Long teased new Kamen Rider project, Ride Kamens, revealed some new information this week. What exactly is this project and could it be more than a simple mobile game?
An upcoming mobile video game called Ride Kamens (ライドカメンズ) is being developed by Liber Entertainment Inc. for iOS and Android smartphones. The project filed for a trademark with the Japanese Patent Office on October 19th, 2023 but, since then, things have been quiet on the development of the game. Finally, after months of nothing, we finally got some updates.
Fresh Updates
This past Tuesday, February 6th, the official Ride Kamens X account posted the following:
Which translates to:
For the hero,
There is an unknown mask (khao)――
“Kamen Rider” original new app project
“ #ライドカメンズ ” starts.February 9th (Friday) 17:00 JST
Title details to be released▼ Teaser site released
https://ride-kamens.com
Additionally, they posted the following revealing the staff:
Additionally this information is available translated on their website:
Some notable names here include Yuya Takahashi, head writer for Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Zero-One and Geats, who is in charge of Worldview Building / Main Scenario. Aiding him is Worldview Supervision / Producer, Takebe Naomi, who was a producer on Kamen Rider Geats, Kamen Rider Gaim and Kamen Rider OOO, to name a few. The main character design is done by Utsumi Hiroko, who was the animation director for SK8 the Infinity, Bucchigiri?! and has worked on My Hero Academia and K-on! as well.
Additionally, from this information, we know that by ‘app project’ they mean free to play mobile games with microtransactions. Some have already been speculating this is going to be a new Kamen Rider Gatcha game.
Just a Mobile/Gatcha Game?
On January 19th, Anime Japan’s official account posted the following picture showing all the different franchise that would be there at this big anime consumer convention show. This information was also reposted by the official Ride Kamens account.
Appearing on the Blue stage on Saturday is Ride Kamens. This begs the question, what could a Gatcha game be doing at an anime consumer show? The obvious answer is, perhaps, the gatcha game is a tie in for an anime project.
Japanese toy site, Ironheng, also posted around the time of this news saying that this will be “Build Fighter Kamen Rider version,” referring to Gundam Build Fighters. In care you’re unfamiliar with Build Fighters, the main focus of this series is the virtual game Gunpla Battle, which uses Gunpla.
Back in the 1980s, the success of the series Mobile Suit Gundam resulted in an economic boom due to sales of the Gundam model kits, or “Gunpla” , dubbed the Gunpla Boom. Years later, with the success of the second Gunpla Boom, special tournaments called Gunpla Battles are established throughout the world to see which customized Gunpla and its builder are the best. These incredibly popular Gunpla Battles culminate in an annual global tournament.” with the main series plot focusing on a young mans quest to win one of these Gunpla battle tournaments and become the best.
Plot description of Gundam Build Fighters from Wikipedia
What can we take from this? It’s very possible Irronheng drew a comparison between Build Fighters for another reason altogether but it’s very possible Ride Kamens is set in a world where, owing to the popularity of Kamen Rider, it inspires real life people to build their own suits and Rider systems, leading to something similar to the Gunpla Battle tournaments. We will have to wait and see until Friday, when we should be getting more information.
But what do you think? Are you excited at the possibility of more Rider anime ? Does this whole project give you the same vibes as that power armoured Ultraman spin off ? Do you hope they release an English version of the app ? As always I can’t wait to see what you say in the comments below. I’ve been Ethan, writer, reviewer and SSR five star rider gatcha unit for the Toku Source I’ll cya next time !
Sources: Ironheng, Gundam Build Fighters Wiki, Ride Kamens on X, Ride Kamens Website, Anime Japan on X
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