Takeshi Hongo
The original Kamen Rider. Hongo was forcibly converted into a cyborg by the terrorist organization Shocker, but he managed to escape before they could brainwash him and turned his new powers against them instead of for them.
It started when Hongo, a motorcycle racer, pursued a group of bikers who were challenging him—only to get ambushed by Shocker operatives. They turned him into a cyborg, but before they could complete the process and wipe his mind, his college professor Midorikawa (who'd been working for Shocker the whole time and picked Hongo as a candidate) helped him escape. While fleeing with Midorikawa and his daughter Ruriko, they were hunted by the Shocker Inhumanoid Spider Man. The professor was killed, and Ruriko was captured, leaving Hongo to track them down alone. As the newly born Kamen Rider, he fought through Spider Man's forces and took down the Inhumanoid with his signature Rider Kick.
After learning that Shocker had created a second cyborg rider—Ichimonji Hayato—to counter him, Hongo helped his rival escape and left Japan to fight Shocker's international operations. When he returned, the two Riders joined forces as the "Double Riders" to destroy both Shocker and its successor organization, Gel-Shocker.
Later, Hongo and Ichimonji crossed paths with a junior named Kazami Shiro, who begged them to transform him into a Rider after Shocker's successor, Destron, murdered his family. When Shiro was fatally wounded helping them, they agreed and created Kamen Rider V3—combining Hongo's technical skill with Ichimonji's raw strength. The Double Riders apparently sacrificed themselves detonating an atomic bomb but somehow survived.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
