Compared to Super Sentai, Kamen Rider has numerous character deaths sprinkled throughout each series, has plenty of tragic and nightmarish moments, and tends to be aimed at older audiences. Although it should be mentioned that Kamen Rider is older than Sentai.
- Kamen Rider V3 has a much darker beginning in comparison to its predecessor, with the first episode having Shiro's entire family be brutally murdered by Destron and him being motivated throughout the series at least partially by revenge.
- Kamen Rider X, in contrast to the previous two shows, has noticeably higher number of on-screen deaths and the overall tone is much more grimmer and depressing, ranging from Keisuke losing his father to his girlfriend's chicanery.
- Kamen Rider BLACK was much darker than previous shows largely due to the personal connection Kotaro had with the villains, spending the first part of the series trying to rescue his stepbrother and the second half having to fight said stepbrother after he is brainwashed into being his murderous rival. The villains were also much more grounded and realistic than previous shows, being a cult that operates through a network of influential societal figures. The ending was also much more of a downer, with the villains defeated but Kotaro having failed to save stepbrother and uphold his promise to his two close friends, who were forced to flee Japan and who Kotaro never makes contact again out of shame.
- Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue was the darkest and grittiest interpretation of Kamen Rider to date at the time it came out, barring Ishinomori's own manga works. It features fight scenes that are more visceral and bloody, a Rider who instead of a traditional super-suited human like mosts is genetically altered and undergoes a horrifying transformation, more moral grey, and the main character being just a normal guy caught up in the conflict instead of a paragon of justice. And if that weren't bad enough, almost everybody in the film dies.
- Kamen Rider Kuuga, especially when compared to some of the older series before or since, deals with a race of ancient serial killers, the tremendous power level disasters of Kuuga himself, Yusuke once going berserk on a monster for his horrific deeds, and the final battle ending in a bloody fist fight. The only brighter part itself is the Rider starts out as a normal human instead of being modified like the predecessors.
- Zig-Zagged with Kamen Rider Agito as it deals with more darker moments such as genocide from a god, how gruesome the kills are, and how bad two Riders reached their low points and overall. On the lighter side, it's the only one of the first four Heisei shows with a significant comedy component, but while not to the extent of, oh say Den-O. A good many of the scenes with Shouichi and his adopted family are written as scenes from a Dom Com, and any interactions between Hikawa and Shouichi quickly turn into a Straight Man and Wise Guy sketch.
- Kamen Rider Ryuki, even within the franchise as a whole, has most of the Riders as bad as their monsters they fight, revolving around humans trying to kill humans more than anything else; some have sympathetic reasons for seeking the wish the winner will receive but are still trying to kill people; some are as murderous as any villain. Of thirteen Riders, fifteen if the Alternatives count, there are two that you would consider pure "good guys" and they spend most of the series unable to actually steer the course of events as the Big Bad holds all the cards. In the end, everyone dies, and to reset it, one of the remaining main characters must also die. It's complicated, but not only is she gone, but in the new, reset world, no one will ever know that she was their friend, or what she did to save them. One of the final scenes is her aunt, all alone in the Local Hangout that they once ran together.
- Kamen Rider 555 became a very dark point in the franchise, with the focus on the monsters being as human as the people they try to kill, the humans themselves not always being quite so innocent, and the themes of death, betrayal and ironic for a show with a phone Transformation Trinket, communication problems up the wazoo. Taken to new heights in the novel, including Kusaka's raping of Mari, Yuka getting pregnant by Keitaro and Yuji beating the shit out of Kusaka for that.
- Kamen Rider Blade, while it greatly tones down the blood, graphic violence and terrifying content of its predecessor 555, still has its fair share of dramatic moments. The first arc of the series deals with Tachibana making a Deal with the Devil with Isaka to help rid of his fear at the cost of becoming his unwilling soldier which culminated in Sayoko being killed by the Undead when she tried to cure her lover. Even after that's done, there's also the factor of the improperly sealed Spider Undead repeatedly and gradually corrupting Mutsuki until he becomes fully evil with the heroes failing to save him in spite of their efforts. Other factors include Hajime's reveal as the Joker, whose presence as the last standing Undead destroys the world, Kenzaki's rapid unstable evolution by the time he attained King Form, and in the end, Kenzaki forgoes his humanity and becomes a Joker to ensure the planet's safety and Hajime's happiness at the cost of the two having to stay away from each other.
- Kamen Rider Kabuto is this compared to Hibiki's Second Half. While having its fair share of Comedy, this series' tone is at least still considered as dark and as Kamen Rider Agito and Kamen Rider Blade especially during the revelation of the backstory of Dark Kabuto which presents the horror of human experimentation that turned innocent children into Worm.
- Kamen Rider Kiva is created to be much darker tone in comparison to it's Lighter and Softer predecessor Den-O. While it has fair share of comedic moments, themes such as prejudices between races and frequent death counts towards random civilians perpetrated by the Monster of the Week is quite common not unlike Toshiki Inoue's previous Rider shows.
- Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is more similar in tone to the Japanese Kamen Rider series and thus this for North American tokusatsu like Power Rangers. It regularly dealt with betrayal, distrust, questionable motives and underlying truths in initially good-looking characters, and the MIB were "good guys" with highly questionable methods and even played a part in The Sociopath JTC's Start of Darkness. It also did away with the formulaic Monster of the Week in lieu of the "season-long movie chopped into episode-length segments" format the Japanese KR series used from Kuuga through Kabuto. There was comic relief in the form of Lacey, Trent, and Aunt Grace, but Aunt Grace got Chuck Cunningham Syndrome midseason and Lacey said Screw This, I'm Outta Here once things started to get too hot. They had to deal with Never Say "Die"... and did it by replacing death with something worse. While still considerably lighter than Ryuki, Dragon Knight deserves mention for making itself a name in tokusatsu circles as an attempt to make a US Kamen Rider without tampering with what makes a Kamen Rider a Kamen Rider by toning it down to a Power Rangers rip-off/copy.
- Zig-Zagged with Kamen Rider Wizard, which, in comparison to its other Heisei Phase 2 predecessors, is a lot more intense, going back to some of the older Heisei roots; Phantoms are made from people falling from despair while all against Haruto are Always Chaotic Evil, Haruto spending most of his series surpressing his inner Phantom, and Koyomi's backstory plus the revelations regarding her are shown in a more tragic light, right during the second Sabbath. On the upside, it is nowhere near as dark as its successor Gaim, the Phantoms consistently fail to make another of their brethren onscreen, the comical antics of Shunpei, Donut Shop Hungry staff, and Nitoh, and generally follows the same lighthearted 2-episode formula the other Heisei Phase 2 seasons before it did.
- Kamen Rider Gaim might have a bright fruit theme to it, but its head writer is Gen Urobuchi of Puella Magi Madoka Magica infamy. For those not familiar with Madoka Magica, the fact that he's nicknamed "Urobutcher" and that he specifically named Black, Ryuki and Faiz as influences on Gaim should start ringing alarm bells. It starts out with Deconstructions of Mons and the Kid Hero before getting to a situation similar to Ryuki with multiple Riders of which only Gaim himself has a fully functional moral compass; the rest range from AntiVillains using questionable methods for good goals to Social Darwinists pursuing power at any cost to a Jerkass who uses his influence to pick on children. But the real trap was sprung a quarter of the way in: a supporting character is turned into a monster, but unlike other recent Rider series he isn't saved and is killed despite Gaim's best efforts. The one who did the deed proceeds to rub it in by stating he did a heroic thing by eliminating a threat to innocents. And even as Gaim asserts that he can't kill a human, we find out that some of the monsters are also transformed humans - one (the first one he faced, in fact) was even a friend of his that had gone missing. A few episodes later makes it even worse - it's a Cosmic Horror Story, the thing making the monsters had already overtaken at least one alien world (meaning that even the monsters that weren't once human were still people), and Earth will likely be overtaken within ten years. Even its Bittersweet Ending has some ominousness: Specifically, while the heroes do save the world, the Cosmic Horror Story elements are something that will always continue on other worlds, and there's no restoring those who were lost.
- Kamen Rider Drive is this compared to Riku Sanjo's previous works W and Fourze. While not as dark as Gaim, it has the most brutal opening scene in Kamen Rider history and though it has a period of light-heartedness, its plot gets progressively darker in the second half, especially after Banno is introduced. The Roidmudes' backstory only makes it even worse.
- Played frighteningly straight and taken to sadistic extremes with the adult-oriented Kamen Rider Amazons, the darkest Kamen Rider entry in the ENTIRE franchise overall (even more so than Shin), as the Amazon Riders brutally kill their enemies. The original Kamen Rider Amazon was already this, a Bloodier and Gorier series where All of the Other Reindeer means the public is often against him to boot, but its Spiritual Successor takes it to very insane and sadistic levels, with the story running on Grey-and-Grey Morality. The second season is full of Tragedy, being bleaker and more violent than the first due to increasing amounts of Amazons.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, despite the gaming theme, sports a much darker Crapsaccharine World tone than its predecessor as it resembles a medical drama rather than a regular heroes show. Bugsters are Serious Business in this setting, most of the Riders are either amoral Anti-Heroes or flat-out Jerkasses as they are forced to make difficult disease in medicine just like Real Life, a special surgery is required to become a Rider, the Proto Gashats having severe side effects if overused, which leads to the permanent death of the user .
- The medical theme means we do sometimes encounter real life diseases. It's the only series where you have one Rider keeping the monster outside a hospital so the other can perform surgery on a cancer patient whose disease was so far along that other surgeons had refused to treat him because his inevitable death would tarnish their reputations. Dear God. Worse, it was pancreatic cancer, which in Real Life has a habit of popping up again and killing sufferers right on schedule even when doctors are sure it's been eliminated. This isn't discussed, but anyone familiar with the disease will expect Hiiro to not really have bought the patient a great deal of time despite the successful procedure, and to know that Hiiro and the patient both know this. Due to the comparison, the ending was treated rather realistically as the patients who died from the disease do not return from the dead but despite that still ends with a hopeful note that one day such diseases can be cured.
- Kamen Rider Build starts off with a Downer Beginning which is easily the darkest of all the TV Kamen Rider series, topped only by the aforementioned Amazons in-franchise. It features unethical human experimentation, humans being turned into Smashes, one of the main characters being framed for murder - and mind you, that's just within the first episode. The first part of the series ends with the villains finally managing to spark the civil war that's been brewing, and the show does not hesitate to demonstrate that War Is Hell, with the hero going through PTSD after accidentally killing someone. In addition, the heroes end up feeling responsible for the rapidly escalating conflict due to having played right into the villains' hands. And it still gets worse - like Gaim, this series is also a Cosmic Horror Story. The true Big Bad turns out to an alien who goes around destroying planets for fun, just because he can, and everything, including the war, has been part of a years-long plan to not only regain his world-destroying power so that he can do so to Earth, but also become powerful enough to destroy the universe.
- Kamen Rider Zi-O, despite being an anniversary series, has managed to became darker than it's spiritual predecessor Decade. It features titular Rider being an Evil Overlord that caused a dystopian future in which he took over the world and had many time travelers from that future come to the present time and prevent it from happening. Even with its fair share of lighthearted moments, Zi-O eventually became more intense with Sougo finally coming face to face with Oma Zi-O, resulting in his temporary Heroic BSoD, White Woz's presence in the show, the zero amount of loyalty among the Time Jackers, Sougo spending about 5 episodes with Geiz and Tsukuyomi against him, the fact that Sougo never had friends prior to them, and the Kiva tribute in general. Not to mention how Sougo and Hiryu lost his parents plus more of Tsukuyomi's past, all courtesy of Swartz himself; the fact that he was Tsukuyomi's brother and erased her memories out of the fact that she was next in line to rule instead of him as well as being responsible for the accident that led to loss of those parents and being the reason Sougo had time powers and how Oma Zi-O's future came to be - all so he can become king himself and obtain power. Plus the final arc deals with time paradoxes that leads to monsters from all over the Heisei area in one world with Tsukasa dealing with the possibiity of destroying Zi-O's world and unlike previous final battles, the climax of Sougo's involves Geiz taking a critical hit for him from Swartz and dying, prompting Sougo to tearfully become Oma Zi-O and viciously and brutally obliterating Swartz once he decimates Tsukuyomi for her deception.
- Kamen Rider Zero-One initially started out fairly light with an optimistic perspective on technology and AI. As the show goes on, it continuously gets more depressing with each consecutive arc, with losses becoming more common for the main characters and villains coming out victorious more often than not. Even with the many victories that come for the heroes after the Workplace Competition Arc, the Ark-Zero and Ark-One arcs completely erase all of those victories with the revival of the Ark. Aptly put, the trajectory of the series' main plot goes from a optimistic Post-Cyberpunk story revolving around a All-Loving Hero trying to fight for the future of AI to a downright tragic story revolving around a Unscrupulous Hero driven by loss and vengeance. Zero-One Others tops it up with having a villain undoing some of heroes' victories, and has one of the most gratuitously bleak endings in the franchise.
- Kamen Rider Saber manages to become this despite its Fairy Tale Motifs, especially when compared to Takuro Fukuda's Ghost. While it started out to be a bit more bright and upbeat than Zero-One due to delving into The Power of Friendship and True Companions as well as having a fair share of funny moments, things are starting to turn for the worse in the following Story Arcs, such as more fatalities, Heel Face Revolving Doors, and an Arc Villain running The Order while conspiring against humanity by working with another villain, who is later revealed to be an Omnicidal Maniac near the end of the series.
- Within the first ten episodes, Kamen Rider Revice is already becoming this in spite of the premise being more akin to a Buddy Cop Show, being more gritty and down-to-Earth than its fantastical predecessor. One of the two main Riders is a vicious demon who would be out eating people if not kept in check by his partner (with one of his first actions trying to eat Ikki's mother), the villains are an evil cult who use dysfunctional people to summon demons, the protagonist's brother and father have hostile inner demons with the intention of emotionally torturing his family, and the worst of all, similar to Saber, the head of a government special-ops agency is in cahoots with the Big Bad all along.
- Kamen Rider Geats takes it to terrifying degrees very early on. This is easily the darkest of Takahashi's series despite being slightly lighter than the previous entries involving Riders fighting against each other (especially its Spiritual Antithesis Ryuki, since the DGP has a rule against in-fighting between Riders), with less bright and colorful suits, a much less friendly atmosphere, and the premise of a bunch of people being forcibly thrust into a survival game where they have to kill rampaging monsters to acquire points. It's very easy to die in the DGP too, as many minor Riders have already died in a very short span of time, and characters advertised as supporting characters have already died in battle in the first few episodes. The main character himself is a far cry from previous leads, being more willing to manipulate the gullible, something previous main characters would never even dream of doing. If the opening theme is indication enough, the series is set to get even darker as it goes along, which is later proven true in the second half, such as two of the four main characters being driven to temporary villainy out of vengeance, the Big Bad spreading chaos and misery to the world by turning the Deadly Game into a free-for-all battle royale, and the main character ascending to godhood through a Thanatos Gambit just to erase the DGP and their boss from existence as well as giving the surviving characters a happy ending.
- Kamen Rider Gotchard is a downplayed example as the tone is Lighter and Softer compared to Geats due to its high school setting. Similar to Zero-One, however, it tackles the themes of human malice and the true nature of evil, since most of the main Riders' opponents are very despicable (and their acts of villainy are disturbingly similar to those in real life), even the most sympathetic ones. And then the story becomes far darker once the second arc kicks in, starting with the Big Bad showing up.
- Kamen Rider BLACK SUN one-ups the original BLACK and is just as dark as the manga adaptation in terms of tone and level of violence, with more brutal fights, heavier focus on the dark side of politics, and discrimination towards the Kaijin. While the series is not as Bloodier and Gorier as Shin Kamen Rider: Prologue and Kamen Rider Amazons, Kotaro is still at odds with Nobuhiko, who is not Brainwashed into believing he's the acting head honcho of Gorgom this time around. And by the end of the story, Kotaro had Aoi kill him before he could be fully assimilated into the next Creation King and potentially prolong the discrimination of the Kaijin.
- Kamen Rider Outsiders is never meant to be for the faint of heart, even for a Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club spin-off series. Other than the fact that the villains are the main characters of this anthology gathered to oppose an authoritarian artificial intelligence bent on taking over the world to impose its rule on humanity to the point of having the world under mass surveillance; and even gathered every heroic Rider into donating their powers, using them to stoke fear and terror against the villains and the entire human race. What's worse? The villains weren't kidding about Zein exterminating humanity, and it plans to speed up the process by using a Deadly Game to trick humanity into setting up their own extinction. The real kicker, the first half of the miniseries ends with Zein being one step ahead of the villains and outed as the Big Bad, while its now-former accomplices live with the regret of unwittingly dooming humanity to self-destruction.
