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POD IN BRIEF: Saban's second go at a toku show, Masked Rider, is not a mash up show a la Power Rangers but an original take on the tropes Shotaro Ishinomori established in the original Kamen Rider.

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(file this one with That Wacky Redhead and Dirty Laundry, under pop culture AH)

In 1993, news leaked that Saban International was seeking to adapt another Toku series for the West, as they had Super Sentai in the form of Power Rangers. When it was announced the target work was Kamen Rider, the most iconic work of the legendary Shotaro Ishinomori, there was more than a little trepidation. Most expected Saban to do the stock footage/ original footage mashup approach, and there was a great deal of fear of Saban... well, kiddying up what many considered Sentai's (however slightly) older scewing cousin. In trope talk, Adaptation Decay.

In our timeline... many say we got that.

In this timeline, what we got instead of the rumored adaptation of Kamen Rider Black RX was something new.

While the idea was still in its planning stages, Haim Saban and Saban's then business partner Shuki Levi happened to share a lunch table in a crowded New York restaurant with Robert "Bert" Pierce and Francios "Frank" St Laurent, two producers from Canada who owned Twin Words Films. Somehow, things said in that lunch lead to another lunch with the head of the Toei Productions group sent to liason between Toei and Saban, Nobuaki Tsuchiya. People from Ishinomori Productions got involved. In a series of face to faces, phone talks, faxes, and courier packages... plans shifted. Men (in Masks [on Bikes]) Productions, aka MMB, MMoB, or (to loving fans) the Toku Mafia was born. The partnership between Saban, Toei, and Twin Words started production on their first season of a gamble.

Instead of the adaptation of Kamen Rider Black RX with elements from other seasons originally planned, in 1995 the first Masked Rider aired. Besides prompting Toei to officially romanize the original show's name as Kamen Rider a full fifteen years earlier than in OTL, the series (re-released in the era of DVDs by the name most fans dubbed it, Masked Rider Dex) started a franchise that lasts to this day, led to a heightened awareness of the Japanese orignals, and gave birth to Ameritoku.

Haim still has to tell Bert not to grumble at that name.

(More to come. First hatched on TV Tropes, and then I found you fine fellows.)
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