Space Sheriff Shaider

Space Sheriff Shaider (宇宙刑事シャイダー, Uchū Keiji Shaidā) is a Japanese tokusatsu television show that aired from March 2, 1984, to March 8, 1985. It is the last of the "Space Sheriff Series" of the broader Metal Hero Series franchise, it is a sequel the previous two being Space Sheriff Gavan and Space Sheriff Sharivan.
Action footage from Shaider was used for Season 2 of VR Troopers. For distribution purposes, Toei refers to this television series as Space Captain Sheider.
In college studying archaeology, Dai Sawamura deciphers the symbols of the Nazca Lines in Peru. Impressed by this feat, the Galaxy Federal Police (銀河連邦警察, Ginga Renpō Keisatsu) recruit and train him to be Earth's third Space Sheriff. He's given the code name Shaider in memory of an ancient warrior who defeated Emperor Kubilai and brought down his Fuuma Empire 12,000 years ago. When Fuuma returns, Dai is deputized as he returns to Earth to battle Fuuma.
Vavilos (バビロス, Babirosu), serves as the headquarters of Shaider and Annie as it circles around the Earth. In combat, Vavilos can fire the Vavilos Beam (バビロス ビーム, Babirosu Bīmu) from its wings. Whenever Shaider enters the Fushigi Dimension (known as "Time Space Warp" in the Philippines) and encounters a giant Fuuma gunship, he summons Vavilos, commanding it to transform either into a giant gun called the Big Magnum or a giant robot called the Vavilos Robot, whose chest emits a giant laser beam called Vavilos Fire, fires Vavilos Lasers from its hands, can catch the Fuuma Gunship's missiles and throw it back towards the Gunship and can shoot Vavilos Missiles.
Fushigi World Fuuma (不思議界フーマ, Fushigikai Fūma) is a religion from the Mayan Pyramid-like Fushigi Palace in the Fushigi Dimension, a subspace made of atomic particles that reaches temperatures around 6,000 degrees Celsius. The residents of this realm revere Kubilai as a god while carrying out his intent of conquering the universe through psychological attacks on many planets, destroying worlds like Gao, Omega, Mind, Gor, Marine, and Mount before targeting Earth to establish the second Mu Empire. Their airforce includes mini-carriage-like fighter jets and battleships with frowning face plates. Eventually, on Kubilai's birthday, Fuuma celebrates by systematically destroying every planet while pressing hard on their goal to conquer Earth. But once Kubilai is killed, Fuuma disbands as the palace self-destructs just as they nearly dominated the entire universe.
The Fushigi Beasts (不思議獣, Fushigijū) are psychedelic, deceptively comical-looking creatures that Kubilai "gives birth" to in the form of pearls called Fushigi Beast Eggs (不思議獣卵, Fushigijū Tama) using a special ceremony with the help of Poe. Placed within boiling Fushigi Seawater, the pearl enlarges into a giant egg that Kubilai hatches with his beam. Their naming system is two syllables, then those two syllable repeated. According to Poe in episode 5 they are considered as Kubilai's offspring, not just creations. During a fight with Shaider, a Fushigi Beast retreats into a Fushigi Dimension (不思議次元, Fushijigen) where it becomes four times more powerful in an attempt to get the upper hand against Shaider along using the realm itself as a weapon.
Two movies were also filmed. Space Sheriff Shaider (宇宙刑事シャイダー, Uchū Keiji Shaidā) takes place between episodes 19 and 20, and was released on July 14, 1984. Pursuit! The Strange Kidnappers! (追跡! しぎしぎ誘拐団, Tsuiseki! Shigi-Shigi Yukaidan) takes place between episodes 39 and 40, and was released on December 22, 1984.
A video game based on the television series, The Space Sheriff Spirits, was released for the PlayStation 2 system on May 25, 2006, by Bandai Namco. This product was made available in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The actors for Gavan and Sharivan reprised their roles, but Hiroshi Tsuburaya died before the game was developed, so anime voice actor Takuo Kawamura took over the role of Shaider instead.
Space Sheriff Shaider was released in the Philippines as Shaider in the late-1980s, where it became the first tokusatsu show to be dubbed in Filipino on ABS-CBN (1988-1991), IBC (1992-1994), RPN-9 (1997-1998), GMA-7 (2003-2005), Hero TV (2006-2009), and TeleAsia (2015). In this release, Dai Sawamura was renamed, Alexis. Also in this version, Kojiro Oyama is called Doctor Ang, Kubilai is called Fuuma Ley-ar, Priest Poe is called Ida (voiced by a female instead of a male as in the original) and Hessler is called Drigo.
The series was aired on M6 in France under the title Capitaine Sheider. The theme song was performed by Bernard Minet.
The series was also broadcast in Brazil, also under the name Sheider, in the early 1990s. Different from other tokusatsu series in Brazil, Sheider was broadcast on a channel as unpopular as the main ones around that time in Brazil, TV Gazeta, in 1990. As a result, only a few people saw the show. Rede Globo (who was the distributor of the series in Brazil), though one of the most popular television channels, later began broadcasting Sheider in the early morning, around 5 am, in 1992, until it disappeared completely from television.
In 2024, Discotek announced they'll release the series on Blu-Ray in September 2024.