Graduation Year
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Humanities and Cultural Studies
Major Professor
Todd Jurgess, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Olivia Cosentino, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Benjamin Goldberg, Ph.D.
Keywords
Merchandizing, Nostalgia, Television, Tokusatsu, Toyetic
Abstract
As a franchise, Kamen Rider is underrepresented in anglophonic scholarship despite its potential to relate postmodern texts, nostalgia, and history. In making these relations, Decade in particular challenges postmodern critiques that were prevalent in its time and during the time of the material it references, from 2000 to 2008. Scholars critical of postmodernism such as Fredric Jameson and Hiroki Azuma situate themselves as such because of postmodernism’s perceived detachment from history and lack of depth, creating a cultural logic of artworks that pales in comparison to older logics and eras. By teaching himself and another Kamen Rider morals and lessons held by his predecessors, the titular Kamen Rider Decade not only expresses nostalgia for earlier series but also reflects a national difficulty with moving on from the past, especially the “Lost Decade” right after Japan’s prosperous “Bubble Era.” The “Bubble Era,” a period of inflated stock and real estate prices starting in 1986, bursts in 1992. This burst gives rise to deflation and economic stagnation, tracked with the country’s GDP, and is termed the “Lost Decade” before time morphs it into the “Lost Decades.” The original “Lost Decade,” despite taking place in the 1990s, still echoes through Japanese culture both in Decade’s time and today. I argue that Kamen Rider Decade does not simply market and commercialize itself, but instead utilizes viewers’ nostalgia for earlier series, toys, and familiar objects to reflect critically on how Japan’s “Lost Decade” - and the historical past in general - remain difficult obstacles to new cultural and political ideas and developments. Through engagement with and challenging critiques of postmodernism keeping the “Lost Decade” in mind, including ideas from Kamen Rider projects released during the “Lost Decade,” I open a new conversation for postmodernism’s relationship with tokusatsu from the relevant timeframe as a whole, but specifically Kamen Rider.
Scholar Commons Citation
Barrow, Andrew K., "Lost & Found: The Postmodernism of Japan's "Lost Decades" in Kamen Rider Decade" (2026). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/11239
