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Breaking News: Toei's Shinichiro Shirakura Tells That There Is No International Kamen Rider Fan Base


Recently, Toei Co. Ltd. director of planning and production Shinichiro Shirakura has posted a tweet that resulted in triggering if not, angering international Kamen Rider fans from around the world. Read the said tweet after the break.


Here is the screencap of the original tweet from one of Toei's big man, who also canceled the Super Hero Wars movies, himself. You can read the tweet by visiting this link.


Now, in my humble opinion and as a filipino Kamen Rider fan who have been enjoying Kamen Rider from my childhood till now with Kamen Rider OOO being the recent series that aired here in the Philippines, is against this. How could someone say that there is no fanbase in a certain part of the world when people from that country are enjoying the said franchise to the point that they are spending their hard earned top dollar to buy imported merchandises like toys, books and DVDs and Blu-rays in the past years since Kamen Rider was known to the US? Did the big man himself forgot that there was an adaptation of Kamen Rider Black RX and Kamen Rider Ryuki that was licensed by Toei to the US back then?

It's like saying that there is no international fanbase for Superman or Spider-Man at all just because some of us are watching bootleg or downloaded content, there is still that fact that every western fans want the Kamen Rider franchise to be distributed in the US so that they can support it fully not just in toys or any media that is imported. But overall, we still thank this man for making sure that the Kamen Rider franchise is one well-oiled machine.

What's your opinion regarding this matter? Send us all your thoughts down the comments section or let's talk about it on our official facebook page.

Update: Mr. Shirakura later apologized to all the international fans that replied on his said twitter post.

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24 Responses
  1. Anonymous Says:

    ANGER!!!


  2. Unknown Says:

    The president must not have viewed things in other countries because there's definitely fan bases that he's not aware of. I can't speak for other countries, but I know America wants more of Kamen Rider. The problem is that the first ten Heisei Kamen Riders are pretty violent, dark, and edgy that unless you do some clever scene and script editing; it might be too dark for kids. I think that only Den-O would just need very light editing to be able to air on American tv.

    Now as for the second ten Heisei Riders, you have a much better chance at airing those due to the fact that many of them don't involve having to take out monsters that disguise themselves as humans (Grongi, Orphnochs, Worms, and Fangires have human disguises that are destroyed with the monsters, so I don't think those series would work unless you change things really well). But shows like W, Fourze, and Ex-Aid work around those problems by having the human part of them spared from death by only destroying the monster part of them. Plus these shows are light-hearted (for the most part anyways). So these have a better chance at getting a Western version of their show than others.

    I think the real main reason that making these shows is difficult is because outside of our fan bases, no one really knows much about Kamen Rider unless people have been watching the shows on the internet. Plus Kamen Rider would probably be compared too much to Power Rangers, which has been around for 25 years; so they might prefer what they're used to in Power Rangers than try to adjust to the the unknown.

    I am an American who loves Kamen Rider, and I wish it would get more attention here and have our own shows. But sadly, I have to look at reality and say that with the exception of Black RX and Ryuki, we may never get an adaptation of their shows unless we have bold and smart people who can take out the darkness of the show and soften it up for those who like things cheerful.


  3. Anonymous Says:

    Dude, he isn't the president. Get your fact straight.


  4. Eric M Says:

    It would great to have a reasonable access to Kamen Rider, but it would be even nicer to fix the text/background color on this page.


  5. Unknown Says:

    Im in the UK and I have brought Kamen Rider merch since Decade and now everything thus far from Zi-O. It may be perceived that way by him as its hard for fans to see the show outside of Asia hence why I love the uploads on here.


  6. Anonymous Says:

    hes not wrong though.
    i mean two rider shows were adapted and both failed


  7. Anonymous Says:

    I think he meant "there's not a big enough fanbase" not "there is NO fanbase." The Kamen Rider community outside of Japan and South East Asia is pretty small. But I do think the reasoning is pretty weak, since the fanbase will never grow larger if they don't try to make it grow.


  8. A) he is not the president of toei B) he isn't wrong, there is a small fan base in the west, but it isn't big enough to be relevant C) he was responding to a question about the possibility of adapting yet again another kamen rider series (which would financially be a stupid idea). D) both adaptations flopped in the west, they are not a great argument. E) people need to stop getting triggered about every little thing someone says on the internet. F) had I been him, I would have not apologized.


  9. A) he is not the president of toei B) he isn't wrong, there is a small fan base in the west, but it isn't big enough to be relevant C) he was responding to a question about the possibility of adapting yet again another kamen rider series (which would financially be a stupid idea). D) both adaptations flopped in the west, they are not a great argument. E) people need to stop getting triggered about every little thing someone says on the internet. F) had I been him, I would have not apologized.


  10. Thomas Says:

    I'm pretty sure he is the producer of zi-o. But ok


  11. Anonymous Says:

    Don't believe article as the name listed as source is false. Go look on Toei Co., LTD's website. Company profile has message from president/CEO.


  12. Unknown Says:

    Well for one thing he's not the President of Toei. He was a Producer/Director of a couple of seasons of the Kamen Rider series. As of 2012 he's the director of Planning and Production there at Toei.


  13. Anonymous Says:

    Would this not be the perfect opportunity for a company in the US to grab the rights and sub and sell a series?


  14. Unknown Says:

    well
    in my opinion
    for me...kamen rider fans is the one that enjoy the series from their childhood
    maybe already 20 more years old and can read sub and
    you just use free streaming or torrent to watch

    lets be honest how many children outside japan watch tokusatsu..almost none
    in indonesia, only above 20, enjoy tokusatsu not kids

    so dont be angry, because small thing and enjoy the show


  15. Anonymous Says:

    I believe that this is a similar case to the music industry, basically it's too much work for him to promote outside of Japan, so making a terrible excuse is easier for him to shrug off, truth is that there are fans of everything around the world. It's really ignorance on his part, I mean just look at power rangers, I don't believe he hasn't heard of that, just be honest, if you don't want to export a rider series then don't, we will always continue to import regardless if there is a release in the West, even garo is being released, one could argue that garo is less well known than any rider series. Living in the UK, I have to import from everywhere, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, America it doesn't matter, just to actually show some support, heck I've even bough terrible Hong Kong sub dvds.


  16. Anonymous Says:

    He's Toei's Director of Planning and Production, *not* the president. Look him up. (He also doesn't like tokusatsu, and was apparently the one who mandated the staff changes that ruined Hibiki)


  17. Anonymous Says:

    You all must understand Japanese way of speaking english and sentence structure is different.

    I believe he should be saying:'Internationally, kamen rider is not well-received'

    There are reasons which he felt that way:

    1) culture difference in other countries
    2) licensing issues
    3) toy sales
    4) production issues

    In short, japan view and guard their IP very closely.


  18. Anonymous Says:

    Sir. In japan if you want to be fan base you have to register with japan. Like sailormoon they have to. TOEI, They dont have data if just say you are kamen rider fan but your data at toei hq dont have.


  19. Anonymous Says:

    Regarding why the 2 adaptions failed, I'm not 100% certain other than that the first one was insulting to the creators, because it was way too comedic and the other maybe due to lack of interest in Kamen rider by the general public or it being unknown.

    Here's a question I have regarding movies and series in Japan: "Why are the blu-rays and dvd's so damn expensive?" I mean trying to obtain the complete box of 1 Kamen rider series will cost around or above $500 or €500. It's easier to purchase the toys, because they are cheaper. Why do they have to cost this much?


  20. Anonymous Says:

    Adaptation is not the answer. What is best is what is happening now: fan based subs. Of course, if it was decided that there was a fan base in the west by the corporate execs, then official English subs would be nice.
    Subbing the originals and airing them is better than adaptation or dubbing. I know many KR fans who would tolerate watching an English dub, but prefer the English subs. I personally prefer the subs - it's a part of the novelty of liking Japanese and KR.


  21. Unknown Says:

    Whatever the case anyone else presents, the global audience for Kamen Rider outside of Japan probably only number in the tens of thousands, which while it may be enough to get a sub going on a service like crunchyroll, is definitely not enough to keep the series afloat worldwide. Most of those fans are probably the ones who grew up on Kamen Rider Black in Indonesia or the series in general in Hawaii.

    Remember, the series is first and foremost a kid's toy commercial. It needs to build an audience with the kids, which it's attempted twice and failed almost completely now.

    Heck take a look at any Ultraman on said service. Barely any talk of it at all on most forums throughout the US and I can guarantee most of the target audience, aka the kids, these days would question the existence of a franchise called "Ultraman".


  22. Gadget the Critic Says:

    And this is why you should get your facts straight if you refer to this guy as the president of the company!
    I don't blame Shirakura for saying something like that since both Masked Rider & Kamen Rider Dragon Knight didn't do too well in the US! Especially that cringy Masked Rider!!


  23. Unknown Says:

    But it doesn’t mean we aren’t fans of the Original.


  24. Jcdgcrh got the point right. Plus, a few thousand people scattered all over around the world is not exactly what you can call 'fanbase'. In the best case, you can call it a 'niche' and as we all know, niche products tend to be an investment loss (to put it softly), unless you realize it as a 'niche product'.


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