Allegory, justice and sound: Paying homage and pulling punches in Kamen Rider anniversary series Black Sun

This article examines repeated patterns of resolution refusal in the 2022 series Black Sun from the Japanese superhero franchise Kamen Rider . Director Kazuya Shiraishi leverages nostalgia and the self-referential nature of this 50-year franchise anniversary to offer a biting critique of contemporary Japan. Black Sun plays with, reflects on and ultimately denies the narrative and aesthetic expectations of cathartic release and melodramatic justice set up by the franchise. In doing so, it makes explicit the underlying pattern of the series, which is endless cycles and repetitions of history. Based on the combination of narrative, visual symbols and music, this article argues that Black Sun reimagines melodrama’s potential as a medium in a denial of individual feeling or even a social appeal to feeling as the basis of moral justice. Black Sun looks back to the past but points clearly to the present, being the first Kamen Rider series created for an international streaming audience. These decisions mark the release of the series as a key moment in Japanese popular culture against which popular culture’s engagement with politics and social justice issues – past and present – may be measured.