Shout Factory's Kamen Rider (1971)

 

I don't normally do posts like this, but given the circumstances, I felt talking about this particular subject was needed.

If you've been keeping up with any sort of Toku news you know that a few days ago Tubi accidentally leaked that the first Kamen Rider series has been licensed and subbed by Shout Factory. This was something that had been rumored for a while to some degree. A bunch of people within in the Toku community with connections and various outlets like Bluefin brands were teasing something KR related happening with Shout about as subtle as a clown with his cock out.

At the time of all this teasing, I had very mixed feelings about the entire concept. Sure, like many people I'm into the idea of Rider getting a legitimate wider release outside of the V3 set, but I was cautious about how it would be handled. Shout has not had the best track record for quality subtitles, from Sentai to Transformers: The Headmasters. There's a reason the old fansubs are circulated among the community for both respective franchises, and it's not just a refusal to support the official releases. I really got the impression that a lot of people were thinking too much about if they could and they didn't stop to think if they should.


That being said, the series has since had an official launch, I have seen what they put out and it is incredible. Now, obviously, I've not watched all 98 episodes again. But what I have seen is really good and miles better than the subs used for the review I did for the series. Those particular subs weren't atrocious and I was able to still really enjoy the show, but they clearly lacked quality and consistency. The dialogue didn't always sound natural and was sometimes overly literal, how monster names were translated or if they were translated at all varied episode by episode.

A good example of the better flowing dialogue compared to the fansubs (Top).

There are a couple weird ones. One that I did notice was episode 45 featuring the monster Namekujira. The fansubs interpreted that as Slugzilla, which is cute and I appreciate the joke. The Shout subs decided to be more literal with it...kinda. The Title for the episode itself while browsing is Namegorilla, which is only half translated. Why not just go ahead and say Slugwhale?  

But in the show, they use Slugzilla just like the fansubs. I'm fine with that, but it is a weird inconsistency. Probably just a mistake while listing, but should be corrected. Otherwise, these aren't only an improvement- but good in general from what I have checked.





Shout is also using the Bluray restored version of Kamen Rider put out a while back. Blemishes and damage to the film are gone and the image brightness is overall toned down, which pre-restoration caused a washed outlook.

Notice that the muffler has detailed creases now that the image isn't overly bright.

A greenish like tone that was present on the original DVD is now gone, giving a more natural coloration. This changes the entire look of the show for the better.

Overall this is the primary way I suggest watching the original Kamen Rider series, not just because it's the legal way, but because it really is the best. A lot of love and hard work went into this and it's incredible that it's even a thing.
I do still have some concerns, namely that the team that worked on this was supposedly under a tight deadline for release. I really don't want there to be a crunch problem just for subtitles. Yes they're great quality, yes it's fantastic that we have these- but people do not need to suffer for it and I hope no one's passion was taken advantage of.

But that wasn't the only news. One of the things going around after the leak was that there was more coming in the official announcement and to "stay tuned" I... really do not think this was the best way to handle the situation because it just fuels speculation even more. For my part, I figured my expectations were pretty low and reasonable. I expected a possible Bluray announcement, maybe split into two volumes. Or, possibly that Shout acquired Kamen Rider V3 for streaming since that's already subbed on standard DVD.
The actual result was just a new channel added to Pluto that shows nothing but their Toku license which is neat but also sort of underwhelming compared to Kamen Rider itself. I was really hoping for a Bluray and was even setting money aside for it, but for now, it's only streaming which is slightly frustrating, though I can see the merits to it. Considering how Sentai was handled, Shout may be looking to put out stuff on this free streaming platform to see how people react to the subtitle quality and if anything needs to be changed. Once it's fine and dandy they can move forward with a home release without worrying about things like how Gingaman has completely different opening lyric translations every other episode or dropping entire freaking words. I have to admit that would be a very smart move I would not expect anyone to follow through on. It might also just be a licensing thing, for example, Toei giving the okay for a stream but not a home release.


For the channel itself, I don't have much to offer. Ultraman Leo and all of their Sentai was already available to stream on Shout's website and has been for quite some time, the only difference is they're getting a dedicated live channel on pluto much like MST3K. The Leo bit, in particular, makes me laugh cause that's the only Ultra show Shout has and probably ever will. Hell, I'm not entirely sure how long they'll even have it available because Millcreek thus far has included codes in all their Blurays for streaming copies. I can't imagine they would make an exemption for Leo when they finally get around to it. Either the Leo release is getting pushed off or the license for Shout is going to expire sometime this year. As for Sentai, they've got a great backlog, but it's also pretty much dead in terms of anything new being added. I dunno, maybe they could bolster their line up by getting the streaming rights to Jupion, it's already subbed anyway.


In any case, all 98 episodes of Kamen Rider are up and I highly suggest watching them through the Tubi app or through your browser. Maybe if we're lucky we'll get a home release and maybe we can even get the Bluray version of V3.
On that note, I'm not going to be reviewing KR again, I feel my original review (which you can find here) is good enough and I don't really have much to add aside from the image and subs being better. I'm currently too busy working on Return of Ultraman anyway, so look forward to that.