Another of the licensing giants in the Anime genre is under our weekly spotlight! Join us as we take a gander at the Taiko franchise's very first dip into the Kamen Rider franchise...
Let's Go!! Rider Kick (レッツゴー!! ライダーキック) Kamen Rider| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x2 (69) | x3 (101) | x5 (215) | x7 (250) |
| All (2P) | x2 (67/67) | x3 (102/102) | x5 (239/239) | x7 (272/272) (video) |
Taiko PS2 6
134
none
riderThe Kamen Rider series, alongside other Bandai Namco-endorsed pop culture staples such as the Super Sentai and Precure series, has seen some of the strongest support to Taiko gaming in licensed music pool department, currently standing with over 15 different themes from the franchise, with the opening theme to the 1971 series that started it all being its Taiko frontrunner as well. Produced by Toru Hirayama (平山亨) and created by mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori (石ノ森 章太郎) (of Super Sentai fame, among other things!), this franchise started out from what originally was supposed to be a live-action adaptation of Skull Man, one of Ishimori's many works, only to be transmorphed into an original superhero metaseries over time.
In the show's world, a terrorist organization made out of Nazi remnants has risen to power and it's quickly filling their ranks by kidnapping people and brain-washing them into insect-looking cyborg human hybrids; one of their victims, going by the name of Takeshi Hongo, managed to escape the sinister Shocker organization after his grasshopper cyborg alteration just before the final brainwashing process and vows revenge against their villany as the motorcycle-driving Kamen Rider. The first series was originally going to have one main hero in Takeshi Hongo, but his actor -Kunihiro Fujioka (藤岡邦弘)- broke both his legs during a stunt for the 10th episode, which lead to the inclusion of a second Kamen Rider in Hayato Ichimonji and -later on- the co-star's return for episode 53 onward. The live action series ran from April 1971 to February 1973 for a total of 98 episodes, during which timespan it was also concurrently serialized as a manga series.
With nearly 30 different series spanning across several periods in Japanese history and going strong to this very day, the Kamen Rider legacy is also strenghtened by its several number of transpositions outside the silver screen, including theatrical releases (between episode re-adaptations and original storylines) and distribution through alternate sources (direct-to-video/V-Cinema releases and Web-exclusive episodes), up to nover foreign adaptation of the series, including Taiwan's three Super Rider series and two later adaptations: Saban's Masked Rider from 1995 and 2009's Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight.
Let's Go!! Rider Kick, the show's opening theme, has had two different versions, the first of which being the one used for Taiko means. Composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi (菊池俊輔) with lyrics penned by Shitaro Ishinori, all song versions feature chorus vocals by Male Harmony (メール・ハーモニー); however, the main singer for the song version used in episodes 1-13 was performed by Kunihiro Fujioka, with another vocalist from the show -Masato Shimon (子門 真人) as Koichi Fuji- singing the version that was used for the remainder of the show's run. As years went by, the iconing opening theme was rearranged and revised several times, including a metal version in 2009 and several being curated by rock band Rider Chips.
For all the fanfare and wide distribution of Kamen Rider songs on both arcade and console fronts across the years, you can only experience the OP theme that started it all only on the 6th PS2 console title, sporting a challenging variety of note clusters that make it up for the short song length. The 2-player charts effectively outmatch the solo charts' note amount for each mode (barring Kantan), as two of the hit-balloons for both players are replaced with more note-based portions on their stead.
