Everybody seems to make this mistake. Wild Force was a Disney season; they simply kept MMPR Productions open as its primary production company.
Oh, right. I remember now that it was kind of a "transitional" season. What I should've said was "a pre-New Zealand season"; WF was the last PR season shot in California.
^ It's all good. Re: the Animaria/Animarium thing, it's a 'Washington vs. Washington D.C.' scenario and really isn't that big of a deal.
Well, I just finished watching all of Dairanger on YouTube. It was pretty interesting, though I think it kind of fell apart at the end there, like they tossed in some new ideas at the last moment and didn't really think about continuity. Spoiler: Dairanger I mean, if Shadam was really a clay puppet/golem all along, how could he have fathered Kou and Akomaru? And if Daijinryuu will come to destroy the Earth if we keep fighting, how can it be true that we must fight eternally to protect the Earth? Also, when I started to watch, I'd forgotten that this was the season with the kid who turned into a Ranger. Kou wasn't quite as annoying as Justin in Power Rangers Turbo, but I could've done without him and his sexual harrassment of Rin. I think I'm going to continue and watch Kakuranger, since that's the other season that had most of its costumed action footage unused or radically repurposed in the corresponding Power Rangers season. I've always been curious to see how the "Alien Ranger" stuff worked in its original context. Beyond that, though, I'm not sure what other seasons I might choose to watch. I'd be open to recommendations for seasons that are: 1) Available on YouTube. 2) Good, or at least decent. 3) Ideally, very distinct from their Power Rangers equivalents, if any.
Youtube limits the options but I suggest Gekiranger, I loved it, unlike many other sentais it's very serialized with a heavy focus on the villains. Personally I didn't fell in love with the series until the Kenma were introduced, I think in episode ... 10? Some ideas and concepts were reused for Jungle Fury but there are enough differences, especially on the villains's side, their motives are totally different. It's probably the season with the best villains in the last decade and it helps that they weren't just rubber suits. Don't let Jan's way of speaking dissuade you from watching the show, many people are annoyed by it but it fits the character and his backstory. If you want to see a series that's really distinct from it's counterpart watch Go-Onger, I don't think it's possible to be more different than RPM, it's good (although it's on the wacky side) but I'd still suggest Gekiranger, it's the better show imo. If you want to go in another direction and watch a show that's really similar to its PR counterpart I suggest Shinkenger, Power Rangers Samurai copied large chunks of the show directly but there's still a huge difference in quality, it's interesting so see how much of a difference minor changes (and shoddy acting) can make. Here's the first episode of Gekiranger [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZkzz0tuHTs[/yt] Go-Onger: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Ow932TAJY[/yt] Shinkenger: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48UGSteaKpI[/yt] They are all on the same channel, the guy also has some others, they're all decent to good, he hasn't uploaded any duds as far as I'm concerned, Magiranger (Mystic Force counterpart) is also good, I especially enjoyed the family aspect of the show, the rangers are all brothers and sisters and their relationships are explored by pairing them up differently, almost every episode focuses on a pair of them.
Gekiranger Very arc heavy. If you can stand Jan's voice it's a really good series. The music amplifies the experience.
Thanks for the recommendations. Meanwhile, over in Super Megaforce, we get our first guest stars from a previous series, namely Jayden and Master Ji from Samurai. And if this is how the guest appearances are going to be handled, we shouldn't expect much from the rest. Just brief scenes with very little interaction with the current Rangers -- not all that interesting. I guess I shouldn't expect any real character interaction on this show, but at least have them work together more directly, stand together in facing the monsters. Heck, we got more characterization for the villains this week, as we learned that Prince Vekar is a blustering coward with daddy issues. Hopefully they'll actually take that somewhere. And it was nice seeing the Rangers confront the main villain in person and trash-talk him some. A lot of note in the Legendary Ranger modes this week. We finally get Mighty Morphin, which really should've been the first Legendary Ranger mode back in the season premiere (corresponding with Goranger being the first in Gokaiger). And we get Lost Galaxy right afterward, making this the first one to prominently feature not only one but two teams from the first Saban era. Also, we got a surprising number of non-Power Ranger Sentai costumes. Troy donned the RyuuRanger costume from Dairanger for the second time, though only briefly (and oddly it took me a moment to recognize it even though I just finished binge-watching Dairanger -- I guess the different film quality threw me off). And we saw a couple of other modes from older series. According to the RangerWiki, Gia briefly became Yellow Mask from the 1987-8 Maskman (apparently one of the best from the era) before changing into the very similar-looking Yellow Space Ranger. And Emma briefly became Pink Flash from Flashman, the '86-7 season.
My thoughts in bullet-form: * Ji!!!! Nice to see Rene again, especially since the synop didn't mention his involvement * Vekar (great pronunciation, BTW) is awesome. He's the perfect contrast to Vrak and the perfect embodiment of the 'elder spoiled sibling who has everything handed to him and consequently thinks he's more impressive than he actually is' archetype. I loved that he formally introduced himself to Earth, and promptly got verbally and physically smacked down by the Rangers * It was great seeing the MMPR powers again, even if they weren't terribly effective * Great introduction for Jayden. Too bad the girls missed out on meeting him * Lost Galaxy nostalgia * Unexplained powers don't bug me because they can be chalked up as editing errors and don't matter in the long run * "Legendary Ranger Mode.... IN SPAAAACE!!!!!" * Double disk Samurai Power wins the day * Red WF Lion + Samurai power = awesomeness * Nice to see Jayden and Ji impersonating Waldorf and Statler minus the snark and negativity * Obligatory Mia's cooking joke and Gia intentionally making Jake jealous scene= Yay! I was hoping we'd see Jayden suit up, but he didn't really need to, and the way they used him reminded me of Adam's involvement in Always a Chance and the Jungle Master introduction episodes from Jungle Fury. 5 out of 5 for this ep.
Why would they need to be errors, though? We've had plenty of prior evidence that Power Rangers exist on other worlds like Aquitar, Mirinoi, KL-35, etc. So it stands to reason that there are a lot of Ranger teams that haven't been seen on Earth. Something like the glimpse of the Turborangers in part of the recycled footage in last week's episode can be considered an editing error because it didn't fit the narrative structure, but the Dairanger, Maskman, and Flashman costumes here were clearly intended to be shown. Emma specifically said "Bet you didn't see this coming" when she changed to Pink Flash. (A name which, by the way, sounds a lot kinkier to an English speaker than was probably intended...) Actually I wouldn't mind if they had Gosei mention that one or more of these hitherto-unknown costume sets belonged to Rangers from Japan. Then they could refer to them by their actual names.
^ I thought the appearances of Mask Yellow and Flash Pink were more fleeting than they were... hence my comment.
Well, a lot of the Legendary Modes are only onscreen for a few seconds, due to the insanely rushed pacing of the past two seasons. Pink Flash got more screen time than Alien Black did last week.
Well, "Spirit of the Tiger" was probably the best Megaforce/Super Megaforce episode yet -- and a fairly faithful adaptation of the Gokaiger episode it's based on. They didn't even change the name of the monster (although they left out the part that it was the "son" -- aka recycled costume -- from a Gekiranger monster that apparently wasn't used in Jungle Fury). The returning Ranger, Casey, was integrated much better into the story than Jayden and Ji were last week, and Jason Smith is one of the best actors in the PR franchise, so it was good to see him again. We even got a trace of conflict for once, with Troy insisting on the need to retain their weapons while Emma and Jake were investigating unarmed combat styles, but of course they didn't really do anything interesting with it. But it's about as close as Troy has ever come to displaying any kind of personality. Meanwhile, over in Super Sentai, I'd been planning to watch Kakuranger next, but I noticed just in time that its YouTube playlist is missing the last seven episodes. So I decided instead to watch the earliest of the four series from that particular uploader, Choujin Sentai Jetman -- the last pre-Power Rangers Sentai, and regarded as a "masterpiece" according to RangerWiki. Apparently it pioneered the use of increased drama and conflict within the heroes, and among the villains as well. The characters are certainly much more richly drawn than the Dairanger characters two seasons later, and they're a diverse bunch -- the powers were accidentally bestowed on four random people as well as the Red Ranger, so most of them are unlikely heroes and don't fit well on the same team. Although the bulk of the emphasis is on the soapy stuff involving various unrequited loves among the team. The villains, the Vyram, are quite interesting. They have interdimensional technology which is weird and creepy and lets them watch everything or materialize anywhere, and they confront the heroes frequently and directly. Also, the four main villains are treating the invasion of Earth as a game, a competition against one another with the prize of ruling their empire going to whoever defeats the Jetmen, and that approach helps justify some of the more convoluted and bizarre tactics that Sentai villains tend to use, like sending just one monster per week or spending more time messing with the heroes' heads than launching a mass invasion. Anyway, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The writing is a lot of fun even through translation, and the cast is pretty effective as well. I like the Jetman costumes and their flight powers, and even the incidental music is pretty good. (Unfortunately I can't seem to find any composer credits online.) I suppose after Jetman I'll continue with the other complete series on that part of YouTube, Zyuranger, and see how it compares to Mighty Morphin' season 1. At first I was more interested in Sentais that were farther removed from their PR equivalents, and Jetman is interesting because it's a "pure" Sentai with no PR counterpart to color my impressions, but I am becoming curious about the source for the original PR.
Maybe this will help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ib0iBe9TMs&list=PLstCYIzkJL2cy2GxIawhj66vvZU_0ha7Y
Wow, neat, thanks! I'm still curious what the composer's name and other credits are, though. What I like about this music is that the composer's style often reminds me of Ray Ellis, who did the music for most of Filmation's shows throughout the '70s as well as the '60 Spider-Man cartoon.
Jetman theme lyrics http://www.virtual-rotation.com/chirlind/others/sentai/3jetman.html AOZORA DE AIMASHOU Let's Meet In The Sky Lyricist = Ando Yoshihiko Composer = Kosugi Yasuo Arranger = KAZZ TOYAMA Singer = Saitoh Sayuri Here's a bonus. Jetman theme sung live in 2006. It's a really popular event to go to [YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-pcKuwY-SQ[/YT]
I gather that Jetman was one of the series that Saban considered for adaptation into MMPR. Starting out with a more tech-based season might've made MMPR turn out differently, and if nothing else it would've been fitting because it already had two female team members. But I guess I can see why they didn't go for it. There was too much conflict and solemnity among the villains, not to mention the cigarette-smoking robot, so that footage wouldn't have been as usable. Also the villains directly confronted the heroes rather often, and there were a lot of scenes of the Jetmen out of costume in the Icarus cockpit. And I guess the mecha was cooler in Zyuranger. The dinosaur/extinct animal machines were more visually interesting, and probably made better toys, than just a bunch of different jets. Being the first Sentai with a recurring sixth Ranger also provided more interest/merchandising possibilities.
If it weren't for gatchaman(G-Force) there would probably be no Jetman either Jetman borrows a bit from "gatchaman". Just look at the Jetman Manga
^Yes, I'm aware of the inspiration, thanks to the RangerWiki's article on the show. EDIT: I've now caught the first four episodes of Zyuranger... and good grief, I think it's actually dumber than Mighty Morphin. Child astronauts? Seriously? And so far the Zyurangers have achieved the amazing feat of having less personality than their Power Ranger counterparts. I'd always thought that MMPR dumbed down the source material a great deal, but it actually seems fairly faithful in tone and style, albeit with less child endangerment. (Bandora's voice is actually somewhat similar to Barbara Goodson's Rita voice, and she actually does say "I have a headache" -- assuming the fansub was accurate and not borrowing from MMPR.) It's odd that Super Sentai would go from such a sophisticated, dramatic season as Jetman -- which I gather was pretty successful -- to something clearly more child-oriented and simplified. It reminds me of the transition from RPM to Samurai. Reiko Chiba sure is purty, though.
I discovered something earlier tonight: For all the flack it got, A Lion's Alliance referring to the Animarium island as Animaria has Canonical precedence from Wild Force itself. In the flashbacks to Viktor Adler/Master Org's past in The Master's Last Stand, we see a graphic depicting the turtle-shaped Animarium island with the caption/description 'Animaria', and in those same flashbacks, Cole's parents and a reporter all use the term 'Animaria' in relation to the island itself.