At the end of the 20th century, the Earth is in danger due to a string of unusual weather patterns, as a mechanical beast known as Fog Mother comes to Earth from outer space and is ready for her new brood to hatch. Her three eldest children capture a young girl named Kana to serve as sacrifice, even going as far as to kill her older brother, nature photographer Koji Segawa. However, Koji is soon revived by the spirits of the earth and given the power to become Kamen Rider J, a warrior of J-Power. Guided by Berry, a talking grasshopper, Koji fights Fog, not only to save Kana, but the planet.
The third movie in the 1990's Kamen Rider trilogy, which started with Shin Kamen Rider and was preceeded by Kamen Rider ZO, Kamen Rider J is the final movie by series creator Shotari Ishinomori before his death four years later. A stand-alone adventure like ZO before it, J is a movie that surprisingly has an environmental theme to it, as one battle takes place in a developmental area where a mountain is dying and dead animals are among the construction vehicles, and one flashback has Koji investigating a polluted lake, and meeting Kana as she makes graves for the poor animals who died because of the pollution, this movie shows the actual price nature pays when we pollute bodies of water or demolish forests to make new buildings. Here, Koji has an actual belt buckle allowing him to transform into Kamen Rider J, and even transform his motorcycle into a grasshopper-themed form, harkening back to the older series, and the fights are well done, as the choreographing is well done, and the special effects and story are amazing. This film was well received to the point where J would appear in future Kamen Rider movies, and Fog Mother and the monster forms of two of her three children would be adapted into Saban's Masked Rider as monsters of the day for select episodes.
