: Emu's eyes flash red when he shifts into his gamer self - M. Also, when a victim of Game Disease gets glowing red eyes, it means that the Bugster is taking over. Yes, these two things overlap.
    • Build: Ryuga's eyes glow red when he is stressed over having to helplessly watch his teammates get beaten nearly to death. It's because his emotions react with the remnants of the Eldritch Abomination residing in him. Said abomination, Evolto, can change his eyes red at will while in human form.
    • Zero-One: Humagears' eyes go from blue to red when they're infected by the villainous MetsubouJinrai.NET's virus and go berserk. In #9 it's explicitly pointed out by TV pundits discussing the crisis, but this gets thrown out the window due to A.I.M.S.' Yua Yaiba leaking footage of MetsubouJinrai's Assassin to the media; because he was built evil and not reprogrammed, he has blue eyes all the time. MetsubouJinrai's Horobi and Jin are also evil Humagears without red eyes.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
    • Ryuki & Den-O: this is critical to the plot in the latter.
    • Played with in Zi-O, where the changes to the timeline cause by the Another Riders don't take effect until after the villains go back and change things, but then everyone remembers the altered timeline after they change it back. Then seemingly averted in the finale when Sougo becomes Ohma Zi-O and uses a Cosmic Retcon to merge the Time Jacker timeline with the main one, so that the events of the series never occur. After that, no one seems to remember any of it. Except Woz and Swartz, before the team gets their Ridewatches and memories back.
  • The Rival: It all started with Riderman in V3, and now the Heisei era is rife with many a Face–Heel Turn and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Robot Buddy: It's common for Phase 2 Heisei Riders to have little helper robots. However, how much focus they actually get moves from being almost like pets (OOO, Fourze, Wizard) down to just being the form of form-chage equipment that the Riders use (Gaim, Ex-Aid, Zero-One in Reiwa). Kiva and Kabuto had them in Phase 1 as well, while Hibiki had a similar concept with the Disk Animals but weren't robots.
  • Rule of Pool: Any time a Rider has a fight near a large body of water, especially if it's on a bridge, odds are good that someone's going for a swim.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: Another part of the Rider package, almost as iconic as the kick, the belt and the bike. Unfortunately, dropped starting with Black in favor of just armor - apparently, it's too easy for the suit actors to get tangled up in scarves.
    • Lampshaded or subverted, depending on your point of view, when the Evil Twin from Blade is only distinguishable by the fact that he's wearing a scarf.
    • Completely inverted in Hibiki, where the Mooks are the ones wearing the scarves.
    • Ryotaro Nogami, the protagonist of Den-O, occasionally wears a red scarf (though really a muffler) as part of his street clothes in what is assuredly a Shout-Out to his precursors; however, he doesn't really do any ass-kicking while wearing it. When Momotaros possesses people during the Den-O arc of Decade, they gain a ridiculously long red scarf.
    • Returned with Double, who has a silver scarf while the Cyclone GaiaMemory is active. In fact, the scarf is a part of W's suit - we just don't always see it because it isn't tied around his (their?) neck(s); instead, it sticks out through an opening at the back of the suit.
      • Along with the Nazca Dopant, who sports V3-style double scarves.
      • Kamen Rider Skull has the more traditional Showa-style scarf around his neck, reflecting his being "old-school". For an added touch it's tattered and worn as one would expect for a skeleton-themed Rider.
    • Before W, Another Agito of Agito incorporated a muffler into his design.
    • Like Double, Build's Ninja half-body has a scarf. A few other half-bodies are similarly attired, such as Pirate having a shoulder cape while UFO has streamers coming out of the shoulder armor to create the effect of a tractor beam.
    • Woz in Zi-O has one as part of his regular clothes, where he's perfectly capable of kicking ass. It also has weird powers and can be weaponized. From the same series, Kamen Rider Shinobi and Woz's Shinobi Ride Armor also have a scarf.
    • Kamen Rider Zero-Two has a scarf-like extension on the collar of his armor, specifically meant to evoke Nigo along with the now red gloves.
    • Kamen Rider Kenzan from Saber has a scarf as part of his ninja motif.
    • Tying into his kitsune theme, Geats has a foxtail-like scarf.
    • Gotchard wears a white scarf in his various forms.
  • Scarab Power: Scarabs (specifically the Japanese Beetle Brothers) readily show up in the franchise, due to Kamen Rider having a preference for insect themes.
  • Schizo Continuity: The "Bait-And-Switch" style. Toei takes a flexible approach to inter-season (and with Super Sentai crossovers, inter-series) continuity. Sometimes different Rider series take place in alternate universes (as in Decade); sometimes they don't. Don't waste too much time thinking about it.
  • Shape Dies, Shifter Survives: A trope shared with sister franchise Super Sentai. Normally, a Rider who takes overwhelming damage will detransform. However, there will sometimes be climactic fights where a character manages to stay in their transformed form through Heroic Willpower, instead suffering helmet damage which exposes part of their face. Alternatively, if a Kamen Rider is in their Super Mode or transformed into another Kamen Rider like Decade can do, sufficient damage can knock them down to their base form.
  • Shared Universe: Kamen Rider has a... flaky relationship with the concept.
    • The Showa era seasons from Kamen Rider to Black RX are all confirmed to take place within the same continuity, as evidenced by the presence of characters like Tobei Tachibana in multiple series, as well as the Showa Riders all making appearances in each others' seasons.
    • While Toei has been ambivalent on confirming it, Agito has enough nods to Kuuga that one could reasonably infer that the two share a universe.
    • Kabuto is shown to share a universe with the Kamen Rider: The First reboot movie, if The Cameo of its Takeshi Hongo in episode 14 is anything to go by.
    • The beginning of the Neo-Heisei era saw an attempt to create more of a coherent continuity between the seasons in that era, with recurring plot elements like Foundation X. This ended up not panning out. Still, several of the Movie Wars fit neatly enough into the continuities of the series involved to imply a shared timeline between most of the Neo-Heisei shows, including Movie War Ultimatum and the first Heisei Generations film. Heisei Generations Final also fits in pretty well if one assumes it takes place right before the Time Skip in Ultimatum.
    • Zi-O wholly parodies any notion of a shared universe between the Heisei Rider shows, having it be that all 20 Heisei Riders took place in their own separate timelines, which were forcibly merged together by the Big Bad but reset back into their own separate worlds at the end of the series. Up until this gets retconned by Revice.
  • Signature Move: RIDER KICK! Also RIDER PUNCH! and RIDER CHOP!, but these tend to get dropped in the newer series.
  • Sixth Ranger: A staple of the franchise from the Heisei era onward (starting with Agito), an additional Rider is always introduced at the beginning of the show's second quarter. They are typically anti-heroes, some start as straight-up villains, but they mostly all take the side of The Hero in the end. (Keep in mind, though, that the fandom-equivalent term "Second Rider" isn't quite the same; it refers to a show's Deuteragonist Rider who often overlaps with this as a late-added cast member but could also have been part of the show from the beginning.)
  • Slice of Life: The first half of Hibiki in particular has elements of this, as does Kuuga.
  • Sliding Scale of Gender Inequality: Kamen Rider is a well-known instance of "Men Are More Equal". There's always a female lead who is one of the Riders' closest allies, but for all her importance she stays in a support role. Women who take combat roles as Riders themselves are rare, and they usually get killed off or suffer some other indignity that male Riders don't have to. That said, it has improved over the course Heisei Phase 2, and the Reiwa series so far are making great efforts to have at least one female Rider: Zero-One has a female Rider who was part of the initial group of Riders (though she ends up becoming a Faux Action Girl), Saber features a female Rider who's a legitimate Action Girl able to fight on par with most of the male Riders, and Revice has all three siblings become Riders including the only sister of the group, with a second female Rider joining midway through.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: While the franchise definitely isn't without dark moments, overall it leans in favor of idealism as opposed to cynicism. While humans can be cruel, the majority of humans are usually good and humanity is portrayed as a fundamentally positive ideal.
  • Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: Your average Monster of the Week will usually just be a Localized Threat or at most City Threat, while the Big Bad can be anywhere on the scale, although it tends to cap out at Planetary Threat (but not always).
  • So Last Season: This ends up being So Last Mid-Season, given the way the series starts fresh every year. Once an upgrade is acquired, it's used all the time, while previous upgrades aren't effective enough and stop being used. Enforced by being Merchandise-Driven; you want to keep advertising the new toys and not waste time on the stuff that most fans would have bought already. This started to wane off around Build due to both the powers remaining relevant for plot reasons and because new lesser power-up items were still being introduced. Zero-One, despite not actually having much reason to do so, still has the characters use their base and first power-up forms fairly often, switching to their stronger forms as necessary.
    • Revice is one particularly notable example of this phenomenon, as it gets to the point where the villains are able to produce Mooks stronger than most of the heroes' forms, which leads the heroes having to unlock a new Super Mode to fight them. And then the villains create another monster way stronger than anything the heroes have, which leads to them having to unlock another new Super Mode to keep up and so on.
  • Spell My Name with an S: Every season has at least one name or term, likely more, with an odd spelling that English speakers aren't likely to deduce from its pronunciation.
  • Statistically Speaking: Toei publishes statistics for nearly every Rider during the run of their show, which since the beginning of the Heisei era has been standardized as a measurement of punching power and kicking power in tons, jump height in meters, and running speed by how fast the character can run a 100-meter dash. More often than not, these numbers are totally arbitrary nonsense and have little to no bearing on the character's actual performance in the show.
    • As an extreme example, Kamen Rider Poppy (a side character from Ex-Aid who rarely fights) boasts numbers far higher than Kamen Rider Gaim Kiwami Arms (not just a main character's Super Mode, but in-series he's treated as approaching demigodhood).
    • This is particularly obvious during crossover events where characters will be presented as capable as the plot demands, regardless of how lopsided their stats say a match up should be. Especially if they happen to be newly debuted.
  • Super Mode:
    • Started with Stronger's charged-up form, but doesn't become a staple until the Heisei series, where it's commonly referred to as an 'Ultimate Form' in honor of Kuuga's final form. While some Riders, Kuuga in particular, went through several intermediate forms, the Super Mode is the bare minimum (eg. Ryuki and Decade).
    • In an interesting twist, Decade's Super Mode has the power of summoning duplicates of the other Riders' Super Modes to fight alongside him.
    • Teamups or The Movie even give a Super Mode on top of the Super Mode. Rising Ultimate Kuuga, Den-O Super Climax, Double Gold Xtreme, Fourze Meteor (Nadeshiko) Fusion States, OOO Super Tatoba Combo, Wizard Infinity Dragon (Gold), Drive Type Special, Ghost Tenkatoitsu Damashii, Ex-Aid Creator Gamer, Build Cross-ZBuild Form, and Zi-O Oma Form.
  • Super-Speed: Seen in several seasons, but taken to ridiculous extremes in Kabuto - expected extremes, if you know your Ishinomori.
  • Swiss-Army Hero: A series staple in the Heisei and Reiwa eras (though it showed up a few times in the Showa era as well), the lead Rider and some secondary Riders can usually switch between various forms with different abilities.
  • Taking the Bullet: The show's go-to method for giving someone a heroic death: have them die doing a body-block for somebody helpless.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: When the current Ending Theme kicks in, you know the battle is on. That, and older series had actual ass-kicking battle themes - several of them - which gets used to magnificent effect in the SPIRITS manga.
    • For the Heisei series, the "ending theme" isn't played over the end credits (they don't use end credits, with the exception of Kuuga and Hibiki), but rather it's used as the battle song (and they often serve as Image Songs as well). The shows from Agito through Kabuto played around with this, but they had two or three songs throughout the whole series run. However...
      • Den-O used multiple non-final non-Super Mode forms in the first half of the series, and with them came a different arrangement of the ending theme, and that's not including the second Rider's theme song, The Movie form and villain theme songs, the Super Mode theme song, and an Image Song for the hero's sister and the Bridge Bunny. All but two of these were just remixes of the first theme song, bringing us to a grand total of 9 ending themes, and that's not including the songs for the sequel movies.
      • Kiva followed the trend and had different theme songs for each of Kiva's forms, but ended up never using one of the songs at all despite promoting its existence during the show's broadcast. They also had the cast perform the ending themes and on various concept albums; the lead actor fronted a rock band made up specially for the show, the main secondary Rider's actor covered his own theme song, and anyone else whose character got in suit for the secondary Rider joined up on a concept album about the secondary Rider.
      • Decade was fairly minimalistic, only having two themes, one for each Rider and sung by the actor. Instead, the music team went all out producing three albums putting their own style on the 9 previous series theme songs.
      • Double went off the rails like Den-O, having multiple songs for multiple forms, secondary Riders, cast members, and The Movies, but it was implied that all of the ending themes were actually In-Universe pop songs, performed by bands played on the official radio show. One song (performed by the two cast members who are singers from AKB48) was even tied into a short story arc.
      • OOO gives a full, awesome song to every full Combo, plus Tatoba Combo, plus Birth, and all of them take on a deeper meaning when you know the characters: they're Image Songs as well!
      • Starting with Fourze, the show has mostly dialed back the song-after-song nature of the franchise, with Ghost remarkable in that it had no Ending Theme whatsoever. Ex-Aid is returning back to the use of ending themes...even though for several episodes in a row they completely omitted the opening sequence entirely, only to have to promise that with the 2nd half of the show they would have a brand new sequence.
      • Drive, Build, and Saber are a little odd in this regard, since they have "collective" theme songs that represent the entire Rider Team as it is near the end of the series; for bonus points, Drive's "Spinning Wheel" and Saber's "Rewrite the story" are sung by the Riders' actors.
  • Theme Naming: Following Decade, all of the belts in Kamen Rider are known as "Drivers", such as the DecaDriver, the W Driver, the OOO Driver, and so on. Previously, all of the belts had unique names, starting with Kamen Rider 1's Typhoon and ending with Kiva's Kivat.
  • There Can Be Only One: The central concept of Ryuki, Gaim, and Geats. Also featured in Kuuga and Blade, interestingly between the bad guys. Kabuto forced this point somewhat with its BFS, and Agito... erm, suggested it would happen. Decade does this with entire worlds.
  • Tie-In Novel: The Heisei Riders got their own series of tie-in novels, variously serving as prequels, sequels, untold stories, or alternate takes on the original shows. In terms of content, it's a mixed bag; most are disregarded by fans for trying to be Darker and Edgier (Blade's focuses on a now-immortal Kenzaki trying to kill himself, while 555's depicts Kusaka raping Mari and ends with him getting his limbs hacked off by Kiba and being taken in by a stalker a'la Misery), while Decade's is full of glaring continuity errors (Momotaros being portrayed as quiet and polite is just the tip of the iceberg). The ones that are generally well-regarded seem to be official canon, or at least referenced in official media; Kamen Rider Drive's novel is the first part of a story that concludes in Mach's stand-alone movie, while Philip's Kamen Rider Cyclone form appeared in the video game Super Climax Heroes as an Assist Character for Shotaro's Kamen Rider Joker.
  • Time Travel: Den-O and Zi-O have this as one of their series' main themes; and Kabuto and Kiva also feature it to an extent. Riders 1 and 2, V3, Black, and Agito also meet up in the game Seigi no Keifu, sorta. It appears to some degree in many series; OOO managed to get into time shenanigans with nary a time train in sight in its three movies (and one with 'em, in the All Riders movie).
  • Token Heroic Orc: At least one of the protagonists is often a member of the Monster of the Week species or some other nonhuman who is, for whatever reason, fighting for good. Sometimes openly, sometimes they're a Tomato in the Mirror, sometimes they just draw power from the same source in a way that makes them functionally identical to the monsters.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Seems to be a recurring theme starting around the Heisei era:
    • Blade: Kotaro loves milk so much that he keeps a mini-fridge stocked full of it.
    • Kabuto: Tendou liks tofu, and both he and Kagami love Hiyori's mackrel miso.
    • Den-O: Owner and Station Master with their fried rice and pudding, which they make into a game.note  The Taros also love pudding, as well as Naomi's coffee (but they're the only ones). Inverted with Yuto, who has a Trademark Least Favorite and hates shiitake mushrooms.
    • Kiva: Otoya likes Yuri's Omurice and Megumi likes seafood.
    • Decade: Inverted; Tsukasa despises sea cucumber, which becomes a Running Gag after it's brought up; Decade features an inordinate number of sea cucumber-themed monsters.
    • Double: Akiko likes takoyaki and everyone love ramen.
    • OOO: Ankh has his popsicles and Date loves his oden. Kougami loves making birthday cakes, but he's never shown eating them (usually assigning subordinates to do it for him).
    • Wizard: Haruto always orders plain sugar donuts from his favorite bakery. Nitoh is unusual because his trademark is mayonnaise, which he slathers on literally everything he eats.
    • Drive: Shinnosuke eats milk candies when he's slacking off.
    • Ghost: Like Ankh, Alain's first human food (takoyaki) quickly becomes his favorite.
    • Ex-Aid: Hiiro can often be seen using his surgery skills to cut up cakes, pastries, and other confections.
    • Saber: Like Hiiro, Rintaro has a huge affinity for sweets, especially chocolate eclairs.
  • Training from Hell: Again one of the Trope Codifiers in Japan. The original Kamen Rider duo had to undergo intense training under their friend and mentor Tachibana in order to develop new techniques and tactics against the formidable enemies.
  • Transformation Trinket:
    • While its gimmicks may vary from year to year, the transformation belt is an important part of any Rider's arsenal. Heisei series vary pretty widely in what they actually do.
    • The sole exception from Showa series is Amazon whose trinket is actually a bracelet (later two bracelets) on his forearm.
    • Hibiki ditches the traditional belts in favor of using handheld items and braces to transform (indicative of the fact that Hibiki wasn't originally intended to be a Kamen Rider series). Some of their weaponry is belt-worn, though.
    • Kabuto is another series that generally shies away from belts. While Kabuto, Gatack, and the Hoppers do use them, the rest of the Riders don't: Drake transforms using a gun, Sasword uses a sword, and TheBee and the movie Riders (Hercus, Ketaros and Caucasus) use armbraces.
    • Drive mixed it up a little with armbrace as an integral part of the device, acting as a receiver for the sub-trinkets denoting individual forms and weapons, but still had the belt.
    • Some Riders in Zero-One used weapons that could be mounted on the belt buckle, though it wasn't required to place them there to transform. The main ones were Vulcan and Valkyrie using guns and Jin using a dagger (for his late-series Burning Falcon form). These were retooled for other Riders in spinoffs.
    • All of the Riders in Saber used swords to transform; some in conjunction with a belt but others used the swords alone.
    • One-off Riders with non-belt trinkets include Diend from Decade and the supporter Riders from Geats, who used guns; and Necrom from Ghost, who had an armbrace.
  • True Companions: Eventually. But this ain't Super Sentai; the Riders almost never begin on the same page, and often even come to blows when neither is "evil" in the working-for-the-villains sense. Even Blade, where we've got a Heroes "R" Us organization, managed to have four agendas for four Riders. However, sometimes the main Rider and his supporting cast are this from the start. Hibiki and Saber, for the most part however, play this straight as Riders from those shows belong to organizations fighting for the greater good to protect innocents while having almost immediate teamwork when at least two are shown together.
  • Villains Act, Heroes React: A tokusatsu staple. Generally, the villains send forth the MOTW with an Evil Plan Once an Episode, with our heroes then arriving on the scene to stop them.
  • Voice Clip Song:
    • This not only takes the transformation sounds, but other voices from the various Kamen Rider shows.
    • OOO's official Image Songs are these; their names are homophones for his Combos ("Shauta" becomes "Shout Out", for example), and the belt's transformation announcements are worked into the songs themselves.
  • The Worf Effect:
    • Since they peak lower and sooner than the main character, this happens a lot to secondary Riders. But Kamen Rider is kind of unique in that the main hero himself will usually get stomped before getting a big new power-up to make his comeback more impressive.
    • The Kamen Rider fandom even has its own term for this: "getting rolled", which refers to how a particularly bad defeat will be marked by the Rider getting hit so hard that he rolls along the ground (often losing his transformation in the process).

 
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Video Example(s):

Masamune Dan

Few Big Bads in Kamen Rider have hijacked the plot with as much flair and style as Masamune Dan has.

Example of:
The Man Behind the Man

Great Leader

Hibiki and the ...

Get out, Trash!

Twin Maximum

Vail Emerges

The Smile of Da...

Work that shoul...

Corvus Croccio ...

Evol

Takeshi Hongo

Nin Nin Comic

Heisei Finale

Tycoon VS Turbon

Gaim and Ryugen...

Magnum Boost Gr...

Kangaroo Deadman

An unusual Ride...

Beating the Dea...

Don't underesti...

Kamen Sentai Go...

Geats IX

Kiva & Dark Kiv...

New Generation ...

Ace's New Power

Kamen Rider Geats

That's a real h...

Death to a traitor

Extreme henshin

Dual pistols

PuToTyra

Kuroto reveals ...

Neon Receives A...

"Nice kick!"

Grand Zi-O

Hiromi and Orteca

J's Jumbo Forma...

Lightning Sonic

Revolcane

Final Attack Ri...

Kamen Rider Evol

Kamen Rider Kiva

W and Accel vs ...

Phoenix Phantom

Kamen Rider ZO ...

Kamen Rider Bla...

Rider 1

Million Shimi M...

Shift Mad Doctor

Xross Saber

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Masamune Dan

Few Big Bads in Kamen Rider have hijacked the plot with as much flair and style as Masamune Dan has.

How well does it match the trope?

4.67 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / TheManBehindTheMan

Media sources:

Report

Masamune Dan

Great Leader

Hibiki and the ...

Get out, Trash!

Twin Maximum

Vail Emerges

The Smile of Da...

Work that shoul...

Corvus Croccio ...

Evol

Takeshi Hongo

Nin Nin Comic

Heisei Finale

Tycoon VS Turbon

Gaim and Ryugen...

Magnum Boost Gr...

Kangaroo Deadman

An unusual Ride...

Beating the Dea...

Don't underesti...

Kamen Sentai Go...

Geats IX

Kiva & Dark Kiv...

New Generation ...

Ace's New Power

Kamen Rider Geats

That's a real h...

Death to a traitor

Extreme henshin

Dual pistols

PuToTyra

Kuroto reveals ...

Neon Receives A...

"Nice kick!"

Grand Zi-O

Hiromi and Orteca

J's Jumbo Forma...

Lightning Sonic

Revolcane

Final Attack Ri...

Kamen Rider Evol

Kamen Rider Kiva

W and Accel vs ...

Phoenix Phantom

Kamen Rider ZO ...

Kamen Rider Bla...

Rider 1

Million Shimi M...

Shift Mad Doctor

Xross Saber