Colouring Book Theatre: Kamen Rider
“Kamen Rider Colouring Book”
Back in 1991, I spent about every weekend hitting China Town or Agincourt to find new laser disks or VHS of this cool new show I had discovered.
Kamen Rider was that series, in Japan it’s a kids show and the best way to describe it is it’s one part Sid and Marty Krofft with equal parts Sonny Chiba.
Never a big anime guy but man do I love it when the Japanese do live action.
My friends didn’t get it (let alone girlfriends) and I couldn’t make out a word what the folks were saying but it didn’t matter, I was hooked for like on this craziness.
That’s why I was so jazzed when I saw this on Ray Miller’s table at the last Megomeet show.
This is Kamen Rider ZX to be exact, each series of Kamen Rider introduces a new one and gives them a unique backstory and villain. He’s a motorcycling grasshopper/cyborg that transforms via a special bet. The different riders occasionally team up which is all kinds of awesome.
Each Kamen Rider has a main villain, usually the head of an evil organization, this is ZX’s big baddie. They often look like car dealership mascots which is why I love them so. I used to know this guy’s name but time and booze took that away.
Behold the majesty that is the average Kamen Rider mutant bad guy, this is insanely accurate.
There’s not many colouring books that make me want to break out the crayolas but this one does. It also reminds me that I need to bore my kids with my old VHS tapes once again although they kinda dig it….
If you have a colouring book you’d like to guest review, I’d like to hear from you!
Long-time reader, first time commenter!
Some helpful soul transliterated the furugana on at least one page there. The chief villain from the ZX movie is "Kurayami Taishi", which means "Ambassador Darkness".
The same actor (Kenji Ushio) played "Jigoku Taishi" ("Ambassador Hell") in the original KAMEN RIDER series. I believe the backstory stuff claims the two evil ambassadors are brothers.
If you've never been there, you should check out the blog of my pal Igadevil. He knows more about Kamen Rider than either of us ever will.
If I'm reading the Katakana right, I'm almost certain they call that big bug on the last page "cock-roid"!
The illustrations here are very nice. A lot of colouring books have the lines too thick and oversimplify the designs too much. These are just as nice plain as coloured. Thanks for sharing
Lazarus Lupin
http://strangespanner.blogspot.com/
art and review
Maybe the bad guy is Cockroach Lord? Then it would be just like some car dealers!