Kamen Rider Spotlight: Kamen Rider Skull

It’s time for another instalment of the Kamen Rider Spotlight, and this time we’re going hardboiled as I look at my all-time favourite Kamen Rider of all time, Kamen Rider Skull!

“Saa, omae no tsumi wo kazoe!”

Mentor to Shotaro Hidari, Soukichi Narumi was a true hardboiled detective, but an incident in dealing with the Spider Dopant led to him becoming a Kamen Rider, as well as isolating himself from his daughter when a miniature Spider Bomb implants in him, which would go off if he ever came in direct contact with the one he loved most. He later took on Shotaro as an apprentice and began solving Dopant related cases as Skull, until his tragic end that also began Shotaro and Philip‘s story as W.

SKULL – MAXIMUM DRIVE!

Much of Skull’s tech is later passed down to W, or inspires the creation of similar tech. The Lost Driver that the Skull Memory is inserted into looks like a broken half of W’s Double Driver, and in fact was later passed down to Shotaro so that he could become Kamen Rider Joker in case of emergencies where Philip wasn’t available to transform with him. Like with W, it possesses a Maximum Drive slot that allows Skull to his finisher, the Skull Banisher Rider Kick. Also the Skull Magnum, his personal side arm, would later give inspiration to the creation of the Trigger Magnum, and as such operates in much the same fashion. It also grants Skull an additional finisher called the Skull Punisher.

The SkullBoilder is Skull’s modified Honda CBR1000RR motorcycle. It’s kept inside of the mobile garage, the tank-like SkullGarry, which can be called out with the press of a button on the Stag Phone. Both the SkullBoilder and the SkullGarry would later be reconfigured into W’s HardBoilder and RevolGarry.

It’s also worth noting that Skull has an incomplete form that appeared once: Skull Crystal. It’s relatively the same, except that it lacks the S-shaped crack in the helmet, which would usually be covered by Soukichi’s fedora anyway…and by the way, I would just like to note once again for the record that it’s because of W and Skull that I myself have taken to wearing fedoras myself, as a sign of my everlasting fanboyism to these two Riders.

Well, that’s all for this edition of Kamen Rider Spotlight. Next time, we start and finish at a climax. Ja né!