YMMV / Kamen Rider BLACK SUN

• Accidental Aesop: Violence being an ineffectual and counterproductive way to advance social change. Every time pro-kaijin activists employ violent or forceful means to advance their cause it backfires. The early Gorgom movement kidnapping Dounami results in his grandfather being able to blackmail them into an unfair deal, while Nobuhiko's kaijin uprising barely goes anywhere and only results in a bunch of kaijins getting killed. Given this track record, this also means that Aoi's extremist movement will likely not go anywhere either.
• Awesome Moments:
  • Kotaro's first henshin into Kamen Rider Black Sun, complete with the same transformation movements as the original Kamen Rider BLACK.
  • The recreation of the original series opening, complete with the original theme song. The nostalgia overload was incredible when everyone saw it.
• Awesome Music: Chogakusei's "Did you see the sunrise?" manages to perfectly summarize Kotaro Minami's struggle throughout the entire series while managing to resonate the sound with listeners perfectly well.
• Broken Aesop: BLACK SUN's anti-racism themes are undercut by the fact that, despite the heavy-handed allegories it draws between kaijins and real-life marginalized groups, In-Universe the practical solution presented to the problem is to prevent new kaijins from being made and ensure kaijins are eventually annihilated as a species once they've lived out their lifespans. The fact that the characters the kaijins were adapted from in the original show were Nazi cultists doesn't exactly help either.
• Catharsis Factor: At the very least, you get very few Karma Houdinis in this show:
  • After Bilgenia forcibly turns Aoi into a kaijin and murders her mother in front of her, it's incredibly satisfying to see Black Sun kick the ever-loving crap out of him and slice off his arm. Episode 8 sees Bilgenia get several more well-deserved beatdowns, including getting curb-stomped by Shadow Moon (whose lover he had killed and tricked him into eating), knocked to the ground and kicked repeatedly by Dounami, and finally brutally beaten by Aoi and only surviving because she chose to spare him.
  • For all the bigotry he caused towards the good-natured kaijin especially Shunsuke, Wataru Igaki got his well-deserved death at the hands of an enraged, fully-evolved Nobuhiko Akizuki with his fellow hate group running like true cowards from it.
  • Prime Minister Dounami himself is subject to this with his Undignified Death at Nick's hands.
• Complete Monster: This grandfather-grandson duo of Corrupt Politicians showcase the worst of humanity:
  • Michinosuke Dounami is the the one who caused all the misery in the series, having painfully experimented on countless innocent people during World War II to turn them into Kaijin and mandated their food source—Heat Heaven—be made out of Human Resources. Worming his way into the position of the Prime Minister of Japan, Michinosuke intended to use the Kaijin as his own personal army to wage wars abroad, and when a Kaijin extremist group kidnapped his grandson, Michinosuke calmly used him as a bartering chip for a deal that was transparently to his favor, essentially reducing the Kaijin to his puppets.
  • Shinichi Dounami works with the Gorgom Party to round up and execute those he deems as "undesirables" in order to create Heat Heaven, which he also uses to forcibly transform humans into Kaijin and auction them off as weapons and into sex slavery, among other things. To continue the production of Heat Heaven, Dounami orders a manhunt for the Kingstone that leads to numerous deaths, and orders Aoi Izumi killed to keep her from exposing his crimes.
• Don't Shoot the Message:
  • Beyond the fact that BLACK SUN conveys its anti-racism message using literal animal men, it also takes place in a setting where the practical solution to the issue is to stop new kaijins from being made, effectively putting an end to kaijins as a species. While this makes sense in universe since kaijins are for the most part humans who've been unwillingly turned into kaijins, its unable to coexist with the heavy-handed analogies BLACK SUN makes between kaijins and real life civil rights struggles.
  • BLACK SUN aims to deliver a take on surface-level appropriation by the political establishment of the rhetoric and struggles of minority and civil rights groups in a manner without actually doing anything to improve their material conditions, by using Gorgom as an analogy for political movements co-opted by self-serving politicians. However, because the circumstances in the show come about due to a series of contrived character decisions and lore inconsistencies, the show unintentionally frames the Kaijin as responsible for their own oppression.
• Designated Hero: The show seems to intend for Bilgenia's arc to be that of a well-intentioned person who becomes a villain, only to eventually return to his original heroic ideals and redeem himself through his Last Stand against the police forces in the penultimate episode of the series, but because of how nasty and barbaric he is as a villain, how aloof he was even when he was nominally "good", and how he only defects later on to get back at Dounami and Shadow Moon, rather than out of any altruism, he comes more as just a self-serving evil-doer, with quite a few fans finding him to be the show's most repulsive character.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The ending to the show seems to have been intended be a "Ray of Hope" Ending, with Aoi carrying on the torch for Kotaro in the fight for kaijin rights, but comes off more as a flat-out Downer Ending instead since it has Aoi forming what is essentially a terrorist group that trains Child Soldiers. The fact that violence as a tactic was repeatedly shown to backfire when used by kaijins just makes Aoi's uprising come across as repeating history; not to mention that since the Creation King is dead and kaijins are doomed to die-off, any gains they do make would be meaningless in the long term.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Bilgenia's kaijin form keeps the exposed human face the original Bilgenia, but instead being someone wearing a suit of armor, this Bilgenia has an organic fish-man body, resulting in his human face contrasting heavily with it and being derided as looking completely ridiculous.
• Fan Nickname: Xbox Driver, due to Kamen Rider SHADOWMOON's Century King Moon Driver looking a lot like an Xbox.
• Funny Moments:
  • When Kotaro accuses Oliver's painting for the strike poster (an abstracted depiction of a naked woman) of being "obscenity", Yukari declares that she'll judge whether it's obscenity or art. After an extended pause, she declares "it's... art", causing Oliver to give a celebratory cheer and start hip-thrusting while chanting "Art! Art!".
  • After Nick decapitates Dounami with a lariat, Nick and Komouri pause to look back at the result... and then fist-bump.
• Heartwarming Moments: Kotaro agreeing to take Aoi under his wing and teaching her self defense, becoming a father figure of sorts for her.
• Memetic Mutation: "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards."^ExplanationThe quote itself comes from Garth Marenghis Darkplace, a British television show. The screenshot has been a perennial meme amongst English-speaking cinephiles when describing Anvilicious productions—and reactions to the show's sledgehammer-level political messaging (even up to the extent of portraying the brutal and Undignified Death of a Shinzo Abe expy) has been a ripe opportunity to quote the meme, both from detractors who feel the show executes its anti-racism analogy in a poor and insulting way or people who like the way it depicts its messaging.
• Narm:
  • While the racist and discriminatory violence is played in a sobering manner, the fact that it's being perpetrated on People in Rubber Suits (who in the original series were transhuman Nazis as opposed to an oppressed underclass) can make it hard to take too seriously. While normally it would fall under Narm Charm, as per usual for Toku, the much darker undertones of the show and the fact that the violence is made to be more realistic as opposed to stylized just makes the contrast with the rubber suits for kaijins seem jarring.
  • While "Gorgom" is an appropriate sounding name for the ancient spooky cult in the original series, it's an odd choice here for what was first a youth hippie movement and then a legitimate political party in the Japanese diet.
  • Similarly, the adaptations of Three High Priests and Bilgenia keep their archaic-sounding names they had in the original series, even though they're Japanese citizens and not ages-old cultists like their original versions.
• Nausea Fuel: The first episode alone triggered this reaction, due to Black Sun ripping out a Kaijin's guts, with audience reactions being sick at the level of violence.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • It's rather obvious in episode 5 when the show shifts from live-action to CG animation for Aoi's kaijin form.
  • Old Oliver Johnson's beard is very obviously fake in a way that can be distracting. It doesn't help that all other instances of characters who change in appearance with age employ Time-Shifted Actors.
  • During Shadow Moon's beating of Kotaro in episode 8, part of his suit's chest flaps loose, very obviously marking it as made of rubber.
  • During Nobuhiko's final moments in the last episode, the light falls on Kotaro's blinded eye differently from the rest of his face, revealing it to be a prosthetic.
• Tainted by the Preview: Early merchandise reveals included the phrase "stop kaijin hate", a reference to the "Stop Asian Hate" movement, which led a lot of people to assume it was going to be a standard Fantastic Racism story that leaned into the idea that Both Sides Have a Point, appropriating the imagery of real-world civil rights activism without committing to a genuine position. Many of those fans were won over when it turned out that BLACK SUN is instead unapologetically political, taking a very clear stance against xenophobia and bigotry in Japan. Although this attracted new criticism of it taking real world issues and overlaying them to an allegory that doesn't really work, cramming in hot button topics its narrative isn't equipped to address.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: BLACK SUN changing elements in the original BLACK to the point where it has little-to-nothing in common with its source material, despite being billed as a direct remake of it, has provoked backlash from a lot of fans.
  • Kotaro, symbol of resilience and childhood hero to many, is turned into a drug addict who beats up a homeless person for money in one of his first scenes and later accepts an offer to kill a teenage girl for money. Needless to say, this put off a lot of fans of the original show.
  • In BLACK, Gorgom were a shadowy omnipresent cult that puppeteered Japanese society from behind the scenes and had a very plausible modus operandi, the Gorgom Party lacks both the feeling of menace and the grounded realism that their original counterparts had, as they're easily subordinated by incompetent humans and their trafficking plan, despite attempts to make it seem realistic, comes off as more laughable than anything the original Gorgom pulled given how pointlessly Stupid Evil it is.
  • Kaijins in the original BLACK and the rest of the Showa era were Nazis / Nazi analogues who forsook their own humanity to become monsters in order to gain supremacy over others, acting as a very clever metaphor for the monstrous inhumanity that comes from trying to assert elitism and Master Race ideologies. In BLACK SUN however, Kaijins are the victims of Fantastic Racism, completely missing the original theme behind their conception on top of creating plot holes In-Universe
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • When BLACK SUN was first announced, many fans of the original BLACK were excited at the prospect of a series focused entirely around the relationship between Kotaro and Nobuhiko. These fans were also disappointed to see their arcs take a backseat to the political drama of the series and the plotline revolving around kaijin rights. The lack of focus they receive makes their eventual Final Battle feel less emotionally poignant than it could have been if their relationship had received more development.
  • We never get to see Shadow Moon wielding the Satan Saber like he does in the original BLACK.
  • Making use of kaijins to tell a ham-fisted civil rights allegory where the kaijins are the ones being oppressed denies the show a chance to explore the realistic implications of plot elements such as what Japanese society would look like such as what Japanese society would like if select people had superpowered animal forms, or who would be interested in becoming kaijins and what practical applications they could be used for, as well as what actual prejudice towards superpowered individuals would look like.
  • Some fans were disappointed in the show's portrayal of Gorgom and believe an adaptation of them more in line with their original portrayal, that being a secretive cult which entices elite members of society into joining with the promise of mutant superpowers and immortality, would have been much more plausible and interesting to follow.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Just like Kamen Rider Amazons before it, BLACK SUN falls into this due to having a much darker tone than its source material, with its characters all being massively distorted to the point of being nothing like their original counterparts. If you're expecting this Kotaro to be an upstanding figure fighting for justice in an immoral world, don't get your hopes up, as he's a washed out drug addict who assaults a homeless person in the first episode and sticks to the sidelines for most of the show. Meanwhile, Nobuhiko lacks the cold badassery the original had as Shadow Moon, instead ending the show a broken, hate-filled fanatic whose uprising fails to make a dent. Other characters like Bilgenia and Nick are presented sympathetically but have that sympathy undercut by how repulsive their actions are, with Bilgenia being a sadistic sociopath who did hits for Dounami and who tortured Aoi and murdered her mom, while Nick aided Bilgenia in the latter action by selling Aoi out him (both also get let off the hook for it too). The fact that the setting is largely the same at the end leaves the whole story feeling pointless.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Bilgenia seems to have been intended to be seen as someone driven to extremes/despair to fight for Kaijin rights and subsequently ground down to be Trapped in Villainy, but with how sadistic some of his actions are, like forcing Aoi and her mother to watch as he converts the former into a kaijin and murders the latter, or turning Nobuhiko's girlfriend into Heat Heaven and tricking him into eating her (Even his original counterpart didn't go that far), it's hard to see him as anything else other than an unrepentant sociopath. Even when he sides with Aoi later on, it has shades of him just wanting to get back at Shadow Moon and Dounami. It also makes his epic Last Stand at the end feel undeserved.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Unlike it's source material and much like Amazons, BLACK SUN was made for the adult audience due its gory and political nature.
• The Woobie:
  • Aoi, oh so much. Not only is she forcefully turned into a kaijin, she loses her guardian, her parents, her best friend, and has to kill Kotaro, who she only recently created a strong bond with. Someone give this poor girl a hug.
  • Shunsuke. A meek boy forced to grow up early in the face of discrimination, who gets murdered as an example by an anti-Kaijin group. Even his corpse gets forcefully taken away by the authorities after death.