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"Together, we'll be stronger."
—Len
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The second attempt at adapting Kamen Rider for western audiences, after Saban's Masked Rider. Based on Kamen Rider Ryuki, chosen for its large number of Riders, including a woman.
Kit Taylor's life has been rough; in the year since his dad vanished, he's been moved into foster care and gained an unwarranted reputation as a troubled youth. But recently it's gotten weird: his dad has begun to appear in strange visions, telling him things like "don't be afraid of the dragon". Moving back into his old apartment, he finds a deck of strange cards, and he then begins to see things in mirrors including, sure enough, a dragon that seems to be following him around. Throw into the mix a biker who wants his card deck and won't take "no" for an answer. But when the biker gets into trouble, Kit follows his dad's advice and makes a contract with the dragon, becoming Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.
Afterwards, Kit's able to get the story out of the biker, named Len and a Kamen Rider in his own right: there's a world on the other side of our mirrors called Ventara. This world was invaded by an alien named General Xaviax, and they created the twelve Kamen Riders to defend themselves. However, one of the Riders betrayed them and Xaviax took over, stealing their Advent Decks (the source of their power). Now Xaviax has set his sights on Earth, searching for our universe's counterparts to the original Riders and manipulating them to do his bidding, while Len is trying to get the decks before they can be misused.
Though initial fan approval was cautious at best (with good reason), the show developed a following with Kamen Rider fans, who cited excellent fight scenes and a unique storyline that kept the Kamen Rider feel while not being a direct port of Ryuki. The show was later dubbed back in Japanese!
Unfortunately, the show suffered from low ratings throughout its run, and the last two episodes weren't aired on television (though they were put up on The CW's website). Co-executive producer Stephen Wang, however, has said that the series may air on another network. Despite this it still won an Emmy for stunt coordination.
Not to be confused with The Dragon Knight or Knight Rider.
This series has a Character page.
This series contains examples of:
- Acting for Two: Stephen Lunsford as Kit and Adam (The other Riders besides Len and Kase make appearances as both Earth and Ventaran versions, but never have both their characters in the same scene).
- The fight between Kit and Adam brought new meaning to the phrase 'You are your own worst enemy.'
- Action Girl: Siren, natch.
- Actor Allusion: Kenji Matsuda, despite a relatively short stint in the Japanese dub as Grant Staley/Kamen Rider Camo, manages to get in some wolf-howl battlecries and utters the taunt "onii-san, kocchira".
- Affirmative Action Girl: Siren, whose role is beefed up compared to her Japanese counterpart.
- Positive Discrimination: Xaviax considers her as good as or better than Wing Knight. (But then again, any of the Ventaran Riders are career soldiers and they are going to outperform the civilians Xaviax had to work with.)
- The Smurfette Principle: She's still the only girl out of twelve, and has the last and briefest appearance in the opening.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Both Trent and Lacey are Genre Savvy about this; when Maya starts hanging out with Troubled but Cute Kit, Trent is concerned and Lacey approves (and even looks like she might try to steal Kit for herself).
- All There in the Manual
- The names of the Advent Beasts. The only way to get any sort of acknowledgment onscreen is by showing their Advent Cards, and only a few have been shown clearly.
- The names of all the Ventara Riders are listed in the end credits of Episode 39.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Tired of being subtle, Wrath and Strike go to the bookstore, hold Lacey and Trent hostage, and then tear the place to pieces in a knock down, drag out fight with Len and Kase.
- Alpha Strike: Torque's Final Vent.
- Alternate Universe: Ventara.
- Ascended Extra: Compare Siren, who is part of the show's central Power Trio, to her Japanese counterpart Femme, who only appeared in a single movie. The same could be said for pseudo-Rider Alternative, which Dragon Knight uses as Eubulon's combat form.
- Inverted with Camo. His counterpart, Verde, was one of the Big Bads in a TV special (not to mention a 13th Rider made just for the special) and killed Kamen Rider Knight. In Dragon Knight, he barely even appears for one episode.
- There's also Xaviax's Mooks, the Gelnewts. The original Gelnewt was a one-shot monster. Dragon Knight mass produces them into foot soldiers.
- The Atoner: Eubulon
- Avenging the Villain: Axe
- Badass Biker: Technically everyone (Kamen Rider, remember?), but especially Len.
- Played with for some of the Riders — Richie has a bike, but is never seen riding it, and actually gets it repossessed.
- Brad/Thrust, being a professional motocross racer, probably deserves special mention.
- Biker Babe: Kase
- Badass Cape: Siren, sometimes Wing Knight
- Battle Couple: Len and Kase; her being MIA for 20+ episodes makes it take a while to actually occur in the series.
- Battle Royale With Cheese: Eh, not so much. Half of the Riders only return in time to take part in a group Finishing Move.
- BFG: Most of Torque's arsenal.
- Big Bad: General Xaviax.
- Biological Mashup: Strike steals Thrust's and Sting's decks, then can merge their Advent Beasts with his own.
- Blood Knight: Camo.
- Bond Creatures: The Advent Beasts, though the bond is generally downplayed compared to Ryuki: the beasts themselves are treated as little more than just another piece of equipment in Dragon Knight, while Ryuki's rule is "Fight or the dragon will eat you". Camo's beast never even appeared on the show.
- Broken Aesop: Chris's arc was clearly meant to teach the lesson that you can still be a hero despite your setbacks (in Chris's case, those setbacks were being discharged from the military due to his asthma). This is invalidated in the finale when Chris's asthma is cured and he's able to join the military just like he wanted. Uh...
- The entire series can also be seen as one big Broken Aesop, as according to the head writer, one of the main points of the series was to teach kids about the consequences of their actions, but most of the characters don't face any. This is particularly true for Adam, the Ventaran Dragon Knight, who betrays the entire planet of Ventara to Xaviax, but receives no known punishment for it. The Advent Master Eubulon even goes as far as to say that he does not have time to punish him because he's needed in the final battle with Xaviax.
- This depends on perspective, really, perhaps the moral was 'good deeds are rewarded', Chris fought for good so he got his asthma cured. As for Adam it was all Xaviax's fault, he was tricked, along with nearly all of Xaviax's soldiers. The second time he was even blackmailed into it. And Xaviax did pay by being the only character in the show to die.
- Brother Chuck: Maya's Aunt Grace, owner of the bookstore, vanished after the early eps once the producers had convinced their bosses that more drama and less comedy wouldn't hurt the ratings. While she clearly still owns the bookstore, her name is never even mentioned again after she vanishes.
- By the Eyes of the Blind: The monsters can only be seen by Kamen Riders and those who have been taken through a mirror portal. These people can also see into Ventara through Earth's mirrors and reflective surfaces.
- By the Power of Greyskull: "Kamen Rider!" Because no one would get "Henshin!" and "Transform!" sounds boring. Also, it's to reinforce the title.
- California Doubling: Indoor variant. The rebuilt (or new location) Grace's Books in the finale? Totally not a Borders Bookstore!
- Cannot Spit It Out: Len, to the point that it takes like five episodes to drag the Backstory out of him.
- Canon Foreigner: In a non-human version, Dragon Knight actually shows Wrath's Final Vent on-screen, while Ryuki didn't show Odin's; until DK, the only way to see it was to play the Play Station game.
- Captain Ersatz: Wing Knight sometimes comes awfully close to being a Toku version of Batman. Especially when he explains he wasn't the leader, he was the Scary One who fought at night...
- Gets a little eerie when you realize that Batman canonically has a British counterpart called Knight, who wears a very similar visor. (Almost certainly a coincidence; Knight was essentially a forgotten relic of The Golden Age of Comic Books, only brought back to prominence recently.)
- The Cast Showoff: Matt Mullins occasionally gets scenes to show off his martial arts skills. Mark Dacascos joins in on a late one when Eubulon and Len spar.
- The Chains of Commanding: Len, particularly since that was not his role within the Ventaran Riders.
- The Chick: Maya.
- Circling Monologue: Xaviax and Eubulon in the finale
- City of Adventure: Los Angeles.
- Clear My Name: Thrust's goal.
- Clip Show/Recap Episode: No less than three in a forty episode run. "The Many Faces of Xaviax", "Calm Before the Storm", and "A Dragon's Tale".
- And the second clip show flashed back to the first clip show.
- And the third clip show was the final episode. Because we really needed to see what we just saw happen over the previous 10 episodes during the final episode — leaving only 5 minutes for something resembling a finale. The characters from early in the series, including Kit's dad, one of Kit's primary motivators, pretty much just get a passing mention and nothing else. "Oh yeah, they got better and stuff. But who cares, I'm writing a BOOK!"
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Five Mooks or so are easily defeated by Len without transforming. Later fights (note the plural, this happens two or three times) require two transformed Riders to go all-out against one. This is the result of the Gelnewt Monster of the Week in Ryuki getting demoted to Mook status in Dragon Knight, creating a jarring difference between reused and original fights.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Maya and Trent. Strike was one until Xaviax confirmed his theories.
- Covert Pervert: We know Lacey's kinda boy-crazy, but one time her mind goes to the gutter awfully fast...
Maya: I saw [Len] change right in front of me. |
- Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday: Actually eighteenth — that's when Kit got out of the foster care system and moved back into his old apartment, where he found his Advent Deck.
- Deal with the Devil: Xaviax's offers.
- Death by Flashback: Torque
- Demonic Possession: Wrath
- Disappeared Dad: Kit's father. He actually reappears with other missing people, but they're little better than in a coma thanks to Xaviax.
- Disappears Into Light: Venting.
- Doppleganger Spin/Attack: Wing Knight's Trick Vent. Sometimes the clones physically exist and will attack, but other times they're just distractions that vanish when hit.
- Doom Doors: The iconic sound effect is used in episode twelve as the sound of Strike's motorcycle.
- The Dragon: Strike.
- Evil Costume Switch: Subverted. When both Kit and Adam are active at the same time, it's Kit (the good twin) that gets the black Onyx armor.
- Evil Overlord: Xaviax.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Onyx, in Kit's dreams
- Evil Is Hammy: General Xaviax at all times!
- Face Heel Turn: Adam
- Fan Nickname: In some circles, Kit has gained the nickname of "Kamen Rider Brick" for his talents of spending a lot of his early screen time not quite understanding the plot and shouting "What are we all yelling about?!". Particularly compared to his slightly-more-on-the-ball Japanese counterpart, Shinji. But considering he's in the midst of a Jigsaw Puzzle Plot and his mentor Cannot Spit It Out, can you really blame him?
- On a Japanese video streaming site Nico Nico Douga which contained some of the Japanese dubbed clips, the actor named Scott Bailey who played JTC/Kamen Rider Strike became known as "Kamen Rider Sugirike" because of the Japanese voice actor named Tomokazu Sugita.
- Still within the same video streaming site and also to some forums, the actor named Matt Mullins who played Len became "Len Akiyama", thanks be to his Japanese voice actor who is no other than Satoshi Matsuda who was Ren Akiyama/Kamen Rider Kinght in Kamen Rider Ryuki.
- Eubulon is sometimes called Chairman Alternative, a nod to Mark Dacascos' role on Iron Chef America and his character's Ryuki counterpart.
- Fan Service: The debut fight of Kase/Siren is full of it. The heavy guitar helps.
- Fun Fact: Steve Wang posted on his blog at one point that Kamen Rider Siren's introduction was actually sent back to them by The CW and 4Kids, who demanded revisions, but not because the introduction was bad. Why was it sent back? Because Steve had actually made her introduction too sexy, and it had to be toned down to meet broadcast standards. It makes one wonder exactly how sexy the original take of Siren's intro was.
- Fate Worse Than Death: Defeated Riders get "vented", that is, trapped between dimensions with no hope of escape. Ironically, it was intended to be a better alternative to death, where Eubulon could get them out.
- Faux Affably Evil: Xaviax, who has some real talent in smooth-talking. He can also be a Large Ham on occasion.
- Female Gaze: At least one episode has a blatant crotch shot of Len as he's dismounting his bike.
- Male Gaze: Of course, Kase doesn't escape this either. Why else would she keep her Advent Deck in her back pocket?
- Fight Clubbing: Thrust thinks he's doing this at first.
- Finishing Move: the Riders' Final Vents.
- Five-Man Band: Interestingly never shown together as a whole
- The Hero: Kit
- The Mentor: Len
- The Lancer: Kase
- The Big Guy: Brad
- The Chick: Chris
- Freudian Excuse: Xaviax jokes about this with the Cho brothers: "Your childhoods were deprived, now you're depraved."
- Giant Enemy Crab: Incisor's Advent Beast, Volcancer.
- Gilligan Cut: Maya swears up and down that Michelle won't reduce her to just getting coffee. Guess what?
- Gratuitous Japanese: Despite being made for an American audience, the show kept the "Kamen" in Kamen Rider untranslated even though the English name "Masked Rider" is also used in Japan. Producer Steve Wang stated in an interview that he prefers the actual Japanese moniker over the translated form, but he also wanted to distance Dragon Knight from Saban's earlier attempt at making an Americanized Kamen Rider series, simply titled Masked Rider.
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: Eubulon VS General Xaviax. That is all.
- Healing Hands: Kase displays this ability when healing Kit's injured leg.
- Heroic Sacrifice/Taking the Bullet: Sting
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Aunt Grace is Victoria Jackson, former SNL member and a conservative who invoked Godwin's Law against Obama.
- Xaviax is Tim Taylor's brother.
- Matt Mullins (Len) is a member of martial arts group Sideswipe, which has competed a couple times on America's Got Talent. He would soon get Retroactive Recognition as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat live-action tie-ins.
- The Advent Master is Mark Dacascos, AKA the Chairman on Iron Chef America.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: The Japanese dub of the series has quite a few noteworthy names, both for anime and past Kamen Rider series:
- Satoshi Matsuda (Ren Akiyama/Knight) as Len/Wing Knight (which technically makes it his second time in that suit.)
- Yuria Haga (Mari Sonada, Mio Suzuki and Yuki) as Maya Young
- Miyuki Sawashiro (Kivaala) as Kase/Siren (the second time she's portrayed a white-colored female Expy)
- Hiroki Takahashi (Eve/G Den-O) as Richie Preston/Incisor
- Rikiya Koyama (Joe the Haze) as Frank Taylor
- Hiroshi Kamiya (Itoshiki Nozomu) as Chris Ramirez/Sting
- Koji Yusa (Urataros) as Drew Lansing/Torque
- Tomokazu Sugita (Kivat the 3rd) as JTC/Strike
- Kenji Matsuda (Zanki and Jiro/Garulu) as Grant Staley/Camo
- Shoma Yamamoto (Taiga Nobori/Saga) as Brad Barrett/Thrust
- Takahiro Sakurai as Danny Cho/Axe
- Ryota Murai (Yusuke Onodera/Kuuga) as Albert Cho/Spear
- Hideo Ishikawa as Vic Frazier/Wrath
- Hochu Otsuka (Deneb) as Xaviax
- Tsuyoshi Koyama (Odin) as Eubulon
- Casting Gag: The Dragon from Ryuki (no pun intended), voicing the Big Good in its American counterpart.
- And a brief one by Rina Akiyama (Naomi!) as Adam's girlfriend Sara.
- Human Aliens: Xaviax and Eubulon look human most of the time (they're actually The Greys).
- Human Popsicle: The Ventaran Riders (at least after losing Eubulon) took turns protecting Ventara, taking one year out of every twelve, with the remaining Riders kept in stasis.
- I Can Still Fight: Sting.
- Idiot Ball: Kit very easily believes Drew when he tells him that Len is working for Xaviax, despite repeatedly seeing him fight Xaviax's monsters. (Even alongside Kit!)
- During his fight with the Cho brothers, Len decides to leave their Advent Decks for them to retrieve instead of taking them with him, which ultimately leads to Chris's venting in "Semper Fi."
- Siren sees Dragon Knight fighting (and losing to) Axe, so she decides to jump in and fights Axe. After forcing him to retreat, she attacks Dragon Knight, claiming he's working for Xaviax. So instead of just letting Axe vent him like he was so close to doing, she decides to jump in, fight Axe, and then fight Dragon Knight, who she's convinced is evil. HUH?
- Eubulon says that there is no time to punish Adam for betraying them and the planet Ventara... TWICE! The first time is somewhat forgivable, as he was tricked by Xaviax, but the second time is completely of his own free will. So they decide to trust a known liar and traitor just because they need his help to defeat Xaviax, despite having no reason to trust him at all.
- I Have Your Father: Strike pulls this.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Adam
- If It Swims, It Flies: Sting's Advent Beast, Evildiver.
- Image Song: Apparently it's doing well enough in Japan that the dubbers for the characters are singing songs about them!
- Incurable Cough of Death: Sting, thanks to his asthma. At least he's able to go out on his own terms.
- Intrepid Reporter: Maya.
- Invisible Monsters: Xaviax's monsters, to anyone who doesn't have an Advent Deck or hasn't been through a mirror portal.
- It Never Gets Any Easier: Kit wonders if it does after he vents Spear.
- I Work Alone: Hunt (the Ventaran Kamen Rider Axe).
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
- The Jimmy Hart Version: Trent joining the No-Men is announced with a Jimmy Hart of "Bad to the Bone" of all things.
- Kick the Dog: When Maya decides to go behind Michelle's back so she won't steal the credit for her investigation, Michelle frames her for libel and gets her fired — then offers to help get her job back if she can be let in on the story. After Maya politely tells Michelle where she can shove her blackmail, Michelle eavesdrops to steal the story anyway.
- Pet the Dog: Michelle eventually realizes what a bitch she was being and apologizes.
- Last Starfighter: Len
- Love Makes You Evil: Adam, who wanted out of the Rider gig so he could be with a girl.
- Manipulative Bastard: Xaviax. Less successfully, Torque.
- Meaningful Name: Richie the rich kid.
- Melee a Trois: Every Rider has their own agenda, and a couple episodes have brought together everyone active at the time for large brawls.
- The Men in Black: the No Men
- The Mentor: Eubulon. On a smaller scale, the Ventaran Wrath mentored Len and Len mentors Kit.
- Mirror Monologue/Rage Against the Reflection: Len, after Sting's sacrifice. Of course, being a Rider, his fist just goes through.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Len, a couple times. The first time, "I sense that guy (Richie) is Incisor", can be written off as a cover for recognizing Ventara!Incisor's Earth double. "I sense that Torque has just been vented", however, is harder to handwave.
- This is possibly explained as an advanced form of Spider Sense in that the Advent Void... or their decks... or something keeps letting the Riders know when people are in danger. And it never lets up. This in itself is kinda cool, as the idea's similar to the noises made by the Mirror World in Ryuki.
- The fact that the Riders' ability to sense when they are needed never letting up is at least in part responsible for how Xaviax tricked Adam. As Len explains to Maya, Adam felt trapped by his own good nature. He points it out by asking her, "If you had an alarm clock that let you know whenever there was someone in danger, could you ignore it?" Like all the heroic Riders, Adam could not, and he was desperate to get his life back. Xaviax was more than willing to use that against him. Adam himself explains this in part when he tells the team how he wound up in his situation, though he didn't reveal to them a very key fact. Xaviax was essentially holding his girlfriend hostage while at the same time using her as emotional blackmail material to force him to sabotage the Riders' attempt to save Earth.
- This is possibly explained as an advanced form of Spider Sense in that the Advent Void... or their decks... or something keeps letting the Riders know when people are in danger. And it never lets up. This in itself is kinda cool, as the idea's similar to the noises made by the Mirror World in Ryuki.
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Genocider. Renamed Cerebeast in Dragon Knight according to the DS video game. Still not the kind of name you want to hear. The creature itself wasn't exactly going to inspire most people to think it was harmless either.
- Nerd: Trent's hacker friends (Trent himself is closer to Hollywood Nerd)
- Network to the Rescue As mentioned before Dragon Knight 's ratings were terrible, nevertheless both 4Kids and the CW backed the show to the last claiming that it's still a really good show and ratings don't always reflect that.
- Never Say "Die": Defeated Kamen Riders don't die, they get "vented". Eventually justified as something you can return from.
- The Nth Doctor: Since an Advent Deck is locked to the DNA of its user, to become Kamen Rider Wrath, Xaviax must possess the body of the Wrath suit's designated user or his double. [1] As such, Xaviax gets a different actor for a span of a several episodes.
- Oh Crap: For a brief, brief instant as the collective riders are pulling their Link Vent cards out, Xaviax's Smug Snake exterior actually slips into a facial expression that says this.
- There's also the moment when Torque first unleashes his Final Vent. Even suited, the way Wing Knight takes one look at Magnugiga powering up and stops short before he legs it just says it all.
- One-Winged Angel: The minions upgrade from the red versions (Gelnewts) to the white versions (Sheerghosts) against Wrath (and get beaten anyway.) From then on, all Mooks are Sheerghosts, though. Also, in an earlier episode, before Sheerghosts are properly introduced, there's a flashback to Ventara of Sheerghosts transforming into blue, dragonfly-like monsters (Raydragoons) when battling Siren, Wing Knight, and the original Strike (and getting beaten anyway.) The last couple of episodes have armies of all three types as the Riders storm the castle. They get beaten anyway.
- Opt Out: When the Riders and The Men in Black start uniting to take out Xaviax for good, Lacey asks to be excused and goes home.
- Written in Absence: The real reason she goes home is because her actress had to take time off for personal reasons.
- Our Hero Is Dead: in "Xaviax's Wrath"
- Paint It Black: Dragon Knight becoming Onyx in Kit's dreams. (Averted in actual events; the Dragon and Onyx Decks are separate objects.)
- Parental Abandonment: Acknowledged; when Kit learns Xaviax might have taken his dad, he reflects that he thought his dad just needed some time away.
- Parenthetical Swearing: Michelle, when Kit tricks the No-Men and escapes from custody: "slippery little weasel!"
- Phantom Zone: Ventara is the "we can fight without affecting Earth" kind, and the Advent Void is the "bloodless alternate to death" kind.
- Plug N Play Technology: Xaviax's teleporter beacons take USBs.
- Power Copying: Camo's and Sting's Copy Vents.
- Pretentious Latin Motto: But we'll give it a pass because it belongs to the Marines: Semper fi, or "Always faithful". Sting uses it a couple times in the episode of the same name.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Kit's visions of his dad, and later, of Onyx
- Recursive Import: The show is being dubbed into Japanese, with a vocal cast featuring several Kamen Rider veterans. For extra points, Len's dub actor is the actor who played Ren Akiyama/Kamen Rider Knight, Wing Knight's Japanese equivalent.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Dragon Knight and Wing Knight
- The Resolution Will Not Be Televised: Not only were the last two episodes only viewable online, but a sequel to the series is coming out in Japan... as a book.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Axe and Wing Knight, though the latter is able to finish his rather quickly.
- Roswell That Ends Well: The Roswell incident was Eubulon landing on Earth.
- Sarcastic Confession: As Michelle puts it, Maya can't expose the truth about the Kamen Riders... but there's nothing stopping her from writing a "fictional" account.
- Screwed by the Network: CW 4 Kids dropped the show just two episodes short of the series finale. Proof here. On the other hand, they did finish the series off online (before it even stopped airing!) though for what it's worth, one of the unaired episodes was yet another Clip Show.
- As for why: 4Kids ends shows in December and starts new ones in January. Kamen Rider didn't quite finish its run by New Years', so tough luck.
- Also as mentioned under Network to the Rescue they had plenty of chances to cancel it due to its low ratings, but refused to do so because they really liked the show.
- Semper Fi: Sting
- Senseless Sacrifice: Kit gets vented, but is able to take out Xaviax-in-Wrath... nope, only Wrath goes and Xaviax is still here.
- Short Run in Peru: A number of episodes aired in Brazil prior to the US (who had decided to put the show on hiatus for a bit).
- Aaand Mexico beat them to it.
- Shout-Out: When Michelle checks out one incident, she dismisses it with "So a spider guy shot webs at you, and then a man dressed like a bat came down and saved you?" before mocking him for being a comics nerd.
- Incidentally, the first two monsters in the very first Kamen Rider series were named "Spider-Man" and "Bat-Man". Coincidence or deliberate nod?
- There's a more blatant one with the crest on the wall of No-Men HQ, which is basically Captain America's old shield with some stuff around it.
- Xaviax deems the Cho brothers depraved on account they're deprived.
- Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Surprisingly serious, especially when compared to that other Americanized toku show.
- Blame it on the franchise, Kamen Rider has usually been a degree or two more serious compared to Super Sentai.
- Sphere of Power: The Riders' transformation sequence utilizes this, and acts as a protective barrier while changing.
- Spirit Advisor: Kit's dad. Actually, Xaviax pretending to be Kit's dad, as part of his Manipulative Bastard routine.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Michelle, except that she seems to be liked by her editors by using the Gilderoy Lockheart method of accomplishment without the memory-wiping. Or maybe they're just in on the fact that she's an undercover agent.
- Smug Snake: Torque. Let's throw Michelle in there, too, but she gets better.
- Stock Footage Failure: It takes a pretty keen eye to spot that Xaviax impersonating Eubulon keeps switching from Alternative to Alternative Zero during the fight with Adam. Or maybe just Glamor Failure in action?
- Storming the Castle: Upon learning the location of the building where Kit's being held captive by the No-Men, Maya, Len, and Kase rush off to save him. Ironically, he escapes before they even get to him, but that doesn't stop Len and Kase from going in and wreaking complete havoc.
- And then Eubulon and the freed Riders (plus Maya and Trent) storm Xaviax's castle in the finale.
- Super Mode: Survive Mode
- Supporting Leader: Wing Knight.
- The Starscream: Torque.
- Teleport Spam: Wrath
- Title Theme Tune: "Kamen Rider Dragon Knight! Together we can fight the fight!"
- Upgrade Artifact: The Advent Decks, to a certain extent. Though when Maya becomes Siren, it looks like Eubulon did most of the work in that regard.
- Upperclass Twit: Incisor.
- Villainous Breakdown: Xaviax gets desperate when Eubulon returns, and it shows.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sting
- Wham! Episode: "Xaviax's Wrath". The Knights pull out Survive Mode to finish the fight for good. The result? Every last remaining Earth Rider gets vented — including Kit — leaving it once again down to just Xaviax and Wing Knight.
- What Could Have Been: The show's producers have said that they originally wanted to adapt a different Kamen Rider (the rumors variously say Faiz or Blade), but were made to do a series with more Riders (and therefore more merchandise). They've also said that if Dragon Knight did well enough, they would've gone for the passed-over series next.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: At least Chris thinks so, when Maya's trying to cheer him up about his asthma weakness by complimenting his "heart". Strike shares the sentiment: "You got heart, kid — but no lungs!"
- Whip It Good: Sting's Swing Vent.
- Wig, Dress, Accent: No accent, but the first two are how Maya eludes the No Men's surveillance.
- A Wizard Did It: Everything Eubulon does up to and including the finale.
- ↑ The show never makes Wrath's true identity clear, but the official website tells us its Vic Frasier, a construction worker who was comatose after an accident (he was actually life-drained by Xaviax the same way Kit's father was).