Kamen Rider V3 (1973)

It's no Secret this series is flawed

Kamen Rider V3 has a lot of problems. The plot itself is essentially a carbon copy of the 71 Kamen Rider - the main Rider is turned into a cyborg and put up against an evil team known as Destrom. Nothing special here. The main gimmick of the series, Kamen Rider V3's 26 Secrets, are utterly ridiculous deus ex machinas that come out of nowhere and he never really uses them again. He gets one that literally can make him impervious to attacks and he doesn't use it. And not to mention he doesn't even find out all 26 during the course of the series. I feel like that could be a mildly interesting thing about him if the story was written in a way where it felt purposeful. Instead, V3 feels like a story about writers struggling to continue to make Kamen Rider V3 seem interesting.

And it's not like they always fail at doing so. Especially in the latter half of the series, the story has more exploration of the isolation, fear, and turmoil that Shirou has as Kamen Rider V3. Legitimately beautiful shots are here. He gets a foil in Riderman, a character also fueled by revenge, like Kamen Rider 1, 2, and V3 himself. This has potential to be really great writing that explores the ways that stewing in revenge and hatred can be detrimental to your life, and that by overcoming these things you can be stronger. Riderman is also originally loyal to Destrom, giving him what seems to be the template for other heelturn Kamen Riders that will come afterwards. Unfortunately, Riderman was added in solely to make V3 seem stronger, as he's a constant jobber and only gets about 9 episodes where he exists before he bows out of the story. Most of the time he's doing something mildly supportive in order to help V3, or in need of being saved by V3.

Overall, it really feels like the story has a lot of potential behind it, a lot of interesting ideas, and the potential to explore things like revenge. Unfortunately it stumbles near constantly. It's hard for me to give it points for being the OG like I could for 71. This is just an uninteresting story.

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