All spoilers for Tokkei Winspector are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
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Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain is the ninth entry in the Metal Heroes franchise, airing from 1991-1992. It is the second of its Rescue Heroes trilogy.
After the Winspector team leaves Japan to fight crime in France following the finale, Masaki Shunsuke creates a new team, named Solbrain, to continue Winspector's duty to take out crime and disaster when it strikes the city. The new heroes Daiki, Reiko and SolDozer must always be on hand to stop all disasters.
The main heroes are:
- Daiki Nishio/SolBraver: The Hero.
- Reiko Higuchi/SolJeanne: The Heart.
- SolDozer: The lone Ridiculously Human Robot on the team; The Big Guy.
- Ryoma Kagawa/KnightFire: Formerly The Hero of Winspector, joins the team mid-series as The Lancer.
Recurring Metal Hero tropes include:
- Big Bad: Towards the end, Ryuichi Takaoka becomes a recurring character behind many schemes.
- Cool Car: Daiki's Toyota Sera and Ryoma's Mazda RX-7. Don't forget Reiko's Toyota Previa minivan. All are customized for the show purposes.
Tokkyuu Shirei Solbrain provides examples of the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Downplayed compared to the previous show which frequently assured viewers it was 1999, but it can be assumed that is circa 2000.
- Close-Knit Community: Episode 14 features one of these, dealing with the ramifications of their local precinct's model cop refusing to shoot a youth he was acquainted with.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to its predecessor, there is a bigger amount of serious episodes and less comedy.
- Ghostapo: The episode "The Devil Whispers Death" has an actual ghost of a female SS officer, known simply as the "Woman of Riga", who also committed large-scale atrocities during the second World War in Nazi-occupied Latvia. Many people have lost their lives over it and they swore a curse upon her as they died. The officer is said to have died with Hitler in an underground bunker when Berlin fell, her spirit resides inside a portrait which was last located in a church in Riga. Her spirit influenced young women to tragically commit suicide with some having grandfathers who were allies with Hitler. The spirit also possesses Ako Gunji and would battle Solbrain. At the end, they would then destroy the spirit and her portrait, putting an end of her reign of terror for good.
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Licensed Game: Notable for being a reskinning of the original game Shatterhand.
