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Icon-krThis article is about a suit actor in the Kamen Rider Series.

Seiji Takaiwa (高岩 成二, Takaiwa Seiji) is a Japanese actor and stuntman. He served as the suit actor for all of the Heisei-Era Kamen Riders except Kuuga and Hibiki, though his role as Decade allowed him to wear the suits. In 2019, he suit-acted as Kamen Rider Horobi, having stepped down following the end of the Heisei-era to allow new suit actors to take on the role as the main lead while allowing him to focus on acting as himself.

Biography[]

When Takaiwa was in middle school, he knew he wanted to have some sort of athletic career and set his eyes on either being a stuntman or a physical education teacher. He was inspired to pick the former by Hiroyuki Sanada and enrolled in Japan Action Club (now known as Japan Action Enterprise) in their gymnastics program. Since graduating, he has been the suit actor for many Tokusatsu heroes.

In 2021, Takaiwa announced the expiration of his contract with JAE and would continue as a freelancer. [2]

Since 2022, Takaiwa has had starring roles in two Good Morning, Sleeping Lion films, where it also stars multiple actors who have portrayed primary Kamen Riders. Each of them stated that they decided to appear in the film series to support Takaiwa as he suit acted for each of them.[3][4]

Personal Life[]

  • He is married to retired stunt performer and suit actor Rie Murakami. Their sons are Taisei and Shinta Takaiwa.

Filmography[]

Stunt/Suit Actor Roles[]

Movies[]

V-Cinema[]

Specials[]

Hyper Battle DVD[]

Notes[]

  • Takaiwa was ultimately responsible for the foundation of Shinji Kido's characterization, as his ad-lib from the first episode of Kamen Rider Ryuki gave the crewmembers the idea of Shinji's behavior, particularly his naive and hot-blooded behavior.[9]
  • Because he served as lead-suit actor for most of the main Riders of the Heisei era, he was given the nicknames "Mr. Kamen Rider" (ミスター仮面ライダー, Misutā Kamen Raidā) and "Mr. Heisei Rider" (ミスター平成ライダー, Misutā Heisei Raidā) by fans.
  • In an interview, Seiji said that the most uncomfortable main Rider suits that he had to wear in terms of temperature were Wizard in the summer because of the predominantly black outfit, Ryuki because he had to do certain shots with natural sunlight reflecting onto his costume and the heat was so intense it nearly burned him and Ghost because of the double layer structure of the costume with the undersuit, plastic parts and hoodies.[10]
  • He also stated that while heat stroke was always a risk for a suit actor, the only severe case of passing out he had was while filming Kamen Rider 555 in the mid summer months, but stated he was never hospitalized because the crew was always ready on standby to let him take his suit off, rest and cool down before shooting again.

External Links[]

References[]

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