Sheriffs of the Stars - The 1984 animated series

Sheriffs of the stars (original English title: Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs) is a 1984 animated series about the space western genre, similar to the series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers and BraveStarr. The series premiered in the United States in 1987 and had a 52-episode run.

The show was based on Star Musketeer Bismarck (星 銃 士 ビ ス マ ル ク, Seijūshi Bisumaruku), a Japanese anime series created by Studio Pierrot that achieved moderate success in Japan. The English-language rights to the series were acquired by World Events Productions (WEP), the same company behind the English-language version of Voltron, in 1986. WEP reorganized and rewrote the series, incorporating most of the original episodes and creating them. again, before releasing it as Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs.

History

The series is set in the distant future. Humans spread beyond life on Earth and colonized the planets of the universe, creating a New Frontier of man. To protect these new settlers and maintain law and order in the New Frontier, the Earth Cavalry Command was created. The Cavalry Command is a military organization that maintains an army and fleet of ships to protect the New Frontier and the inhabitants of the planets within it known as Settlers. Within the Cavalry Command is a unit of special agents known as Star Sheriffs who function as field agents for the organization, investigating any crimes and plots that threaten the security of the New Frontier.

The main enemy of Cavalry Command and Star Sheriffs is a race of non-human creatures known as Vapor Beings (sometimes also called Outriders) who jumped into our dimension to conquer it. They attack settlers, destroy settlements and kidnap humans to extract various metals or crystals from the soil of various planets.

Outriders are superior to humans in battle technology. They control a legion of gigantic robots (“Forsaken Units”) with weapons far superior to the weapons and defenses of the Cavalry Command's space fleets. In response to the Outriders threat, the Cavalry Command develops a prototype spaceship known as the "Ramrod Equalizer Unit" (or simply Ramrod) that has the ability to transform itself from a spaceship into a powerful robot capable of fighting renegade units. Outriders on equal terms.

Characters

Saber Knight
Original name: Richard Lancelot
The title character in the US version of the series, Saber Rider is the team leader and unit captain Ramrod Equalizer. It is occasionally referred to by the nickname "Top Sword". He is a young man, but is described as having legendary sword skills and marksmanship. Saber Rider hails from the Scottish Highlands and is an expert on swords and horses. He is generally portrayed as a gentleman with a cold head for tactics and decision making. The American version retained the British Union Jack on the upper arm and the helmet design of Saber Rider's armored uniform; the design of this helmet appears to incorporate a bearskin hat.
Saber Rider often rides a robotic horse, responding to the name of "Steed," which has high-powered thrusters and the ability to fly, run and function in space. Steed is incapable of long-range space travel, so he is kept in Ramrod's cargo bay while traveling. It is mainly used to travel to planets from orbit or used on the surface of a planet. Steed has such sophisticated artificial intelligence that he is almost sentient, as he is able to recognize his master's voice commands and work independently when Saber Rider is in danger.

Hikari fireball
Original name: Shinji Hikari
Shinji aka Fireball, a former racing car driver, was the youngest driving champion in history. He now serves as the pilot of Ramrod's equalization unit and also has secondary control of heavy weapons located in Ramrod's chest region. Drive the “Red Fury Turbo Racer”, a racing car armed with a vast arsenal of weapons. He's a bit short-tempered, and he once prided himself on having a perfect memory. In the original Sei Jūshi Bismarck, Fireball is the Japanese chief of the crew. The Japanese flag is on the sleeve and helmet.
Over the course of the series, he learns that his father was a fighter pilot who fought alongside King Jaray of the Legendary Kingdom of Jarr when the Outriders first attacked fifteen years before the series' time frame. Sacrificing himself, Fireball's father sent his ship to the Nemesis command ship, robbing Nemesis of his body and sending them both to the Outrider dimension, where he was lost until the time frame of the series.
Coincidentally or not, Fireball's real name is strikingly similar to Evangelion's Shinji Ikari.

Colt Willcox
Original name: William "Bill" Willcox
Bill, also called Colt, is introduced to the series as a bounty hunter on the trail of Vanquo, an Outrider spy. Colt has near-infallible accuracy with firearms and serves as a gunner aboard Ramrod. His character is described as a loner, but also as an outrageous flirtation; he flirts with almost any woman he meets. His parents were attacked and allegedly killed by Outriders soon after Colt left to join a touring rodeo. This event prompted him to become a bounty hunter.
For personal transport and solo battles he uses a blue and white one-man spaceship he calls “Bronco Buster”. In Sei Jūshi Bismarck, the character is from the United States, so a United States flag is seen as a patch on his armored uniform; the armor helmet design incorporates a simulation of a "ten gallon hat".

Commander Charles Eagle
Original name: Charles Louvre
Commander Eagle is the head of the Cavalry Command, which includes all the fleets and armies that protect United Star Systems, including the Star Sheriffs. Charles takes his responsibilities seriously, but underneath he has a warm heart and a caring nature.

Eagle of April
Original name: Marianne Louvre
April Eagle is the daughter of Commander Charles Eagle. He is the engineer who designed and was responsible for the Ramrod Project. Before joining the Star Sheriffs, she was a professional tennis player. She was trained in cavalry command under General Whitehawk. April has a robotic horse, which responds to the name of "Nova"; which has the capabilities (and presumably the limits) of Saber Rider's Steed.
April is the subject of several romantic story arcs. In the first few episodes of the series, April had an unrequited crush on Richard aka Saber Rider. In later episodes, Jesse Blue took an unrequited love interest in April. Eventually, April and Shinji began a romantic relationship. Unlike most similar series, in Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs the heroine does not end up in a romantic relationship with the main hero. This is because his eventual love interest, Shinji aka Fireball, was the hero in the original Japanese version.
In the Japanese version, April is French, which is why her armored uniform carries the French tricolor.

Wand
Original name: Bismark
The Ramrod (voiced by Peter Cullen in imitation of John Wayne) was developed by April Eagle as a technological "miracle weapon" that would allow humans to counter the threat of the Outriders. Although it can be piloted by one person, the ship is designed to be operated by four people, each sitting separately units that control specific functions: navigation (April), weapons (Colt), pilot (Fireball) and commander / tactician (Saber Rider) .
A highlight of almost every episode is Ramrod's transformation from an airborne battleship into a giant combat robot. When the Ramrod Equalizer Unit undergoes the “Challenge Phase” (usually triggered by Fireball by pressing a button in the center of her unit's console), April says Ramrod is taking over navigation controls during the transformation. Ramrod recognizes this as the 4 control units are moved to new positions within Ramrod's head. As he completes the transformation, he lets out his battle cry in a heavy Western accent, "Attack them, move them out ... power step and ready to ride." The Ramrod vehicle will transform into a giant robot with a whopping six rounds to its side and appear to be wearing a cowboy hat and cape. The conversion of battle into robot form is mainly used when the Star Sheriffs encounter the giant robots of the Outriders, known as the Renegade or Desperado Unit. In "Maverick Quick-draw" mode, a series of assorted cannons will be deployed on Ramrod's chest, delivering the final blow to send a "Renegade Unit" Outrider to the Steam Zone. Star Sheriffs sometimes refer to Ramrod's robotic form as the "Big Sheriff".
In the final episodes of the series, the original Ramrod was dismantled as part of a peace treaty brokered between the Outriders and Cavalry Command. However, when the Outriders broke the treaty by attempting to invade the dimension of the New Frontier, the Cavalry Command gave the Star Sheriffs a more powerful version of Ramrod known as "Ramrod 2" with double the power of the original. Ramrod 2's challenge phase transformation was the same as the original Ramrod, only April now said "Ramrod 2 will now take control of navigation."
Ramrod was called Bismarck in the Japanese version, hence the series name Sei Jūshi Bismarck. The Americanized name for the battleship probably comes from cowboy slang referring to the person in charge of a suit, the pack leader, or the person who gets the job done.
The challenge phase of the Ramrod Equalizer Unit is essentially the sequence in which Saber Rider And The Star Sheriffs becomes akin to a "series of monster fighters (kaiju)"; otherwise the series, in American form, is predominantly oriented towards the West.

antagonists

antagonists
The main antagonists are called Outriders who are humanoids of the Vapor Zone, an alternate dimension. They do not require oxygen, but they do require large amounts of water. They have the ability to disguise themselves as human beings, to the point that not even a medical exam will reveal their true identity.

Their personal existence is bleak, as is their domestic dimension. They squandered all the resources of their home planet, forcing them to move to an artificial planet. The goal of the Outriders is to conquer humanity and control the universe without obstacles: they think that the human dimension has much more to offer than theirs. When an Outrider is hit or injured, they don't die, but rather a dimensional leap, a process in which they vanish and return to their original dimension. After the dimensional shift, a wisp of poisonous green gas remains and a spot where the Outrider was. A self-initiated dimensional shift leaves no trace. Outriders who are hit or killed in the vapor dimension will transform into humans. In unique circumstances an Outrider, while in the human dimension, finds himself in a situation that prevents them from making a dimensional leap, he can even transform him into a human.

Nemesis
Original name: Hyuza
Nemesis, a huge masked being, dressed in dark, is the evil genius at the head of the renegade Outriders. He created the Vapor Trail that allows Outriders to move from their dimension to the human dimension. His main motivation for ordering an invasion of the New Frontier is the unbearable boredom he feels in the Vapor Dimension. In the final episodes of the series it is revealed that Nemesis is a cyborg, and her consciousness also existed as Nth Degree, a powerful computer on Outrider's artificial homeworld.
Saber Rider is the only member of the Star Sheriffs to encounter Nemesis one-on-one. In the episode "Stampede," the two face off in a lightsaber duel after Saber crossed the Vapor Zone in the wake of an Outrider ship traveling along the Vapor Trail. When Saber Rider was on the verge of winning the duel, Nemesis saved herself by draining the oxygen from the chamber they were fighting in, rendering Saber Rider unconscious.

Jesse Blue
Original name: Perios
Jesse Blue is a man with strange traits; he has blue-green hair and a sarcastic streak. He was a promising cadet in Cavalry Command until he fell in love with April Eagle during a drill. When April rejected his advances and inadvertently embarrassed him in front of the other cadets, he rebelled against the Star Sheriffs.
Jesse cultivated a personal grudge against Saber Rider because he thought it was April's affection for Saber Rider that made her reject his love. He planted a bomb aboard Ramrod in an attempt to kill Saber Rider. When he learned that April would be on board the moment it exploded, he panicked and confessed what she had done to Saber. Although it was too late to stop the bomb blast, Saber Rider managed to reach Ramrod in time to prevent the ship from being destroyed. Jesse Blue escaped and became a fugitive, turning his back on the cavalry command and joining forces with the Outriders. He became obsessed with defeating the Star Sheriffs and conquering the New Frontier.

Gattler
Original name: Zatora
Gattler (sometimes called Gattler the Rattler) wears a space mask with fangs. When his mask is removed, his form is revealed to be a dark and grim villain. He has a heavy hand with a heart of stone and only responds to Nemesis.

Vanquo
Vanquo is a ghostly Outrider with hollow eyes and a long pale face. He is a sinister character with a chilling laugh. Dressed in serape and sombrero, it's an incredibly fast drawing.
Vanquo eventually had a strange fate for an Outrider: he became human. He was confronted by Saber Rider in the Vapor Zone shortly after Saber Rider's duel with Nemesis in the episode "Stampede". Vanquo presented a rather pitiful figure, abandoned by Nemesis and knowing that she had been defeated, she was at the mercy of Saber Rider. Saber Rider reasoned that if he shot Vanquo inside the Vapor Zone, he wouldn't be able to size the jump and reform again as he was already in his size. This meant that shooting Vanquo would make him a solid being. Saber Rider consoled Vanquo by telling him that he would like to be a human. Afterward, Vanquo looked at his new human body and said, with a little tearful glee, "I think I might."

Technical data

Original title Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
Original language English
Country United States
Regia Franklin Cofod
Music Dale Schacker
Studio Pierrot, World Events Production
1st TV 10 September 1987 - 2 September 1988
Episodes 52 (complete)
Episode duration 22 min
Italian network Italia 7
1st Italian TV 1987
Episodes it. 52 (complete)
Double studio it. Deneb Movie
Double Dir. it. adriano micantoni
Gender mecha, science fiction, western