YMMV / Kamen Rider BLACK RX

• Awesome Music: 11 Rider Dai-senka. A love letter to all things Rider (at the time) lasting over 8 minutes. By Ichiro Mizuki.
  • The opening theme. Takayuki Miyauchi's voice is powerful.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: It’s par for the course to have at least one, but special mention has to go to the first episode, where Shigeru picks up a copy of the Kamen Rider Black manga and sees events which are about to unfold. No explanation is given, and it never comes up again.
• Contested Sequel: Due to the tone shift, as well as the fact that, for many, Kotaro's story had been told in the previous series, opinions on this one aren't as favorable as those for Black. While it's not outright hated (especially nowadays, considering that there have been series that are seen as worse), opinions on this one are mixed, to say the least.
• Epileptic Trees: Thanks to Emperor Crisis having the same voice actor as The Great Leader of Shocker, as well as the fact that he's a giant floating head and that he's mentioned personally fighting the original 10 riders at some point, some fans suspect that Crisis is actually another incarnation of the Great Leader^note in his (at the time) last confirmed appearance in Kamen Rider ZX, the Great Leader of Shocker appears as The Generalissimo of Badan, a giant skull, and battles all 10 Kamen Riders at the time; since the movie never received a proper series to tell ZX's story, presumably the 10 riders were still battling the forces of Badan, which would line up with them battling the forces of Emperor Crisis around the world; as Emperor Crisis stated that he battled the 10 previous Kamen Riders personally at one point, it would make sense if that one point was as the Generalissimo of Badan.
  • Interestingly, if this theory was true, this would make Kotaro in his incarnation from the previous series the only Showa-era TV Rider not to have fought an organization led by the Great Leader, either directly or indirectly^note the first 2 series had the Leader himself as the Big Bad; Stronger added a Retcon that made the Great Leader responsible for Government of Darkness and Geddon, and he was also the leader of Delza from Stronger; he returned to lead Neo Shocker in Skyrider, and while he wasn't involved in either version of Dogma, he did fight Super 1 and ZX as the great leader of Badan.
• Growing the Beard: The series begins with a much lighter and goofier tone than its predecessor (Kamen Rider BLACK was probably the darkest instalment of the franchise in the 20th century)—jarringly so. The arc beginning in episode 14, however, features more tense, serious storytelling throughout, peaking in episode 15, with Kotaro achieving his new Super Mode while screaming in rage with a dead child cradled in his arms. The series doesn't forget its comedic side after the arc concludes, but it does learn to balance comedy and drama better.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: #20 saw a Monster of the Week who liked to eat bananas. On the very same day that episode was broadcast, a certain future actor named Yutaka Kobayashi was born, and he would go on to play the banana-themed Kamen Rider Baron. Really!
• Inferred Holocaust: Big time. When RX destroys Emperor Crisis in the final episode, the Demon World is destroyed as well, even though earlier episodes showed that yes, there are good people in the Demon World fighting against Crisis. Oops.
• Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
• Never Live It Down: Even though Shadow Moon eventually did a Heel–Face Turn here, he's usually remembered as a "Kickass Kamen Rider villain", thus he usually gets villain roles in other works featuring Black and RX. To the point that, in the first Kamen Rider Decade movie, an alternate Shadow Moon is the Big Bad, and it takes a mass Rider Kick performed by every title Rider from the original through Decade to finish him off. Admittedly, he did still promise to one day get his revenge as he switched sides.
• Refrain from Assuming: The ending theme, "Dareka ga Kimi wo Aishiteru" (Someone Out There Loves You), is sometimes known as "Lonely Heart".
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A young Yoko Honna (who later voiced Shizuku, Cure Black and Sumeragi Lee Noriega) appeared in one episode.
  • Episode 20's Monster of the Week is played by Kouen Okumura, who fifteen years later would have a steady role of Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger as Ryunosuke Sugishita.
  • Rikiya Koyama (Joe the Haze) is more known in the 2000s as a voice actor and rarely makes appearances in live-action TV shows and films.
  • Jo Onodera, the son of Kamen Rider series creator Shotaro Ishinomori portrays recurring character Goro. Being Shotaro Ishinomori's son, Onodera has many contributions to the franchise and has since been supervising later series such as Kamen Rider Saber. Outside of Kamen Rider, Onodera is also regarded for the role of Tsutomu Nakajima in Ultraman Dyna.
• Special Effects Failure: The Big Bad is Emperor Crisis, a giant demon head. The puppet is pretty impressive... except for shots where you can clearly see the operator's legs behind it.
• Vindicated by History: While not to the extent of Kamen Rider Amazon, it's been viewed more favorably over the years - like Amazon, it plays a key role in the plot of Decade. The fact that it's American adaptation is seen as worse doesn't hurt it either.