Toei's third hero franchise, seventeen series and eight hundred and twenty seven episodes, and in February 2026 it took over Super Sentai's slot.
Start with Space Sheriff Gavan from 1982. That is a rare thing to be able to say about a Toei hero franchise: unlike Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, where the answer is start anywhere, Metal Hero has a real beginning, and the three series that follow it are a genuine trilogy with a shared universe and a handover between leads.
Seen some of these already? Tap the circles to tick them off. The full list below fills in as you go.
Forty four episodes, the first of the franchise, and the show that fixed the format: one hero, one metal suit, and a transformation timed to take a fraction of a second. If you only ever watch one Metal Hero series, this is it.
A real trilogy. Gavan turns up in Sharivan and hands over, and the three share the Galactic Union Police universe. This is the only stretch of the franchise where watching out of order costs you anything.
The Rescue Police trilogy swaps monsters for emergencies, and it is the clearest tonal break in the run. Winspector, then Solbrain, then Exceedraft, which was written separately and folded in afterwards.
On the air now, in the Sunday morning slot Super Sentai held for fifty years. Toei describes it as neither a reboot nor a continuation, so it needs nothing before it.
Then what? Everything between 1985 and 1996 is standalone and you can pick by premise: Metalder for the darkest, Jiraiya for ninjas, Janperson for robots, B-Fighter for the one that became Beetleborgs in the United States. Two soft links are worth knowing because no title hints at them: Jiraiya from 1988 and Jiban from 1989 share a universe despite being completely different genres, and B-Fighter Kabuto is set ten years after B-Fighter although it aired one year later. The films are where the ordering actually gets hard. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie and the two Next Generation films are sequels to series that ended thirty years earlier, so watch the original series first. The four crossovers all need something from outside this franchise: Gokaiger, Dekaranger or Kyuranger, all of them Super Sentai. And Girls in Trouble: Space Squad Episode Zero is a prequel that came out the same year as the film it precedes.
A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below: tick anything off in either place.
Everything you tick is saved in this browser and nowhere else. An account is the only way to put your list on another device, and the only way to get it back if this browser clears its storage. It is free and it takes an email address and a password.
Sign in on your phone, your laptop, anything, and the same list is there, kept in step as you tick. Nothing to copy, nothing to remember.
All three are about this franchise and all three are for showing, not moving. The link and the picture open SagaList with that progress displayed next to whatever the person opening it has already ticked. The code is what a friend pastes into Compare below. None of them writes anything into anybody's list.
Read only. This never changes what you have saved, and nothing leaves your browser. The code has to be their code for this same franchise: codes do not carry a name, so one from somewhere else may not be recognised as wrong.
Removes everything ticked here, in this browser. If you are signed in it clears on your other devices too. If you are not, there is no other copy and this cannot be undone.
Your email is confirmed and your account is ready. Everything you tick is saved on this device, as it always was.
Yours, on every device you sign in on.
Your SagaList account.
Nothing else happens until you follow the link. If it has not arrived in a few minutes, look in your spam folder and search for SagaList. It is sent from a no-reply address on our own domain, so there is nothing to reply to.
Both addresses get an email: the new one to confirm it, and the old one so that nobody can move your account without you knowing. Nothing changes until you follow the link.
Signing out leaves everything you have ticked on this device exactly where it is. It only stops it syncing.
This removes your account, your email address, and the progress stored on our side. It cannot be undone and we cannot get it back for you.
Nothing is charged and nothing is cancelled, because SagaList does not take payments. What goes is your account, your email address and the progress synced to our side. What stays is everything ticked in the browser on this device.