[4] The series takes place in a world plagued by Shocker, a mysterious worldwide terrorist organization formed mostly by remaining members of the Nazis.
[5] To further its plans for world domination, Shocker recruited its agents through kidnapping, turning their victims into mutant cyborgs (改造人間, kaizō ningen, lit.
With his sanity and moral conscience intact, Takeshi wages a one-man war against Shocker's minions as the grasshopper-themed cyborg superhero Kamen Rider.
[7] Assisted by motorcycle race team manager Tobei Tachibana and FBI agent Kazuya Taki, the Kamen Riders fought in both solo and partnered missions against Shocker while later getting help from Tobei and Kazuya's Kamen Rider Kid Corps.
Many manga based on the original Kamen Rider series have been published, but only one was penned and drawn by Ishinomori himself.
The original manga, published in 1971, initially follows a path resembling the first few episodes of the TV series, from basic plot to creature designs.
Hayato Ichimonji, one of the twelve Shocker Riders, receives a head injury during the fight and regains his conscience as a result.
In February 2021, Seven Seas Entertainment announced they licensed the original manga for publication in one omnibus edition.
To this end, their scientists turn humans into superhuman cyborgs by surgically altering them with animal and insect DNA with robotic cybernetics.
Its founders had ties to the Nazis, Illuminati and the Kamen Rider Spirits manga makes references to the group's support by the Badan Empire.
Ruthless and merciless, Shocker would often kidnap prominent scientists and force them to work for the organization, then kill them when their usefulness was at an end, or if they attempted to escape.
He was intended to be another of Shocker's powerful cyborg warriors, a grasshopper-human hybrid, but he escaped and opposed them as Kamen Rider 1.
Luckily, the apparent destruction of the History Modification Machine restores the timeline (with the exception of Go Shijima/Kamen Rider Mach who was killed by Cheetahkatatsumuri), only to be found out during the events of D-Video Special: Kamen Rider Four that Shocker secretly uses it to create time loops and alters the timeline once more, allowing to create Kamen Rider Four, as well as the revelation that they have been targeting Takumi Inui, due to his sacrifice-less wish to ensure that no one dies like what happened to one of his old allies to create a loop.
In the movie Kamen Rider 1, there is a civil war between the original Shocker and a newly formed organization called Nova Shocker in an attempt to kidnap Mayu, Tobei Tachibana's granddaughter, and release the Alexander Gamma Eyecon from her body, in order to obtain its power.
HERO SAGA vol.1 Kakioroshi, and Special Episode: Escape was featured in the October 2006 issue of Hobby Japan.
[22][24] As of 2021, starting from Kamen Rider: Beyond Generations, Hiroshi Fujioka's son, Maito portrays Takeshi Hongo's younger self.