1990 was a turning point of a year since Super Sentai was having some problems until Jetman saved it in 1991. That year was also the year of Winspector when Noboru Sugimura shifted from the first Robocop inspired series Jiban. Sugimura was now tasked with doing something more "mature" with Winspector and Solbrain. Superheroes aren't so powerful, especially they could only use their special suits for a time limit. It was also sort of trying to do a Japanese version of Automan and Knight Rider except it was ironically for children.
Winspector was different was that there was no main villain at all. The series featured a fictional version of Rescue 911 (and the year was 1999 in the script). The weird coincidence was that the actual year 1999 would combine Fiveman with the Rescue Police series creating GoGoFive. The legendary Hiroshi Miyauchi showed himself as a mentor for Winspector as Captain Masaki. The heroes were faced with a combination of realistic crime scenarios with sci-fi elements. Criminals were mostly normal humans although the supernatural frequently kicked in.
The success created Solbrain which introduced a new hero and references to Winspector. After Winspector went to Europe, Captain Masaki heads a new organization. Unlike Winspector, the show would eventually have a recurring villain midseason. It also featured the return of Winspector's Ryoma as Knight Fire except he was demoted to extra because Daiichi is now the protagonist. An overarching villain known as Ryuiichi Takaoka showed up. Takaoka's morality decays even further with what he does. But that wasn't the end.
Exceedraft came in as the last entry. It was supposedly its own continuity but it still had the Rescue Police theme in it. Okay, I've only seen a few episodes but I could talk about what I read in synopsis. The show itself gets a midseason "change" where the supernatural is now more involved. Its predecessors had a lot of sci-fi elements and Exceedrafts even adds more of it. What was interesting was that the midseason recurring villain Iwao Daimon is actually Exceedraft's version of the Devil. Daimon harasses the Exceedraft team as the greatest villain of the series. It's a good thing that Daimon doesn't have the Saima clan helping him out or it'd be the end of Exceedraft.
The final one would be Janperson. Janperson's design is pretty much inspired by Robocop except he's fully mechanical. He arrives with the same mission as Robocop. He's the new guy in Tokyo Town. His mission? Serve the public trust. Protect the innocent. Uphold the law. He fights against the three crime groups in Japan namely the Neo Guild, Super Science Network and Tatewaki Konzern. There's a few Robocop movie shoutouts that you might notice such as Tatewaki being the show's version of Clarence Boddicker (both are insane) or Reiko Ayanokouji would be the show's version of Juliette Faxx from Robocop 2. I didn't even think this show was by Toei until years later. Heck, I even thought Saban deserved to be sued when "Janperson" appeared in that idiot show called Beetleborgs!
These were such memories to why I tend to like most of the older school Toku by Toei due to their maturity level. Right now, I could still enjoy newer ones such as the new school Kamen Riders, I'm still looking forward to Lupiranger vs. Patoranger all the while I won't enjoy it as much. But as said, shows as serious as these may no longer click like they used to and the 90s has been long over.
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