It’s been a little over forty years since TV Asashi launched Shotato Ishinomori’s original Android Kikaider series, with several notable television, film, manga and anime transitions that followed, although a reboot of the original property has been in the works for some time now. This year however, with a script that reportedly took two years to complete, Tokusatsu fans now have something new to gloss over for the next several months with Muscle Heat helmer Ten Shimoyama‘s latest contribution to the genre in the form of Kikaider REBOOT, following a press announement hosted by Toei back in January.
Produced by Shinichiro Shinakura and written by Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters scribe Kento Shimoyama, actor Jingi Irie takes center stage as the title character who rebels against the government-sanctioned ARK Project when his slain creator’s rival seizes it for his own evil purposes. Also starring is actress Aimi Satsukawa who plays the very daughter of Jiro’s creator; Rounding out the principal cast are Kazushige Nagashima, Hirotaro Honda, and Ryuji Harada, with an appearance by the former TV show’s original suit actor Daisuke Ban in a new role.
In the film, Nobuhiko Komyoji creates robots to solve intractable human problems as the central figure of “ARK Project”. After Komyoji suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances, his creation Jiro, aka Kikaider, rebels against the project and goes rogue.