Kamen Rider Geats


Kamen Rider Geats is a Japanese tokusatsu series and the 33rd entry of Toei Company's Kamen Rider metaseries and the fourth series in the Reiwa period. The series premiered on September 4, 2022, joining Avataro Sentai Donbrothers and later, Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger in the Super Hero Time lineup following the finale of Kamen Rider Revice, before concluding on August 27, 2023. ''Kamen Rider Gotchard would later air in its place the following week.
It is the second time in the franchise to feature a battle royale motif after Kamen Rider Ryuki, following the success of Netflix's drama series/thriller Squid Game, as well as the manga Kaiji and the media franchise The Hunger Games, and first with an eSports motif, inspired by Fortnite, Overwatch, and Apex Legends''.

Summary

The Desire Grand Prix is a survival eSports game overseen by an organisation of the same name, where players must protect the city from a mysterious athletic enemy called Jyamato. Each participant is bound by the game's rules to continue playing until they die or are eliminated. The winner is rewarded with "the right to bring an ideal world to life", and so only true heroes who win the competition can realise their desired reality.
Among the participants are Ace Ukiyo, a mysterious man and the DGP's undefeated champion who competes as Kamen Rider Geats, his rival Michinaga Azuma, a construction worker who competes as Kamen Rider Buffa, graduate student Keiwa Sakurai who competes as Kamen Rider Tycoon, and social media influencer Neon Kurama who competes as Kamen Rider Na-Go. As the group fight the Jyamato to survive and the monsters grow stronger, the truth about the DGP and its creators is revealed.
Except for Daybreak, which serves as both the prologue and epilogue of the series, the series is divided into six arcs, each covering a different season of the DGP:
  • Daybreak-Prologue : It introduces the main characters and ends with Ace winning and attaining his wish of "becoming a celebrity".
  • Encounter Arc : Keiwa and Neon join the DGP as Kamen Riders while Ace and Michinaga return from the previous season. Ace wins again and uses his wish of "Having Girori and Tsumuri as part of his family", to investigate further on the DGP. He wants to discover why he cannot make his real wish come true, which is to reunite with his long-lost mother Mitsume.
  • Conspiracy Arc : Fearing that Ace could be a liability for the organization, Girori, who is revealed to be the DGP's game master, brings DGP agent Win Hallelujah to the game to remove him permanently from the competition. Meanwhile, some of the Jymato gain the ability to transform into Jyamato Riders. However, he ends up removed from his position for abusing his authority and indirectly causing Michinaga's death along with sacrificing Win in an attempt to kill Ace. It is revealed that the DGP is an interdimensional reality eSports game show, and the season ends with no winners.
  • Divergence Arc : Chirami assumes the role of the DGP's new eSports game master, and Ace finds the format has changed to a popularity context to place him at a disadvantage. He also learns he and the other Kamen Riders have supporters who aid them. Meanwhile, Michinaga's prolonged usage of the Zombie Buckle resurrects him, and he learns the Jyamato are evolving because a mysterious gardener named Archimedel is cultivating and nourishing them using fallen players' ID Cores. Over time, Michinaga gradually becomes a human-Jyamato hybrid as he and a disqualified DGP player named Daichi Isuzu are recruited by Archimedel and the Jyamatos' supporter Beroba. They seek to throw a wrench into the DGP and seize the "Goddess of Creation", which is the source of the DGP's power. Ace also discovers that the DGP supporters and staff are time-travelers from the future, who choose different locations from the past as venues for their games. The season ends without a winner due to Beroba seizing control.
  • Lamentation Arc : Beroba, seeking full access to the Goddess of Creation, creates a new competition called the Jyamato Grand Prix with the roles reversed: The Jyamato, joined by Michinaga and the Dunkleosteus Jyamato, fight the Riders, with the last one standing creating their ideal world as a Jyamashin. Ace is revealed to have been continuously reincarnated and participating in the DGP since 1 AD, while Neon learns her father created her to replace his deceased daughter Akari. During the final round, Ace learns that Mitsume was transformed into the Goddess of Creation by the DGP's owner Suel, with the power to grant wishes coming from her absorbing the lives and happiness of the games' casualties. The game ends with Michinaga's victory as he attains his longtime wish to have "The power to destroy all Kamen Riders".
  • Longing Arc : Jyamashin Michinaga proceeds to hunt down the Kamen Riders, including those from the DGP staff, until Tsumuri revives Ace by awakening a similar power to Mitsume. But when Ace turns against the DGP for what they did to his mother and Michinaga disposes of Chirami, Suel offers them his version of the Desire Royale. This version is an elimination game founded by Colus where Kamen Riders fight each other, with the winner allowed to decide the DGP's fate. Ace and Michinaga are joined by Neon and Daichi, with Keiwa also participating after Kekera tricks his sister Sara into joining the game as part of his deal with Beroba to revive his ward. Daichi is eliminated while Archimedel, whose mind was absorbed into the Dunkleosteus Jyamato, is destroyed. But the game is revealed to be a cover for Suel to have Niramu move DGP broadcasting to a different time period. Win, who is revealed to have survived being Girori's sacrificial puppet, joins Tsumuri in secretly helping Ace. The two learn about his first incarnation's birth and that his reincarnation ability is a result of Mitsume's forbidden marriage with the previous Dezashin. Samas kills Niramu for opposing Suel's intention to erase everything and make Tsumuri a replacement Goddess of Creationm while a dying Mitsume uses her remaining power to unlock her son's full potential. Ace uses this power to defeat Suel and restore everything from memory, with the DGP's existence now public knowledge.
  • Creation Arc : Despite the laws he established to remove them from the world, Ace learns the Jyamato have evolved into small parasites that bypass his rules by possessing human hosts, and forms a task force with Win, Michinaga, and Keiwa to stop them. These Jyamoto are creations of Daichi, who used Archimedel's research to turn himself into a human-Jyamato hybrid in a plan to become a Jyamashin. Kekera and Beroba, who used Mitsume to remain in the present to observe their wards, manipulated Daichi before forming an alliance with a new Game Master named Zitt, who was sent by the DGP to capture Tsumuri. The three convince Keiwa to work for when Sara is killed, having him use Tsumuri's power to grant his wish of bringing back everyone killed in the DPG games. However, his wish also revives criminals, with his revived family killed again as Zitt, a game master that crafts unhappy endings, establishes an Apocalypse Game. Neon makes peace with her parents when her father Kōsei protects her as a Kamen Rider before giving his gear and entry to her, allowing her to become Na-Go once more. Ace gets Keiwa to realize he was being manipulated while having Win rescue Tsumuri shortly before absorbing her powers to thwart Zitt. This momentarily immobilizes Ace while Keiwa and Michinaga defeat their evil former supporters. However, Zitt uses a tear extracted from Tsumuri's Goddess of Creation state to create her evil counterpart in order to create a Zillion Driver and transforms into Kamen Rider Regad. This allows Suel to absorb him and most of their audience's cameras to enact the latter's final plan.
  • Daybreak-Epilogue : Tsumuri is possessed by her counterpart to kill Ace on Suel's command, unaware that was part of Ace's secret plan to use his Boost Mark III Buckle's hidden power to revive himself as a deity. With his new powers, Ace help the other Riders defeat Suel as Regad Omega for good while erasing the DGP's staff and Game Masters. The series ends with the other characters moving on with their lives and pursuing their own dreams, with Tsumuri among the few to remember Ace as he watches over them as their new deity.

    Production

The Kamen Rider Geats trademark was registered by Toei on May 23, 2022, and published on May 31, 2022.
Geats was officially announced on July 22, 2022. An online production announcement conference introducing the main cast and characters and the artist for the show's theme song was held on August 7, 2022.
Geats was influenced by battle royale-related media such as Fortnite, Apex Legends, The Hunger Games, and Squid Game as well as past Kamen Rider entry Kamen Rider Ryuki to appeal to their target audience.
The main writer for Geats is Yuya Takahashi, who previously served as the main writer for Kamen Rider Ex-Aid and Kamen Rider Zero-One.
The opening theme song "Trust・Last" is performed by Kumi Koda and Shonan no Kaze.

Episodes

All of the episodes were written by Yuya Takahashi.

Films

Kamen Rider Geats made his first appearance in the feature film Kamen Rider Revice the Movie: Battle Familia.

''Movie Battle Royale''

Kamen Rider Geats × Revice: Movie Battle Royale is a crossover film released on December 23, 2022, starring the casts of Geats and Kamen Rider Revice as well as four returning Riders from Kamen Rider Ryuki as supporting cast members to commemorate their series' 20th anniversary. Takamasa Suga, Satoshi Matsuda, and Takashi Hagino reprised their respective roles as Shinji Kido, Ren Akiyama, and Takeshi Asakura from Ryuki. The film was written by Yuya Takahashi and Hanta Kinoshita, and directed by Takayuki Shibasaki. The theme song is "Change my future" performed by Koda Kumi. The events of the film take place between episodes 15 and 16 of the series.