Tojima Wants to Be A Kamen Rider is about loving something so much as a child that it changes your entire life. In this case, it’s a bunch of folks who have become attached to the characters and world of the Kamen Rider franchise to the extent that they choose to emulate it. They are, for the most part, full-grown adults fighting crime in outlandish costumes, which makes Tojima’s affinity for them feel all at once goofy, pervy and wonderfully sincere. At its heart, Tojima reflects the feelings of countless people who never let go of the things they originally adored as kids, particularly pieces of Japanese media. 40-year-old Tojima himself is many things — obscenely strong (he not only fights members of “Shocker,” but is able to beat down a giant bear with ease,) frequently emotional (learning that destiny has seemingly called upon him to battle real crime never fails to send him into tears), and unabashedly passionate about all things Kamen Rider . He’s a little bit of a superman and a little bit of a manchild all wrapped up in someone who didn’t just become interested in his chosen pop culture fascination, but let it consume him from the inside out. If anything, he feels like a vessel for Kamen Rider ’s lessons in defending good and standing up to evil, and the dramatic human parts of him are whatever is left over, flapping wildly in the action. It’s A Series About Obsession… But In A Good Way Many of us likely won’t dress up as Kamen Rider to fight evil doers in the streets of Tokyo, and we likely don’t exhibit the cartoonish moodswings of Tojima, who goes from outbursts of happiness to devastation with the exact same level of sobbing. But just as the series takes Tojima doing his Kamen Rider pose seriously, so too did we take our initial obsessions with the media that defined our childhoods seriously. RELATED: Essential '90s Anime on Crunchyroll That Kamen Rider is a tokusatsu series makes it an apt choice for this story arc: Tokusatsu serves as a common gateway for deep dives. Growing up watching Power Rangers and Godzilla inevitably led to discovering that, in their home country of Japan, the source material could be so vastly different as to feel like an entirely different show. And so learning about it becomes a rabbit hole. The method of adaptation leads to learning about how the special effects, often composed from practical onscreen techniques, are performed. From there, you follow the line to what you’ve been missing directly, not just in terms of things cut from episodes but whole series and films and bits of merchandise and paraphernalia that was never imported to the United States. One can spend a whole lifetime finding out things about it. The same pattern can be seen in those who heavily engage with anime, manga and video games, and often leads to accusations of being an “otaku,” a term that’s equal parts embraced, mocked, and has become the source of actual academic study. In the wider world, this kind of long-lasting love affair with the stuff you enjoyed as a kid is derided, especially if it’s only intensified. Spokesman and studio heads can say “(Insert Japanese medium here) is no longer niche!” all they want, but you tell someone else that you have a piece of pop culture, one made to appeal heavily to children, and you tell them that you loved it once and continue to love it even more 40 years later? The chance that they’ll recoil is the same as the chance that they’ll be awed by your dedication. Of course, with Tojima being a fictional character, he gets to elude the worst of this. His reward isn’t the approval of others, but the literal affirmation of a desire to be someone who makes an impact on the world through fighting crime while wearing his favorite hero’s mask. And until I’m willing to, for instance, challenge people who break in line at Chili’s to a fist fight while wearing an Ash Ketchum hat, I’m never going to get that same satisfaction. Some will attempt to make a career out of their passion in order to keep the train chugging along (and the apartment from getting repossessed). Some will try to become major influencers, knowledgeable enough about a subject and likable enough in their presentation of it that others anoint them King Fan. But these choices are, at best, unstable. So the only recourse is to clutch your love for these things with as much earnestness as Tojima did. As an elder millennial with my fair share of out-of-print home video releases, figurines and a well of trivia that I’ve learned about copious series, it’s easy to wonder, “Where is all of this going? Why am I doing this?” Tojima certainly does, before he gets his call to a crimefighting destiny. But in the end, the compensation is the experience. There are so many shows I’ve watched and games that I’ve played that I will never get to write about and will likely never talk about or explore in any public capacity. The time I spent lost in them is the legacy I will leave. And those moments and your specific relationship with them is unexplainable. RELATED: 8 Anime for Beginners: New to Anime, What to Watch First So maybe Tojima’s tears aren’t all that cartoonish. People may stare and poke fun at his displays, but they’d also question all of those decades before when he was merely a devotee. Those years are an adventure in themselves, performed alone and without judgment. Similarly, other people will never be there for all the highs and lows you’ve felt enraptured by a story that you cherish. You keep the memories inside you as your victory. Those feelings belong to you as your chance to be a Kamen Rider.
