Well hello there! Long time, no see. I’ve been working in the background for the past few months on a new project and it’s finally ready to greet the world! Say hello to Toho’s 1988 one-off toku series, Dennou Keisatsu Cybercop, which I’m translating as “Cybernetic Police Cybercop.”

Cybercop was aired in 1988/1989, and was later imported to Brazil in 1990, where it was insanely popular (like Juspion-level popular) as well. As a side note, I’ve released dual audio Japanese and Brazilian Portugese raws that you can download here. Olá pessoal!

Cybercop takes place in 1999, and features five detectives, four of whom don specialized armor and weapons to defeat an increase in terrorist activity, and one who doesn’t. Why? I don’t know. It’s never really established why Uesugi (the girl) doesn’t get a Bit Suit. She’s sassy and smart and doesn’t take lip from anyone though, so I guess that makes up for it (?). I really like Uesugi, though. She’s a very multi-faceted character, unlike some other girls in toku series.

In the first few episodes, our heroes are pretty interesting, and by interesting I mean hilariously one-dimensional, but thank goodness that changes about 7 or 8 episodes in.

Cybercop was a production of Toho, the studio famous for the Godzilla franchise, but has had very few forays into tokusatsu TV series. They had a few in the 70’s (Rainbowman, Zone Fighter, Greenman/Godman, Megaloman, etc.), but there was a big gap after Megaloman in 1979. Then came Cybercop in 1988, which was the first real tokusatsu series filmed on video instead of film (although you could count Tsuburaya’s 1983 series Andro Melos, but that was only 45 5-minute episodes). After Cybercop, they wouldn’t make another series until Guyferd (which was a co-production with Capcom), and their return to sole production wouldn’t be until 2003’s Chouseishin Gransazer (which I highly recommend).

A lot of people make fun of the series for the effects, which are A LOT of green screen. Like a lot. A lot a lot. There are just random rooms shown where they could have just gotten into a room to film but no, it’s green screen. In 1988, these effects were probably top of the line, but now they look kind of ridiculous. See also: the video composites used in Flashman, except all the time. Because the show was digitally filmed and edited though, some of the effects are really crazy.

The overall series plot is really well done and kind of reminds me of a major blockbuster film from 1984. You’ll see what I mean, but the series plot doesn’t get going until episode 14 or so. It’s really good though, highly enjoyable.

Cybercop is fun because it’s actually pretty funny too. Like laugh out loud funny. Mouri (Saturn) is just such a character. He’s hilarious in most of his scenes. Uesugi is pretty funny too. The rest get their moments; it’s not all drama and heroism.

The whole series is available for download, so get clicking over to the Releases page! Enjoy! “ZAC, dispatch!”