TooKakkoiiforYou_321

Yup, like the title of my review suggests I watched this series after watching Space Sheriff Shaider and searching for more stuff in which the civilian identity of Shaider acted, and the second series he made after that one was this spin-off of the NHK Taiga Dramas focused on the life of the Sanada Clan, series in which he performed in a very good way (albeit with not much exposure in comparison to the total runtime) in the role of Toyotomi Hideyori and which fansubs by Koala fansubs you can find online. All I can say that it's an amazing series through and through that will give you more insight on the sengoku period than your regular blockbuster schlock a là The Last Samurai or the recent Shogun series by Disney since this was at least made by actual japanese people (meaning for once there are no external influences to speak of bogging down the whole affair, no offense to other non-japanese like me) with the most possible objective look at the facts in question without being too positive or too negative during the portrayal of the people in question, both the Sanada clan and their allies and enemies like Leyasu Tokugawa . Of course it's a drama, not a documentary, so a few liberties were clearly taken (I'm talking about liberties in respect to what Wikipedia tells me, I'm no expert in medieval japanese history) but even by taking that into consideration it gave me an incredible insight of an historical period I had no previous knowledge before and it made me interested in watching more Taigas in the future. On the technical side the acting is all great, the costumes are all great, really a shame this is not passed on the regular broadcasting antenna of my country (Italy) together with Tokusatsus and animes, it would be far more entertaining and informing than a lot of garbage passing from there. Highly recommended.

P. S. The appareance of the idol Yukiko Okada in the role of one of Masayuki Sanada's daughters (Idol who suffered an equally tragic passing like Hiroshi's) was really appreciated too, I must say.

P. S. S. I finished this series exactly the same day of Hiroshi's Birthday, apparently. That's really incredible. Rest in Peace.

That really don't add nothing of interest in the saga and they don't even bother of sticking to the main entree, with the sole exception of some of the original cast appearing again (here, of course, the spotlight is all for Noemi Morinaga, as lovely as she was in the original series and in her following JAV work) and some slight reference to the nature of the original series, reference that is bogged down by content that has NOTHING to do with the original series in the slightest, with the worst offenders in this case being the new Shaider presented as a womanizer of sorts - the kind of which Dai Sawamura as performed by Hiroshi Tsuburaya (R. I. P.) wasn't - and the inclusion of a love story between the Shaider and his sidekick that wasn't really there between Dai and Annie. All given to you by none other than Naruhisa Arakawa, which extremely good work in Abaranger the more time it passes the more looks like a Dennis O'Neil case of a person doing one thing of excellence (The 70's Batman, in the case of the latter) amidst a general mediocre/bad quality in the output. Hell, this movie even fails at the fanservice level, with the Iconic with a capital I panty shots of Annie replaced by inguinal shots of some of the female cast (and a torso shot of the new Shaider for the ladies) that, again, no matter how enticing they are, they have nothing to do with the original series to begin with and they don't add nothing of interest. If I were in you, I wouldn't bother. Watch once the first Shaider movie (NOT the second) AKA a standard episode of the series presented as a movie because Toku movies spinoff of a main series and it will suffice. At least it had Annie's panties in it.

Which takes a different approach from the previous two, meaning that it isn't about pure sci-fi fantasy (Gavan) and neither about Horror (Sharivan) but now it's about something akin to The Twilight Zone series, oddly the starting point of the franchise with which the person acting the part of the civilian identity of Shaider (Hiroshi Tsuburaya, grandson of the creator of the Ultraman franchise Eiji Tsuburaya), so that the ending product doesn't feel a 100% re-hash or carbon copy of those previous iterations. It's also great, like it happened in Sharivan, to FINALLY see in a tokusatsu a woman (The lovely JAV Starlet Naomi Morinaga, who I would have gladly seen doing the fights in the JAV attire - meaning naked from head to toe - during the entirety of the series) being an active participant and doing stuff instead of being a side character doing mostly nothing, the way it happened a bit with the otherwise good Spielvan. Her superipergigalovely panties are also the main reason why the few chinks in the armour appearing at the end of the series - meaning the sudden appareance of Vengeance stuff spouted by the enemies and taken directly from the terrible Showa Kamen Rider (some of them are even turned into cyborgs for the same reason) get a pass this time like I gave it a pass in a equally terrible Solbrain episode with a Nazi witch. All in all, highly recommended and DEFINITELY not boring in the slightest, contrary to what other pretended "toku" fans who overrate the good but nothing more Space Sheriff Gavan and stuff like the genuinely boring Kaiketsu Zubat might think. My final verdict for the first three Space Sheriff series is Sharivan > Shaider > Gavan, with Spielvan and Byclosser being good addictions comparable to the level of Gavan.