Kamen Rider Kiva (仮面ライダーキバ), stylized in English as Masked Rider Kiva, is the 2008 Kamen Rider Japanese tokusatsu television series produced by Toei Company and Ishimori Productions. It is the series' ninth series in its Heisei era, and 18th series overall since the debut of Kamen Rider in 1971. It premiered on January 27, 2008, following the finale of Kamen Rider Den-O, and aired as a part of TV Asahi's 2008 Super Hero Time block with Engine Sentai Go-onger. The series was advertised to have horror film themes, such as Kamen Rider Kiva being a vampire. The first episode began with a commemoration of the series in honor of the seventieth anniversary of Shotaro Ishinomori's birthday.

Synopsis

22 years after the disappearance of his father, Wataru Kurenai lives in an infamous "haunted house" where he is destined as Kamen Rider Kiva to fight Fangires, a species of life force-draining vampires who can assume stained glass-like monster body that his father fought years ago before his disappearance. Wataru also deals with Kamen Rider Ixa, who is part of an organization seeking to destroy the Fangire menace, and the Fangires' Rider, Kamen Rider Saga, Wataru's half-brother Fangire who later becomes the present-day Kamen Rider Dark Kiva at the finale. The story is split between Wataru in the present (2008–09) and his father Otoya in the past (1986–87), slowly revealing the link between the Fangire race and Kiva. The characters of Kamen Rider Kiva are found in two related periods where the heroes fight the Fangires and protect a few of them who are non-hostile:

Episodes

Each episode's title is a word or phrase relating to music and a phrase describing the episode separated by a symbol from musical notation. For example, the second episode's title is written in Japanese as "組曲♪親子のバイオリン". From episode 2 onward, Kivat begins the majority of episodes by stating a piece of trivia about music, art, chess, and other subjects. From episode 30 onward, Tatsulot joins the opening statement as he and Kivat provide recaps of the previous episode.

Films

Climax Deka

A movie titled opened in theaters on April 12, 2008. It is a crossover between the characters of Kiva and Kamen Rider Den-O, who join forces to fight a new evil Imagin who has teamed up with the Fangire Clan. Alongside Climax Deka, a short film titled was shown as a double feature.

King of the Castle in the Demon World

opened in Japanese theaters on August 9, 2008, and was double-billed with Engine Sentai Go-onger: Boom Boom! Bang Bang! GekijōBang!!. It featured two new Riders who have been shown in silhouettes in Japanese children's magazines:, who is a monster hunter named portrayed by Shouma Yamamoto, and is partnered. The villain of the movie is portrayed by Ken Horiuchi of the comedy troupe Neptune, a death-row inmate who transforms into with. The movie takes place in an alternate universe, as trying to place the story of the movie anywhere within the story of the series always leaves events out of place and would cancel out other events. Furthermore, Shouma Yamamoto portrays Takato Shiramine in the Kamen Rider Kiva movie, but he also portrays Taiga Nobori in the actual series.

"Den-Liner, Into Space!"

is a planetarium show that featured the cast of Kiva and Den-O to teach children about the universe. It was shown at the Kagoshima Municipal Science Hall's planetarium between January 2 and March 30, 2009.

Adventure Battle DVD

In the Hyper Battle DVD, Wataru Kurenai, Keisuke Nago, and Otoya Kurenai introduce themselves to a boy (the viewer) who has wandered into the Café mald'amour and offer to teach him how he can be like each of them. This DVD is referred to as an and it takes on the form of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. After having an "Ixa-cise" with Nago and a special lesson from Otoya, a Fangire attacks and the viewer can choose to transform Kiva into Garulu Form, Basshaa Form, Dogga Form, or the secret DoGaBaKi Emperor Form.

Production

The Kamen Rider Kiva trademark was registered by Toei on October 10, 2007.

King of Vampire

Kiva's S.I.C. Hero Saga side story follows the life of the characters after the finale while expanding on moments in the history of the 1986 storyline. The story had begun running in the January 2010 issue of Monthly Hobby Japan magazine. Like the series' episode titles, the titles of the first three chapters of the S.I.C. Hero Saga follow a similar format, but feature two musically themed titles separated by an item from musical notation (the former is an opera while the latter is a song from said opera, the third names the composer and one of his songs). The last chapter is a retelling of the final scene of the TV series, except instead of Masao and the Neo-Fangires, Kiva-la comes to warn them about the Lion Fangire having turned into a giant Sabbat.

Novel

, written by Kenji Konuta and supervised by Toshiki Inoue, is part of a series of spin-off novel adaptions of the Heisei Era Kamen Riders. The novel was released on March 18, 2013.

Cast

Guest actors

Songs

Avex's blog for Kiva mentions a song entitled "Bite There Soul" that was written by Naruse and YUJI as a heavy metal song played by street musicians in episode 9 which was planned to be released at a future date, and was subsequently put on the final CD box set as "Bite Their Soul" then released on January 21, 2009. A mini-album released on August 6, 2008, titled SUPERNOVA features the theme songs for Kiva's four additional forms performed by TETRA-FANG. The tracks include "Innocent Trap",, "Shout in the Moonlight", and "Supernova", which has a music video included in a special DVD edition of SUPERNOVA. An unfeatured song from SUPERNOVA titled "Silent Shout" is Dogga Form's theme. Another track from the album "Message" is a tribute song for the character Otoya Kurenai. Kouhei Takeda has recorded a song titled "This love never ends" as the theme song for Otoya as Ixa. Nana Yanagisawa and Yu Takahashi have also provided their voices for tracks to be included on an album for all characters who have become Kamen Rider Ixa. This song has since been revealed to be titled "Feel the same" on an album titled Inherited-System. Other songs on this album include "Don't Lose Yourself" performed by Keisuke Kato as Keisuke Nago and "Inherited-System" performed by the. Kenji Matsuda as Jiro performs the song "Keep alive" for the album. For a TETRA-FANG album titled DESTINY, Koji Seto has recorded the vocals for a song titled "Mind garden." Several songs from this album are theme songs for the members of the Checkmate Four group: "Lightning to Heaven" for the Rook, "Exterminate Time" for the King (Kamen Rider Dark Kiva), "Eternity Blood" for the Bishop, and "Rainy Rose" for the Queen (Maya). Also on the album is "Prayer~Message 2", another tribute to Otoya. An album titled Masked Rider Kiva Re-Union was released on June 24, 2009, with some original Kiva songs rearranged. "Destiny's Play" has been rearranged, Koji Seto & Shouma Yamamoto sang "Roots of the King" together, Koji Seto gave his own rendition of "This love never ends", and Kouhei Takeda gave his own rendition of "Supernova".