I'm Finally Done With Kamen Rider Stronger!

Is it me or am I suffering from a generation gap with super old school Tokusatsu? I find this funny considering I could still sit through some 70s Anime series but I guess all the old hat special effects tend to bore me. Another issue I might be suffering from is that I spent more time watching Heisei era Kamen Rider or that Kamen Rider Black was during the 80s. A four year hiatus happened between Kamen Rider Stronger and its successor Kamen Rider Skyrider. Six years after Skyrider, Kamen Rider Black was born which was supposed to be a franchise reboot... that was until its sequel Black RX came in. So I had a bit of thoughts on what it's like to actually sit through Kamen Rider Stronger some time after I've done watching Kamen Rider Amazon. 

Kamen Rider Stronger stars the now deceased Shigeru Araki who died of pneumonia last 2012 at the age of 63. Before that, the actress Kyoko Okada died in 1986 when I was freaking one year old. I find the whole incident when Kyoko died at age 27 from an asthma attack to be among the worst premature deaths. Her character Human Wave Tackle died on-screen and later the actress died of natural causes. One of the worst premature deaths was Miyuki Kanbe who died of heart failure at just the age of 24. Sometimes, I can't help but feel bad about these premature deaths. Now let's move on to talk about the show itself.

The show feels like it's split into two seasons even if the whole show ran as one season. The story of Shigeru Jo has him as Black Satan's cyborg. He volunteered to be Black Satan's new cyborg to avenge his friend. I felt Black Satan was quite boring in spite of its sinister name making me wonder if Hercule from Dragon Ball Z was really its founder. The second army known as Delza Army was a more interesting bunch as its generals were competing for overall control. The Delza Army generals throw in their bets that whoever defeats Kamen Rider Stronger will lead them all. It's pretty much a precursor to Jetman's Vyram officers.

What I didn't realize was that Stronger was supposed to be the end of Kamen Rider or at least an era of Kamen Rider. The finale arc involved the return of all the Kamen Riders from Ichigo up to Amazon with their human actors. That was something that didn't happen in Kamen Rider Black RX's rather hurriedly done finale. The Kamen Riders were chasing around the Delza Army around the world unaware that the Great Leader was manipulating everyone. Considering that Stronger was supposed to be the finale so I guess producers wanted to write off Great Leader as just that alien brain in Kamen Rider.

But after four years after the intended finale they decided to revive Great Leader again in the form of Neo Shocker's Great Leader. So why didn't they just decide to start Skyrider as an entirely new era instead? Hmmm... I guess there was a demand for more Kamen Rider that they couldn't afford to end it with Stronger. I still don't know what to think about the four year hiatus after Stronger or the six year hiatus after Kamen Rider Super-1. I'm probably still too stuck with Kamen Rider Black and its lesser sequel Black RX to fully appreciate the older shows of the Showa era huh?