Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Metal Hero writers : part 3: the Rescue Police era

After Jiban, the Metal Hero has had a change of producer : Susumu Yoshikawa left the Metal Hero franchise and was replaced by Nagafuma Hori. It's during that time that the Metal Hero managed to find a new successful formula, by bringing a new kind of Metal Heroes : the Rescue Police teams. While Jiban already had introduced the concept of the protagonists being urban cops, it's the following series, Winspector that would define the new formula, with heroes being in a police force, with also a rescue theme, with a human (or more) hero being able to wear a metallic armor for difficult task, and would be helped by human companions and robots. The enemies weren't monsters anymore, but rather plain criminals, usually humans, whose misdeeds had to be stopped by the team. Winspector was notable among tokusatsu shows that it didn't have regular villains. That new concept became very successful, and helped the franchise become very popular again, after several years struggling to find a new successful formula. Two other series with a "Rescue police" theme would follow: Solbrain, and then, Excedraaft, the latter which nevertheless include some regular villains and include some alien characters and sci-fi elements.  Those three series are called the "Rescue police trilogy"
Two others series can be included in this era: Janperson and Blue SWAT. Janperson used again the concept of the hero having an "urban cop feeling", but this time, the hero was a mysterious robot which was stopping the criminal activities of three different themed criminal organizations (a robotic themed one, an evil science themed one and a more standard crime themed one). Midway through the show, with the addition of a young female engineer, who was the one who made the robotic hero, and  of a new robot partner, the focus switched towards the relationship between the heroic team, while still fighting the criminal syndicates. Then came Blue SWAT, another crime fighting team (even if in that case, the heroes were "private detective" like, since their organization has been destroyed at the beginning of the show), but this time, the antagonists were a Space mafia with criminal aliens. Blue SWAT was the last show of that era which would use the "Metal Hero fighting criminals" theme, and the next show would take the Metal Hero franchise in a complete different direction.
Two majors writers would be involved in that era: first Noboru Sugimura, which already was involved in a "urban cop" Metal Hero show (Jiban), who became the head writer of the two first "rescue police"  shows (Winspector and Solbrain). After Solbrain, Sugimura left the Metal Hero franchise to work on the Super Sentai franchise, and a new writer, Junichi Miyashita, who had already been a secondary writer in Winspector and Solbrain, would become the main writer of the three following series (Exceedraft, Janperson and Blue SWAT). Miyashita became one of the most important writers of the Metal Hero franchise, since he would be also the head writer of the the two following Metal Hero shows.
Fun trivia it's during that era that a writer who would become one of the most important writers in the sentai and Rider franchise has written her first works in the toku franchise: Yasuko Kobayashi
In the sentai franchise, Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger can be seen as a tribute to the Rescue Police concept



Winspector (Tokkei Winspector)

Noboru Sugimura (main writer) : 1-2, 10, 16-17, 22, 28, 31-32, 40-41, 48-49 (13 episodes)
Junichi Miyashita : 3-4, 11, 15, 19, 35, 39 (written with 新藤義親), 43 (8 episodes)
Susumu Takaku : 5, 9, 13-14, 24, 29, 42 (7 episodes)
Nobuo Oogizawa : 6, 8, 20, 25, 33, 38, 44, 46 (8 episodes)
Kunio Fujii: 7 (1 episode)
Kyoko Sagiyama : 12, 18, 23, 27, 36, 47 (6 episodes)
Takashi Yamada : 21, 26, 34, 45 (4 episodes)
Kenichi Araki : 30 (1 episode)
増田貴彦 : 37 (1 episode)
新藤義親 : 39 (with Miyashita) (1 episode)


Solbrain (Tokkyu Shirei Solbrain)

Noboru Sugimura (main writer) : 1-4, 12-13, 16, 21-23, 25, 28, 34-36, 40, 43, 46, 49 (with 浅附明子), 51-53 (22 episodes)
増田貴彦 : 5, 11, 41 (3 episodes)
Nobuo Oogizawa : 6, 10, 19, 26, 30-31, 44, 47 (8 episodes)
Kyoko Sagiyama : 7, 18, 27, 39, 48 (5 episodes)
Takashi Yamada : 8, 14, 20, 29 (4 episodes)
Junichi Miyashita : 9, 17, 33, 37, 42 (with Suzuki), 45 (with Suzuki), 50 (with 石山真弓) : 7 episodes
Susumu Takaku : 15, 24, 32, 38 (4 episodes)
Yasuyuki Suzuki :  42, 45 (both with Miyashita) (2 episodes)
浅附明子 : 49 (with Sugimura) (1 episode)
石山真弓 : 50 (with Miyashita ) (1 episode)


Exceedraft (Tokusou Exceedraft)

Junichi Miyashita (main writer) : 1-4, 7-8, 11-12, 19-20, 21-22 (both with Hosono), 25-26, 28-29, 33-34, 38 (with Suzuki), 40, 43-44, 47-49 (with Suzuki) (25 episodes)
Kyoko Sagiyama : 5, 17, 39 (3 episodes)
Takashi Yamada : 6, 16 (2 episodes)
Nobuo Oogizawa : 9, 15, 23, 32, 35, 41, 46 (7 episodes)
Naoyuki Sakai : 10, 14, 27, 31, 36, 42 (6 episodes)
増田貴彦 : 13, 30, 45 (3 episodes)
Tatsuoki Hosono : 21-22 (both with Miyashita) (2 episodes)
中野睦 :  18, 24, 37 (3 episodes)
Yasuyuki Suzuki : 38, 47-49 (all with Miyashita) (4 episodes)


Janperson (Tokusou Robo Janperson)

Junichi Miyashita (main writer) : 1-5, 9, 17-18, 21-23, 31-32, 34 (with 井上一弘), 45-48 (with Suzuki), 49-50 (20 episodes)
Nobuo Oogizawa : 6, 10, 15, 24, 35, 37 (with Sakai), 38, 42, 43-44 ( both with 増田貴彦) (10 episodes)
Kyoko Sagiyama : 7, 20, 36, 41 (4 episodes)
Hirohisa Soda : 8, 16, 28, 33, 39 (5 episodes)
増田貴彦 : 11, 19, 43-44 (both with Oogizawa) (4 episodes)
Naoyuki Sakai: 12, 26, 37 (with Oogisawa) (3 episodes)
浅香晶 : 13, 25, 27 (3 episodes)
中野睦 : 14, 29-30 (3 episodes)
井上一弘 : 34 (with Miyashita)
Yasuko Kobayashi : 40 (1 episode)
Yasuyuki Suzuki : 45-48 (all with Miyashita) (4 episodes)


Blue SWAT

Junichi Miyashita (main writer) : 1-6, 12-13, 19-20, 23-24, 27, 29-30 (both with Suzuki), 33 (with Suzuki), 37-38 (with Suzuki), 43 (with 井上一弘), 44 (with 荒川龍), 50-51 (with Suzuki) (22 episodes)
Nobuo Oogizawa : 7, 14, 21, 25, 31, 40, 47, 48 (with 増田貴彦), 49 (9 episodes)
Kyoko Sagiyama : 8, 26, 42 (3 episodes)
Hirohisa Soda : 9, 15 (2 episodes)
Yasuko Kobayashi : 10, 16, 22, 36 (4 episodes)
浅香晶 : 11, 17, 32, 39, 45-46 (5 episodes)
中野睦 : 18, 41 (2 episodes)
Naoyuki Sakai : 28 (1 episode)
Yasuyuki Suzuki : 29-30, 33, 37-38, 50-51 (all with Miyashita (7 episodes)
増田貴彦 : 34, 48 (with Oogisawa)  (2 episodes)
Shouzo Uehara : 35 (1 episode)
井上一弘 : 43 (with Miyashita) (1 episode)
荒川龍 : 44 (with Miyashita) (1 episode)

1 comment:

  1. Wow gotta love the 90s, it was a great eye spectacular with Winspector, the inferior Soulbrain, and Exceedraft. Those shows where either a hit or miss.
    Jan Person was the return of Jiban but only fought cyber villains as well( 8man homage).

    Blue SWAT is pretty much SWAT,the Invaders and the HIDDEN(the 1987 movie). Violence galore.

    The metal series was getting shot out.

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