Few shows can be as confused in a glance as Kamen Rider and its not too hard to see why. If you’re not familiar with the live-action Japanese franchise, allow me to summarise the heart traits between each entrée: a man is bestowed the ability to transform into a colourful superhero by a mysterious belt, which gives him the power to fight against a legion of world-hungry tyrants in martial art fistfights and pyrotechnic-blazing kicks. Yes, very simple campy escapism that can just be considered a massive merch ad.
But if this absurd action hero has managed to engage large Japanese audiences for well over 45 years, surely there must be something between the kicks and punches with some real heart to it? Well, look beyond the suitmation exterior and you’ll find some surprisingly engaging and stylistic narratives, world-building, body horror and some damn well-developed characters to make the selling fight scenes all the more engaging. The franchise’s messages on humanity and striving for the future can also be communicated in superbly unique fantasy ways which people of all ages can appreciate, as well as the wide spectrum of punchy themes giving each show their own flavour. But despite W’s quirky satirical take on the detective genre and Build’s exploration of the dark side of technology, nearly none of these shows can be considered immediately acceptable for a western adult. The consistent overly-blown slapstick, poor eccentric cgi and admittedly slow, even hackneyed plots and dialogue can still make Kamen Rider quite indigestible for an average viewer even when seen for what it is. But upon seeing Hibiki, the fifteenth entrée in the franchise, I knew I found something worthy of a cult classic masterpiece.
What makes Hibiki such a bright contender in Kamen Rider is its initial abandonment of all the status quos that had been tying the franchise up. When writer Tsuyoshi Kida shed the safe dependencies of tokusatsu (a genre with limitless potential but commonly gets tied down with the appeal of selling merch) for the show to fluently pursue its own arthouse charm and narrative desires, the payoff is something quite astounding: a kind of subtle storytelling I can say is hard to find anywhere else, some of the smoothest pacing and dialogue I’ve beheld in any entertainment and a beating heart of characterisation to a show anyone can watch without prior knowledge of what Kamen Rider is.
Hibiki follows the life of Asumu, a typical middle schooler about to venture through the curtain to pubescent life’s truths and hardships and knows little about the long hard journey of self-discovery he’s about to embark on. While on a boat to an island for a family visit, he comes across Hibiki: a friendly but shadowy man who draws his attention by saving a child from falling overboard. Asumu coincidentally crosses paths with this strange man again while hiking through the island’s forest mountains before they’re confronted by a weird couple, who reveal themselves to be spider-like monstrosities. Asumu then witnesses Hibiki transform himself into an armoured Oni warrior who proceeds to effortlessly beat down the spider Makamou. Asumu then realises his adolescent growth may just end up quite unordinary, as he continues to cross paths with Hibiki and begins to pursue him as a guide in his confused life.
Now what makes Hibiki such an oddball in the franchise is that there isn’t much of an actual plot. The Makamou villains (a race of humanoid monsters) remain incredibly obscure, never cause wide-spread damage and are usually just everyday tasks for our ‘well-trained’ cast of Oni (Japanese demon). Kamen Rider Hibiki is nearly completely about character-development and the growing bond between our cast in their daily lives and crossing paths. Hibiki belongs to the Takeshi: a family organisation that researches and hunts down Makamou and resides in a homey tea shop in Tokyo. The quirky organisation consists chiefly of the ageing Ichiro Tachibana and his two giddy daughters, who assign Hibiki and other Oni to eliminate Makamou in different regions of Japan based on their speciality.
While the villains hardly pose a significant threat, with Hibiki always laughably stressing how ‘well trained’ he is in his fighting life, the shows formulae, literally just a few average months in the days of our non-average characters, never ends up repetitive because of how brilliantly we see them express and develop themselves in circumstances that, unlike most superhero works, aren’t exactly high-stake apocalyptic.
Hibiki is an experienced, enlightened adventurer clearly satisfied with his life of protecting Japan. Often seen in Grylls adventure training or sharing his humble, awkward chat with a Takeshi friend, he’d likely appear underdeveloped in these constantly mellow circumstances. But his humorous quirky side is pushed out with Asumu’s growing admiring pursuit of him, being unwilling to have an apprentice but can’t help empathising with his worrisome, searching life as a student. The two start gradually forming a bond, with Hibiki proving to be not only a listener to Asumu’s mentally-draining life of starting high school but even a sort of therapist when he applies his life experience in monster-hunting to that of a teenage boy seeking meaning. His training lifestyle as an Oni balanced with his growingly personal talks of advice with him down a hazy afternoon walk bring many areas of Asumu’s well-fleshed character to life: including his damaged mental health as a student facing exams and having once been beaten up after interrupting a shoplift.
The show expects us to care about these everyday teenage events like exam stress more than Hibiki’s action-filled monster killing, and it succeeds through our relatability. Whereas the sinister fantasy stuff is ironically treated just as everyday and insignificant for Hibiki and the Onis with their consistently professional but enthusiastic approach to each new challenge, which is an attitude Asumu desires for himself.
The chemistry from such humble talks of daily struggles between Asumu and Hibiki down a humble little park or street from such unhumble erratic paths is uniquely effective, and seeing Asumu's student life flow alongside Hibiki's training life throughout the show, rarely meshing together but increasingly reflecting upon one another, creates an astounding artistic direction. Hibiki proves that a superhero show doesn’t need the threat of death from a world-ending power or the sudden betrayal of a main character to squeeze out effective characterisation. Sometimes slow, relatable and human moments like this can be just as effective.
The show’s other Oni warriors are just as well-rounded. Ibuki and Todoroki belong to different Takeshi outposts. Sometimes working with Hibiki and Tachibana, they both have slightly different circumstances that shape their unique personalities. Todoroki goes through a similar apprentice growth as Asumu but as an Oni, lacking confidence in taking over from his mentor’s injuries but slowly finds his footing while maintaining a prioritised headset.
One of the show’s most notable character-development arcs involves Todoroki’s mentor Zanki and Tachibana looking over a recorded video of his latest Makamou battle, where he ends up doing a blaring solo on his signature weapon guitar like a madman while chanting at the end of his victory, which horrifies them that his new power has gone to his head and has made him recklessly overconfident. The two later find out this post-battle solo is his own way of clearing out his mind after a fight, which he demonstrates to his mentor’s newfound admiration. What makes this subtle character-building so effective is how we secretly see how he’s still in control of his confidence long before his mentor finds out: he recites his values to himself in his van and retains his composed self when talking to our other characters. It’s therefore all built up for the moment of discovery in his peers, not us, which treats the little character growth in our older, experienced characters as just as important as our bold young protagonists.
Hibiki’s cast therefore starts to feel like a true family. And as for Ibuki……. he’s only the greatest trumpet player you could want in your life. And he also has a neat tie-in with Asumu’s life with his apprentice turning out to be one of his friends from school when he Asumu tries to sneak in on Ibuki’s practising.
The show obviously doesn’t go full Father Ted mellow through each episode though, as the action and punchy aesthetics are some of the show’s highlights. While it shares a lot in common with the stunt-heavy action in your average Kamen Rider, Hibiki’s choices in spicing the action up are quite bizarre indeed. For one, the signature weapons of our three main Oni are not swords or whips but instruments. Hibiki wields a pair of ruby drumsticks with Oni faces for tips, his finale solo involving him clambering onto his opponent’s back and hammering on it until it explodes. Quite something to witness.
Ibuki is your ideal long-range lad who carries a pistol that is also a trumpet that destroys enemies with a specifically-tuned piece. And yes, he can blare it through his helmet.
As for Todoroki, he wields a literal electric guitar passed down from his mentor Zanki that incinerates an opponent with lightning by stabbing it with the end and then going full Matt Bellamy with a solo. The Oni can then be seen as a deadly sort of orchestra than a stereotypical hero gang, and the bizarre aesthetics work surprisingly well. Seeing the cinematography and editing going ballistic alongside the killer music when the three pull their weapons out is quite a surreal, satisfying added experience too and I wish this serious imagination with weaponry was used more in pop culture.
But, on the contrary, there are the villains: the Makamou, which are quite a unique treat in the villain formulae. They're a race of a cloned man and woman always seen in pairs with the voices switched over, with different pairs having different animalistic features. Their purpose is primarily to grow giant hybrids by feeding them captured passer-by humans until they’re strong enough to hunt on their own. They can be exceptionally eerie and even sort of perverse, roping people with their extended fingernails or legs and dangling them over their pet’s lake to feed while donning blank expressions. But what adds to their eerie initial impression is their oddly insignificant nature, being just daily tasks in the Onis’ lives of manual labour, which in turn opens up a wonderful sort of world-building with Japan being dotted with these lurking horrors and Hibiki travelling and training far and wide to fulfil his duty. How we see passing innocents die even in rather gruesome ways also signifies Hibiki's values of his job and lifestyle: keeping an open mind he can’t save everyone which he never seems to question.
As for these large pet creatures the Makamou breed, they’re usually giant cgi animals like a crab and snail, which’s effects are admittedly woefully outdated but are still admirable for sticking with the desired image with what was accessible at the time. Plus, their implied size allows for some unique choreography with Hibiki and his fiery drumsticks.
But the significant theme of instrumental music doesn’t end when Hibiki fastens the sticks, as the subtle background music influences the editing to certain slower scenes and makes the typical Japanese neighbourhood feel alive. Asumu’s growing passion for drumming shapes the world around him as non-diegetic drum notes shift the camera around to absorb more sounds of everyday sights, like a man sweeping the streets, to create an orchestra of the surrounding neighbourhood and it’s beautiful. The time and effort put into such subtle sound and camera choices for what-would-be passive scenes makes the show’s heart pound with its theme of music adding to the ‘clear-sky’ atmosphere of self-discovery and makes us want to see where Asumu’s passions and curiosities end up.
This little show even has lots of further artistic flair mixed into its spectatorship in ways you wouldn't expect. Kanji characters constantly flash at every scene which ironically first-hand describe the laying mood, especially in scenes where our obscure villains are growing an unknown monster with cuts to black screens with kanji banging words like ‘eerie’ and ‘sinister’ which humorously, yet oddly suspensefully put the implied emotions right in front of our face.
But despite the writing, editing and practicality, where a large chunk of Hibiki’s spirit lies is simply in its gorgeous settings. While most Rider shows stage their scenes in easily-accessible cityscapes, Hibiki journeys into the tranquil riverside forests and cliffside coasts of Japan to capture a phenomenally cinematic and natural centrepiece to its action scenes, which adds even more authenticity to its orchestral-themed fights. But the slower character moments benefit just as well, as arguably the most definitive moment of the entire show involves Hibiki giving Asumu his compass early on in the show to metaphorically ‘guide his way’ which takes place at phenomenal sunset at a cliffside coast. This moment can be said to capture the root feeling of Hibiki in one shot and shows the skill and effort put into making the show look as good as its writing feels.
Kamen Rider Hibiki is a ghostly show very untalked about even among Kamen Rider fans which you might have a hard time finding and even getting into. But as you slowly adjust to this bonanza of Japanese themes and its abundance of surreal fights and chemistry, you’ll find yourself with a fantastic arthouse show. Hibiki’s frequent daily-life conversations hardly ever end up unengaging due to the electrifying dialogue making scenes such as a Asumu’s family guesting Hibiki to dinner or Hibiki talking about schools over newspapers with Tachibana smooth and with a non-eccentric upbeat energy. The humour feels natural and the snappy dialogue keeps the interactive chemistry fluent, not often falling into the overly comic script or acting of a modern superhero production that thinks its audience needs a comedy smack every ten seconds to not click the channel or close the browser tab. Hibiki doesn’t treat its audience like children even if they are.
I can’t think of a character that feels out of place and the ones that would be considered to be in the show for convenience’s sake have just as unique paths as the likes of Torodoki. Asumu’s mother can initially be seen as a background character with a typical stressing care of a teenager’s life but gets nicely sewn into the main bulk of the cast by the show’s emphasising of little human events. Her involvement in Asumu’s hospitalisation and her single-mother admiration of Hibiki leads to her slowly following a different path into the Takeshi family with Asumu and its greatly-wrought.
While Hibiki is at heart, a story of a boy’s journey to develop himself while increasingly being accepted by a family, it takes the perspectives and paths of many characters and interweaves them seamlessly, creating a show that is not only stylistic but has heart to go with it. There are no massive deaths or betrayals or general gut-wrenching moments here because that’s not what it’s trying to convey. Hibiki is, quite literally, about keeping your beat in the journey of life. And what a beautiful show it is.