Some time ago you may remember my promoting Justin “JewWario” Carmichael’s Famikamen Rider project, a tribute to Japan’s Masked Riders with a hint of his love of Japanese import games. (The Famicom and Super Famicom are the Japanese names of the Nintendo and Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems.) Unfortunately, J-Dub, as his friends knew him, lost his battle with depression and he preceded Robin Williams in taking his own life. In my tribute I had hoped that we would at least see what he had completed, his final project that will forever remain unfinished. (I also hoped someone would finish his Scan This battle with Edward, which got me excited about a show that would have otherwise been a mild curiosity as someone who enjoyed his work because he seemed so darn into finding a bar code that could defeat Twilight in a bar code scanner game.)
We may, however, get the next best thing to seeing Famikamen Rider beyond another review show. One of Justin’s close friends, and someone who had discussed wanting to get the episodes out there, Kaylyn Saucedo (whom longtime BW readers will know as Kaylyn Dickenson and the reviewing community also knows as MarzGurl) has come up with a way to take what little footage was shot and create something new. Along with her new husband, Josh Saucedo, they’ve written a script for Farewell, Famikamen Rider (and to show their dedication they have a Japanese title, さらば、ファミ仮面ライダー), a tribute to the show that might have been and the man who created it. Saucedo had worked on the theme song to the Rider Reviews and was one of the parties involved with the planned series and as you’ll hear in the video at the end of this article, she was approached many times with this, mostly recently at MAGFest.
Like any good project, the Saucedos are keeping the spoilers to a minimum, but here’s what we know so far, with bold text coming from their project site:
