Hideaki Anno, the director best known for the 90’s mecha series Neon Genesis Evangelion continues his streak of Shin films of classic Japanese media. Following Shin Godzilla (2016), Shin Evangelion (2021), and the forthcoming Shin Ultraman, the director will write and direct Shin Kamen Rider.
The project was announced earlier this year, but a new teaser trailer released earlier today gives us our first look at the eponymous hero and their motorbike, which looks to be Cyclone, the bike of the first Kamen Rider Takeshi Hongo. The trailer recreates much of the original show’s opening with a fittingly retro aesthetic in both costuming and filmography. It’s even set to the same theme, “Let’s Go!! Rider Kick.” The trailer ends with a look at Man Spider, who appears to be the film’s main antagonist.
Sosuke Ikematsu will play Hongo, while Minami Hamabe will play the Rider’s friend and ally Ruriko Midorikawa. The Shin Kamen Rider Twitter account also posted a photo of the two leads in costume.
Crunchyroll reports the film had been in development in some form for six years, having been delayed due to the pandemic (having impacted Anno’s other Shin films that were in development at the onset). At the Kamen Rider 50th Anniversary Project Announcement, Anno said: “I started this project because I wanted to repay, even if only in a small way, the enormous benefits I received from the TV show 50 years ago in the form of a film 50 years later.”
