Official website for Takao Nagaishi's MASKED RIDER: THE FIRST (KAMEN RAIDÂ: THE FIRST) 「仮面ラ

Thanks to ScreenAnarchy's own logboy for bringing to my attention the fact that the official website for Takao Nagaishi's Masked Rider: The First (Kamen Raidâ: The First - or "Kamen Rider: The First", if you prefer back-transliterations) is now online. (Nagaishi, incidentally, directed all seven of the movies in The Rapeman (The Reipuman) series.) The movie is based on manga by Shôtarô Ishinomori (1938-1998). The theme song for it, "Bright! our Future" [sic], is by the boy band Da Pump, whose four members - one of whom is in this movie (see below) - were all in Takashi Miike's Andromedia (Andoromedia). The principal cast of Masked Rider: The First is as follows: Masaya Kikawada, Hassei Takano (he was in Tatsuhiko Takada's Blood Angel: Sister of Heart (Buraddo enjeru: shisutâ obu hâto)), Rena Komine (she was in Shion Sono's Into a Dream (Yume no naka e), and Hiroshi Takahashi's Ichi of Sodom (Sodomu no Ichi) - one of the four movies in Euro Space et al.'s Horror Bancho Series (Horâ banchô shirîzu)), Eiji Wentz (Uentsu Eiji), Ryôko Kobayashi, Kanji Tsuda (see below), Itsuji Itao (he stars in Toshiaki Toyoda's Hanging Garden (Kûchû teien), plays Masked Takenouchi in Yûdai Yamaguchi's Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie (Sakigake!! Kuromati Kôkô - The Movie), and was in Kazushi Watanabe's Space Police (Supêsu porisu)), Hiroshi Miyauchi, Tôru Kazama (he was in Hiromu Nakamura's Shinario raitâ ★ Matsumoto Mariko no kadai), Shirô Namiki, Toshiyuki Kitami, Renji Ishibashi (he's in Su-jin Kim's Dreaming of Light (Garasu no tsukai), and was in Kôji Wakamatsu's Perfect Education 6 (Kanzen naru shiiku: akai satsui)), Hirotarô Honda (he's in Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Who's Camus Anyway? (Kamyu nante shiranai)), Mayumi Sada, Issa Hentona (he's a member of Da Pump), and - in a digital performance (dejitaru shutsuen) - the late Hideyo Amamoto (a.k.a. Eisei Amamoto).

Kanji Tsuda is also in Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine (a.k.a. Aniki), and Shin'ichirô Miki's upcoming omnibus movie (w/ an overarching story) Naisu no mori: The First Contact. He wrote the screenplay for, directed, and starred in the story "Akuryô" in the recently released omnibus horror movie 'Chô' kowai hanashi the movie: yami no eigasai. He also recently starred in Tadafumi Itô's Diet (Zesshoku) - one of the half-dozen hour-long movies in the Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theater (Umezu Kazuo: kyôfu gekijô) series. He was previously in Noboru Iguchi's 'family drama' Impolite Education (18-kin - abunai kankei: the kinshinsôkan), Mari Asato's Samurai Chicks (Dokuritsu shôjo gurentai), a.k.a. "Samurai Chicks: Girls for Independence" - one of the three movies in Euro Space's Wara Bancho Series (Wara banchô shirîzu) - and Shin'ya Nishimura's Love Kill² (Rabu kiru kiru), a.k.a. "Love Kill Kill" - one of the four movies in Euro Space's Eros Bancho Series (Erosu banchô shirîzu).

Those interested in Masked Rider: The First may wish to read the ScreenAnarchy article on Jun'ya Okabe's short "Specter".