The finale of Toho and Konami's Chou Sei Shin Series, Chou Sei Kantai Sazer X debuted in 2005.
In the year 2500, the Earth has been conquered and covered in eternal darkness by an evil empire known as "Neo-Descal", which now seeks to take over the entire universe. With no other options left, the last remnants of Earth's armada send three of their ships through a wormhole that takes them back in time to the year 2005.
According to the history books of the future, this was the year where three legendary Space Pirates from the "Descal" fleet conquered Earth by capturing the twelve mystical Cosmo Capsules and using their power to plunge the world into darkness. For the sake of averting this Bad Future, the heroes of the future recruit a modern man (Takuto Ando) to complete their Power Trio and form the Super Star Fleet, Sazer X.
It received a theatrical film in Chousei Kantai Sazer-X the Movie: Fight! Star Warriors, which was also a crossover between it and the previous two Chouseishin installments.
This show features examples of:
- Alien Invasion: The plot is kicked off by the Descal aliens invading Earth.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: An affectionate parody of it. While the lessons themselves are rather standard, the way of showing it is very funny. An example is the lesson 'Don't go with strangers' in which one of the villains uses a literal Paper-Thin Disguise, in the form of a paper mask.
Yui: Ad!
Remy': Yui, look carefully! Ad doesn't have horns like that!
- And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the series, Sazer-X, the Three Shoguns and Yui are all made the new guardians of the Cosmo Capsules and each goes to a different place with them. The Three Shoguns return to space, Gordo and Patora open up a university together, Kane returns to his home planet to reunite with his family and Ein and Zwein tag along with him, Ad goes to his home planet to reform his people's warrior culture, Remy stays on Earth to build a life for herself there and Takuto leaves for England to work as an F1 engineer alongside his father.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Each Sazer-X member and their Ryuuseishin is themed after a different animal. The Cosmo-Capsules all each have a different animal motif and grant powers based on said animal.
- Antagonistic Offspring: The Neo Descal executives don't have a very favorable view towards their Descal ancestors, and only keep the Three Shoguns around because killing them would erase their history.
- Bad Future: By the year 2500, humanity is wiped out and Earth is controlled by evil aliens on the verge of dominating the entire universe.
- The Big Bad Shuffle: Initially the main antagonist is Captain Barder, leader of Descal until he's revealed to be a robot and short-circuits just 10 episodes in. The Three Shoguns then briefly fill the role before Grouza comes from the future to ensure history stays the same. She in turn requests assistance from the Neo Descal fleet commander Garade, who takes command of the villains immediately after following Grouza into the past. Later on, Garade's boss King Neo Descal comes to the past to personally oversee things and reveals himself as the true Big Bad.
- Bittersweet Ending: The heroes win and ensure Neo Descal doesn't rise, but Commander Shark is erased from existence as a result.
- Canon Welding: Sazer-X has several things tying it into the previous two Chouseishin series. The Mooks the Descal use are borrowed from the villains in Gransazer, a Gadaru Alien appears in episode 8 and one of the war machines in Neo Descal's arsenal is Megarion, a mecha which was previously used by the villains in Justirisers.
- Combining Mecha: The Ryu Sei Shin, each of which forms from one of Sazer-X's vehicles combining with a Core Caliber.
- Commonality Connection: Takuto and Blaird start to bond and put away their grudge towards each other when they discover how much they have in common in episode 9, both being Hot-Blooded fire warriors who each have a different fatherly authority they want to please (Takuto's grandpa for him, Captain Barder for Blaird). Throughout the series, how similar they are frequently gets emphasized and is part of what leads to Blaird eventually turning good.
- Conqueror from the Future: When Sazer-X starts to threaten the chances of Descal conquering Earth in the past, Neo Descal begins sending ships through the wormhole to essentially conquer Earth for the Descal and make sure time stays the same.
- Cool Old Guy: Soujirou Andou. He is a Gadgeteer Genius, able to repair and modify future technology and is not afraid to get close to the battlefield when needed.
- Dancing Theme: The ending credits has Takuto and Remy dancing to a backdrop of clouds and a rainbow, soon being joined by the rest of Sazer-X.
- Dark Is Evil: The villains of the show are associated with darkness. Descal's takeover of Earth in the original timeline resulted in it being engulfed in darkness, and the Neo Descal conquer planets by bombarding and terraforming them to cover them in darkness.
- Darkest Hour: An almost literal example comes by the penultimate episode. Sazer-X have most of their mecha trashed by Dark Geran's darkness corrosion powers, just as Earth is on the verge of being engulfed in darkness.
- Death by Irony: Grouza, the Evil Genius of Neo Descal, constantly demeans and humiliates her ancestors despite the fact that they need to be kept alive to maintain the timeline and keep Neo Descal in existence. Later on when Thundera shows up, Grouza dismisses her as unimportant to the timeline because she's not in any records. Turns out that Grouza is a descendant of Thundera and Blaird, and when Sazer X inadvertently stops them from meeting, Grouza is erased from history.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Every time things seem to be going well for our heroes, something new will come in out of nowhere and set back everything.
- Elemental Powers: Each of the Sazer-X members and Shoguns has a different element associated with them.
- Playing with Fire: Takuto, Blaird
- Blow You Away: Ad, Cyclead.
- Shock and Awe: Kane, Thundera
- Making a Splash: Shark, Aqual
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Each space-pirate and Sazer has one of the four elements of fire, water, wind and lightning. Fire-based fighters are weak against water, water is weak against wind, which is weak against thunder, which in turn is weak against fire.
- The Empire: Neo Descal, a Galactic Superpower which conquers planets through bombarding them and corroding them with darkness.
- Evil Counterpart: Two of them.
- Jackall, who appears during the middle of the show, is basically an evil Sazer-X member. He transforms in a similar way to Sazer-X and pilots his own mecha equivalent to their Ryuuseishin.
- And during the finale, the Big Bad turns into one to Lio Sazer, called Black Lio, basically being a Palette Swap of the former.
- Face Death with Dignity: Commander Shark works to undo Neo Descal's rise despite knowing full well he'll be erased too. When it finally does come, he bids farewell to Remy, Takuto and the rest of Sazer-X before letting out a sad smile and disappearing.
- Finishing Move: Each Sazer-X member has their own special move, which they can perform by placing a Cosmo-Capsule inside of their weapon.
- Lio-Sazer: "Lio Fire"
- Eagle-Sazer: "Eagle Typhoon"
- Beetle-Sazer: "Beetle Slash"
- Shark-Sazer: "Shark Flash"
- For Want Of A Nail: Despite Sazer-X's efforts, the future doesn't start to change until Takuto, by complete accident, stops Thundera from falling in love with Blaird, leading to Grouza and all of their other descendants being erased from existence.
- Forced to Watch: After Sazer-X refuses to give up on trying to change the past, Grouza tosses Remy an electronic tablet and makes her watch as her home planet is destroyed by the Neo Descal fleet.
- Freudian Trio
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The Cosmo Capsules. The Descal want to collect them to take over Earth, while Sazer-X wants to obtain them to stop Descal from doing so.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Blaird changes sides many times throughout the series. He starts out as a Descal pirate, but later throughs his lot in with Neo Descal, Sazer-X, himself, Jackall and finally Sazer-X again, but this time for good.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Three Shoguns all turn good by the end of the show, starting with Blaird and followed (much later) by Aqual and Cyclead.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Neo Descal seems to have a preference for these sorts of duos. Grouza isn't short, but she's dwarfed by Garade in terms of height and build. Similarly, Barreda is paired with the bulky and tall King Neo Descal.
- Human Aliens: Most of Sazer-X is comprised of human-looking aliens.
- I Am Not Your Father: Remy thinks Commander Shark is her father, since he left her on Planet Roue as a child. In fact, Remy is actually a human and an orphaned little girl who Shark brought to the future, as she was ill and none of Earth's sciences could cure her. Despite this, Shark acknowledges at the end that he's Remy's true father.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite all the minor changes Sazer-X and Neo Descal undoubtedly make when they come to the past, history still stays the same since the Three Shoguns are still alive. It's implied that the wish the Three Shoguns made with the Cosmo-Capsules in the original timeline is keeping things relatively the same across time and space.
- Kaiju: The Space Terror Beasts used by the Descal. Neo Descal has their own, more powerful variants in the Future Space Terror Beasts.
- Knight of Cerebus: Groaza is definately this trope. Before she appeared, the series was fairly light and humorous. The villains looked more like a bickering family than a real threat, causing the heroes to score victory after victory. But after Groaza appears, things start to get really difficult for thee heroes...
- La Résistance: Sazer-X, which was formed by Commander Shark to oppose Neo Descal's campaign of galactic conquest.
- Lighter and Fluffier: Initially it's much more light-hearted than either Gransazer or Justirisers. While it does begin with a dark plot around Time Travel, compared to its two predecessors Sazer-X has a higher amount of comedic moments, goofier and less serious villains, and An Aesop each episode.
- Make My Monster Grow: Averted for the most part, as already giant kaiju are used to facilitate the mecha battles instead of the Descal enlarging one of their human-sized monsters.
- It's played straight though when Grouza shows the Three Shoguns how to use the Cosmo-Capsules to enlarge people, which they promptly use to grow Blaird into a giant monster.
- In the finale it gets exaggerated when King Neo Descal merges with the already gigantic Dark Geran, making it grow even bigger to the point where it towers over the Ryuuseishin.
- Make Way for the New Villains: King Neo Descal marks his arrival in the past by executing Garade.
- Mirror Match: Takuto vs Black-Lio, an evil doppelganger of his created by Neo Descal.
- Monster of the Week: Most episodes see a new element-themed Descal kaijin (or Neo Descal kaijin) being sent out to obtain a Cosmo-Capsule.
- Mook Carryover: Descal borrows their Gig Fighter Mooks from the Warp Monarch from Chouseishin Gransazer. The intro to the series also shows them using Omegas (also from Gransazer) as grunts. Neo Descal meanwhile makes use of Megarions, Robeasts that were previously used by the Daruga Imperial Army in Genseishin Justiriser.
- Muck Monster: The Neo Descal terror beast Deathbar, a sludge monster in the vein of Hedorah.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Averted for the most part. The Descal come to Earth with limited resources at the start. They've only got three Space Terror Beasts and a handful of regular-sized monsters, which leads to them having to find ways to create new monsters once they're all used up. and lack their own Mook, instead having to borrow the grunts from first series. It's played straighter with Neo Descal, who as an empire having access to a greater amount of resources than their Descal ancestors did, but because the wormhole is guarded by Sazer-X's fleet they're still limited in the amount of forces to the past.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: Sazer-X travels to the past using a time wormhole that leads to 2005.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Ad's people, aliens from the planet Biyodo, are a race of warriors renowned by the other alien races in the universe, and have a bit of a holier than thou attitude as a result. At the end of the series, Ad leaves for his home planet to reform his people and get them to do away with this mentality.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Three Shoguns, the very eccentric commanders of Descal's invasion. At the same time though they're also very important to the plot, and most of the plot developments in the series are centered around them.
- Replacement Mooks: The Deathmeids, which replace the Gig Fighters Descal uses after Neo Descal finally makes an appearance.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: All characters in Sazer-X have this, as none of the changes to the timeline erase any of the memories they have of the future.
- Robeast: The Diros, a mechanical insect-like kaiju formed from a swarm of Flying Saucers combining together. Garade's flagship, the Galeo Rogue, is also capable of shifting into a kaiju-like mecha mode - the Galeo King.
- Sentai: Sazer-X is the furthest the Chouseishin Series would step away from the concept. The designs of Sazer-X are a far cry from what Sentai heroes usually look like, they each pilot their own mecha on their own or with the aid of a non-transforming crewmate and frequently split up and fight battles on their own instead of as a team.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The reason Sazer-X travels back in time is to stop Descal from taking over Earth and turning it into an Evil Empire in the future.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: First Sazer-X has to fight the goofy and not so threatening Three Shoguns. Then Garade and Grouza arrive and bring along with them stronger Mooks, monsters and kaiju. After Garade is defeated, King Neo Descal and Barreda appear with even stronger forces behind them.
- Space Pirates: The Descal are space pirates who came to Earth looking to steal its Cosmo-Capsules, before evolving into an evil empire in the future.
- Stable Time Loop: This turns out to be the true goal of King Neo Descal after he travels back in time. Instead of making sure history goes the way it did originally by having Descal gather the Cosmo-Capsules, he instead attempts to use the Dark Alumer to cover it in darkness and transform it to the state it is in the future, ensuring that the history where Neo Descal rose is still functionally the same even if the events that led up to it differ.
- Story Arc: Sazer-X is split into three arcs.
- "Part One" (1-13) involves the Descal coming to Earth to collect the Cosmo-Capsules and conquer it, and Sazer-X coming from the future to stop them.
- "Part Two" (14-27) sees Neo Descal forces coming through the wormhole to the past and mounting their own invasion of Earth, at the same time Shark travels to the past to join with the rest of Sazer-X.
- "Part Three" (28-38) involves the Neo Descal flagship Neo Deark making it back in time and Neo Descal laying preparations for a final plan to conquer Earth.
- Take a Third Option: Pulled by the villains. When Neo King Descal appears in the past, he decides that instead of following history and conquering the Earth by collecting all the Cosmo Capsules, he'll just build a Doomsday Device on the moon to do it for him instead.
- Terminator Twosome: After Sazer-X travels to the past to stop Descal from conquering Earth, they're followed through the wormhole by Neo Descal, who want to make sure the timeline stays the same.
- Time Travel: The plot is kicked off by Sazer-X traveling back in time.
- Trapped in the Past: Time travel in Sazer-X is one way, so anyone from the future who entered through the wormhole to go back in time can't return. The only way to go forward in time is to use the Cosmo-Capsules.
- Villainous Lineage: All of the executives in Neo Descal are descended from the Three Shoguns of Descal and part of the bloodlines they formed after coming to Earth.
- Weapon-Based Characterization
- Takuto: Lio-Breaker
- Ad: Eagle-Blaster
- Kane: Beet-Hawk
- Shark: Shark-Bash
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: This series has multiple people with this issue, but all of them are subverted.
- In the first Arc, Takuto is trying to meet the expectations of his famous grandfather Soujirou. He explicitly states his grandfather is a giant wall he must overcome in order to make his dream come true. After a while, Soujirou asks Takuto to hit him, making clear he is just a frail old main and not some wall he has to overcome.
- Blaird, like Takuto, wants to appease his own authority figure Captain Barder. but after lightning hits the ship, Captain Barder is revealed to be a robot and short circuits. This causes Blaird to doubt his cause as a pirate.
- Wham Episode:
- Episode 10 in which the leader of Descal is revealed to be a robot figurehead.
- Episode 18 has Blaird revealing the truth about Descal and why they came to Earth, and their history with Ad's people.
- Episode 27 sees the Neo Descal's Neo Deark flagship making it to the past and the Sazer-X forces under Tobey's command blowing up the wormhole to stop Neo Descal from sending any more forces, costing them the ability to do anything more to reinforce Sazer-X.
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