Kamen Rider 50th Anniversary

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The occurred on April 3, 2021, the 50th anniversary of the original series' premiere episode. Festivities began in 2021 and lasted through 2023. During this time period, it saw the broadcast of Kamen Rider Saber, Kamen Rider Revice, and Kamen Rider Geats, all which ran concurrent with both and , which celebrated the .
The anniversary was also celebrated heavily on social media, in which numerous actors and crew across the franchise, including Hiroshi Fujioka commemorated by posting a photo of the 50th Anniversary logo. 
==April 3, 2021 Event==
A press conference was held on April 3, 2021 to celebrate the franchise's 50th anniversary while announcing three new projects that would be produced and released within the next few years.https://youtu.be/g1CNEK_F2oQ
===Fuuto PI===
The first project announced was an anime series adaptation of the manga series Futo Tantei, titled Fuuto PI. It was introduced by series producer Hideaki Tsukada, who after giving a brief history on the manga's publication, said the adaptation was being worked on by some of the best animators in Japan and will surely satisfy fans of both the Tokusatsu and anime/manga genres.https://www.kamen-rider-official.com/https://twitter.com/HKR20_official/status/1378120115133161472https://www.kamen-rider-official.com/kr50th/fuuto_en During the Q&A session, Tsukada confirmed that the series would begin broadcasting in Summer 2022, while Funimation had secured the licensing to the show for North America and other countries the service was available in.
In August of 2021, Sony acquired the AT&T-owned Crunchyroll and announced their plans to consolidate Funimation's entire catalog and future premieres, including Fuuto PI into Crunchyroll and make it their flagship anime streaming service. In March 2022, Muse Asia announced they had secured the licensing to the show for countries their service was available in. In Japan, the first episode was screened alongside a talk show featuring the voice cast in April 2022. With Crunchyroll's backing, Team Kamen Rider screened the first two episodes with English subtitles to attendees of their Anime Expo 2022 panel in Los Angeles, California. The show ultimately began streaming on U-NEXT and Muse Asia's YouTube channel on August 1, 2022, while Crunchyroll simulcasted the show on July 31, 2022 (the same day essentially due to the time difference). The televised broadcast on Tokyo MX began on August 8, 2022, one week after its online premiere.
===Black Sun===
The second project announced was a modern-day re-imagination of the Showa-era series Kamen Rider Black, titled Kamen Rider Black Sun. It was introduced by Toei content director Fumio Yoshimura, who after giving a brief history on Kamen Rider Black's popularity, stated it was the final project that franchise creator Shotaro Ishinomori had worked on before his death. He announced that Kazuya Shiraishi had signed on as director while eying a potential release date of Spring 2022.https://twitter.com/hkr20_official/status/1378150298292641795?s=21https://www.kamen-rider-official.com/kr50th/blacksun_enhttps://www.kamen-rider-official.com/blacksun/news/7/ Yoshimura confirmed that a simultaneous worldwide release for the show was being planned.
The format of the project was originally announced to be a film, but ultimately changed to be a television series instead. For unknown reasons, filming was delayed and the release date was pushed to Fall 2022. The show premiered on Amazon Prime Video on October 28, 2022.
===Shin Kamen Rider===
The third and final project announced was a modern-day film reboot of the original 1971 Kamen Rider series, titled Shin Kamen Rider. It was introduced by Toei producer Shin-ichiro Shirakura, who regarded this announcement as the "flagship event", announcing the acclaimed Hideaki Anno as the film's director. Anno, a long-time fan of the franchise, announced his intent to include the film as part of his "Shin" series of Tokusatsu films which previously included Shin Godzilla and then-upcoming Shin Ultraman, with Shin Kamen Rider being slated for a Spring 2023 release.https://twitter.com/KamenRider50th/status/1378301418235252740https://shin-kamen-rider.jp/ During a Q&A session, Shirakura stated that Anno pitched Shin Kamen Rider to Toei during the production of Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, but was delayed to 2021 due to COVID-19, though Shirakura felt it was the perfect year to announce such. He also confirmed that a simultaneous worldwide release for the film was being planned and his statement rang true as the film premiered across the world in limited screenings and later on streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime.
===Kamen Rider Revice===
Shin-ichiro Shirakura had also stated that the series succeeding Kamen Rider Saber was then-currently in the works, which ultimately was revealed to be Kamen Rider Revice.
==Scripted Media==
===Crossovers===
In February 2021, Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club and Telasa simultaneously released their own crossover miniseries between Kamen Rider Zi-O and Kamen Rider Decade, titled Rider Time: Kamen Rider Zi-O VS Decade & Rider Time: Kamen Rider Decade VS Zi-O, with the latter having featured several guest-star reprisals from past series including Ryouta Murai, Metal Yoshida, Kazuki Namioka. 
In April 2021, TTFC released a crossover miniseries between Kamen Rider Zero-One and Kamen Rider Ex-Aid as a reference to Yuya Takahashi who served as head scriptwriter for both series. Takahashi returned to pen Kamen Rider Genms -The Presidents-, which saw the returns of Tetsuya Iwanaga and Hiroyuki Takami in their roles from Ex-Aid alongside Nachi Sakuragi as Gai Amatsu. Sakuragi and Iwanaga reprised their roles in the sequel Kamen Rider Genms -Smart Brain and the 1000% Crisis-, which released in April of 2022 and featured the return of Yuria Haga. 
In May 2021 during the broadcast of Kamen Rider Saber, TTFC released a crossover miniseries with Kamen Rider Ghost as a reference to Takuro Fukuda who served as head scriptwriter for both series. Fukuda penned both Kamen Rider Saber × Ghost and Kamen Rider Specter × Blades, which saw the return of Shun Nishime, Ryosuke Yamamoto, and Mio Kudo in their roles from Ghost alongside the cast members of Saber.
The aired on July 18, 2021, four days in advance in preparation for the release of . The film is a crossover between Kamen Rider Saber and celebrating both the 50th anniversary of the Kamen Rider series and the 45th anniversary of the Super Sentai series. In commemoration, Hiroshi Fujioka reprises his role as Takeshi Hongo with a newly remade version of his original Kamen Rider 1 suit from the first 13 episodes of his series, and teams up with , who vocally reprised his role as Akaranger. The film also featured an early debut of both Kamen Rider Revi and Kamen Rider Vice, the protagonists of Kamen Rider Revice ahead of their series' debuts that following September.
The 12th installment of the Movie War series titled Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations had premiered in December of 2021, which unites three generations of Kamen Rider and beyond.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0VmkOJxMow In commemoration, it explores the origins of Kamen Rider 1 while featuring Kamen Rider Century, a Rider hailing from the franchise's 100th anniversary.
In August 2022 during the broadcast of Kamen Rider Revice, TTFC released a crossover miniseries with the Female Riders, titled Kamen Rider Jeanne & Kamen Rider Aguilera with Girls Remix, featuring most of not all of the previous Female Riders in a team known as Girls Remix. The special saw the return of Mei Angela, Noa Tsurushima, Ruka Matsuda, Shieri Ohata, Hiroe Igeta, Hikaru Yamamoto, Yuko Takayama, Mio Kudo, and Yukari Taki, all reprising their most recent roles from Kamen Rider.
Later in October 2022, TTFC released Kamen Rider Outsiders, a crossover miniseries which ties up the events of the Genms specials and the Saber × Ghost specials.
The 13th installment of the Movie War series titled Kamen Rider Geats × Revice: Movie Battle Royale had premiered in December of 2022. The film featured characters from Kamen Rider Ryuki as to connect its "battle royale" element with Geats as well as celebrate its 20th anniversary.
==Other Anniversaries==
The franchise's 50th anniversary also coincided with the anniversaries for several individual entries.
===Kamen Rider OOO===
The anniversary coincided with the 10th anniversary of Kamen Rider OOO, which saw the release of the "true epilogue" V-Cinext film Kamen Rider OOO 10th: Core Medal of Resurrection in 2022. A TTFC special centered around Shintaro Goto and Hina Izumi, titled OOO 10th Kamen Rider Birth: Birth X Birth Secret Story, premiered on July 3, 2022.
===Kamen Rider Fourze===
The anniversary coincided with the 10th anniversary of Kamen Rider Fourze. The Kamen Rider Fourze 10th Anniversary Time! Youthful Reunion project was launched on September 4th, 2021, exactly ten years after the premiere of the first episode. It featured:
*Interviews from Sota Fukushi (Gentaro Kisaragi/Kamen Rider Fourze), Ryo Yoshizawa (Ryusei Sakuta/Kamen Rider Meteor), and Erina Mano (Nadeshiko Misaki/Kamen Rider Nadeshiko)
*A new remix of Giant Step by the Kamen Rider Club, namely: Shion Tsuchiya (JK), Shiho (Tomoko Nozawa), Justin Tomimori (Shun Daimonji) and Rikako Sakata (Miu Kazashiro). 
*A screening of Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie War Mega Max on Toei Tokusatsu World.
===Kamen Rider Black===
The anniversary coincided with the 35th anniversary of Kamen Rider Black. Though no new projects were announced, it was noted that the release of Kamen Rider Black Sun was also in commemoration of the original series' anniversary. 
===Kamen Rider Wizard===
The anniversary coincided with the 10th anniversary of Kamen Rider Wizard. During this period, Yuko Takayama reprised her role as Rinko Daimon in Kamen Rider Jeanne & Kamen Rider Aguilera with Girls Remix. 
Afterwards, she and her other co-stars including Shunya Shiraishi, Tasuku Nagase, and Makoto Okunaka appeared in the project, which launched on September 17, 2022, featuring reunion interviews from them as well as Shugo Oshinari (Emperor Maya in Kamen Rider Wizard in Magic Land), who was a main cast member of Kamen Rider Geats at the time and was dressed as his character Girori.https://www.kamen-rider-official.com/news_articles/1850
===Kamen Rider Ryuki===
2022 coincided with the 20th anniversary of Kamen Rider Ryuki. 
During this period, Takashi Hagino reprised his role as Takeshi Asakura/Kamen Rider Ouja in Kamen Rider Outsiders. Furthermore in commemoration of the anniversary, Hagino alongside his original co-stars from Ryuki such as Takamasa Suga and Satoshi Matsuda, all reprised their roles as Shinji Kido, Mirror Image Shinji, Ren Akiyama, and Takeshi Asakura in 2022's Kamen Rider Geats × Revice: Movie Battle Royale. Hagino reprised his role once again in Kamen Rider Geats: What the hell?! Desire Grand Prix Full of Men! I'm Ouja!.
==Other Events==
TOEI TOKUSATSU WORLD OFFICIAL, Toei's official English channel for tokusatsu, started to post Kamen Rider Series early episodes. The channel already had posted before the trailers for KAMEN RIDER: memory of heroez, the movie Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue, the highlights of Kamen Rider Zero-One: Final Stage and its talk show, as well as a compilation video of all 20 Heisei Series opening theme sequences sans the opening credits.
For three days consecutively, Team Kamen Rider premiered three films on the channel at 5:00pm PST, each celebrating a specific era of the franchise. Each film was made available to stream for 24 hours after the end of each original live premiere. 
*April 5th - Showa: All Together! Seven Kamen Riders!!
*April 6th - Heisei: Kamen Rider W Forever: A to Z/The Gaia Memories of Fate
*April 7th - Reiwa: Kamen Rider: Reiwa The First Generation
The mobile RPG game Monster Strike held a collaboration with the Kamen Rider franchise in March of 2021.https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20210312-1797976/
Toei Channel released a compilation of 13 Showa films remastered in 4K on April 3, 2021.https://twitter.com/toei_channel/status/1372306790004617221 
Throughout the fall of 2021, organized the All Kamen Rider Great Voting event as part of their "All Great Voting" television series, with the final results of the vote being announced on a television special which aired on November 6, 2021.
On Shocker Day, November 11 (11.11 is "Iiii" in , and is thus pronounced like Shocker Combatmen's shouting), a new joke Anniversary logo featured a golden wreath saying "Shocker is good too" ("Good" in Japanese is "Ii", pronounced like Shocker Combatmen's "Iii !") with Shocker's emblem and the face of a Combatman in the 0.
The 34th Tokyo International Film Festival had a huge focus on the Kamen Rider Series, as various film screenings and guest panels were held throughout the duration of the festival, most notably for the series' Kamen Rider Amazons, Kamen Rider OOO, and Kamen Rider Drive with several cast and crew members in attendance for their respective show's panel. 
On November 28, 2021, Kamen Rider had its first ever panel at the prestigious San Diego Comic Con where Team Kamen Rider and the representatives of Shout! Factory discussed the franchise to newcomers and made major announcements of upcoming merchandise and media releases. This was followed by a Q&A panel and ended with an exclusive screening of the film Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL×TIME.
On January 1, 2022, in order to celebrate the upcoming Year of Tiger, the Kamen Rider Zukan had updated special images on all existing tiger-motif characters: Mukade Tiger, Me·Gadra·Da, Kamen Rider Tiger, Destwilder, Tiger Undead, Tsuchigumo, Kamen Rider Nishiki, Tiger Orphnoch, Kamen Rider OOO Latorartar Combo, Kazari, Byakko Inves, Kamen Rider Build ToraUFO Form, Kamen Rider Zi-O OOOArmor, and Kamen Rider Zero-One Flaming Tiger. Furthermore, Kamen Rider Shinobi was also included since his timeline takes place in 2022. 
In April 2022, a traveling exhibition showcasing props, vehicles, costumes and information about the 50 year history of Kamen Rider began. The exhibition went across major cities and prefectures in Japan, such as Aichi and Tokyo, throughout the year.https://news.tokunation.com/2022/03/10/kamen-rider-50th-anniversary-exhibition-opens-in-japan-72974
In July 2022, Shout Factory! alongside other collaborators such as Team Kamen Rider and Crunchyroll held panels and booths at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, California. Announced were a Blu-Ray release for Kamen Rider Kuuga, merch relating to Fuuto PI to which the first two episodes were screened to attendees, and reveals of concept art for the then-upcoming Kamen Rider Zero-One comic series.https://shop.bandai.com/blog/post/latest-news/team-kamen-rider-at-anime-expo-2022https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/press-release/2022-07-05/kamen-rider-breaking-news-from-anime-expo-2022/.187367https://tokusatsunetwork.com/2022/07/fuuto-pi-episode-1-episode-2-review/
==Products==
Bandai had also announced a slate of new toys to release in celebration of the 50th Anniversary. 
Every month in 2021, Tamashii Nations announced new Kamen Rider products, most of which were S.H.Figuarts:https://tamashii.jp/special/kamen-rider-50th/#
*January: S.H.Figuarts Ohma Zi-O (re-release)
*February: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Orthros Vulcan
*March: Tamashii Lab Satansaber
*April: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Eden
*May: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Calibur Jaou Dragon
*June: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Kuuga & Zero-One 50th Anniversary ver. 
*July: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider MetsubouJinrai
*August: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Kuuga Rising Ultimate (Shinkocchou Seihou)
*September: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Decade 50th Anniversary ver. (Shinkocchou Seihou)
*October: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Saber Primitive Dragon
*November: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Black Sun
*December: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Riders Revi and Vice
In addition, Bandai released a special 50th Anniversary line of Ganbarizing cards with “revival edition” cards and Anniversary Tag Team cards, the set also features Revi and Vice in their debut to the Ganbarizing arcade game.https://www.ganbarizing.com/zb/news/072.php 
Bandai also announced a set of Kamen Rider Tamagotchi and a spin-off variant of the popular Digimon Vital Bracelet with Rider themed data memory cards.https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-07-20/raise-a-generation-of-sentai-heroes-with-kamen-rider-tamagotchi/.175237 https://toy.bandai.co.jp/series/vitalbracelet/rider/Both involve raising a digital Kamen Rider V-pet style to their strongest forms.
Toei released a box-set of the first eight films in the Showa-era, titled Kamen Rider THE MOVIE 1972-1988 4K Remaster Box.
Though highly coincidental, Shout! Factory announced their acquisition of the North American distribution rights to Kamen Rider Zero-One, and will release a Blu-Ray set containing both the entire series and Kamen Rider Zero-One: REAL×TIME on January 25, 2022, one month after Shout! releases said content for streaming on TokuSHOUTsu.
In January of 2022, Seven Seas Entertainment published an English translated original 1971 manga by Shotaro Ishinomori in a large hardcover book, with the intent to commemorate the 50th anniversary.https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/kamen-rider-the-classic-manga-collection/ On 30th January, Avex announced that a box collection of music under multiple discs, consisting of TV theme songs, inserts and movie songs will be release in June 8th, 2022. https://twitter.com/KR_avex/status/1487583842433122304
==Notes==
*It is the first anniversary milestone during the Reiwa Era.
*The anniversary year also just so happened to be the year of Hiroshi Fujioka’s 75th birthday.
Category:Anniversaries
Category:Kamen Rider Series