Someone Needs to Invite Dragon Knight to Kamen Rider's Birthday Party
One underrated cult classic from the twilight era Saturday Mornings was Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight.
To make a long plot summery short: A guy who doesn’t know where his father is stumbles upon the very true myth that mirror monsters are kidnapping people. He finds a magic deck of cards, transforms into a superhero, and now he’s able to fight these monsters. Except the first episode ends with him meeting this cool dude on a tricked-out motorcycle, and then they both get chased by a dragon. Also, there is this alien douchebag who has sucked in everyone into his Ponzi scheme where 11 other motorcycle riders are trying to kill each other to win a prize that is absolutely real and not at all a sham.
…Still with me?
Dragon Knight is what happens when you mix Power Rangers with the Arrowverse, years before such a thing began to take shape on the very same network the show aired on. It’s a gritty-toned, heavily-serialized, superhero drama disguised as a kids' show, and one that doesn’t try to hide the fact that it’s speaking to an older audience. Not even the darkest seasons of Power Rangers, one of which (RPM) was airing around the same time, can compare to Kamen Rider Dragon Knight; there's no slapstick gags, no one-liners, and no monsters-of-the-week with a gimmick.
But there are a few deaths and betrayals.
The show is based on an entry in the Japanese Kamen Rider series, brought to you from the same company that did the Dragon Ball anime, the Godzilla movies, and the Super Sentai Series, which of course you’ll recognize as the “original version” of Power Rangers. The creators of Power Rangers at Saban, originally brought the show for audiences outside of Japan as a spin-off of Power Rangers; Kamen Rider Black RX was transformed into Saban’s Masked Rider in 1995. Dragon Knight, which first aired in December of 2008, is the only other occasion when the show was given an American adaptation. This time around, series creator Steve Wang and the crew at Adness Entertainment fought an uphill battle to create a different kind of adaptation, one that was faithful to the source material; in this case, 2002’s Kamen Rider Ryuki.
The end product might rub a few purists the wrong way. The acting is wooden and the characters lack personality. It’s also one of those shows where the writing only “gets good” in later episodes, and the cliffhangers will always come at the worst possible moment. You can't afford to skip one episode, or you’ll lose the plot completely.
Yet, because of the show’s overall focus on story and plot, Dragon Knight will have you hooked. It's got great action sequences, awesome music, and its special effects are a natural improvement from its Japanese counterpart which, given what genre we’re talking about, is kind of a big deal. Hardcore fans of the Kamen Rider franchise will appreciate how well the show turned out given its circumstances. Kamen Rider Ryuki and the “Heisei era” Rider shows, such as they are called, are in themselves the polar opposite to Super Sentai / Power Rangers installments at the time in terms of their tone and plot structure, and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is spot on in matching the tone and atmosphere of these shows.
Personally, I prefer the “old school” riders of the Showa era, which were straightforward, light-hearted, monster-of-the-week action shows about heroic heroes fighting villainous villains. Even then, the original Kamen Rider was absolutely morbid compared to the Japanese counterparts of Power Ranger’s golden era, but that just makes me feel like I’m not watching a kid show for once. The good news is that now you can legally watch the original Kamen Rider and 2000’s Kamen Rider Kuuga, the first Heisei Era show, via Shout Factory’s TokuShoutsu channel on Pluto and other free streaming services (like Tubi).
The bad news is that Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is still AWOL. I know the final two episodes were only available for streaming…on the 4Kids website…after they pulled the show prematurely. They, and the rest of the series to my knowledge, haven’t been seen since. Given that its Kamen Rider's 50th anniversary this year, here’s hoping the "powers that be" can allow this show to be given a second chance.
There has never been a better time to check out the Kamen Rider series and other wonderful tokutatsu franchises.
