Kamen Rider 555 (仮面ライダー５５５（ファイズ）, Kamen Raidā Faizu?, translated as Masked Rider Φ's, Phi's, or Faiz) is a Japanese tokusatsu television series. It is the 13th installment in the popular Kamen Rider Series. It is a joint collaboration between Ishimori Productions and Toei, and was originally broadcasted on TV Asahi from January 26, 2003 to January 18, 2004. It was also dubbed into Korean as Masked Rider Φ's (가면라이더 파이즈 Gamyeon Raideo Paijeu).
Story overview
The Smart Brain Corporation, the world's most powerful corporation, is trying to take over the world using Orphnoch, the next stage in humanity's evolution, to covertly kill off the human population. In pursuit of this, they develop three suits of power armor, called Rider Gear (Delta, Faiz, and Kaixa), to find and protect the Orphnoch King, who can fix a defect within Orphnoch DNA which causes their genetic structure to break down, leading to death.
The Rider Gears are stolen by Hanagata, the Goat Orphnoch and former President of Smart Brain Corporation. He sends them to his foster children (dubbed the Ryuseiji, after the school they attended) so they can stop the Orphnoch from achieving their goal. However, Rider Gears were designed to be worn by Orphnoch, and humans are unable to activate the systems without undergoing genetic modification.
A young loner, Takumi Inui, is unwillingly drawn into the conflict between the Orphnoch and humans and becomes Kamen Rider Faiz to save the life of Mari Sonada, one of the Ryuseiji. The Smart Brain Corporation begins targeting him in an attempt to retrieve the Faiz Gear.
However, there is division amongst the Orphnoch, as those who wish to co-exist with humans rather than kill them, begin resisting Smart Brain, who in turn targets them as well. Most of these "renegade" Orphnochs are either killed, remain neutral or begin siding with the Ryuseiji against the Smart Brain Corporation.
When the Tokyo police discover the Orphnoch are behind a series of bizarre murders, they begin operations to defeat the creatures, largely unaware of the various factions involved. They even begin performing experiments on captured Orphnoch in an attempt to find ways of destroying them, though this does not go well.
The Orphnoch King eventually awakens within a young boy named Terruo, whom Naoya Kaido and Keitaro Kikuchi saved and befriended. Now, it is up to the holders of the Rider Gears to band together and fight for humanity's survival.
Rider Gears
The equipment used in the series to transform is referred to as Rider Gear. It was created to be worn by the Orphnoch to protect their Orphnoch King. Each Rider Gear contains a belt known as a Driver used to form armor that protects the wearer and amplifies their strengths and abilities. The armor's theme is based on a letter from the Greek alphabet, and contains the letter somehow within the aesthetic design. The Gears also have a method to input command codes, a cell phone number keypad for most, which can activate armor and various weapons. The sound effects of a dialing in any of the Rider Gear phones were later referenced in episode 17 of Kamen Rider Kabuto.
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The TV series focused on three sets of Rider Gear: Faiz Gear, Kaixa Gear, and Delta Gear. During the TV series, Hanagata, the foster father of the Ryuseiji and former chief executive of Smart Brain, attempted to create several new Rider Gears, using two lost people to test out the first two. The two belts failed to create Rider armor, resulting in the wearer’s deaths. When Takuma of Lucky Clover wore the third one it disabled him for a few seconds before it dissolved. The fourth dissolved without ever being worn. The Kamen Rider 555 movie, Paradise Lost, introduced two additional sets of Rider Gear: Psyga Gear and Orga Gear.
Riot Trooper Army
The show featured a series of mass-produced henshin belts called Smart Buckle, which enabled the wearer to transform into a generic Riot Trooper. The Riot Trooper was introduced in the movie, and later added at the end of the TV series.
Naming Conventions
Each set of Rider Gear is code-locked, in addition to being only usable by Orphnoch. These codes, input through the phone of each Gear, are a set of numbers that relate to the theme of each Gear. For the Faiz Gear, the code is 5-5-5, or "fives", phonetically similar to the word Faiz. For the Kaixa Gear, the code is 9-1-3. In Japanese, 9 is "Kyuu" ("K" or "Ka" sound taking ) 1 is "Ichi" ("I" or "Ii" sound) 3 is "San" ("Sa" sound) Thus "Ka-i-sa" ("9-1-3"). Delta Gear's phone was voice-activated, yet nonetheless also was coded with 3-3-3, a reference to the Greek letter delta, a triangle.
The Japanese pronunciation of Psyga's number uses the same method as Kaixa: 3 is "San" ("Sa" sound), 1 is "Ichi" ("I" or "Ii" sound, similar to Kaixa's name ) and 5 is "Go" ("Ga" sound, taken from the letter "G" in Go ), thus: Sa-i-ga ("3-1-5"). The Orga Gear, patterned after Greek omega, the final letter, is code-locked to 0-0-0.
References
"Kamen Rider 555 Info". GameFAQs. http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/data/919210.html. Retrieved on 2007.
External links
- Official website from TV Asahi
- Official website from Toei TV * Kamen Rider 555 on DVD * Korean Masked Rider Φ's (Korean)