Trivia / Tokusou Saizensen

• Banned Episode: Several episodes involving sexual assault cannot be rerun on Japanese terrestrial stations, likely due to their explicit nature.
• Contest Winner Cameo: Variation with Episode 277 as its plot was selected by the producers as a winner of a contest to decide what would be the show's 5th anniversary special.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Shigeru Araki's (Detective Akira Tsugami) were Episodes 68 and 69.
  • Kenichi Sakuragi's (Detective Jiro Taki) were Episodes 108 and 169, which were his debut and final episodes, respectively.
  • Katsuhiko Yokomitsu's (Detective Junichi Kurebayashi) were Episode 129 and 212. The latter is also a favorite of the producer's.
  • Natsu Yusuke's (Detective Junichi Kano) was Episode 148, his debut episode.
  • Naoya Makoto's (Detective Ryuji Hoshino) were Episodes 200 and 201, the Paris/Rome Vacation Episodes.
  • Shukei Nagasaka's (the series' most prolific teleplay writer), were Episodes 260 and 418.
• Directed by Cast Member: Episodes 278 and 490 were directed by Hideaki Nitani.
• Edited for Syndication: The TV Movie was split into two parts during reruns, but this version hasn't resurfaced on home video yet.
• Guest Star: Takeshi Sasaki, better known as Kamen Rider #2, guest stars in Episode 48 as Natsuko Kamio's fiancee. Sadly, his appearance ends up becoming Death by Cameo.
• Hey, It's That Place!: Being a Toei production, after all, the legendary Toei gravel pit from Super Sentai and Kamen Rider appears a few times across the show. In Episodes 1 and 161 it serves as the locales for the episode's climaxes, in Episode 65, it serves as a testing ground for the villain-of-the-week's weapon, and it serves as the location of a car chase in the Made-for-TV Movie.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The DVDs unfortunately collect around 167 episodes out of a 509-episode run, leaving the remaining 342 episodes unavailable on home video. The fact that the show was never released on home video prior to them further complicates matters for completionists.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The ''Best Selection Box'' collections. They come in slipcases, contain interviews with the cast and crew, and have booklets containing reprinted episode scripts and magazine articles.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • Episodes 275-276 and 277 were for the 5th anniversary. The former were the show's Vacation Episodes set in Hawaii while the latter's plot was selected as a winner from a fan submission contest.
  • Episodes 359 and 360 were for the 7th anniversary, and are considered the show's best episodes by fans.
  • Episodes 407 and 408 were for the 8th anniversary, and are set in Belgium.
  • Episodes 460 and 461 were for the 9th anniversary.
  • The last episode was aired a week before the exact date of the show's 10th anniversary.
• No Export for You: Averted, surprisingly. The series was shown, subbed, on Hawaiian TV in the 70s and 80s. The show's cast of tokusatsu alumni might be part of the reason it was given an export.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: The plot of Episode 277, part of the show's 7th anniversary celebration, was adapted by Shukei Nagasaka from a winner of an episode idea submission contest.
• Real-Life Relative: Hideaki Nitani's wife, Yumi Shirakawa, had a semi-recurring role late in the series.
• Real Life Writes the Plot / Troubled Production:
  • In a manner similar to his costar Hiroshi Fujioka's departure from Kamen Rider, Hideaki Nitani suffered serious injuries while skiing during the shoot for the show's 97th and 98th episodes, leading to a brief absence.
  • Takasugi's actor started to make more infrequent appearences due to his schedule, culminating in his departure in Episode 105.
  • Naoya Makoto eventually left the show due to conflicts with the writing staff, and with series writer Shukei Nagasaka in particular. Thankfully, they reconciled a few years after the show ended.
  • Nagasaka also left the show for a brief while due to conflicts with the producers.
  • Hiroshi Fujioka left twice during the series, due to his commitments to other projects.
  • Hideki Otani also took a few absences due to health issues and to film Kagemusha.
• Shout-Out: In Episode 70, the antagonists are a criminal organization in the search for a microfilm. The organization's name? Black Satan.^note Made even funnier as this was made during Shigeru Araki's run on the show, and he was the Character Focus for it.
• Spiritual Successor: The show is this to an earlier and longer-running Toei cop show, Special Mobile Investigation Team, which ran from 1961 to 1977 for 801 episodes and was then succeeded by Tokusou Saizensen. The former show notably had Sonny Chiba in an early role as a detective.
• Thematic Series: The show had several small story arcs based around a theme, which included location-based series and women-related shows.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were plans for a second Hawaiian show, but it never came to be.
  • There was also talk of the cast reuniting for a couple of yearly Reunion Shows, but this too, didn't happen.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Before joining the cast as detectives, Katusuhiko Yoshimitsu (Kobayashi), Natsu Yusuke (Kano), and Kiyokata Mitsugi (Inuyo) were all guest stars in various episodes.
  • In the show's most shocking example, Naoya Nakoto returns in Episodes 499-500 as an entirely different character from Hoshino: Tetsuji Matsuda, a yakuza working for the episode's syndicate-of-the-week. The episode even lampshades it when Detective Kano even calls Matsuda "Hoshino".
• You Might Remember Me from...: Tokusatsu fans may be pleased to know that Toshiro Hachiro, Kamen Rider #1, the original Akaranger, and Kamen Rider Stronger all appeared in this series as part of the main cast - and all at the same time to boot. This has encouraged Japanese fans to edit Saizensen's opening to showcase the cast in their toku roles.