May Day, May Day, S.O.S.!
"Special Rescue Police Winspector": with a love of peace and faith in friendship, they fight crime head-on to protect the lives of innocent people. This is the "Metropolitan Police Special Emergency Unit"!
Tokkei Winspector ("Special Rescue Police Winspector") is the ninth entry in the Metal Heroes franchise, airing from 1990-1991. It was the first of its Rescue Heroes trilogy, followed by Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain and Tokusou Exceedraft.
20 Minutes into the Future, the continuing advancement of technology has created new and dangerous ways for criminals to carry out their nefarious acts. Yet with this escalation comes a new generation of law enforcement: "Winspector", an elite rescue and anti-terrorism task force who use cutting-edge technology as a force for good.
The leading operative of Winspector is Ryoma Kagawa. Codenamed "Fire", he can equip the Crashtector Power Armor for a limited period of time to face any danger on equal footing. Alongside his two robot sidekicks, "Bikel" and "Walter", the trio fight to protect innocent lives from whatever threatens them. Uniquely for such a show, there is no central villain or Big Bad; rather, Winspector paces itself as an episodic serial.
Recurring Metal Hero tropes include:
- Big Bad: Averted, for there is no main villain organization to speak of; Winspector fights "ordinary" high-tech crime and saves lives. There's a crime involving mad science (such as robots, giant birds, etc.) that would require the involvement of Toku heroes, always with a normal human behind this week's chaos - and there's no central figure that put them up to it, equipped them, or anything. Winspector is part Rescue and part super cops, though the threats they face are as dangerous as any other series' Monster of the Week.
- BFG: The Gigastreamer, introduced to provide a More Dakka solution to an unusually tough robot. It fires 60 plasma rounds per second and can blow away an M1 Abrams in 5 seconds at full power, with an absurd amount of recoil in exchange.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: "Jack Up!" ("Chakka", "Equip")
- Cool Bike: Bikel has a wheel in his chest and can use it to scoot around on the ground, but the obvious problems inherent in this (he can't turn) leads to him getting his own bike, the Winchaser.
- Cool Car: Fire's Win Squad, later upgraded to be able to reform itself into the armored Fire Squad. This car itself is a modified Chevrolet Camaro which is also a Cool Car in its own right.
- Laser Blade: Fire's Max Caliber functions as this. In a bit of a subversion, it's a gauntlet and more of an emergency rescue tool than a finishing weapon.
- Transformation Sequence: Ryoma's Crashtector armor is located in his car, which he has to enter and give the command to equip ("Chakka!"), at which point it appears around him instantaneously — he enters the car as Ryoma and gets out as Fire. This becomes a plot point necessitating the Win Squad's upgrade, as a crime syndicate wises up and targets the car.
Tokkei Winspector features examples of the following tropes:
- Bifurcated Weapon: The Gigastreamer is designed to combine with Fire's Max Caliber for Maxim Mode. (This was probably intended as a safety and a means to absorb some of its recoil.)
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: May have happened with a certain function on Winspector's standard sidearm, which has an extinguisher setting. Problem is, this mode is called the "Digestive Beam", with the likely cause being that the words for "Digestion" and "Extinguish" are homonyms in Japanese — "Shouka".
- Book Ends: Both the first and last episodes involve Winspector dealing with the same Mad Scientist Dr. Kuroda Onikichi and his killer android R-24.
- The Idiot from Osaka: Bikel speaks with a Nagoya accent. At least one robot was unable to understand him as a result. Turns out that this is because his programmer speaks that dialect. (When said programmer shows up, he's played by the voice actor.)
- Law of Inverse Recoil
- Averted and exaggerated a bit with the Gigastreamer Maxim Mode. The recoil is considerably more than average and it has a steep learning curve. Also, the vibrations may accidentally kill the user a little bit if fired without wearing protective armor. (And remember, it's actually an energy weapon.)
- In general, the show played this straight with small arms and averted it with recoiless weapons.
- Powered Armor: The Crashtectornote armor is this, capable of strength up to 30 times that of a normal human while also being able to shrug off missiles. It's self-sealed and can protect its wearer from gas and oxygen deprivation — but this means that the wearer's always sweating when they take it off.
- Rescue: Part of Winspector's mission statement, and a major change of focus as a Metal Heroes show. As such, they're lacking in heavy offensive weaponry until Fire gets the Gigastreamer, but are perfectly capable of taking a hit.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: Bikel, so much that people who just jump in without knowing the characters may think he's a guy in 24-Hour Armor. Walter does have his moments, but they're not as frequent as Bikel's.
- Robot Buddy: Bikel and Walter. They end up getting one of their own, in the form of Demitasse.
- Spell My Name With An S: Bikel/Bikhael/Bichael. This caused enough of a problem for the fansubber Sailor Otaku, that he simply went for the official spelling (as seen in the show).
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Set in the year 1999.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Of the Hour of Power sort — because of how much stress the Crashtector puts on the wearer's body, it has a five minute time limit. This can be exceeded, but only at the risk of injury. It's also designed for Ryoma's body only, meaning that no-one can easily take his place if he's, say, in the hospital.
- Theme Tune Roll Call:Fire, Red!
Bikel, Yellow!
Walter, Green! - The Worf Effect: If a threat is more than Bikel and Walter can handle, expect them to get knocked away easily. However, even Ryoma himself is subjected to this sometimes.
