Almost all of the Riders count as Woobies in some way, shape, or form.
Showa Era
- Lets start with the original, shall we? Takeshi Hongo is a prime example of a man who had his life torn away from him. He just wanted to live a normal and happy life, yet SHOCKER took it away from him. He can't even hug people or shake hands, due to his strength!
- Shiro literally watched his family be executed in front of him. That says it all, really.
- Keisuke also was forced to watch his father sacrifice himself in order to allow him to become stronger.
- Tackle is even sadder, as she had plans for what she wanted to do, which was live a normal life. She wasn't called a Rider not because she was a woman, but because she refused to hold onto the hope of living a normal life. THEN she pulls a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Ryo isn't that sad in the Tv special, but in Spirits, they take his Woobie status up a notch. He has amnesia, has to fight the other Riders in order to regain his memory, and eventually finds out he was created to be what amounts to a spare body/powerup to the main villain, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
- Fact. Khotaro Minami has it rough. He was forced to fight his adoptive brother to the death, and wage a one man war against an army of mutants. Even when life got slightly better for him, he ended up having his adoptive parents get murdered.
- No one in the franchise can even hold a candle to Shin in the Woobie department. Seriously, the entire film could be called "Nice Guy gets utterly screwed over: The Movie". To say the least, he gets unknowingly turned into a Humanoid Abomination. It just gets worse for him from there. That ought to say just how much it sucks being this guy.
- In Kamen Rider Gaim:
- When Kaito was little, he was left in an orphanage and his parents promised to retrieve him. They never did. The reason? It was simply to expensive to keep him, and Kaito grew up saddened with the fact that he never saw them again. Since this happened after Yggdrasil took over the city, he swore to take them down any way he could.
- Kota has a breakdown when he realizes that the monster he slayed in the first episode was his old friend Yuya, even after Micchy tries to (unsuccessfully) hide the truth.
