I’m going to take one more detour before I get back to Kamen Rider Decade. For whatever reason the Kamen Rider franchise seems to have lost steam in the 1990s and existed as a series of specials, none of which did well enough to spawn even a single full sequel. Kamen Rider J was a theatrical movie (presumably part of a double feature), and like all of the 1990s stories it strays quite far from the established parameters of the Kamen Rider mythology. That’s saying something, considering one earlier Kamen Rider series is about a Japanese foundling in the Brazilian jungle who is transformed into a Rider by a combination of cybernetics and Incan magic. The series was already pretty flexible.

The story of Kamen Rider J is very simple. So simple, it requires only five actors to appear on screen during the 45 minute running time. The villain here is Fog Mother, a semi-mystical evil being who travels through space in a gigantic bio-mechanical fortress. Her “children,” slimy things with lots of teeth, eat everything in their path and were responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. In order to release her children she has to perform a ritual. The ritual involves sacrificing a human, and Fog Mother’s three disciples (an older man, a younger man, and a woman in matching white suits) spot the perfect one while the fortress lands on a mountain in rural Japan. That sacrifice is Kana, a little girl who is camping on the mountain with her family (I assume), though we never see them. When the fortress comes down Kana is visiting the camp site of Koji, a nature photographer. Fog Mother’s disciples appear at the camp and kill Koji in the process of kidnapping Kana.

Koji is resurrected by the “Earth Spirits,” and given a magic belt and annoying animal sidekick in the form of Berry, a large grasshopper that yells all her thoughts out loud. The belt, of course, allows Koji to transform into Kamen Rider J, though it’s left unexplained why the Earth Spirits have a fetish for green leather and dirt bikes.

Koji heads for Fog Mother’s fortress, and along the way he’s attacked by one of Fog Mother’s disciples, who transforms into a dinosaur/lizard monster. Kamen Rider J finishes off the monster with a flying punch to the brain.

Soon thereafter Koji is attacked by the female disciple, who turns into an insect creature. During the course of the battle the disciple carries Kamen Rider J into the heart of Fog Mother’s fortress.

Breached, the fortress starts rolling around the countryside, crushing buildings and blowing up highways. Inside Kamen Rider J faces the last disciple, who transforms into armored cobra monster.

Kamen Rider J is triumphant, but Fog Mother is able to trap him and keep him from getting to Kana, who is hanging over a pit full of Fog Mother spawn. Faced with this impossible situation Kamen Rider J does the really unexpected: he teleports out of the fortress and grows to Ultraman size! Kamen Rider J (for “jumbo”?) punches a hole in the fortress and rescues Kana, but Mother Fog fights back with the fortress’ various cannons, drills, and saws.

It does seem like a big part of this movie was an attempt to reposition Kamen Rider as an Ultraman type hero, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense because Ultraman was a dormant franchise at this point. Kamen Rider J’s sleek design is even vaguely like that of an Ultraman character, though obviously the coloring is two tones of green instead of silver and red. There’s also a strange environmental theme here, with Fog Mother seemingly representing pollution. It’s a little odd, because Fog Mother is presumably a being of magic, but her fortress looks like industrial equipment.

With its short running time and minimal cast I’m a little surprised this was shown in theaters. It feels more like a straight-to-video episode. On the plus side, the lack of any supporting characters means that the movie gets straight to the action. In fact, there isn’t much here besides action. If you like the HK wire-fu epics of the early 1990s you’ll find something to enjoy in Kamen Rider J.

As I mentioned earlier, there was no sequel to Kamen Rider J. The character did appear in a short 3-D film with Kamen Rider ZO, and has been featured in some of the later movies, but beyond that never had much effect on the Kamen Rider franchise.