What fan of tokusatsu drama hasn’t caught themselves daydreaming about just how cool being a masked hero would be? Especially in today’s climate, kicking fascists so hard that they explode is quite appealing.
Enter Tojima Tanzaburo, the 40 year old, toku-loving lead of the soon to be manga turned anime TOJIMA WANTS TO BE A KAMEN RIDER. All his life, he has dreamed of donning the mask of Kamen Rider himself and becoming a hero, but in his adult age, he is nearly ready to give up on his dreams.
That is, until a group disguised as SHOCKER appears, attempting to rip off a local konbini! Leaping into action, Tojima disguises himself with a toy mask of Kamen Rider Ichigo and fights off the burglars. Expecting praise and congratulations, he is quickly made into a laughing stock on the internet. Unfazed, he continues to take to the streets to counter the fake SHOCKER grunts and solve the mysteries surrounding their appearance, but he’ll soon find that there’s more to this string of incidents than initially appears.
Debuting in 2018 in Monthly Heroes magazine, and now published digitally on Comiplex, the manga series will soon have it’s 16th collected volume published. Written by Yokusaru Shibata (Air Master) in cooperation with Ishinomori Productions, this new anime adaption will be led by Takahiro Ikezoe (Show by Rock!, Bungo Stray Dogs, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood) with scripts written by Touko Machida (The Devil is a Part-Timer, Akeme ga KILL!) and Cindy H. Yamauchi (Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War, FUUTO PI, Fist of the North Star TV) as Character Designer. Finally, appealing directly to me, the soundtrack will be handled by none other than the absolute legend TEDDYLOID (Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt) meaning that this show will likely have some tracks that I’ll be playing at an upcoming anison gig. LIDEN FILMS (Attack on Titan, Darling in the FRANXX, Digimon Adventure tri) is the animation studio.
The lead Seiyuu for this show will be Katsuyuki Konishi (Demon Slayer, Tensou Sentai Goseiger, Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War). Konishi had this to say about the upcoming role:
I’m Katsuyuki Konishi and I play the role of Tanzaburo Tojima. I originally liked Shibata-sensesi’ works and have been reading them for a long time. When I was also promoting this work in various places, saying, “This is interesting!,” I leaned about the anime adaptation and an audition for it. I recorded an audition tape while loosing my voice, and I was so happy when I received the result. The staff and cast worked with “tremendous passion” on the anime, and I think we brought out 120% or 200% of the charm of the original work by Sensei. Please look forward to the broadcast in 2025. Rider Punch!!!!
No Western release has been confirmed yet, but considering we managed to get FUUTO PI before we got a legal way to watch Kamen Rider W, and Crunchyroll is reporting on this show, we may have a good shot at it!
Get ready by checking out the teaser trailer below!
