The second and third monster booms were going at full blast in the seventies and continued until around the mid-eighties when Godzilla was revived in a movie. The second phase Masked Rider series started, and Skyrider and the Super 1 series were produced.
New Masked Rider, which appeared four years on from Masked Rider Stronger in 1975 is Skyrider who, astonishingly, can fly. For people who were used to the format of Masked Riders getting around on a motorbike on the ground in the previous Five series, a flying Masked Rider was an eccentric idea. The title of the Skyrider series is Masked Rider, the same as the first. Skyrider was designed based on a locust and his enemies are neo-shockers. Therefore, Skyrider is an orthodox Masked Rider intended to be similar to the initial Masked Rider.
In Masked Rider Super 1, the 7th Masked Rider series, Super 1 is a cyborg produced for the space development. Super 1 was designed based on the Asian giant hornet and has a fearless face with oblique eyes — unlike previous Masked Riders which have oval eyes. Many new ideas were put into the series such as Super 1 having two motorbikes — one for the city, one for off-road — and their five replicable parts called Five Hands.
After Super 1, the Masked Rider drama series was transferred to a manga series and the 10th Masked Rider ZX manga series started. ZX made only a single TV appearance in a special new year program; the ZX drama series was not produced. The Masked Rider program series ceased for a while until the third phase of the Masked Rider series started with Masked Rider Black in 1987.

There were only six Ishinomori’s hero dramas in the eighties including a one-off drama, which is very few compared with the number in the seventies — the boom time for hero dramas. In the eighties, Ishinomori put more effort into producing children’s fantasy dramas than into hero dramas. In these years, in addition to six transforming hero dramas including single-episode dramas, Ishinomori was involved in producing thirteen dramas for children, as you can see in the children’s dramas section. Fuji Television Network broadcasted a children’s drama series starting with Robot 8-chan, and a mysterious girls drama series also started with Chukana Paipai during these years.
After the success of a squad hero movie series and a space detective movie series, Toei shifted the main characters in its hero movies to metal heroes in the eighties. TV stations and movie companies other than Toei which produced so many hero dramas and movies in the seventies stopped production after the booms. The main characters of hero dramas produced in the eighties were mostly metal heroes. Compared with the seventies, the number of hero dramas is sadly small.

As the monster boom ceased, another took its place. The new boom was the famous manzai (stand-up comedy) boom. TV stations abandoned special effects dramas and put more effort into manzai programs. The legendary comedy program, We Are Hyokin Tribe, started in the eighties. The hero dramas broadcast on all TV stations in the seventies were replaced by comedy programs. So it may be only natural that Ishinomori’s major works shifted from hero stories to surreal comedy stories, being affected by the trend in these years. Social environments and fashions are interesting.

The JAC (Japan Action Club) boom occurred in the field of special effects in the eighties. Live-action actors and actresses (Kenji Oba, Junichi Haruta, Hikaru Kurosaki, Hiroshi Watari and Naomi Morinaga and others) appearing in squad hero programs and metal hero programs became stars. Even women, who did not usually watch special effects dramas, became fans of live-action actors. This boom may well have been the start of the popularity of the present squad heroes and Heisei Masked Riders.
Kenji Oba who played the roles of Battle Kenya (Battle Fever J), Retsu Ichijoji (Space Sheriff Gavan) and Junichi Haruta who played the roles of Kikaider, Red Ranger, Dina Black, Goggle Black and Madgalant (Megabeast Special Investigator Juspion) appeared in many Ishinomori hero dramas in costume playing the roles of Bibyun (Supergod Bibyun), Spade Ace (Jacker Electroshock Squad) and more. These actors also played cameo roles in the dramas, so it may be interesting for their fans to watch the videos and look our for them.