The Great Leader: A Really Long Retrospective

Today (well, yesterday in Japan Time) marks the 77th birthday of veteren voice actor Naya Gorô. Over the years, he's lent his familiar vocals to many, many films and television programs, and has a particularly extensive animation voiceover career. Of course, you know him best as the voice behind the Shôwa Riders' seemingly immortal enemy, the Great Leader (Dai Shuryô), also known as the guy behind seemingly everything evil that went on from 1971 to 1984 (and maybe even beyond) in the Riderverse. So to honor the voice of evil himself, here's the complete story of the Riders' most persistant enemy in a nutshell.

--Secret Origins--

The true nature of the enigmatic being known only as the Great Leader is still one of the biggest mysteries of the Rider franchise. Outside of the actual TV series, details on his origins are sketchy and often times conflicting. The best source comes from the man himself, creative producer Hirayama Tôru, in the Uchûsen Book Collection Special Edition: Kamen Rider Box volume “My Beloved Characters”, which goes deeper into the backgrounds of a number of the characters in series Hirayama produced, including Kikaida's Professor Gill and Kamen Rider's Doctor Shinigami and Ambassador Hell. The Great Leader pops up in the Shinigami chapter, where we learn, among other things, that our favorite Kaizô-Ningen expert is even nastier than you thought- while hangin' around with the Nazis back in his pre-Shocker days, he used his own former mentor/father figure for experimental fodder while trying to unlock the secrets of prolonging life through remodeling the human body with cybernetics. Brutal. Anyways, Shinigami, seeking a way to revive his cryogenically frozen sister (long story) goes to Tibet in search of a monk by the name of Chan Mao who is said to be able to bring the dead back to life with mysterious, mystical techniques. After a series of events, he winds up in Central America, namely a rock salt cave in Nicaragua, and meets the monk, or at least what's left of him: apparently, he seems to have found a way to transcend his earthly body, and become something else entirely. Or rather, he shed the form and identity of Chan Mao to reveal what he really is: The Leader of Shocker, who asks Shinigami to join him in pursuit of world conquest, and in return he'll figure out how to do something about Shinigami's popsicle-for-a-sibling. The good Doctor promptly signs up, and you know what happens next.

Of course, that doesn't exactly explain much, and it's never even mentioned in any of the series or outside of the book it comes from (although you can find more info about it on some Japanese fan sites) so its actual canonical value is really up to how much weight you put in Hirayama's word vs. everyone else's. Based on the TV series and most everything else, all we know about the Great Leader is that he's essentially evil incarnate, originally comes from somewhere in space, and will seemingly always be around as long as there is darkness in human hearts.

Beyond that, it's really all fan speculation, and if you want mine, you should join the party and read Kamen Rider Sigma!

--The Basics--

Considering he's the biggest, baddest man of all, the Great Leader doesn't actually appear all that often. Out of all the Rider series, he's only appeared in Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider V3, Kamen Rider Stronger, & New Kamen Rider, as well as the Number Ten's Birth! Kamen Riders Back Together Again!! TV Special, a couple of the movies, and that's really it. Well, okay, he *technically* is in Kamen Rider BLACK RX, but I'll elaborate on that when I get there.

In addition, the actual screen time during which we see the Great Leader is usually fairly limited, and for the majority of the series in which he "appears", he's just a voice, communicating via some sort of fancy flashing thingy on the wall. The voice is what really ties it all together, because even when he does appear, he usually looks completely different from the last time we saw him. The few other connecting characteristics are that the Great Leader usually first appears with some kind of hooded robe/mask/giant rock body/something to hide his true true form under, and there's this accompanying deep sinister laughing sound effect that plays in the background in a couple of his appearances.

Whatever the case, even when he doesn't appear, his presence is felt, and in later appearances he generally makes retroactive claims that he was pulling the strings of enemy groups in the shows he wasn't even in, because hey, he's the Big Kahuna after all.

--Appearances--

Although you can probably count the number of times the Great Leader really appears on one hand, here's the series play-by-play. I'd say "Spoiler Warning!" but c'mon, are you really going to stop reading now?

Kamen Rider

The Leader of Shocker/Gelshocker

We don't see the big guy for real until the final episode, #98, although he does have a few shadowy appearances earlier on, including a flashback appearance in #34, and fake-outs in #67 and #94, the latter being one of my favorite scenes in any Kamen Rider ever, when the bad guys use the old "carboard cut-out" trick. When he actually does show up, the big man wears two different masks, which are pulled off by the Double Riders in succession, which reminds me a lot of the final moments of The Prisoner TV series. The masks include a pointy red hood and a ball of snakes; the pic here is of the real face, a cycloptic fella with a big green eye. Prior to being unmasked, he attacks the Riders with poison gas and lasers, and following his final unmasking he attempts to kill them unsuccessfully by self-destructing, although it does lead to the rest of the base blowing up in one of the greatest montages of stock footage explosions ever.

While Naya Gorô is credited in every single episode of the original Kamen Rider (which is something to be proud of with that show) the episodes that actually feature the Leader talkin' trash are #1~19, 20~25, 27~28, 30, #32~39, 40, 42, 44, 46~49, 52~53, 55, 57~60, 62, 64, 66~67, 75, 78~79, 81~83, 87, 89~94, & 96~98. He's also in Go Go Kamen Rider (which is the blown-up version of episode #13) and Kamen Rider vs. Ambassador Hell.

An amusing side note: Although he's usually adressed by some incredibly honorific title like "Idainaru Shokkaa No Dai Shuryô" or some such, there are a couple times in the original show when the Leader is simply called "Boss", particularly by Colonel Zol.

Kamen Rider V3

The Leader of Destron

No, I don't know how he did it either, but the Leader somehow survived a Double Rider-enacted smackdown and rose from the ashes to oversee the mayhem that leads to some guy named Kazami Shirô developing a burning desire to find him and kick his butt. While his true form isn't seen until the end, in episode #52, he does have a couple earlier appearances, looking oddly very different from how he really appears: a slightly oversized skeleton with a pulsating red heart. Particularly, check out the scene in episode #48 when V3 unmasks him only to find...another mask! We never really get an explanation what that's all about, but anywho...V3 defeats him rather easily, and it seems that he's either a fake, or never really existed in the first place, because when our hero cracks open his skull, he just finds a tape recorder. The Leader's final words do mention that he's dying (and thus, V3 must also die via self-destructing-base-action!) so I dunno what really happens, but Kazami seems satisfied in the end so I guess this was as close to a real guy as there was.

Big Daddy D can be heard in episode #1, 3~6, 8~14, 17, 19~22, 26~52, and the Kamen Rider V3 vs. Destron Kaijin movie. V3 did a particularly good job of fleshing out the boss, at least as much as you can; we learn that he's not shy about using good but easily manipulated people like Yuuki Jôji who are easily swayed by his promise of a utopian future once his plans come to pass; and apparently, he knows absolutely jack about Baron Fang's religion, because he at first thinks Smilodon (the human form of Genshi-Tiger) is just a regular everyday woman, despite having been summoned from a steaming altar seconds earlier.

Kamen Rider X

The Great Leader doesn't show up to torment X-Rider, although in Kamen Rider Stronger reveals he was the real power behind GOD all along. Just in case you couldn't tell already.

Kamen Rider Amazon

Although he doesn't voice the still-MIA Great Leader, Naya Gorô does have a big role in this series: He's the narrator for all 24 episodes! It's rather funny, and often makes me think Amazon would be like the sort of thing the Great Leader would tell kids if he were reading them a bedtime story.

Kamen Rider Stronger

The Great Leader of Black Satan

After being AWOL for two series, the big man is back, and this is really where he first got the "Great Leader" moniker, being referred to by that alone or with the "of Black Satan" part. In any case, he isn't seen on-screen until episode #26, but can be heard in episodes #2, 9, & 11~25. This time, he takes the form of a giant buggy-looking dude with a skull face, who is also the "origin" of the creepy Satan Bugs that the Black Satan monsters turn into to take over people. What that means exactly is kind of vague, but I supposed one way of looking at it is that all the Black Satan monsters possess a little of the boss's genes or something along those lines. Anyway, he dukes it out with Stronger as his organization crumbles around him, General Shadow having jumped ship and Dead Lion now out of commission. One thing you can't deny about this incarnation of the Great Leader: he LOVES teleportation. Be prepared to see him do it a lot. Although he is apparently defeated by the big S, we soon learn that isn't the case...

The Great Leader of the Delzer Army (sometimes called as "Rock/Stone Great Leader")

Surprise! After not a peep since episode #26, the head honcho turns out to be alive and well in the finale, #39. It's not stated whether the Black Satan version was a fake, didn't actually die, or just rose from the dead really quickly, but whatever the case, he's back, and he's HUGE! Towering over the Riders, the Great Leader reveals that he has been behind every enemy group thus far- Shocker, Gelshocker, Destron, GOD, Geddon, Garander, Black Satan, and Delzer. He then proceeds to start bringing down the hammer. Of course, this is the original 7 Riders we're talking about here, so they're not going down without a fight. The ensuing battle is really cool, and there's some highly amusing moments (Amazon tries to bite the giant stone guy's leg, V3 & Riderman jump on his shoulders and start bashing his head.) Eventually, the Riders realize the only way to bring the big man down is from the inside, so they combine their powers to teleport in, and discover...

...This guy! He's the Great Leader's true form, a giant tentacled brain/eyeball thing that self-destructs in an attempt to kill the Riders. Guess how that works out? In any event, prior to going boom, he also reveals he's from space. Just kinda, you know, to put it out there.

New Kamen Rider

The Great Leader of Neoshocker

Since Kamen Rider Stronger was at one point going to be the last Kamen Rider series, and New Kamen Rider was at one point going to be a remake of the original, it's kind of understandable that the Great Leader found a way to come back, even if logically, he should be history. Then again, if he could come back a week after the Double Riders totaled him, I guess a couple years following a 7-Rider defeat makes some kind of mathematical sense.

Anyways, the boss doesn't get a whole lot of time to talk this round- he's just in episodes #1~8, 16, 32, and 52~54. But in a change of pace, he's literally in the last three- we see his true form, a giant dragon from space quite a while before the actual finale. As also seen in episode #32, we learn that the Great Leader got really into sacrifice/appeasement sometime between '75 and now, and there's a couple scenes with Neoshocker offering various things (food, people) up to the giant dragon from space to sate his growing impatience with their constant failures, which culminates in him landing the final blow on Admiral Majin, who'd already just been reduced to little more than a cybernetic skull thanks to the combined might of Rider 2, Stronger, and Skyrider, following yet another unsuccessful self-destruct move (those things almost never work.)

Eventually, all 8 Riders go up against the giant dragon from space in a really wicked battle, and manage to defeat him, but not without a little apparent sacrifice that of course all blows over by the next time they show up. And as you can probably tell, I am really that amused by the fact that he takes the form of a giant dragon from space in this show.

Kamen Rider Super-1

Supes never meets the Great Leader in his own show, but guess who was really telling Dogma/Jindogma what to do? Yep, it's...

Number Ten's Birth! Kamen Riders Back Together Again!!

The Badan Generalissimo

What? Where'd that crazy name come from, you ask. I dunno why, but for some reason, in his brief appearance in Kamen Rider ZX's sole TV adventure, he's called that instead of the usual business. Whatever the case, the Great Leader's back, although he only shows up at the end to laugh at the Riders like the evil mastermind that he is. It's also implied (via Ambassador Darkness's speech/stock footage montage) that he's been behind everything since we last saw him, yet again. He appears as a giant skull floating in the sky, something that's retained when he appears in Kamen Rider Spirits (which as you may know by now, is basically a retelling of the ZX story that will probably have a much more conclusive end to our favorite incarnation of evil.)

Now going by the book, this is the last official appearance of the Great Leader. Of course, coupled with the fact that he kinda just got away at the end, a few years later there comes a character who throws a wrench in that philosophy.

Kamen Rider BLACK

No Naya Gorô for you! The Creation King is a different guy, but I'm sure the two shared a beer or something at some point.

Kamen Rider BLACK RX

The Crisis Emperor

Just popping up in episodes #42, & 46~47, we have the big ugly head behind Crisis, who is voiced by...Naya Gorô! Well, he's actually been in the show much longer, in the form of Colonel Dasmader.

Now, officially, no connection has been made between him and the guy I've just been talking about for God-knows-how-long. But most fans think of them as being the same; the Emperor's parting words (after an all-out battle royale with RX) are essentially that even if he dies, there will still be evil organizatons as long as there is evil in the human heart.

--And Beyond--

While the Great Leader has yet to return, Naya Gorô does have a cameo role as one of the SMART BRAIN heads (literally, they're floating hologram heads!) in Kamen Rider Faiz Paradise Lost, and even if we really have seen the end of him with the fall of Badan (or Crisis), his legacy lives on...in Kamen Rider Sigma, which you really should read, if I forgot to mention it!

So there you have it. Happy birthday, Naya-san.

Consequently, today is also my dad's birthday. Coincidence?