I reckon they started filming in December 1997 around what is their east coast, or the Kanto region, so heavy snow is likely. That said, it appears January 1998 had some serious snowy days for prefectures within the Kanto region according to what I googled, so likely?

This is a bit of an "elephant-in-the-room" kinda question, but why did they settle on the name "Battle Cossack" in Battle Fever J and not "Battle Russia" or "Battle Soviet"?

Shiraishi talked about this in one episode. According to the plot, he grew up in Kazakhstan, the largest Asian republic of the former USSR. This decision, as I understand it, was made to avoid casting non-Asian actors for flashbacks. And then, as I understand it, the scriptwriters couldn't tell the difference between a Cossack and a Kazakh. Plus, it was 1979, the Cold War. Mentioning the Soviets or Communism could have provoked a negative reaction. Cossacks, on the other hand, are more closely associated with the Russian Empire and therefore less likely to trigger censorship.

What do you do when you fall off a series and want to finish it years later? Do you just rewatch what you've started? Read some sort of recap? Or just pick it back up and deal with the initial confusion?

There's a number of shows where I'm facing this dilemma but I don't have a "usual strategy" so I'm coming to you all for advice.

Personally, I just restart from episode 1 and plow through it. Might as well, since I'm giving it another chance and also in hopes of discovering stuff I haven't noticed from my previous watch of said show.

I pick up where I left off if I can remember the episode number. If not, I start over.