Kamen Rider Gaim is an enjoyable watch under its many flaws. The comedy gags can be entertaining and the henshin scenes are still very fun. I would argue that Kamen Rider Gaim is a good show in itself but not a good Kamen Rider show. It's definitely worth the watch if you want some mindless fun but it wouldn't be anywhere near a classic.

I do not own Kamen Rider Gaim or Sword Art Online. They belong to their respective creators and not me. I am only writing this for fun and not for any kind of profit. If you enjoy the story then please continue on with your support. If you don't like it...well, I can't please everyone. No flames please. They don't contribute to to my writing like solid constructive criticism would.

Kamen Rider Gaim: Cyber World

By Ten-Faced Paladin

Chapter 1: The Orange Samurai, Arriving On Stage!

Argus Incorporated - 3rd Branch Nov 5th 11:00 PM

Tobei Tachibana yawned as he worked on his office computer, once again putting the late night hours into his looked like your typical office minion, wearing a simple white shirt and black trousers with a white lab coat over top of it. He was typical Japanese stock with short black hair and narrow eyes. In terms of looks, he certainly didn't stand out all that much. Fortunately, it was his intellect that made him one of the top workers in Argus' third branch, only one step below Argus' golden child Kayaba Akihiko.

Argus was in a tizzy with their believed Golden Apple about to launch, the much anticipated Sword Art Online. It was a revolutionary new game which would make full use of the Full Dive technology with the use of the new NerveGear helmet which Akihiko had also developed during his time with Argus. It would allow users to fully immerse their consciousness into the games they were connected to. Sword Art Online would be the first game which would emulate the real world almost perfectly. No place was off limits and there were real-world physics in effect would make everything feel real. There would only be smaller details to show it wasn't like the floating menus, the systems which would protect the users from feeling pain to a full degree, and censors keeping things from becoming too sexual or graphic although Tobei knew if SAO was successful, games dealing with things like that would no doubt pop up. Whenever new technology appeared, it was always applied to sex and violence.

1. Kamen Rider Gaim (仮面ライダー鎧武 (ガイム) Kamen Raidā Gaimu) is a Japanese tokusatsu drama in Toei Company's Kamen Rider Series, it is the fifteenth series in.
2. Kamen Rider Gaim (仮面ライダー鎧武 Kamen Raidā Gaimu) may refer to any the following characters and their variations on the Rider: Like his fellow Lockseed-using Armored Riders, Kamen Rider Gaim's forms are called Arms (アームズ Āmuzu). His Sengoku Driver plays Japanese horagai music and announces 'Soiya.
3. Mar 2, 2019- Explore patmayer9's board 'Kamen Rider Kamuro', followed by 155 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about Kamen rider gaim, March and Mars symbol.
4. Kamen Rider Gaim (仮面ライダー鎧武／ガイム, Kamen Raidā Gaimu) is a Japanese television series, a tokusatsu drama that is in the Kamen Rider Series; it is the 15th series during its Heisei run and 24th overall. The series, written by Gen Urobuchi, directed by Ryuta Tasaki and produced by Naomi Takebe, began airing on TV Asahi from October 6, 2013, replacing Kamen Rider Wizard in.

Still, Tobei wasn't going to begrudge his superior his accomplishments. Seeing Akihiko in action and how much work he put into his brainchild made Tobei respect him all the more. Still, the programmer was still able to tell a gravy train when he saw one. Sword Art Online was going to be a huge hit once to became readily available. Having only 10, 000 copies made for purchase on opening day was a good move to make the people come for more. Should Sword Art Online be a success, people were going to be wanting more games like it.

And so Tobei was hard at work on what he hoped would be a successor to SAO.

Tobei was well aware of the meaning behind his name. Not the literal meaning of the kanji that made it up, but a cultural meaning. He had been named after a character in the still famous Kamen Rider franchise. The man who supplied the Showa-era Riders with their personal machines. Some people joked about it with him, but he didn't really begrudge anyone. In college he learned about the Kamen Rider franchise and got hooked on it. That experience eventually gave him his idea for what he hoped would be his first great success: Kamen Rider Online.

The premise of the game would be that the players would take on the role of Kamen Riders, usually finding transformation belts of their own which were of various quality and quantity and fight off monsters in quests or random events. Depending on the style of belt and the type of monster they fought, they would engage in a storyline and head for a final confrontation with a Great Leader character. There were sixteen storylines to follow with more planned for expansions, but Tobei had only managed to hash out details of the first thus far.

Still, progress on the game was slow. Tobei was working by himself and only had a few hours between when most witnesses would be gone and when he just couldn't bring himself to work anymore due to exhaustion. He was deathly afraid that someone would try to steal his work if they learned about it, considering what a cash cow VRMMORPG games were going to become. Everyone would want to jump in on the gravy train by any means possible. Thus why Tobei worked deep into the night on his personal project.

So for help and some ideas for what he could do to improve his game, Tobei did something considered perhaps a little morally questionable but far from legally apprehensive. He began looking into the mechanics, art, and everything that made up Sword Art Online. As one of the top programmers under Akihiko, he had quite a lot of clearance for everything about the game. It was Tobei's hope that by learning some of the mechanics, he could apply them to KRO and perhaps make his game that much better. Since the FullDive and SAO belonged to Argus rather than Akihiko, Tobei was perfectly allowed to use elements of both to apply to his own project so long as Argus was the owner.

'Hm, the use of Sword Skills is too unique to SAO. I'd feel like a copycat if I used the exact same system,' Tobei frowned as he read through the data pertaining to some of the battle mechanics of SAO. 'It might be a good idea to introduce some kind of help system to Hissatsus though. A Hissatsu System then?' He paused to write the idea down on a pad of paper before clicking open another file. It was marked as 'Special Mechanics' and required a password to enter, one that Tobei didn't have.

'What do we have here?' he wondered, officially intrigued. Opening the password enter window, he tried a few paltry passwords which were typical of most programmers. Each one was shot down, leading Tobei to believe that Akihiko must have put a personal password on the file since it was exactly that special. Courtesy and obedience would demand that Tobei leave the file alone and if he really wanted to know he could ask Akihiko in the morning about what it was about. Of course, as docile as he could be Tobei had a wild streak in him and seeing a possible wealth of juicy information, he wanted in to see it.

Tobei had known Akihiko for a while and knew that the man was rather disillusioned about life in general. It just seemed like he didn't have much interest in it. He was calm and patient with everybody, but he never seemed to really invest himself in anything. The only times Tobei ever really had seen Akihiko excited about anything were when Aincrad in SAO was finally developed, when the Beta Test began, and he was growing more excited as the release date for SAO came closer. It was like watching someone realizing a dream come true with how he would grin so much.

'Maybe…' Tobei frowned before he began to type in another password attempt.

A-I-N-C-R-A-D

'Here goes,' he muttered, entering the password.

Password Accepted

'Alright!' Tobei grinned. Opening the file, he began to sift around what special goodies Akihiko may have put together and what could be used to enhance KRO. Many of the files were boss character designs as well as data on attack patterns, what weapons they used, any special abilities they had, etc. Tobei wasn't interested in that. He could create his own monsters and characters himself.

Closing those tracks of data, Tobei opened more of them. He found mentions of unique skills that would be awarded to special players who displayed powerful abilities. Such skills were things named as Dual Sword or Holy Sword which would make whoever had those skills downright powerful contenders for the top ranking. Again, Tobei had no interest in such things. They were Akihiko's unique ideas and he didn't want to steal them. Be inspired by them yes, but not outright steal them.

Scrolling down for more data, he saw one that gave him pause, 'Death Game? Some kind of alternate game mode?'

Again intrigued, Tobei opened the ominously named file and began to read through the contents. At first it seemed like an extreme version of Sword Art Online where if a player's HP reached zero their character would be removed from the system, forcing the player to start over as if their character really had died. However, Tobei's jaw dropped in horror when he read further into the file. He saw depictions of the NerveGear and command codes which would release bursts of microwaves that would fry a person's brain. The same command code would shut down all safety measures to prevent that exact disaster from happening. Even more mortifying was that the death command would activate when a player's HP reached zero, when connections to a power source were cut for a set length of time, or links keeping the device secured to the user were cut.

'No….no, no. You wouldn't do this Akihiko. Please tell me this is just a safety concern,' Tobei muttered in horror. 'This is just a concern over how easy it can be programmed to do that.'

Minimizing the file, he opened up his links into Argus' servers where the game SAO would be run in conjunction with the home computers and NerveGear of the players. Bringing up the core data, as much of it as he was permitted to see with his clearance, Tobei began reading through the streams of data, looking for the commands which were part of the Death Game protocols which he had found. Moving to the sections about Nerve Gear and how they were connected to the servers. Tobei's horror grew when he saw that very same stream of code appear which was in the macabre file. Akihiko hadn't dreamed up the possibility that such a thing could happen if the NerveGear was hacked or sabotaged, but he had written a program into the equipment that would actually kill someone when their avatar in SAO died. Worse yet, the commands were written into the core of SAO's programming which meant that the protocols would activate the moment the game went online. Even more horrifying was some connecting code Tobei found which would remove the logout function from the menu.

'That sick…' Tobei gaped. He was going to trap all 10,000 players in SAO and let them die if they screwed up and got killed by the monsters inside of it. While a lot of players would be experienced gamers and 1000 of them were Beta testers experienced with the game, a huge portion of those players would be inexperienced or new to FullDive. Plenty of them were going to be children too!

KRO vanished from Tobei's mind, sleep vanished from his mind, even horror vanished from his mind. All he could think about was how 10, 000 people were walking into a veritable death trap and he had helped make it. His previous confusion of why Akihiko would only allow programmers to work on specific pieces of SAO and not the whole thing suddenly made sense. If programmers were able to get the big picture, they would have been able to see what he was planning to do and stop him. Now on the eve of SAO's release it seemed like Akihiko's plan was on the verge of completion.

Tobei knew that he had to stop Akihiko somehow. He couldn't go into Argus' servers and just smash them. SAO had backups all over the country and likely all of them had Death Game protocols. He also couldn't call up Argus' head and warn him. The first thing was that no one would believe him and with the amount of money SAO was already making them a lot of executives would go into extra denial until it was too late. By the time they'd believe him people would have already died and then it would be too late. The only real method of stopping Akihiko's sick plot would be to hack into SAO and try to delete the Death Game protocols or destroy Aincrad entirely and have nothing for the players to login to when the game officially opened.

So Tobei began exercising every ounce of clearance he had to get as deep as he possibly could into SAO's guts. He could touch fractions of the Death Game code, but not enough of it to really shut down the program. SAO's AI would just remember what was deleted and replace it. Unless an entire program was deleted, the computer would just replace it. When legal programming ended, Tobei shifted into hacker mode, bringing out every trick he knew to circumvent Akihiko's protections and get into the core of SAO and destroy the abomination before any innocent people could get killed.

Hours passed and soon it was five am of November 6th, the official launch day of SAO and eight hours before the game was open to the public to play. Every hacking trick Tobei used barely worked or was blocked entirely. Akihiko truly was a genius when it came to computers and it certainly showed in his homemade protections. None of the other Argus systems had such tight security. Tobei was no closer to stopping SAO's activation than he was when he got to work the previous morning.

'I can't let this happen, I can't!' Tobei groaned to himself, rubbing his tired eyes. Even with all his clearance and hacking tricks, he couldn't do anything to remove a thing from SAO's programming. The only thing he could actually do was add things but that wouldn't help-!

Tobei blinked. He could add things to Aincrad and SAO. He could put things into the game that could help the players! He'd designed plenty of the weapon drop systems and how the odds of rarer items worked. Hell, off the clock and behind Akihiko's back he'd done plenty of work on the environment when the guys in that department were short-handed!

'But what to add?' Tobei wondered to himself. 'It's not as if I have some kind of super item ready to save lives and-!' And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. He did have a super item. In fact he had an entire set of them. He still had eight hours before SAO was officially launched. If he did it right, he could adapt several of those from his KRO programs into SAO.

There was no other way. He'd have to stuff in a lot and do it before Akihiko came in to do his final checks, but if he pulled it off then a bunch of players were going to have items that could mean the difference between life and death!

'Here goes nothing,' Tobei frowned, pulling up the data from his project. 'Gaim, Baron, Ryugen, Zangetsu, Gridon. You'll be the first ones. I just hope some players who actually want to help everyone escape find you guys!'

Aincrad 1st Floor - Meadow Path November 6th 6:00 PM

It was supposed to be fun.

It was supposed to be a game.

It was supposed to be exciting.

Now it wasn't anymore.

Running along the path through the fields of Aincrad's very first floor was a young man. He appeared to be around fourteen years old with black hair wearing the very basic tunic, pants, beginning armor of all the new characters as well as wielding a basic sword. He had a very intense look on his face for one so young. However, it was a very intense situation that he had ended up finding himself in. A situation that one at his age shouldn't have found himself in but somehow it happened just the same.

His online name was Kirito. He was an avid gamer who had short black hair, pale skin from being inside more often than not, dark eyes, and looked slightly effeminate. He had just been one of 10, 000 people who were clamouring for the newest game craze Sword Art Online. In fact, he had been craving it more than most since he had managed to be one of the Beta Testers who were allowed a sneak peek into the game before anyone else could. He felt like it took forever for the new game to be finished and become available, but once it was he was all over it like white on rice.

Kirito had excelled in Sword Art Online and there he felt more alive than he did in the real world. Instead of a world where you were constantly judged and could only get ahead by who you knew, all he needed to prove his worth was a sword and his own guts. Being able to spend a good amount of time in the world of Aincrad and following his fantasies in it, he felt like he didn't want to leave.

Now though...he didn't have a choice but to stay.

Not a half hour ago, the gamemaster of Sword Art Online Kayaba Akihiko appeared in the form of a giant robed figure. He announced that players had likely noticed that the logout button had been removed from the main menu. It wasn't a flaw or a bug that got overlooked, but a feature of Sword Art Online. None of the players were allowed to logout of the game.

Akihiko then made his most chilling announcement, he had removed the revival feature of the game so when a player's avatar died it would be removed from the game. That aside, when a player did die, they were disconnected from the system for over two hours, or were disconnected from a power source longer than ten minutes then the NerveGear would activate its microwave emitters at full blast and fry the wearer's brain. Sword Art Online had literally become a live-or-die kind of game with real lives held in the balance. Already two hundred and thirteen people had died when people outside of the game tried to remove their NerveGear, triggering the death protocols. Akihiko even showed the newscasts of the incidents to prove they were happening.

Kirito hadn't needed the newscasts for proof. As a computer junkie, he had studied the NerveGear up and down since he got it because he wanted to know how it worked. With the battery in the device there would be more than enough power and if the safety protocols in the device were removed then it would be more than possible for a quick blast of microwave to occur and kill whoever was wearing the NerveGear. Kirito's own vivid imagination already painted an image of what such a person would look like after the process got through with them. Needless to say, it wasn't pretty.

In the middle of the mounting horror of the 10,000 players, Akihiko did offer one shred of hope. Should the players, even if it was only one, managed to get through all one hundred floors on Aincrad and defeat the Final Boss then Akihiko promised to log everyone out so they could go back to their lives. It may have been seen as a message of hope, but each floor had a dungeon filled with traps and puzzles with a Dungeon Boss who would be stronger than anything else the players had seen previously. Usually players had to work together on Boss Battles, making raid groups of up to forty players and usually plenty of the died in the attempt during the Beta Test. With the Death Game rules in effect, no one would be willing to try and fight them.

Then perhaps the final insult, or final nail in the coffin, was an item Akihiko spread to all of the players. It was called a Mirror and that was exactly what it was. Everyone looked at it in confusion, but were then engulfed in light. When it died down, everyone's avatars had been transformed into what they looked like in the real world. It caused some chaos and disgust since plenty of handsome men turned out to be repulsive and cute girls ended up really being ugly or older guys. After that, Akihiko wished them luck and left, letting all hell break loose as all of the players began to panic and try to do something about their situation.

Rather than panic or despair like so many others were doing, Kirito began to run for the next village far away from the Starter City where all the players first appeared. He knew that when people got their heads back, there were going to be a lot of them who were going to try and grow stronger so they could take on the Dungeon and win, reaching the second floor. The problem was that they weren't going to stray very far from the city unless they were good and ready and only so many resources and mobs to grind for experience were available in the area surrounding the city. With all 10,000...9787 players in one place, everything was going to become rather scarce and hard to get. Kirito hated doing it this way, leaving his friend Klein and his group of beginners behind, but if too many people followed him then the resource problem would just become a worse problem since Horunka Village was so much smaller. So Kirito went on his own, aiming to use the slightly more advanced Horunka area to level up even faster and grab some of the quests around get himself ready to advance that much sooner.

He wasn't going to die!

He wasn't going to fail!

He would survive!

Real World- Tobei Tachibana's Apartment November 6th 11:00 PM

Tobei groaned as he sat in a chair in his apartment. The last six hours had been gruelling. He had been working as much as possible to give the players of Sword Art Online any sort of advantage in the Death Game which would help them advance and protect themselves. He had just hoped that it would be enough to save lives. Still, he couldn't help but feel disgust and despair at himself when he had been told by police that 213 people had already died when family members tried to remove them from SAO by removing the NerveGear, triggering the death protocols. Akihiko had been a crafty bastard, writing in such a foolproof program.

When it became obvious that the players were trapped in SAO, ambulances raced all over the city to collect the people who were trapped so their bodies could be placed in hospitals to make sure that nothing would happen to them and that they wouldn't just wither and die in their homes with no one to take care of them. Apparently Akihiko had sent out notices to all of the media outlets and police institutes so that none of the players would die from outside influences unless their NerveGear was removed.

Tobei had learned all this when the police dragged him in for questioning. They grilled him for hours, demanding to know if he had any idea as to what was happening with the game and if he knew about it beforehand. Tobei had to be honest, having learned about it only the previous night and had tried to do something about it but Akihiko's computer skills were just so much greater. When pressed as to why he didn't try to warn everyone, he had to answer 'who would believe him?' The police wouldn't have taken him seriously since SAO was 'just a game' and who would put something like the death protocols in a game? The public would think he was crazy and paranoid. A modern day technophobe. He wouldn't have been able to warn all 10,000 players in time either and his bosses wouldn't hear anything bad about their new cash cow and would just try to shut him up. So who was he expected to go to?

He did reveal what he did to modify Sword Art Online in hopes of helping the players. Only the most driven players would be able to really find and use his modifications. The players who wanted to progress and help the other players escape the game would be best suited to them. His special items would perhaps allow the other players to act a little smarter and keep them out of danger unless they did something stupid. He didn't have time to rewrite anything about his items so the players would have to be smart or else they were going to end up causing more problems for themselves than before.

He just hoped that the right sort of players would find the Drivers or else more people would die and it would be directly his fault.

Aincrad - Forest of Beginnings November 13th 11:45 AM

It had been a week since the death game known as Sword Art Online had begun. It had been a rough week filled with a lot of emotional turmoil and despair. It became increasingly more obvious that no one was coming to rescue them. For many players, it was the wakeup call they needed to realize that they were on their own. If they wanted out of the game then they were going to have to do it themselves. Many formed groups and were out milling the mob areas for experience, money, and items. Of course, many of them stuck to the easier mob areas since no one was willing to risk their lives for the game just yet.

Everyone fought with one goal in mind: freedom. As it was a game it had an objective: clear all 100 floors by beating the Bosses. On each floor there was a Boss and by beating the Boss access to the next floor would be opened. That was the only way for them to be free.

Unfortunately, many had fallen into despair unable to come to grips with what was happening and believed that they were never going to escape. Others decided to jump off the edge thinking it was all a lie and that by killing themselves that they would be free and wake up in reality. No one was sure if they succeeded or not, but all anyone knew was that they weren't part of SAO anymore. It was unfortunately a trend for a short time where many people ended up killing themselves either in despair or believing a delusion that there was no way the NerveGear could do what Akihiko promised it would.

The Beta Testers decided to fend for themselves and quickly set off, leaving the beginners behind. If beating the game was the only way out then they needed to get stronger. It was the only way. Unfortunately, this gave the Beta Testers a stigma on top of the one they already had. Many people wondered that if the Beta Testers had played the game before shouldn't they have known something like the Death Game would happen. Many felt the Beta Testers should have tried to warn people about the game if they knew about the life or death struggle. Of course, there was no way for the Beta Testers to know what Akihiko had planned but fear and anger tended to make people think irrationally. Other players felt that the Beta Testers should have stayed to help the new players out instead of trying to go off on their own and hoard experience and quest items. They accused the Beta Testers of leaving them to rot while they did everything they could to help themselves. It wasn't entirely true, but the other players wanted a scapegoat since they couldn't get to Kayaba Akihiko who admitted he was behind everything.

Kirito's himself was steadily getting stronger, level grinding as he gained more and more EXP. As a Beta Tester he knew of many places where he could quickly gain experience and did it gradually. Going into the more dangerous areas was unwise so he played carefully, never going after Mobs which were too numerous or too much higher above his own level. Sure they had stronger Mobs which would earn him more EXP but with SAO becoming a life or death struggle, he was not about to gamble with his life. There was no reset button or respawn if he got killed in game.

With another Mob taken down, Kirito's gained enough EXP to grow another level. Out of habit he wiped the sweat off his brow. He knew it was just virtual sweat but Kayaba had made the game super realistic so that every sensation felt real. That also included fatigue, pain and hunger. Fortunately, plenty of food and places to sleep were readily available and all the towns were considered Safe Zones where the monsters couldn't go so people could at least rest easy there.

On occasion, Kirito's wondered how Klein was doing. The man had been the first friend he made in SAO and Kirito still felt bad about leaving him behind. Klein was an avid gamer and he had a bunch of friends with him so Kirito was confident he was okay, but it didn't stop him from worrying about the man now and then. Sword Art Online didn't have any retries if someone ended up dead after all.

With the last of the Mob destroyed, Kirito checked his stats. He had just levelled up again and several of his other skills had progressed as well. If he kept up the pace he would be able to get some of the more specialized weapon skills. He'd also gained some miscellaneous items which he could sell back in town if he wanted to. Checking on his sword durability, he saw that the durability score was low, meaning that the weapon was about ready to break so he would have to either repair it or a buy a new one in town. Kirito frowned at the oversight he made on the weapon. He'd been so intent on getting that last short burst to his next level he forgot to check on his weapon's durability. He usually had more sense than that. His survival hinged on him having a proper weapon.

Hearing a howl, meaning the Forest Wolf Mob was going to regenerate soon, Kirito turned away and headed back for the path towards the town he was currently staying it. It was nameless town, one of the small places players could rest and restock in on their way to one of the larger places. He'd picked the area since the Forest of Beginnings had stronger Mobs than around the Starting City but still would be easily defeatable if one knew what they were doing. The lake area had aquatic monsters and the shift in terrain wasn't something he wanted to deal with until he was at a higher level and the mountain region closer to the dungeon had Lizardmen who could use Sword Skills on the players. Again, he wanted to get his level higher and advance his skills before going against such opponents.

He was less likely to be attacked on the main pathways, but chances for random encounters happened now and then so Kirito had his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. He did know some of the shortcuts through the forest which he usually took when he had to move fast to avoid being caught in the wild at night where the monsters would become stronger and more aggressive. More experience to be had in fighting them, but a lot riskier to life and limb at his current level and Kirito wasn't foolish enough to try. He'd gotten killed enough times during the Beta Test trying that.

When he was cutting through a particularly thick portion of the forest, one which was too thick for Mobs to function in ironically, that was when he saw an open zipper. It was such an odd and random thing, an open zipper in the air, that Kirito couldn't help but stop and stare at it. It was right in the middle of the clearing and on the other side he could see a forest on the other side, but it was completely different from the Forest of Beginnings. While he expected to see odd things in SAO's environment, he knew something like this had not been originally programmed into the game since its beta testing stage. Then again, Kayaba had made numerous modifications so this could be one of them. His cautious side told him to ignore it. What if it were some kind of trap? What if he went in and got swarmed by Mobs? Then again, what if this was the entrance to a secret dungeon which held an ultra rare stat boosting item?

Eventually, curiosity won over caution. Holding his sword, Kirito approached the open zipper and stepped through into the new forest. It didn't look incredibly intimidating. Everything was covered in a light mist, but the trees looked a little strange. Most of them were an oddly straight tree wrapped in green vines with large purple flowers growing off of them.

'This definitely was not in the Beta Test,' Kirito frowned to himself.

Approaching one of the weird trees, he tapped one of the flowers which opened up a window, meaning he could interact with the flowers.

Lockseed Fruit

A mysterious fruit which grows in the Helheim Forest, home of the Inves. Inves love these items as their preferred source of food.

Take? Y/N

'Lockseed? Inves? Helheim?' Kirito frowned. Now he knew that he had never seen or heard of such things in the Beta Test. Modifying existing enemies, areas, and objects he could of course understand, but adding something entirely new? Unless the Beta Testers thought there wasn't enough going on in the first floor there was no reason for such an addition. Kirito knew that wasn't the case though. Nearly all of the Beta Testers agreed that with the floor being so huge, there was plenty to do and have fun with before even considering taking on the Dungeon and the Boss there.

Still, with such a strange item and in abundance, Kirito figured he had something good on his hands or at least he could harvest a bunch of the Lockseed Fruits and sell them. That or eat them if whatever the Inves were considered them to be food. Tapping the 'Y' the Lockseed Fruit vanished from sight and reappeared in Kirito's inventory. He took another two before he decided he could come back for more later.

'Let's see what makes this thing so unique,' Kirito muttered. Scrolling through his inventory, he materialized the Flower and held it in his hand. It looked like a round light purple fruit covered in deep purple leaves. The closest thing Kirito could say it reminded him of was a peach. The funny thing was that the other end where the stem would usually be was some kind of semi-circle which reminded Kirito of a padlock.

'I guess that's where the lock part of its name comes from,' he shrugged, bringing up an info window about the item.

He read through what information was available about the fruit and he wasn't sure what to make of it. The fruit emitted a scent which attracted Inves, logical since it was supposedly their favourite food. It seemed more like a bait item for monsters rather than any sort of food item he could eat, but that could come in handy if he wanted to grind somewhere and wanted to do it fast instead of going out and hunting for it. A note at the bottom of the window indicated that once touched by something outside of Helheim Forests, the flowers would begin to mature and quickly, making their bait potential limited.

'What? Mature how?' Kirito frowned. Turning from the window, he looked to the fruit in his hand in confusion. As if to answer his question, the flower began to shine with white light, causing the leaves to begin falling off and the fruit itself beginning to harden. When the light died down, Kirito gaped at in his hand was what looked like a silver padlock with an orange decorating the front marked with the letters 'LS-07' in black on the front.

'Huh?!' Kirito openly gaped at the item. An alert came from his inventory, indicating that something had changed. Looking to the menu in question, he discovered that his two Lockseed Fruits had transformed into Ichigo Lockseed and Pine Lockseed. The one in his hand was called an Orange Lockseed.

Mature Lockseed

An item which when used with a SengokuDriver can activate Arms which can be used in a number of combat situations. They can also be used to summon Inves outside of Helheim Forest and are controllable so long as the owner keeps a hold on the Lockseed. Be warned, should an Inves eat a Mature Lockseed, their power will grow exponentially and turn into a Berserk Inves.

'Eh? What the heck is a SengokuDriver?' Kirito asked in very real confusion. Was that some kind of rare treasure item? Also, what were Inves? The Lockseeds could summon Inves outside of Helheim? He'd never heard of such a function before.

Hearing rustling, Kirito swiftly took cover behind a tree. Sticking his head out from behind his hiding spot, he spied on strange creatures which he assumed were Inves. There were three of them, all of them hunchbacked monsters with gray skin and flat mask-like faces. Each of them were subtly different though Portions of their chests and legs were coloured either red, blue, or green. Their faces were also slightly different. The red one had sad-looking slit-like eyes. The blue one's eyes were simple circles, and the green one had more ornate slits with a circular line on its forehead. The one thing they all had in common was large claws which looked pretty lethal. Kirito could see indicators above the three monsters, giving them their names: Elementary Inves: Red, Elementary Inves: Blue, and Elementary Inves: Green.

The were at a tree and picking the flowers to eat. They seemed to ignore everything else save for the Lockseed Fruits that they were devouring. Kirito saw their health bars and saw that the three monsters were about average for the area. While he might stand a chance against regular Mobs, the Invase were new and he didn't know what they were capable of. The three different varieties of the Inves Warriors made Kirito fear if they had different skill sets. He decided that it was best for him to be on his way without drawing their attention.

Unbeknownst to him, he had already gotten some unwanted attention. A predator was on the prowl, looking for prey.

Kirito eyed the Elementary Inves for a moment longer before he tried to use what stealth skill he accumulated during the week to try and get out of Helheim and back to town where he could talk to someone who might know what the Lockseeds were. Slowly backing away, but keeping the three Inves in sight lest they notice him, he moved to get away. He was suddenly stopped when he hit something behind him. Thinking into was merely a tree or something, Kirito turned to see what he had touched, but something then smashed into his face.

Grunting, Kirito hit the ground with his vision in a blur, his health bar being the only thing which he could solidly see and a portion of it vanished from the blow. Shaking his head, Kirito looked up to see what hit him, expecting another Inves Warrior that he had missed. Instead, he got something else…

The creature stood like a man, but that was the only resemblance it had. It was covered from head to toe in red armor. It wore thick shoulder plating which made it look bigger. Its hands sported long silver metal claws that looked like they were as sharp as ginsu knives. The legs had some silver armor with claws feline feet, lithe and ready to pounce on some unsuspecting prey. The face resembled a snarling feline's with an orange mane of hair As Kirito's vision cleared, the indicator above the monster appeared, naming it Lion Inves

'Oh no,' Kirito grunted, scrambling away from the monster. His hand touched something metal and he looked down, noticing the Orange Lockseed he dropped when the Inves struck him. Grabbing it, he pulled himself to his feet and drew his sword while pocketing the Lockseed. He didn't want anything to eat it while he was trying to defend himself. If what the item description said was true, that would make a bad situation worse.

Hissing from behind forced Kirito to look over his shoulder and spied the three Elementary Inves advancing towards him, obviously attracted by the noise of the Lion Inves. He cursed inwardly, pondering his options. His sword was low on durability and he had four monsters to fight. He was wary of the Inves Warriors already but the obviously stronger Inves knew he had to run for it.

The Lion Inves growled, but didn't attack again. Instead it hissed and growled while waving its arms. the Elementary Inves seemed to take it as an order and sped up their advance towards Kirito with their claws raised. More than a threat, Kirito took that as a comfort. Apparently the Elementary Warrior were more common that the beastial types and thus took orders from the superior ones. Kirito was sure he could take on the thugs and win and with only one Inves to fight he could run and escape Helheim Forest without having to fight the Lion Inves.

'Here goes!' Kirito hissed, positioning himself properly. Immediately his sword began to glow, an indicator that the system was assisting him in completing the attack. Once the attack was ready, he charged at the three approaching Elementary Inves and unleashed his Horizontal Sword Skill. He purposefully kept it wide, making it able to strike all three of the monsters. The strike landed perfectly, cutting a glowing red pixelated line across the bodies of all three of the Inves Warriors. The strike pushed all three of them back with screeches and their health bars popping up. As expected, they began to shrink but Kirito saw that he only did a fraction of the damage that he was expecting to with his weapon.

'What the-?' Kirito wandered. Did the Inves have some kind of resistance to Sword Skills since they were part of some out of place area?

He didn't have time to truly consider the idea since the three Elementary Inves pulled themselves up to their feet and charged for him once again. Kirito took the fight to the three, slashing and dodging their swipes and slicing into their gray hides with his sword. He left several red pixel gashes across their hides, but each blow he struck only did a fraction of the damage that he was expecting it to. It led Kirito to believe that indeed the physics in Helheim Forest were different than the rest of Aincrad when it came to Sword Skills and weapons.

'Hyah! Ho! Ha!' Kirito bellowed, slashing several more times into the Inves Warriors. Again and again only a fraction of the damage was dealt which meant Kirito was getting tired out faster and the durability of his sword was draining even further. If he wanted to end the fight soon he had to find the weakpoint for the monsters or else his weapon was going to-!

*SMASH*

Kirito's latest attack landed on a blocking claw from Green Elementary Inves and it promptly exploded into blue pixels, vanishing into nothing. Kirito's sword had run out of durability and as part of the rules ended up being destroyed. Now though, he was weaponless and fighting against three monsters at once.

Was this the shadow of death he felt?

The Green Elementary Warrior lashed out and struck several red gashes across his torso. Kirito screamed, even with the pin being dulled he still felt pain as he fell back. He grunted as he tried to pull himself up. While doing so, a notice came from his menu.

Because of the Inves striking you, you have dropped your Ichigo Lockseed! Recover it quickly!

'Crap!' Kirito hissed. So the Green Elementary Inves could force inventory drops when they hit or did they all have that ability? Either way, he was on the verge of more trouble. He scrambled along the grass, trying to spot the Lockseed in the tall grass. He didn't see what he was looking for, but the screech of the Inves Warrior told him something happened. Looking up, he saw the three had lunged for something on the ground and the Blue Elementary Inves stood up holding the Ichigo Lockseed. To Kirito's morbid curiosity, a toothy mouth opened in a vertical line on the monsters face which promptly sucked in the Lockseed and gulped it down like a sweet treat.

Kamen Rider Gaim Lockseed Henshin Online Game

The monster screeched and flames danced across it's form before it's top opened up, revealing a maw filled with dozens of razor sharp teeth. Even its mask-like face peeled away to become jaw-like mandibles and a face that looked like it was made of muscle fiber. The indicator above its head changed, renaming it a Berserk Elementary Inves. The remaining Elementary Inves whimpered and ducked behind their mutated fellow.

'So that's what happens,' Kirito idly commented to himself. Still, he knew he was in deeper trouble than before. Scrambling to his feet, he eyed the better part of survival and took off running through the Helheim Forest, searching for something which he could use to escape back to the Forest of Beginnings or perhaps some kind of item drop that was unique to Helheim Forest which could hurt the Inves like the other monsters would be.

'I'm not going to die! I'm not going to die! I'm not going to die!' he chanted to himself, dodging more of the Lockseed Trees. 'DO YOU HEAR ME?! I'M NOT GOING TO DIE!'

Skidding pst a thicker tree, Kirito looked back and saw that the three Inves were still chasing him. Looking around, he plucked several Lockseed Fruitss from the tree and threw them at the Elementary Inves. As he hoped, the monsters promptly forgot about him and began fighting over the plucked fruits, trying to be the first to gulp them down. It gave Kirito the needed breathing room he needed and gave him a strategy against the Inves that he could use since he was without a weapon.

Taking off running again, Kirito tried to find some kind of landmark or unique area he could use as cover or some kind of event which would give him some kind of weapon to use against the Inves or get him the hell out! The only thing he could see though were more and more Lockseed Trees with some odd flowers sticking out of the ground. Frustrated, tired, and understandably fearing for his life, Kirito looked into the oddly shaded blue sky and screamed, 'WHERE THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO GO?!'

'You have already arrived.'

Kirito flinched and turned to see who had spoken. To his shock a girl was practically right behind him. She wore a white tunic which exposed her shoulders and white pants with dark leather boots. Her hair was blonde but not unnaturally so for an asian girl and she had heterochromatic eyes, one brown and one red. She looked unnaturally stern, but the lack of indicator above her head marked her as an NPC rather than a living person.

'You have come seeking power. You have found it,' the Mysterious Girl spoke. 'Helheim Forest does not open for the faint of heart or the weak. Your strength has brought you here from your world and now we will grant you our strength to send you back.'

'And how do I do that?' asked Kirito. If this was a quest of some kind, there had better be some kind of payoff.

'Use this,' the Mysterious Girl replied, holding out what looked like a belt buckle with a hexagonal indent in the centre with a sword-shaped lever on the side. The top of the buckle had a slip of metal with a hole in it for some reason. On the left side was the armoured face of some figure with a sword-like decoration on his forehead, a blue helmet, a rainbow-colored visor, and a steel mouthplate. Kirito didn't need to be told twice as he took the item which immediately opened up an information window.

You have received a SengokuDriver!

This is a rare item from the forests of Helheim which grants the wearer the use of Arms and armor powered by the Lockseeds! use it wisely for it will be your greatest weapon against the forces of the Inves and other evils!

'This is the SengokuDriver?' Kirito asked, remembering the name from when he got the Mature Lockseeds. 'It looks like some kind of belt buckle.' An idea popped in his head and he put it on his midsection. Instantly, a yellow belt strap materialized, securing the SengokuDriver to his waist.

'When you wear your Driver, opening a Lockseed will summon your Arms instead of an Inves,' the Mysterious Girl replied. 'Mount your Lockseeds in the centre and call on their power.'

Kirito nodded and dug into his pocket, pulling out the Orange Lockseed he looked over the object and found a black button on it. Hitting the button, the latch of the lock opened, prompting the orange on the front to begin flashing with orange light.

'ORANGE!'

Kirito blinked and moved to insert the Lockseed into place, but stopped when hissing echoed through the air. He turned and groaned when he saw the three Elementary Inves approaching him, the Berserk Elementary Inves leading the way. The sight caused Kirito to groan, but he remained strong. He pressed the Orange Lockseed into the indent on his belt and locked it into place, literally since he snapped the lock closed.

'LOCK ON!'

The belt began to make a horn-like noise, the kind warlords would have sound before major battles in the Sengoku Era. Unsure of what to do next, Kirito grasped the sword-like handle and pushed it down onto the Orange Lockseed. The Front of the orange then popped open like an orange being sliced open. The portion stuck to the lock looked like the inside of an orange chopped in half while the bottom half hanging on the belt depicted a sword that seemed like a scimitar styled after an orange slice.

'SOIYA!ORANGE ARMS! HANAMICHI ON STAGE!'

Above Kirito, a branch from a tree seemed to shine with orange light before a large orange grew from the limb. Rather than the citrus pulpy fruit, it was a metal sphere painted oranged with metal studs on the surface. The orange dropped from the tree and landed on Kirito's shoulders, engulfing his head. His body rippled and became covered in a dark blue bodysuit which had quilted leather, perfect for fighting. On his arms and legs were golden bracers and leg coverings which added extra protection. On his side was a black sword with a gold line on the blade with a trigger under the swordguard and the cross-like guard looked like it actually doubled as a gun. Inside the metal orange, Kirito's head became covered in a blue helmet with a silver mouthguard, a dark gray visor, and a sword-like decoration on the forehead. After the helmet formed, another change occurred. Samurai-like helmet landed as extra decoration made of the studded orange steel and the visor turned orange, looking like an orange slice. The orange then sparked and began to disassemble, the sides folding in half to form the shoulder pads, the chest plate with a black line on top, and leaning on his back was the top of the orange with the silver inside facing out. Appearing in his hand was a short scimitar which was orange and styled after an orange slice.

'Woah…' the armoured player gasped, looking himself over.

You have received Musou Saber!

You have received Daidaimaru!

You have received the Kamen Rider Gaim armor!

You have received Orange Arms armor!

The information window gave a quick description of what the weapons and armor did. Kirito only glanced at the functions of the weapons. They could combine into a naginata-like weapon which was handy, but what captured Kirito's attention was the boost to his stats that the armor gave and what it allowed him to do.

'Dual wielding?!' he gaped. 'I can wield two weapons at once! And these scores!' If he was reading the stat bonuses right, he was equal to higher level players who were on the second level or even the third! This was too much for some super-rare item! He was looking at some kind of...cheat!

'Fight the enemy! Protect the people! Attack, Kamen Rider Gaim!' the Mysterious Girl called out.

'Kamen Rider?' Kirito...Gaim looked at his help character.

The three Elementary Inves hissed and began their rapid charge at the two. Gaim grunted and positioned himself with both weapons in hand. Once the first one came close enough, he slashed wide with the Musou Saber which dug into the Red Elementary Inves, cutting another red line through its torso. A sizable portion of its HP went straight down, much more than before. Seeing the effectiveness was where he expected it to be, Gaim pressed his advantage and slashed several more time, sending a haze of red pixels through the air with several more gouges in it.

'Let's try this!' Gaim grunted, positioning himself properly, allowing both weapons to begin to glow, going for a double Vertical strike. With the attacks prepared, Gaim lashed out and struck the Red Elementary Inves perfectly with both strikes. The monster screamed and feel back with two red lines passing over it before it exploded into pixels, making it look like a blue fireball.

The Green Elementary Inves passed through the remains of its comrade and charged for Gaim. The Kamen Rider grabbed the guard of his sword and pulled back on a portion of the weapon, causing five lights in the gold line of the sword blade. Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger portion and shot five shots in succession, making five red holes appear in the monsters. It screeched and stumbled back, giving Gaim the breathing room he needed. Deciding to use it, he twisted both weapons together before attaching their handles together, making the Daidaimaru Naginata Mode. Twisting the weapon, he lunged at the Green Elementary Inves with a twisting slash

'HYAH!' Gaim bellowed out, making two quick cuts in succession. The armor seemed to have some kind of assist function in it since Gaim knew he didn't have any spear skills. Still, it came in handy as he cut the Elementary Inves once across the midsection and once across the face. The monster shrieked like the one before and promptly exploded into another blaze of blue pixels.

Gaim tried to catch his breath for a moment, but was promptly body slammed by the Berserk Elementary Inves and smashed against a Lockseed Tree. Grunting, Gaim struggled against the mutated monster's grip as its oversized jaws began to lean in closer to take a deep bite out of him. Although he lost some HP, Gaim had to marvel at how little he lost from such a heavy attack. Saving the thought for later, her kneed the Inves in the side, making it grunt and lose some strength in its grip. Seeing his chance, Gaim slashed and managed to catch the Inves in its skinless face which caused it to screech and stumble away.

Gaim panted, letting his breath return from the surprise attack. He needed to end the fight since it would just attract that Lion Inves and he didn't have enough experience with his weapons to be sure if he could pull out of a fight without bringing himself down into the red zone in terms of his HP.

'Your Musou Saber can activate a Hissatsu in its current mode!' the Mysterious Girl spoke, somehow sitting in a tree. 'Your Lockseed shall release the power!'

'Right!' Gaim nodded. Looking to the Saber half of his weapon, he saw an indentation just like the kind on his Driver. Reaching to his belt, he unlocked his Orange Lockseed and removed it from the Driver.

'LOCK OFF!'

Bringing it up to his weapon, he placed the Lockseed in the spot and quickly locked it into place.

'LOCK ON! 1-10-100-1000-10000!'

Gaim lifted his weapon and orange power filled the weapon, making it shine. When the Mutated Inves Warrior managed to recover itself, Gaim saw his opportunity and slashed twice as the suit's System Assist told him to. When he cut with the Musou Saber side, twin slashes of orange power crashed against the Inves Warrior, lifting it into the air and trapping it inside a sphere of orange energy with a green tip on top. With the enemy paralyzed, Gaim charged forward as the Daidaimaru section began to shine.

'ORANGE CHARGE!'

'UUUOOOHHHHHH!' Gaim charged and slashed the Inves, cutting clean through its body and slicing the energy orange clean in half, the two sides drifting apart. The two sides then flashed before exploding in orange pixels, an actual orange slice flying through the air. Once the pixels cleared, a window popped up in front of Gaim, revealing the battle results.

Congratulations! You Win!

Results:

Col: 1500

EXP: 175

Items: None

'Huh? That can't be right,' Gaim grunted as he looked over the stats. By the Forest of Beginnings, experience received from monsters reached the triple digits. Even divided by three, the experience he got from fighting the Inves Warriors was cut down by half, even with the mutated one offering only a little bit more! The Col was fine and certainly expected from such a fight of three versus one but how was his experience cut down by so much? Was it some drawback to the armor or something? Considering how strong it made him that seemed fair though.

'Congratulations, Gaim,' the Mysterious Girl spoke, somehow teleporting down from her tree and appearing at Gaim's side, making the Kamen Rider jump in fright. Undeterred, the NPC continued, 'Now there is one who wishes to speak with you.'

'There is?' Gaim blinked. Another quest maybe?

The girl didn't answer, but instead there was a flash of light which blinded Gaim. When his vision returned, the Mysterious Girl was gone and there was instead a man wearing a deep blue robe which hid his face with floating gloves and boots for hands and feet. Gaim's heart clenched when he saw the figure standing in front of him, 'Kayaba Akihiko!'

'If you are hearing my message, then you have found the SengokuDriver,' the voice of the man spoke, sounding nothing like Akihiko and much more...tired. 'My name is Tobei Tachibana...and I am a programmer of Sword Art Online.'

'What?!' Gaim snapped.

'Please do not try to attack me, although I probably deserve it. This is merely a recorded message. I am not really in the game. By now I'm probably in jail, on house arrest, or getting ready for trial,' the man explained. 'We who helped Akihiko make this game had no idea what he was planning. He only allowed us to work on separate portions of it and never different ones. We were not able to see the big picture and thus what he was planning. He hid his Death Game Protocols too well.'

Giam frowned, but he didn't attack.

'I learned about them the night before the release, looking for ideas and resources I could use from SAO in a project I was working on, Kamen Rider Online. Discovering the Death Game I tried every computer trick I knew but he protected the core programming too well. Knowing what I did, I could not go to anyone. The police wouldn't believe a simple online game could kill people, the public would have called me paranoid, I couldn't warn you players fast enough to save you all, and my superiors would have quieted me to keep the bad publicity out. I still had to do something. So with my clearance even though I couldn't delete anything without the system AI restoring it, I was able to add things to Aincrad instead.'

'Wait..' Gaim gasped. Did this mean-?

'Helheim Forest, the Inves, the Lockseeds, and the SengokuDrivers are not part of Sword Art Online. They are...a hack I suppose you can call it,' Tobei explained. 'I hid entrances to Helheim Forest in all the places where only the players who are intent on clearing the floors and getting out of the game can find them. They will be on all one hundred floors. The Lockseeds can also be used to summon Inves who can help the players with tasks in all areas, even in Dungeons. They make perfect scouts as well.'

Gaim could suddenly see the value of the tools that Tobei had placed in SAO. It had the potential to save countless lives! if the Inves could be sent into dangerous areas instead of players, it could make exploring dungeons and danger zones ever so much safer and quicker. The armor could also help reduce the numbers needed to take on boss-level monsters and reduce the risk to so many people!

'Although, with the time constraints I had, there are some drawbacks to all of this,' Tobei sighed. 'The accumulation of experience was different in my game and SAO. So depending on the armor to win all your battles will stunt your growth in SAO if you plan to use it to win all your battles. Next...I'm not sure how the Inves will interact with the natural environment of Sword Art Online. I tried to get their programming right to keep them in Helheim Forest, but when players begin summoning there is a chance they'll get out of control or heaven forbid...follow people out of the portals. I initially wrote them up to be tenacious opponents like that. It's possible for regular players to beat an Inves but as you no doubt discovered it would be difficult. Fortunately a Kamen Rider can defeat them much easier.'

'No kidding,' Gaim muttered, rubbing his chest.

Kamen Rider Gaim Game Online Full

'I'll try to get more armors, Lockseeds, and other equipment for the players to collect but I'm not sure if I'll be legally allowed near a computer for the rest of my life. If I can cut a deal with the government to keep up my Kamen Rider hack. All I ask is that you who found my equips use them to help get these players out of this death trap! Please, show the world not all of us programmers were knowingly a part of this and couldn't care less.'

With that, the avatar faded away and left Gaim alone in the middle of the forest. Looking around, he saw that his position had changed. Several feet in front of him, there was the exit from Helheim Forest. Looking around, he spied the Lockseed Fruits growing around him. Knowing what they were used for and how they could help people, Gaim reached and grabbed several more of the illegal items. They'd mature into Mature Lockseeds soon enough and he could test them out. He'd heard of a merchant back at Starter City who was building up a pretty good merchant reputation with players who needed to unload stuff and those who needed it before they'd go out of the city walls. 'Buy cheap and sell cheap' was apparently his motto. If he was an okay guy, he'd probably be able to spread out the Lockseeds and help Gaim teach people how to use them.

Stepping through the zipper-like portal, Gaim took a moment to look through his stats and even got an image of his armor, both with and without the Orange Arms.

'A samurai,' he muttered. 'Grandpa must be laughing to me right now. I walk away from kendo for computers and I still become a samurai like he wanted anyway.'

Kamen Rider Gaim Game Flash

Tobei Tachibana's Apartment - November 13th 12: 30 PM

Tobei sighed again as he sat in front of his computer. His outline of what he did to Sword Art Online and his description of events considering his discovery of the Death Game managed to buy him some credibility in the eyes of the law according to his lawyer. Also his views on how he literally couldn't go to anyone for help managed to get him some leeway too. At least the law wasn't going to be keeping him in jail. As it was, he got placed on house arrest and couldn't go anywhere without an officer going with him. That got kind of uncomfortable so he had hired a neighborhood kid to go buy his groceries when he needed them.

News about Sword Art Online was everywhere. What should have been the greatest video game of all time was turning into a massacre the likes of which only the Nazis from WWII could match for the timeframe of a week. Hundreds of people had died already and the public was up in arms. They demanded justice for the families of those affected and with Akihiko vanishing from the face of the earth they were willing to get it from Argus and the people who helped Akihiko create his twisted game.

Argus of course were trying their best to convince people that it wasn't their fault, that they had no idea what Akihiko had been up to. Any and all inspections of Akihiko's branch of their company hadn't turned up anything unusual and investigations into the man's expenditures and monthly progress reports weren't unusual either. Although Tobei suspected that Akihiko had created two sets of SAO reports to fool his superiors, the safe version and the Death Game version he had created. Again and again Argus was saying that they had been fooled as well, that Akihiko had done everything behind their backs and no one noticed. That hardly placated the victims' families. Several of them were already filing lawsuits against Argus for allowing Akihiko to do what he did. Argus' lawyers were already using dirty moves, dismissing the deaths of the first two hundred as the families' fault since they disrupted the machine when it was publicly announced as unsafe.

'That really scored sympathy points,' Tobei snorted, popping an aspirin to help with his growing migraine.

Tobei was also slightly scared for his safety. One of the programmers for SAO had been shot by a distressed father whose son had died in SAO and with no other recourse tried to get revenge. Another programmer got mobbed by a bunch of people who wanted to hurt him for making such a deathtrap and apparently not even taking responsibility for it. That man had gone to the hospital with several broken bones and may end up walking with a limp for the rest of his life.

Tobei also knew he had a target on his back. He had been mentioned by name as a programmer for SAO. The only reason he hadn't asked for more police protection was because unlike the other programmers who ended up being painted as uncaring drones who helped Akihiko make his death game, Tobei was given a slightly better spin on his story. Where the information came from Tobei didn't know, but the story about him revealed him as someone who learned the awful truth to SAO and surrounded by people who either wouldn't believe him or had too much of a financial stake in the game to be willing to even check, he tried his best to modify the game to save as many players as he could when Akihiko's programming proved too advanced for one person to delete or remove.

At the very least, people were on the fence about Tobei and not about to try and do a drive-by shooting on him or something. Reporters were calling, but on his lawyers advice he wasn't going to talk to them until he was either officially charged or let go considering his possible role in the SAO scandal. Once that was confirmed he could tell his side of the story either to proclaim his innocence or to gather sympathy points for public notoriety.

A beeping tone suddenly dragged him from his thoughts, bringing the programmer's attention to his computer screen. The police of course had tapped his phone, mail, and internet but Tobei didn't mind that since he wanted the police to know what was going on in his computer. The one particular tone meant something incredibly important as well. Bringing up a window, he saw a readout, a link from his computer to the servers in Argus and everything that was going on in SAO. In particular, it was a readout of his personal addition to Sword Art Online: the Helheim Forest and everything in it.

'So, someone found Gaim,' he sighed. 'So now it's begun. Kami help you all.'

To Be Continued…

A/N: The story begins and the game has begun. Akihiko plans have come to fruition, but someone has managed to plant a seed which could very well bloom and bring him down. How will Helheim and the Kamen Riders managed to change everything?

The Kamen Rider Series (Japanese: 仮面ライダーシリーズHepburn: Kamen Raidā Shirīzu, translated as Masked Rider Series) is a metaseries/media mix of manga, and tokusatsu television programs and films, created by manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori. The Kamen Rider media generally features a motorcycle-riding superhero with an insect motif who fights supervillains, often known as kaijin (怪人). The franchise began in 1971 with the Kamen Rider television series, which followed college student Takeshi Hongo and his quest to defeat the world-conquering Shocker organization. Its popularity has grown; the original series spawned television and film sequels and launched the Second Kaiju Boom (also known as the Henshin Boom) on Japanese television during the early 1970s, impacting the superhero and action-adventure genres in Japan.^[1]

• 1History
• 2Production
• 3Adaptations outside Japan
• 6External links

History[edit]

Showa Era[edit]

Produced by Toru Hirayama (平山 亨Hirayama Tōru) and designed by Shotaro Ishinomori (creator of Cyborg 009), Kamen Rider premiered on April 3, 1971 initially intended as an adaptation of Ishinomori's Skull Man. He and Hirayama redesigned the main character to resemble a grasshopper. The hero Takeshi Hongo, played by actor and stuntman Hiroshi Fujioka, was described as a transformed human (改造人間kaizō ningen) (cyborg). During the filming of episode 10, Fujioka was thrown from his motorcycle during a stunt and broke both legs. His character was phased out until the introduction of another transformed human, Hayato Ichimonji (played by Takeshi Sasaki) was introduced in episode 14. The return of Fujioka and his character, Hongo, in episode 53 united the two actors and Kamen Riders 1 and 2 appeared in every show of the first half of the Shōwa series. The series from April 1971 to January 1976 (Kamen Rider, V3, X, Amazon, Stronger) included a recurring mentor, Tobei Tachibana.

After a four-year hiatus following the finale of Kamen Rider Stronger, the series returned to broadcast television in October 1979 for two years with The New Kamen Rider (featuring Skyrider) and Kamen Rider Super-1. In these shows, Tachibana was replaced by a similar character named Genjiro Tani (谷 源次郎Tani Genjirō). The annual new shows ended briefly during the 1980s, punctuated by the 1984 Kamen Rider ZX special Birth of the 10th! Kamen Riders All Together!! (Hirayama's last project for the franchise).

Kamen Rider Black premiered in 1987, the first series not hinting at a relationship to its predecessors. Black was the first show in the franchise with a direct sequel: Kamen Rider Black RX, the basis of Saban's Americanized Masked Rider. In RX's finale, the ten previous Riders returned to help Black RX defeat the Crisis Empire. Kamen Rider Black RX was the final show produced during the Shōwa era, with the franchise resuming production by the end of the 20th century. A manga of Kamen Rider Black was a novelization and reimagination of the Black-RX series' continuity. Absent from television during the 1990s, the franchise was kept alive by stage shows, musical CDs, and the Shin, ZO, and J films.

Heisei Phase 1[edit]

Toei announced a new project, Kamen Rider Kuuga, in May 1999. Kuuga was part of Ishinomori's 1997 Kamen Rider revival in preparation for its 30th anniversary, but he died before the shows materialized. During the summer of 1999, Kuuga was promoted in magazine advertisements and TV commercials. On January 30, 2000, Kamen Rider Kuuga premiered with newcomer Joe Odagiri.^[2]

In 2005, Kamen Rider: The First was produced. Written by Toshiki Inoue, the film reimagines the manga and original television series and characters from the original series had their storylines altered to fit the film's time span. Masaya Kikawada played Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider 1 and Hassei Takano (previously Miyuki Tezuka/Kamen Rider Raia in Kamen Rider Ryuki) was Hayato Ichimonji/Kamen Rider 2. This was followed in 2007 by Kamen Rider The Next, an adaptation of Kamen Rider V3 starring Kazuki Kato (previously Daisuke Kazama/Kamen Rider Drake in Kamen Rider Kabuto) as Shiro Kazami/Kamen Rider V3 and with Kikawada and Takano reprising their roles.

The eighth series, Kamen Rider Den-O, followed in 2007. Differing from past Kamen Rider series, it introduces a rider who is unsure of himself. The series has a large vehicle, the DenLiner: a bullet train which can travel through time. Although the series has only two riders (Den-O and Zeronos), they have multiple forms similar to Black RX, Kuuga, and Agito. Due to Den-O's popularity, a second film crossover with the 2008 series Kamen Rider Kiva was released on April 12, 2008. The top film in its opening weekend,^[3] it grossed ¥730 million.^[4] In addition, Animate produced an OVA, Imagin Anime, with SD versions of the Imagin. A third film, Saraba Kamen Rider Den-O: Final Countdown (with two new riders) was an epilogue for the series.^[4] According to Takeru Satoh, who played the lead character of Den-O in the television series and first three films, the series was successful because of its humor.^[5]

The 2009 series, Kamen Rider Decade, commemorated the Heisei run's 10th anniversary. Japanese recording artist Gackt performed the series' opening theme, 'Journey through the Decade', and the film's theme song ('The Next Decade') and jokingly expressed interest in playing a villain on the show.^[6] Also announced in 2009 was a fourth Den-O film^[7] (later revealed as the beginning of the Cho-Den-O Series of films),^[8] starting with Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade Neo Generations: The Onigashima Warship. In the March 2009 issue of Kindai magazine, Decade star Masahiro Inoue said that the series was scheduled for only 30 episodes.

Heisei Phase 2[edit]

Advertisements in May, June, and July 2009 promoted the debut of Kamen Rider W,^[9] who first appeared at the 10th-anniversary Masked Rider Live event^[10] and was featured in Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker. The staff of W said that they planned to make 10 more years of Kamen Rider, differentiating subsequent series from the Kuuga through Decade period (including a new broadcast season from September of one year to about August of the next). The hero of Kamen Rider W is the first Kamen Rider to transform from two people at once,^[9] and the series premiered on September 6, 2009.^[11] Continuing into 2010 with Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010, W ran from September 2009 to September 2010 instead of from January to January. The second, third, and fourth films of the Cho-Den-O series, collectively known as Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider The Movie: Cho-Den-O Trilogy, were also released in 2010.^[12] Late 2010 brought the series Kamen Rider OOO to television after W's finale, and 2011 observed the 40th anniversary of the franchise. Festivities that year included the Kamen Rider Girlsidol group, the film OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders (released on April 1) and OOO's successor, Kamen Rider Fourze, which references the previous heroes in its characters' names and its plot. A crossover film, Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen, was released in 2012 featuring the heroes of all Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series to date.^[13]

With Fourze's run complete in 2012, Kamen Rider Wizard premiered; its protagonist was the first Kamen Rider to use magic.^[14]Wizard additionally had the first homosexual character and cast member with Kaba-chan.^[15]Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z, a sequel to 2012's Super Hero Taisen with the revived Metal Hero Series characters from Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie and other characters created by Shotaro Ishinomori appearing in Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum, was released in 2013.

On May 20, 2013, Toei filed for several trademarks on the phrase Kamen Raidā Gaimu(仮面ライダー鎧武（ガイム）).^[16]Kamen Rider Gaim previewed on July 25, 2013, revealing a Sengoku period and fruit-themed motif to the series' multiple-rival Kamen Riders and Gen Urobuchi as the series' main writer.^[17][18] The third entry in the Super Hero Taisen film series, Heisei Rider vs. Shōwa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai, marked the 15th anniversary of the Heisei Kamen Rider era and revolved around a conflict between the 15 Heisei Riders and the 15 Showa Riders with Kamen Rider Fifteen, and a cameo appearance by the ToQgers and the Kyoryugers. It also marked the start of a yearly Haruyasumi Gattai Supesharu(春休み合体スペシャル, Spring Break Combined Special) involving each year's Kamen Rider teaming up with the current Super Sentai team in a story tying into that year's entry in the Super Hero Taisen movie series. Gaim was followed in 2014 by Kamen Rider Drive, the first Kamen Rider since Kamen Rider Black RX (who also used a motorcycle), to use a car instead of a motorcycle.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]} The fourth Super Hero Taisen, Super Hero Taisen GP, marks Kamen Rider 3's first live-action appearance after the Showa Kamen Rider manga. Kamen Rider Ghost was introduced in 2015. In 2016 the Kamen Rider series celebrated its 45th anniversary, and Toei released the film Kamen Rider 1 on March 26, 2016.^[28]Kamen Rider Ex-Aid was introduced in 2016 and was the first Rider series to have a character, Kiriya Kujo, portray the main Rider's motorcycle. A Movie War film known as Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Rider was announced for December 10, 2016, featuring Bandai Namco Entertainment's original character created by Namco prior to merging with Bandai in 2006, Pac-Man. Following up Ex-Aid's finale, Kamen Rider Build premiered on September 3rd, 2017.^[29] The twentieth and last series of the Heisei era, Kamen Rider Zi-O, which commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Heisei era, premiered on September 2nd, 2018. On December 22, 2018, a film commemorating all the Riders of the Heisei Era titled Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever premiered in Japanese theaters.

Reiwa Era[edit]

On May 13, 2019, Toei filed a trademark on the phrase Kamen Rider Zero-One (仮面ライダーゼロワンKamen Raidā Zerowan), which started on September 1, 2019.^[30]

Production[edit]

Main series[edit]

The following is a list of the Kamen Rider series and their broadcast years:

• Kamen Rider (1971–1973) first series to premiere in the Showa period
• Kamen Rider V3 (1973–1974)
• Kamen Rider X (February–October 1974)
• Kamen Rider Amazon (1974–1975)
• Kamen Rider Stronger (April–December 1975)
• Kamen Rider Skyrider (1979–1980)
• Kamen Rider Super-1 (1980–1981)
• Kamen Rider Black (1987–1988)
• Kamen Rider Black RX (1988–1989); last series to be broadcast during the Showa period
• Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000–2001); first series to be broadcast in the Heisei period
• Kamen Rider Agito (2001–2002)
• Kamen Rider Ryuki (2002–2003)
• Kamen Rider 555 (2003–2004)
• Kamen Rider Blade (2004–2005)
• Kamen Rider Hibiki (2005–2006)
• Kamen Rider Kabuto (2006–2007)
• Kamen Rider Den-O (2007–2008)
• Kamen Rider Kiva (2008–2009)
• Kamen Rider Decade (January–August 2009)
• Kamen Rider W (2009–2010)
• Kamen Rider OOO (2010–2011)
• Kamen Rider Fourze (2011–2012)
• Kamen Rider Wizard (2012–2013)
• Kamen Rider Gaim (2013–2014)
• Kamen Rider Drive (2014–2015)
• Kamen Rider Ghost (2015–2016)
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid (2016–2017)
• Kamen Rider Build (2017–2018)
• Kamen Rider Zi-O (2018–2019); last series to premiere in the Heisei period
• Kamen Rider Zero-One (2019-2020); first series to premiere in the Reiwa period

Television specials[edit]

• 1976: All Together! Seven Kamen Riders
• 1979: Immortal Kamen Rider Special
• 1984: Birth of the 10th! Kamen Riders All Together!!
• 1987: This Is Kamen Rider Black
• 1988: Kamen Rider 1 through RX: Big Gathering
• 1993: Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider (Co-production with Tsuburaya Productions)
• 2000: Kamen Rider Kuuga: First Dream Of The New Year
• 2001: Kamen Rider Agito Special: Another New Transformation
• 2002: Kamen Rider Ryuki Special: 13 Riders
• 2004: Kamen Rider Blade: New Generation
• 2006: 35th Masked Rider Anniversary File
• 2009: Kamen Rider G

Theatrical releases[edit]

• 1971: Go Go Kamen Rider (Movie version of episode 13)
• 1972: Kamen Rider vs. Shocker
• 1972: Kamen Rider vs. Hell Ambassador
• 1973: Kamen Rider V3 (Movie version of episode 2)
• 1973: Kamen Rider V3 vs. the Destron Monsters
• 1974: Kamen Rider X (Movie version of episode 3)
• 1974: Kamen Rider X: Five Riders vs. King Dark
• 1975: Kamen Rider Amazon (Movie version of episode 16)
• 1975: Kamen Rider Stronger (Movie version of episode 7)
• 1980: Kamen Rider: Eight Riders vs. Galaxy King
• 1981: Kamen Rider Super-1
• 1988: Kamen Rider Black: Hurry to Onigashima
• 1988: Kamen Rider Black: Fear! Evil Monster Mansion
• 1989: Kamen Rider: Stay in the World – 3D theme park special
• 1992: Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue
• 1993: Kamen Rider ZO
• 1994: Kamen Rider J
• 1994: Kamen Rider World – 3-D theme park special
• 2001: Kamen Rider Agito: Project G4
• 2002: Kamen Rider Ryuki: Episode Final
• 2003: Kamen Rider 555: Paradise Lost
• 2004: Kamen Rider Blade: Missing Ace
• 2005: Kamen Rider Hibiki & The Seven Senki
• 2005: Kamen Rider: The First
• 2006: Kamen Rider Kabuto: God Speed Love
• 2007: Kamen Rider Den-O: I'm Born!
• 2007: Kamen Rider: The Next
• 2008: Kamen Rider Den-O & Kiva: Climax Deka
• 2008: Kamen Rider Kiva: King of the Castle in the Demon World
• 2008: Saraba Kamen Rider Den-O: Final Countdown
• 2009: Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade Neo Generations: The Onigashima Warship
• 2009: Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker
• 2009: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010
  • Kamen Rider Decade: The Last Story
  • Kamen Rider W: Begins Night
  • Movie War 2010
• 2010: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider The Movie: Cho-Den-O Trilogy
  • Episode Red: Zero no Star Twinkle
  • Episode Blue: The Dispatched Imagin is Newtral
  • Episode Yellow: Treasure de End Pirates
• 2010: Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate
• 2010: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider OOO & W Featuring Skull: Movie War Core
  • Kamen Rider Skull: Message for Double
  • Kamen Rider OOO: Nobunaga's Desire
  • Movie War Core
• 2011: OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders
• 2011: Kamen Rider OOO Wonderful: The Shogun and the 21 Core Medals
• 2011: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Mega Max
  • Beginning: Fight! Legendary Seven Riders
  • Kamen Rider OOO: Ankh's Resurrection, the Medals of the Future, and the Leading Hope
  • Futo, The Conspiracy Advances: Gallant! Kamen Rider Joker
  • Kamen Rider Fourze: Nade-Shiko Ad-Vent
  • Movie War Mega Max: Gather! Warriors of Glory
• 2012: Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen
• 2012: Kamen Rider Fourze the Movie: Space, Here We Come!
• 2012: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum
  • Kamen Rider Fourze
  • Kamen Rider Wizard
  • Movie War Ultimatum
• 2013: Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z
• 2013: Kamen Rider Wizard in Magic Land
• 2013: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Gaim & Wizard: The Fateful Sengoku Movie Battle
  • Kamen Rider Wizard: The Promised Place
  • Kamen Rider Gaim: Sengoku Battle Royale
• 2014: Heisei Riders vs. Shōwa Riders: Kamen Rider Taisen feat. Super Sentai
• 2014: Kamen Rider Gaim: Great Soccer Battle! Golden Fruits Cup!
• 2014: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Drive & Gaim: Movie War Full Throttle
  • Kamen Rider Gaim: The Advancing Last Stage
  • Kamen Rider Drive: A Challenge from Lupin
  • Movie War Full Throttle
• 2015: Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3
• 2015: Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future
• 2015: Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Ghost & Drive: Super Movie War Genesis
• 2016: Kamen Rider 1
• 2016: Kamen Rider Ghost: The 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Fated Moment
• 2016: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations: Dr. Pac-Man vs. Ex-Aid & Ghost with Legend Riders
• 2017: Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Ultra Super Hero Taisen
• 2017: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid the Movie: True Ending
• 2017: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Final: Build & Ex-Aid with Legend Rider
• 2018: Kamen Rider Amazons the Movie: The Last Judgement
• 2018: Kamen Rider Build the Movie: Be the One
• 2018: Kamen Rider Heisei Generations Forever
• 2019: Kamen Rider Zi-O the Movie: Over Quartzer
• 2019: Kamen Rider Reiwa The First Generation

V-Cinema releases[edit]

Direct-to-video releases, films focusing on secondary riders and storylines, began appearing during the franchise's Heisei era. Hyper Battle Videos are episodes included with Televi-Kun magazine.

• 1992: Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue
• 1993: Kamen Rider SD – Only anime adaptation
• 2011: Kamen Rider W Returns
  • Kamen Rider Accel Chapter
  • Kamen Rider Eternal Chapter
• 2015: Kamen Rider Gaim Gaiden
  • First Part
    • Kamen Rider Zangetsu Chapter
    • Kamen Rider Baron Chapter
  • Second Part
    • Kamen Rider Duke Chapter
    • Kamen Rider Knuckle Chapter
• 2017: Kamen Rider Ghost Re-Birth: Kamen Rider Specter
• 2018: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Trilogy: Another Ending
  • Brave & Snipe Chapter
  • Para-DX with Poppy Chapter
  • Genm vs. Lazer Chapter
• 2019: Kamen Rider Build New World
  • First Part
    • Kamen Rider Cross-Z Chapter
  • Second Part
    • Kamen Rider Grease Chapter

Hyper Battle Videos[edit]

• 2000: Kamen Rider Kuuga: vs. the Strong Monster Go-Jiino-Da
• 2001: Kamen Rider Agito: Three rider TV-kun Special
• 2002: Kamen Rider Ryuki Hyper Battle: Kamen Rider Ryuki vs. Kamen Rider Agito
• 2003: Kamen Rider 555: The Musical
• 2004: Kamen Rider Blade: Blade vs Blade
• 2005: Kamen Rider Hibiki: Transform Asumu: You can be an Oni too
• 2006: Kamen Rider Kabuto: Birth! Gatack Hyper Form!
• 2007: Kamen Rider Den-O: Singing, Dancing, Great Time!!
• 2008: Kamen Rider Kiva: You Can Also be Kiva
• 2009: Kamen Rider Decade: Protect! The World of TV-Kun
• 2010: Kamen Rider W: Donburi's α/Farewell Recipe of Love
• 2011: Kamen Rider OOO: Quiz, Dance, and Takagarooba!?
• 2012: Kamen Rider Fourze: Rocket Drill States of Friendship
• 2013: Kamen Rider Wizard: Showtime with the Dance Ring
• 2014: Kamen Rider Gaim: Fresh Orange Arms is Born!
• 2015: Kamen Rider Drive Hyper Battle:
  • Type TV-KUN: Hunter & Monster! Chase the Mystery of the Super Thief!
  • Type High Speed! The True Power! Type High Speed is Born!
• 2016: Kamen Rider Ghost Hyper Battle:
  • Ikkyu Eyecon Contention! Quick Wit Battle!!
  • Ikkyu Eyecon! Awaken, My Quick Wit Power!!
  • Truth! The Secret Of Heroes' Eyecons!
• 2017: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid 'Tricks'
  • Kamen Rider Lazer
  • Kamen Rider Para-DX
• 2018: Kamen Rider Build
  • Birth! KumaTelevi!! VS Kamen Rider Grease!
  • Kamen Rider Prime Rogue

Web exclusive[edit]

• 2015: D-Video Special: Kamen Rider 4
• 2016: Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary! Riders' Souls!
• 2016–2017: Kamen Rider Amazons
• 2017: Kamen Sentai Gorider
• 2018: Kamen Rider Build: Raising the Hazard Level ~7 Best Matches~
• 2019: Kamen Rider Zi-O Spin-off
  • Rider Time: Kamen Rider Shinobi
  • Rider Time: Kamen Rider Ryuki

Others[edit]

• 2016: The Legend of Hero Alain
• 2017: Kamen Rider Snipe: Episode ZERO
• 2018: ROGUE

Hybrid release[edit]

Kamen Rider Drive Saga was release at 2016 as a V-Cinema. Later in 2019, Kamen Rider Brain will became the last Drive Saga series in the Heisei period and only available for Web exclusive.

• 2016: Kamen Rider Drive Saga
  • First Part
    • Kamen Rider Chaser Chapter
  • Second Part
    • Kamen Rider Heart Chapter
    • Kamen Rider Mach Chapter
  • Third Part
    • Kamen Rider Brain Chapter

Adaptations outside Japan[edit]

Taiwan[edit]

In 1975–1976, the Tungstar Company in Taiwan produced a Super Riders series based on the Japanese version.

• 1975: The Super Rider V3 based on Kamen Rider V3
• 1976: The Five Of Super Rider based on Kamen Rider X'
• 1976: The Super Riders based on Kamen Rider vs. Shocker and Kamen Rider vs. Hell Ambassador

United States[edit]

In 1995, Saban produced the first American Masked Rider series after its success adapting Super Sentai into Power Rangers and the Metal Hero Series (VR Troopers and Beetleborgs).

In 2009 a new series, produced by Michael and Steve Wang, was broadcast: Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, which was adapted from Kamen Rider Ryuki. Although it was cancelled before finishing its syndicated run, it won the first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Stunt Coordination at the 37th Daytime Emmy Awards.^[31][32]

Unofficial Thailand Adaptation[edit]

Kamen Rider Gaim Game Online Pc

In 1975, Chaiyo Productions made an unofficial Kamen Rider movie entitled Hanuman and the Five Riders, which used original footage of Chaiyo's Hanuman character, spliced with footage from the 'Five Riders Vs. King Dark' movie. However, Chaiyo went ahead with the production without authorisation after Toei denied them permission to make an official movie with them, putting the legality of the movie into question.

Homages and parodies[edit]

The Kamen Rider franchise has been parodied in and outside Japan. One parody is of the Kamen Rider henshin (transforming) pose. In video games, Skullomania (from Street Fighter) and May Lee (from The King of Fighters) are examples of Kamen Rider parodies. In anime, examples include Fair, then Partly Piggy, My-HiME (and its sequel, My Otome), Dragon Ball Z, and Franken Fran as a parody or homage. In the Crayon Shin-chan series, the title character interacts with Kamen Riders in crossover specials. Detective Conan has a recurring TV series the detective boys like to watch, Kamen Yaiba. In One Punch Man, the C Class Hero Mumen Rider is a parody, being an ordinary man in a world of superhuman beings, riding a bicycle rather than a motorcycle. However despite his weakness he is extremely heroic and his actions form a counterpoint to his parodic character conception.

In live action, parodies include 'Kamen Renaider' by SMAP's Takuya Kimura and Shingo Katori, a parody of Ryuki; 'Kamen Zaiber', a parody of the original; 'Kamen Norider' by the Tunnels, a parody of Kamen Rider 1 and the first series; 'Kamen Rider HG', Hard Gay's parody of the original for a Japanese TV show, and 'Ridermen' (a short skit with a man called Ridermen, a parody of the Riderman on the set of Kamen Rider Kuuga.

Akimasa Nakamura named two minor planets in honor of the series: 12408 Fujioka for actor Hiroshi Fujioka, known for his portrayal of Takeshi Hongo/Kamen Rider 1,^[33][34] and 12796 Kamenrider for the series itself.^[33][35]

References[edit]

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11. ^Uchuusen No. 125
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30. ^https://twitter.com/trademark_bot/status/1127954256294662144.Missing or empty |title= (help)
31. ^'WINNERS: Daytime Entertainment Creative Arts Emmy Awards'. June 26, 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
32. ^'｢KAMEN RIDER DRAGON KNIGHT｣第37回デイタイム・エミー賞において最優秀スタントコーディネーション賞を受賞! | 東映[テレビ]'. 2010-06-29. Archived from the original on 2010-07-01. Retrieved 2010-07-04.
33. ^ ^abSchmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. Germany: Springer. pp. 781, 788. ISBN3-540-00238-3.
34. ^'JPL Small-Body Database Browser - 12408 Fujioka (1995 SP2)'. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
35. ^'JPL Small-Body Database Browser – 12796 Kamenrider (1995 WF)'. Retrieved 2008-04-06.

External links[edit]

TV Asahi[edit]

Toei[edit]

Bandai[edit]

Others[edit]

• Ishimori@Style – Shotaro Ishinomori with Ishimori Productions Official Website
• Toei Kyoto Studio Park – A theme park with official events, exhibitions and shops related to the Kamen Rider series
• Bandai Korea's Kamen Rider site – The site's look changes when the next series premieres in Korea