Masaru Igami

Masaru Igami, born Inoue Masaki (井上正喜, 1931-1991), was a Japanese screenwriter. He had served as the chief screenwriter for the original Kamen Rider series, along with its additional publications Kamen Rider V3, New Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Stronger.

Born in Gunma Prefecture, Igami attended Meiji University, where he majored in French Literature at the Faculty of Letters. Following his graduation at the age of 27, he initially joined the advertising agency, Nobuhirosha. While there, he realized that Toshiba Shoji, a well-known scriptwriter for TV, was looking for fresh writers. Igami successfully applied for the position. Igami's submission served as an inspiration for the TV drama—Prince Planet. The drama was so successful that Igami wrote screenplays for various series such as Leopard's Eye, Kaiju Harimao, The Samurai, The Magic Serpent, etc.

Soon after, Igami became acquainted with Toru Hirayama and slowly began developing the ideas that would become the Kamen Rider series. After Toei Kyoto's historical drama movie, Dai Ninja Movie Watari, Igami wrote a story with Hirayama called the Masked Ninja Akakage. Igami was also personally in charge of ' Giant Robo Doordarshan played this amazing and kid-friendly s >> Read More... ' at the same time. There is an assumption that the monsters in Giant Robo were the inspiration behind the monsters in Kamen Rider.

Igami's popularity arose with the Kamen Rider series because of his talent for creating special effects and scriptwriting.  Igami's "picture-story" method of telling the story made the series an unexpected blockbuster.  It was also influential because it changed the standard format of a Toei program. In the 1960s, mainstream series became heavily influenced by Igami and Hirayama's sloppy, straightforward style. It was completely different from the usual scripting writing techniques used based on Kogonoda's Scenario Structure Theory.

By the late 1970s, Igami's alcoholism had taken over. He "couldn't write" anymore, stopped working, and continued his drinking habit. On November 16, 1991, at the age of 60, Igami passed away, leaving behind one son, Toshiko Inoue, a scriptwriter like his father.