On February 8th, 2026, the longest consecutive toku television series in Japan ended with the finale of “No. 1 Sentai Gozyuger.” Gozyuger was the 49th season of Super Sentai and aired alongside “Kamen Rider Gavv” and later “Kamen Rider Zeztz.” Unfortunately, for what became the final season of Super Sentai, it was full of controversy. The show had accusations of using generative AI in sequences, as well as drama regarding one of the stars who had to be written out of the show last minute. Though Gozyuger was a sad and kind of disappointing send off to Super Sentai, it was quickly revealed that the Sentai timeslot would have a replacement in the form of “PROJECT R.E.D.” and its first season, “Super Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity”, a revival of the classic Metal Heroes series “Space Sheriff Gavan.” After a period of anticipating and great intrigue, it’s now time to see the new Sentai replacement that Toei has given us, and once and for all, determine how episode one manages to do in its attempt to fill the massive void left behind in the wake of the long-running Sentai franchise coming to a close. As one franchise sunsets, another is reborn… but will it be enough to stand alongside iconic Toei tokusatsu hero shows?
Truthfully, I have never seen a full Sentai series all the way through, and I’ve never seen the original Gavan series, but I have seen many episodes of Sentai and a lot of the first episodes, and honestly this might just be my current favorite. The opening of this show is massive in scale and unrelentingly action-packed, immediately immersing us in this world with a huge alien invasion of Earth. Three Space Sheriffs on their giant mech guns take to the battle to turn the tides. As the battle rages on, we come to learn that this is merely a tease for what is yet to come. Showing events in the future was kind of brilliant; knowing what everything will build to and what is etched into infinity as destiny is a genius idea. The sense of scale and tone is immediately set and the execution is one of the coolest toku introductions done in the modern age.
After this tease, we get an introduction to our setting: This is a future Earth where aliens are encouraged to peacefully live alongside humans. I love seeing a world that isn’t full of crazy space racism like “Kamen Rider Black Sun,” with the show’s choice to head in this direction being a fresh dose of optimism that is very much appreciated right now. After some brief exposition about this futuristic planet, we finally meet our focal space cop, as he tries to stop an alien thief from stealing something called an “Emogear.” In this first episode, the show chooses to never explain to the audience what an “Emogear” is, but from the visual storytelling it does give us, it seems as if these are devices that can control emotions that our hero can use to manipulate an enemy’s feelings. This introduction to Reiji Doki, our protagonist, has my favorite part of the whole episode, a full blown fight without the Gavan suit. I know it may be incredibly weird to like the pre-henshin fight the best, but the stuntwork is amazing, the fight choreography is smooth, and the scene’s buildup and execution is masterfully blocked. As much as I love a good Henshin Hero, it feels like modern shows use a lot of CGI in their action scenes to add flair to the fights, so getting to see a moment of pure traditional, hand-to-hand combat was a unique way to begin the series.
Following the fantastic fight scene is the reveal of our new hero, Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity, but with some subversion: The show doesn’t give him the fanfare you’d usually expect. I do really like this change; the suit is on Reiji in literally a millisecond and his power immediately overwhelms his foes. From here, the show slows down to provide a little more exposition, revealing something known as “Emorgy” that the Emogears have, and that it’s the most powerful thing in the multiverse. That’s right, this is a multiverse story. Negative Emorgy is capable of destroying the entire multiverse and an anomaly is found in an alternate reality. Our heroes depart through dimensions to stop this threat before all life is destroyed. The multiverse may be an overused concept across various media franchises at this point, but I actually really love it here, as it is something that does not exist for just cameo-fests and references. In fact, it’s even revealed this new Gavan is “Multiverse Sheriff Gavan” rather than simply “Space Sheriff,” and I think that adds some more depth to this revival.
“Space Sheriff Gavan Infinity” is off to a fairly promising start! There are more characters introduced after our hero travels to the new Earth that are fun and memorable, especially a cop on this world that is dressed like a samurai. He feels very similar to Goemon from the Lupin the III series. Reiji also has two supporting characters as part of his team, though they are more like the Special Science Search Party (SSSP), aka the Science Patrol, from Ultraman. They are there to drop exposition and fly Gavan to his destinations, but they’re incredibly bubbly and charming. Seeing them on screen is an absolute joy to watch, rather than a hindrance and distraction.
The villain of the week is also very compelling, he has an understandable motive that audiences can empathize with, but, he takes it too far, allowing his emotions (emorgy!) to take control of him and veer him onto the wrong path. Our hero gets to show his good nature, not blaming the baddy for his beliefs, instead simply empathizing with him and trying his hardest to calm him down. The climax of the episode finally gives us the big henshin scene we’ve waited for, and while the execution is very simple, we get to see the new suit in all its glory up close! The choreography is once again great, and although still touched up with CGI, it’s significantly less intrusive than most of the other modern toku series I’ve seen, especially Kamen Rider Zeztz.
For tokusatsu fans, I really think this episode is worth checking out. It is my hope that the show continues this momentum and maintains the high bar of quality throughout. I loved every second of this episode, including the creature and hero designs, the fights, the sets, and of course the mechs, even if they aren’t fully explored yet. This episode has great teases for what the show will explore, and does an amazing job setting the stage. I love our new protagonist Reiji, even if he is pretty obviously a Red Sentai character archetype in design and performance. Reiji gets some surprising depth right off the bat with teases of a very tragic backstory, though we will have to wait for the reveal! The supporting cast is very likeable, and I even think the villain of the week was one of the best in tokusatsu, sporting a positive goal with negative emotions. I’m really excited to see where this show goes as more episodes come out. We may have lost Super Sentai, but I think this new show is going to be a worthy successor!
