Nostalgia Bytes: Remembering Most Badass Kamen Rider (and henshin) EVER.

dEvery week I will try to pick one Youtube video(s) that brings back some of my childhood memories. I'm more of a 90's guy, so most of the articles/videos featured could be ANYTHING from the late 80s to the later part of the 90s. Yeah, the good 'ol times. 

First up: The popular Japanese Tokusatsu 'Kamen Rider Black' or more commonly known here in the Philippines as 'Masked Rider Black'.

I remember I was 7 or 9 years old when I first saw Black's first transformation scene and I was going like crazy. The next day I was doing my best henshin imitation at the mirror. I still do it today especially when I want to get pumped up or something. Call me crazy but that's just the way it is.

I'm just kidding, I am not doing that anymore. Moving on...

Tetsuo Kurata as Minami Kotaro

Before all the K-pop and boy-band wannabe-looking Masked Riders of the present day who uses all different kinds of hi-tech belts, swipe cards and other shit that you would only see in Star Wars, there was Kamen Rider Black. 

Masked Rider Black

(If you are one of those kids who were born in the early 2000s who wouldn't probably know what this is,  here's a link of the story synopsis for you.)

This TV series was one of the best of the 90s and one of the best Kamen Rider shows of all time (probably the greatest) because of its dramatic storyline, great special effects and action sequences, manly lead star (Tetsuo Kurata) who is nowhere near the kids who portray the Riders today, and most importantly - because of this single greatest henshin (means "transformation") sequence in tokusatsu history:

                      24 years after it first aired in Japan, it is f**k*ng AWESOME. 




How cooler can you get? Tetsuo-san nailed that pose like he was born to do it. It would have made any other actor looked silly doing that. 


Anyway, the series eventually ended and was never heard again until in 2009 - when the original Masked Rider Black appeared in episode #26 and #27 of Kamen Rider Decade, with Kurata showing everybody that he is still - the most badass Rider in history, even at freaking 41 years old.  I wanted to jump up and down when I saw the EPIC scene:

               "Watch and learn kids. This is how you do it." - Tetsuo Kurata

Now that's how you do a henshin.  No belts, no cards, no swords, no other bells and whistles. Just murderous palm-clenching and cool arm twisting moves. Definitely brought back a lot of my childhood memories that sent shivers down my spine. Yeah, call me weird getting giddy over this, but I'm still a big fan after all these years, probably refusing to grow up.

Luckily for us, CenturyKings has made an effort to collect the whole Kamen Rider Black experience by uploading them on their site which you can all watch or download. AND ITS ALL FOR FREE. Now we can relive all the monsters, Rider punches and kicks, and the infectious opening theme over and over again.