General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Kamen Rider Amazons (仮面ライダーアマゾンズ)

Kamen Rider Amazons (仮面ライダーアマゾンズ) is a Japanese tokusatsu (Japanese live-action genre with heavy special effects) web series produced by Toei Company, distributed exclusively on Amazon Prime Video from April 1, 2016, as a dark, adult-oriented reboot of the 1974 series Kamen Rider Amazon, the fourth entry in the Kamen Rider franchise.¹^•² It was the first Japanese original production commissioned by Amazon Prime Video, made as part of Toei's "Super Hero Year" project marking the franchise's 45th anniversary.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Format	Web-only series on Amazon Prime Video; two seasons of 13 episodes each, roughly 32 minutes per episode¹^•²
Run	Season 1 from April 1, 2016; Season 2 from April 7, 2017¹^•⁵
Basis	Reboot of Kamen Rider Amazon (1974–75), the fourth Kamen Rider series, with settings and story almost entirely renewed²
Lead Riders	Kamen Rider Amazon Omega (Haruka Mizusawa, played by Tom Fujita) and Kamen Rider Amazon Alpha (Jin Takayama, played by Masashi Taniguchi); Amazon Sigma and Amazon Neo appear later¹^•²
Main staff	Script: Yasuko Kobayashi; directors: Hideki Ishida and others; music: Kuniaki Haishima; producers: Shinichiro Shirakura and Naomi Takebe (Toei), among others¹
Theme song	"Armour Zone" by Taro Kobayashi¹
Film	Kamen Rider Amazons The Movie: The Last Judgement, theatrical release May 19, 2018, shown mainly in 4DX/MX4D⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set around the Nozama Pharmaceutical company, which secretly ran the "Amazon Project", an experiment to grow artificial life forms into human form. An accident two years before the story released about 4,000 experimental subjects, the Amazons, into the city. Each Amazon wore a bracelet called the Amazons Register, which delivered drugs that suppressed the instinct to prey on humans, but the bracelets weakened after two years and the Amazons awakened one after another, transforming into monsters that attacked and ate people.¹

To conceal the situation, Nozama Pharmaceutical organized a specialized extermination squad that disposed of awakened Amazons in secret. Two riders stand outside this system. Jin Takayama, a former Nozama researcher who transplanted Amazon cells into his own body to take responsibility for the tragedy, hunts Amazons using the belt-type device called the Amazons Driver as Kamen Rider Amazon Alpha. Haruka Mizusawa, a young man adopted two years earlier by Reika Mizusawa, the head of the Amazon Project, awakens to his own transformation and, guided by Nozomi Izumi (泉七羽), receives another Amazons Driver and becomes Kamen Rider Amazon Omega.¹

Season 1's later plot turns on Tlaloc, a weapon whose practical use allows Amazons to be disposed of en masse, raising the question of whether dormant Amazons deserve the same treatment as awakened ones. Meanwhile Tachibana Yuugo, who seeks business uses for Amazon cells, creates the bioweapon Sigma, Kamen Rider Amazon Sigma, by transplanting Amazon cells into a human corpse.¹

Season 2 and the film

Season 2 began exclusive streaming on April 7, 2017, with one new episode each Friday. Set five years after the Tlaloc incident, it follows Chihiro, an Amazon hunter who meets the mysterious girl Iyu, not knowing she is a bioweapon revived as an Amazon after being killed by her Amazonized father.⁵^•⁷

The theatrical film Kamen Rider Amazons The Movie: The Last Judgement (最後ノ審判) opened on May 19, 2018, continuing after Season 2. In it, humanity's extermination operation has confirmed only two surviving Amazons, Haruka and Jin, and a new scheme called the "Amazon Livestock Plan" brings the two riders' beliefs into a final collision. It was the first Kamen Rider film released primarily in the 4DX/MX4D experiential formats.⁶^•³ Two compilation films, Season 1 Awakening (覚醒) and Season 2 Reincarnation (輪廻), were also released.¹

Production and the Amazon connection

Toei producer Shinichiro Shirakura, a central figure in the Heisei Kamen Rider series since Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000), said the project began when Amazon proposed doing "something like Kamen Rider", and he answered that it should be Kamen Rider Amazon, on Amazon. He described the series as an attempt to bring "thorns" back to the franchise, saying that accumulated self-regulation had made recent series formulaic and that the Sunday-morning children's programming slot had become, in his words, the enemy.⁸ The production was announced at a press conference on March 18, 2016, where the 13-episode count and the two contrasting riders, Amazon Omega and Amazon Alpha, were revealed.⁹

Although made for streaming, the series also received television broadcasts on BS Asahi and TOKYO MX from July 2016.⁸

Relationship to the 1974 original

The original Kamen Rider Amazon aired from October 19, 1974 to March 29, 1975 in 24 episodes, produced by Mainichi Broadcasting System and Toei. Its hero, Daisuke Yamamoto, a Japanese youth raised in the Amazon, received surgery and the GiGi Armlet from the elder Bagoa and fought the secret society Gedon, led by the Ten-Faced Monster Gorgos, who sought to combine the GiGi Armlet with his own GaGa Armlet for super energy.¹⁰

Amazons keeps almost none of this setting. The word "Amazon" itself was redefined: in the 1974 series it named the hero, while in the reboot it refers to all of the artificial life forms in the story, replacing the term "Beastman" (獣人) used for the original's monsters.²

Reception and availability

Amazon reported that Season 1 had 417 customer reviews averaging 4.3 out of 5 stars as of March 6, 2017, and described the series as one of the most-watched titles on Prime Video in Japan.⁵ The series holds a 7.5 rating on IMDb.²

Availability has shifted over time: the series was removed from Prime Video in some regions and later restored. On August 29, 2026, Toei added both seasons and The Last Judgement to a lineup of 146 Kamen Rider works available for unlimited streaming on Prime Video in Japan, alongside a Blu-ray trilogy box released May 13, 2026.¹¹^•¹²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026