YMMV / Kamen Rider BLACK

• Awesome Music:
  • A lot of it in this series, especially the opening and ending themes and Henshin, Rider Black!)
  • Black Hole Message is one of the things that can make the words love and peace sound like a Badass Creed.
• Common Knowledge: Despite clearly being designed as Black's opposite number, Shadow Moon is not a Rider, who were strictly heroes of justice at the time. It wouldn't be until Kamen Rider Ryuki that villainous Riders would be established as a franchise staple, thus making Shadow Moon's Rider status is debatable at best by today's standards.
• Complete Monster: While Gorgom was a Cult led by literal monsters, these two Psycho Supporters prove that Humans Are the Real Monsters:
  • Professor Hideomi Kuromatsu is a Nobel Prize winner who moonlights as Gorgom's chief scientist. The man responsible for converting victims into mutants, Kuromatsu's MO is to propose a Deal with the Devil to young men, promising to make their bodies stronger by performing an experiment that makes them worse, which once resulted in a suicide. After making a deal with Kohtaro's close friend, Kuromatsu turns him into a Wolf Man and confesses to using him as a guinea pig. Kuromatsu orders his subordinates to cause several car accidents for him to save the injured victims and send them to a Training from Hell where they shoot and throw grenades at each other until they are prepared to become domestic terrorists.
  • Ryuzaburo Sakata is the Pro-Gorgom leader of the EP Party. With the help of a psychiatrist, Sakata kidnaps artists and brainwashes them into becoming spies for Gorgom with RSD and hypnosis. Sakata teaches young musicians about the "Devil's Melody", a song that can damage a person's senses, ordering a girl to play the song in a public location. After stealing a prototype from a benevolent man, Sakata takes advantage of his political party's boy squad to make himself look like a peacemaker and spearheads a systematic Genocide from the Inside against the sickly and frail with a machine that supposedly cures their illnesses but slowly kills them instead.
  • In the manga, by Shotaro Ishinomori, Kohtaro Minami/Kamen Rider Black himself is the Demon King in the Bad Future of 2018. Achieving the position of Gorgom's majesty by killing his rival stepbrother, Kohtaro started a war by launching nuclear bombs towards every continent, eradicating human civilization and forcing the few survivors to live in tribes. Kohtaro routinely orders his troops to attack any colony that they come across and kill everyone inside, allowing them to dismember corpses and slaughter babies. Recognizing his younger self and desperately trying to preserve his own existence, Kohtaro argues to have done nothing wrong as he was "simply the ruler of this world". Proudly calling himself a "truly all-powerful Demon King", Kohtaro reveals that he has drained the energy of the planet just so he could "take this world to hell with me" in the event of an assassination.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Shadow Moon remains as one of the more popular go-to guys for Kamen Rider villains. So much so that he made a return appearance in a few crossover movies. Even the fans theorized that if Shadow Moon is officially a Rider, he would be named Kamen Rider Shadow.^note Not without merit, as Kotaro's referred to insistently by Gorgom members as Black Sun.
• Evil Is Cool: Shadow Moon, for being an unflinching badass who leads the series in a darker direction with his debut and for being a consistently imposing enemy to Kotaro. There's a reason he's considered the Ur-evil Kamen Rider, despite not technically being a Rider himself.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • It's popular all right in Japan, but in other Asian regions, it's something of a childhood hero for many who were kids around the 90's, especially Indonesia, so phenomenally popular there that if any Indonesian shows are doing 'tributes' to Kamen Rider, they will be represented mainly by Black. This is because it's the first one to be shown on TV there. It became the Gateway Series. And for Indonesia, Gateway Series are usually very well-liked.
  • It is also rather popular among Brazilian otaku who have the slightest notion of tokusatsu, next to RX (of course, these were the only Japanese Riders to air there).
  • It has a lot of love in the Philippines. Even in the present day, fans there will refer Kotaro as Kuya Robert.^note Kuya is the Tagalog equivalent of the Japanese honorific nii-san or "older brother", blood relative or not.
• Growing the Beard: Episode 35, where Shadow Moon takes over as The Heavy, is the point where the show gets really memorable.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Episode 39 features then-aspiring Idol Singer, Yuko Ooi, as herself. While in-universe Yuko seems to have earned her Happy Ending, in real life, Yuko did not, quitting after releasing just one single.
  • In-universe, an early episode has Bilgenia control Battle Hopper to turn on Kotaro. Later Shadow Moon does the same, in an even more painful betrayal.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A young Yoko Honna appears as a girl Kotaro helps. Years later, she voices Cure Black.
  • Also, the closing song is unintentionally funny now. "Long long ago twentieth century."
  • When Kotaro transforms into Black in episode 16, Ryusuke Taki calls him 'Kamen Rider', while the English-speaking Professor Smith calls him 'Masked Rider'. Ironically, the sequel series Kamen Rider BLACK RX would be the first Kamen Rider show adapted in America as, you guessed it, Masked Rider.
  • One episode involves Black getting trapped in a Mirror World, and Road Sector, the bike with its own overhead cowl, is able to pass through a mirror to reach him.
  • Kotaro's henshin pose looks a lot like dabbing.
  • In one episode, Kotaro visits a hospital to meet a young boy named Hisao, who is being treated for a heart condition.
  • This series can be credited for starting the trend of actors who have heroic role in Tsuburaya Universes as the Ultraman hosts/human form having villainous role in Toei Universes, with Gorgom affiliate Professor Kuromatsu being portrayed by Susumu Kurobe, who have role as the main lead Shin Hayata in 1966's Ultraman. Later on, we have Kohji Moritsugu (Dan Moroboshi-Hiroshi Tennoji/Kerberos Undead), Hideo Ishiguro (Kai-Gai Kurenai), and Tomoya Warabino (Roidmude Heart-Gento Hiruma)
• Hype Backlash: With Black's reputation for being Darker and Edgier and the best of the Showa Riders, some viewers are disappointed to find that it's still ultimately a very episodic Monster of the Week show, with almost every episode involving a newly-introduced pre-teen caught up in Golgom's plots, who Kohtaro befriends. While the series becomes more serial after the debut of Shadow Moon in episode 35, it can still be jarring to those expecting something more like the ongoing plots of the Heisei-era Rider series.
• Memetic Mutation: See this page for examples.
• Narm: Kohtaro glares at the viewer the first time he transforms. The production crew must have realised how silly it looked, since he never does it again.
• Narm Charm: Kotaro being a justice-loving hero who's hyper-alert for Gorgom plots and has "This Is Unforgivable!" as effectively a second catchphrase may seem a bit ridiculous on paper, but because Kotaro is always proven right about his suspicions and has the badassery to back up his warnings, most fans find these qualities make him an endearing hero who's fun to root for.
• Nightmare Fuel: While not as out-and-out horrifying as some elements in some later installments, there's Golgom's disturbing tendency to almost always go after kids, and there are quite a number of scenes from the poor kid's point of view as the Monster of the Week - not as creepy as some but some are creepy enough - comes for him/her. It had to have put a lot of kids behind the couch.
  • Also doesn't help that most monsters look very intimidating, especially considering the previous shows.
• Retroactive Recognition: Shadow Moon's strength will make you cry!
• Sacred Cow: Being a Gateway Series for many fans in the US (who first discovered Rider during the rise of the internet) among others (see Germans Love David Hasselhoff) has given it this status. On top of that, there is a sentiment among many fans that the Showa era peaked during Black's run, thanks to its Darker and Edgier tone. Criticize Black at your own peril.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: A lot of its instrumental pieces would sound very similar to several instruments used in the Hades Project Zeorymer OVA, since both soundtracks are made by the same composer.
• Squick: As a high mutant, Bishum breasts are replaced by two beaks that have sharp pointy teeth.
• Tear Jerker: Being one of the darker installments in the franchise, there are a few moments like this, such as Kotaro's supposed death at the hands of Shadow Moon.
• Tough Act to Follow: While it's been Vindicated by History, Black's sequel, Black RX, was nowhere nearly as well-received as Black was at the time.
• The Woobie: Poor Whale Mutant. The only Mutant to turn good, he ends up dying as a consequence of helping Black stop Gorgom.
• Woolseyism: The Filipino dub rendered "Henshin" as "Rider Change", when a more literal translation would just have been akin to "Change" or "Transform". But the addition of "Rider" lines up with "Rider Kick" etc, and coincidentally or not it mirrors the original Kamen Rider's eventual transformation phrase "Rider Henshin".

---