taking off the mask: kamen rider’s affect on my life
tw//mentions of dysphoria, self harm, suicide, quarantine, depression. part 1: 2019 it's almost scary to think that i've been into kamen rier for four yearas now. all things considered it's been a decent run of it. no matter what it's been a constant through so many hard times and so many ups and downs. honestly, it's kinda grown with me in some regard. Starting with a Round Zero, I got into kamen rider right at the end of zi-oh and im now ending off high school at the beginning of GOTCHARD. so many things happened in this time i never thought would happened and i'm honestly really baffled by how much has changed. Kamen rider was originally something that i found because of DXtokusatsu's 10-20 minnute long kamen rider dx toy videos where he would speedrun though the different 4th riders. another video being the all final forms runthrough going up to build's genius form. from there i began to look into kamen rider as a series. I liked how ghost’s driver looked, I loved how it opened, i liked the sounds it made, I especially loved the eyecons. so cool, so simple. In fact, my first few kamen rider purchases were ghost related. I had yet to find out about the google doc or drives, so i was unable to watch kamen rider, instead sticking to AMV’s and dxtokusatsu videos as well as henshin compilations. It was a feeling of pure ecstacy I had never felt before as I devoured every piece of media i could find regarding kamen rider. I was honestly obsessed. Instead of watching kamen rider, i just rewatched mystic force for the millionth time. classic. I distinctly remember believing kamen rider was just a continuing show where there were tons of seasons you had to watch in order and every so often we’d get a new rider who would interract and help the other riders. a connected multiverse moreso than the kamen rider universe already is given the sheer number of crossovers. Finally, something caught my ear. Burning my soul, Kamen rider cross-z’s final (yea fuck you muscle galaxy) form. It instantly became one of my favorite songs and i listened to it on repeat CONSTANTLY. That being said, i wasn’t all that big of a fan of most other kamen rider music. It was mostly a slow burn on a lot of songs like double action sword form and the classics. I’m still not exceptionally fond of No Fear No pain if i’m being completely honest. Eventually, and i’m not really sure how, but I started watching ghost. Yes, i know, terrible start. I was unenthused, as one would assume, but i stuck to it for a decent few episodes, until an online friend of mine reccomended build. at this time I had been saving up money and had bought a handfull of eyecons. this was my introduction to a long and unhealthy addiction to candy toy candy. I had always been a little too anxious to order shit online, though kamen rider soon changed that as I became almost attached to ebay like a parasite. even now friends come to me to ask me to keep an eye out for ebey kamen rider deals. My first real transformation device... or set of devices were the transteam and nebula steam guns as well as the steam blade. I was planning to buy a ghost driver with the money to go with the items, though that never came to fruition, and even now, four years later, it remains one of the white whales of my collection along with but not limited to: W/lost driver, buggle driver, gamer driver, hyper muteki, hazard trigger/fullfull bottles, and 01 driver. despite having a hilarious ammount of stuff from ex-aid, w, and ghost, I have never owned anything to use them in. i’m honestly not sure which is worse not to have though, considering i’ve got every other 01 main rider driver other than the ark driver. I remember distinctly watching kamen rider in school with my table mates, we’d sit in the back of the class, and though they never understood what was going on, they enjoyed the fight scenes. School at this time was stressful to say the least. Going on 3 years now of severe depression and beginning to question my gender identity, kamen rider became a safehaven among the various fights with parents, bad nights wrought with dysphoria, hidden wrists, and reddit rants sprinked in with my various kamen rider themed posts. Kamen rider remained something I could rely on when things got tough. From finishing build, i immediately (regrettably) moved right on to zi-o of all things. a decision that, even to this day i question. zi-o got me into looking at zi-o related items, specifically woz’s driver, which would soon become my first driver (mostly because at the time it was the cheapest driver on amazon). Waiting for packages in these times, and even now, was something that kept me going in the lowest points I went through. Even though My mind was filled with all these dark thoughts, even though I felt I had nobody, I still had kamen rider to keep me sane. I was going through my own personal transformation that felt even more important when looking at the transformations the characters were going through. in november i finally got to go to therapy, and it was frankly one of the best things i’ve ever done. Finally getting clean, finally getting better, and honestly just feeling really good. Getting better was definitely a process. one I don’t really remember, but one i was doing with the help of kamen riders. It may be strange, but I started developing an ideology about kamen riders that kept me sane during this time and even now i still follow it. “would a kamen rider do this?” something that frankly only applies to the heroes, but even so is a reminder to do good if I can help it, both to myself and for others. Kamen riders in my eyes are not the suits, but instead the people wearing them, it;s an ideology more than it is a type of armored warrior bug man. It’s a willingness to fight and die for what you bellieve in. A sentiment I carry with me everywhere, as 2019 came to an end, I began to grow more comfortable and things regarding me mental health settled down a bit. Christmas was in the air and a new issue arose, a very strong embarassment towards kamen rider as a whole. I had a christmas list of various kamen rider things I was interested in, though I was embarassed to admit I liked this childish japanese kids show. I didn’t want my family to think i was a wierdo or a nerd, or any of the other things I actually am. I came to the realization I was wearing a mask and that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be and i had to Be the One to change that. So i sent out that christmas list of various kamen rider things. did i get them? nah. but that’s alright, I had christmas money I could use specifically for that within the safety of my ebay account free of the judgment I got from my family. This embarassment for who I am still lingers to this day, and especially as a self conscous 14 year old, this worry was soul crushing. I had nobody to talk to about kamen rider, and I couldn’t just talk to new people about it. Sure my friends would listen to me talk about it, and comment about how hot all the boys were. But i was isolated, completely alone with my love of this karate bug man show, Living alonw with my own personal Devils. My parents grew especially tired of it. the near constant sound of me sitting in my room, doing transformation poses in the mirror with a stupid grin on my face. I’m 14, I shouldn’t be liking this Kids show. I should start acting like an adult. an adult... man, that was some shitty advice. when you’re a teen, it’s always, “you’re gonna be an adult soon, so you better act like it” but then when you’re an adult it’s always “well you’re only 18, you’re still a child honestly”. Most of the people I found online who liked kamen rider WERE adults. I should mention that i’m an only child and I’m not exactly a talkative person, especially at school I would keep to myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to talk, moreso that I had nobody to talk TO about the things that were on my mind. I wanted desperately to tell people about kamen rider, and I wanted desperately to share my interests with people in a way that mattered. I didn’t have exceptionally deep friendships until quarantine. I spent most of my time alone, and if I wasn’t alone, I was with my parents, and when I was with my parents there wasn’t much I wanted to talk about because it was all fairly negative. So I talked about the positive things in my life. Kamen rider. I talked INCESSANTLY about kamen rider to them and they hated it. They didn’t understand it, and frankly didnt care about it. it was distracting me from my studies, god forbid keeping me alive. I don’t want to say my parents were abusive during this time, but frankly, they were pretty damn close. They didn’t actually realize how badly I was hurting, and didn’t realize how bad it really was. Figures, that mask was good for a lot more than hiding my love of masked bug men. though I was on a rollercoaster of good and bad, It was the end of the 2010s, and as I completed my Journey through this Decade and moved into the next, I was filled with Excitement at reaching the Climax of the year, ready to Jump into the next one. Progress isn’t always linear after all.
