Trivia / Kikaider

• Actor-Inspired Element: While playing Professor Gill, Mitsuo Ando insisted on having his face made up to look pale and thin each episode, to better convey what a man who spent all his time in a place surrounded by machines and without sunlight would look like.
• Adaptation Overdosed:
  • The manga by Shotaro Ishinomori.
  • Contemporary to the manga, the tokusatsu series Jinzo Ningen Kikaider and Kikaider 01
  • The Alternate Continuity toku film Mechanical Violator Hakaider, which itself had no less than four manga adaptations. Was followed by a video game sequel.
  • The remake manga Kikaider 02.
  • The anime series, consisting of Android Kikaider, Kikaider 01 and Kikaider vs. Inazuman.
  • The remake toku film Kikaider REBOOT.
• Live Action Show First: While the manga was made alongside the live action series, it first started being published in August 1972, while the toku first aired during July of the same year, thus predating the manga by two months.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Averted for the tokusatsu, which is still in print to this day. Also averted for the manga, which is currently being sold digitally through Comixology. Played straight for the Kikaider Code 02 manga however.
• What Could Have Been
  • A third TV show to follow Kikaider 01 was considered but dropped.
  • Hakaider's movie was to lead into a spin off tv series that was gonna premiere a year after the film's release. While ultimately scrapped, elements of the planned show became the unrelated Toei tokusatsu Choukou Senshi Changerion. Even earlier than that, A TV series starring a heroic Hakaider was planned by Ishinomori all the way back in the 80s as an attempt to bring the series back. There's even concept art for it.
• Working Title: 01 Kikaider and Kikaider 01 were juggled before the latter was chosen.

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