Hasbro's Power Rangers era and General Tokusatsu discussion

[Christopher]

Saber 26: Man, this show that started out feeling light and silly has gotten darker and darker. Not unusual for Kamen Rider, but the contrast seems greater than usual. Things got really somber this week. Kento is back from the dead, but he was tortured in the underworld with visions of the world being destroyed in countless possible futures, save the one in which he seals all the swords. So much for the happy reunion. Touma still hopes he can convince his friend to reconcile, but basically accomplishes nothing. Oh, so grim and solemn.

We finally see Master Logos's face as he confronts Tassel, who apparently originally went by Viktor, and is the assigned protector of Wonder World as M.L. is for the human world. Except that M.L. turns out to be the traitor and the archvillain, rejecting his predecessor's responsibility to protect Earth and planning to use the power of the ultimate book to remake the world in his image. So the Megiddo may turn out to be the lesser threat.

There was a weird moment in the opening scene where Sabela/Reika left, turned into fog/smoke, and engulfed Rintarou in the smoke, but Rintarou just stood there still visible inside the smoke until the shot ended, and afterward he wasn't there. It feels like that was meant to transition into a disappearance effect, but they never completed the shot.

Only glimpses of Sophia. It struck me that every time we've seen her since her near-disappearance, she's been sitting down. I wonder if the actress has health issues.

 

[Samurai8472]

"The dark side of the Sword of Logo's is a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be unnatural".


Genta was never the same after his sushi cart business failed


A sneak peek at Dino Fury episode 4 introducing Power Ranger's first official female green ranger

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Close up look at the Pink Morphin Master

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMjCX8osVHk/?igshid=1gd25r0x00nnv

 

[Samurai8472]

Power Ranger's dino fury episode 4

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As the title of the episode suggests we get "New Recruits"

The villains get Boomtower
Zayato applies at Buzzblast as a reporter
We get the Javi(Javier) and Izzy Garcia as the black and green dino fury rangers

"Cool. Cool. Coolio!"

I thought the moment where Izzy ripped off the skirt of the Dino Fury costume was pretty cool and ingenious

 

[Christopher]

Dino Fury: "Lost Signal": This was pretty good. Some nice character work and emotional weight with Zayto missing his people and needing to find if any of them are still out there, and the Rangers trying to help. And a nice challenging situation with them having to find a way to fight a monster they can't look at.

The dynamic between gullible Amelia and skeptical Ollie is starting to wear thin. Amelia's credulousness is not an appealing character trait, so I hope it doesn't continue to be the primary thing that defines her. I liked how deftly Ollie proved to the others that the psychic was a fraud, without actually confronting her openly about it, although faking a romance with Amelia was a slightly creepy way of doing it.

The Sporix Beasts are much more verbal than their Ryusoulger counterparts, the Minusaurs. It kind of makes them more generic.

I noticed only a few seconds of Ryusoulger footage in the first fight sequence; as usual, they only used stock footage for the climactic battle, with some shots of the Ryusoulgers around Saitama Super Arena as they directed their Kishiryu/Zords.


"New Recruits": A decent intro to the two new characters, although there's a lot less conflict between them and the core threesome than there was in Ryusoulger, where it took weeks to win them over. It's a pretty huge coincidence that the Rangers happen to meet both Garcia siblings just before they become Rangers themselves, but whatever. Warden Garcia comes off much better here than he did before, not just an obstructionist comic-relief authority figure but a pretty stalwart guy and a cool dad.

The fight in the forest is apparently all-new footage, and they've really improved their original action choreography since last season. The action here rivaled Super Sentai. Impressively done. The Megazord battle was from Ryu episode 1, and the Dragon Minusaur there was giant from the start, never appearing at human scale.

It's weird that Javi and Izzy were included in the (all-new) cockpit sequence when they don't have their own Zords yet, especially given that last week, Amelia and Ollie spent most of the fight controlling their Zords from outside. It's also a bit disappointing to go back from Beast Morphers' authentic rebuild of the Go-Busters' control cockpits to another of Power Rangers' many generic stand-up Megazord control rooms.

I'm a little surprised that they've kept the mechanic of inserting the keys into the swords to get various superpowers, right down to keeping the bit where they work the jaws up and down multiple times to activate them. But here we just get bleeping noises rather than the "Sore! Sore! Sore!" vocal call and music building up to a climax. Which was annoying, but the repeated "chomp chomp chomp" motion feels kind of empty without it.

 

[Samurai8472]

Well this is interesting. Zenkaiger is getting a special two week streaming spin-off! Also the other 4 Zenkaiger become human!

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Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger Spinoff: Introducing ZenkaiRed!

Introductory Episode- Kai/ZenkaiRed appears and claims that the leader "needs to be Red", trying to oust Kaito from the position of main character.

Final Episode- ZenkaiRed claims that sentai should be composed of human rangers, and begins turning the Kikainoids human

Kai/ZenkaiRed is played by Isse Daiki;

Playing Juran in human form is Takagi Katsuya, known to Amazons fans as Misaki:

Playing Vroon in human form is Ohashi Noriyuki:

Playing Magine in human form is Nitta Sachika:

Playing Gaon in human form is Sasamori Hiroaki

Each human form pays tribute to the series its homaging in it's wardrobe choices.


ZenkaiRed Debut

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I see this spin off as a "have your cake and eat it too". We get an actual red leader and human forms/actors for the other Kikainoids.

I wonder if we'll ever see the human actors appear briefly in the series

 

[Samurai8472]

Preview for episode 5 "Winning Attitude" of Dino Fury episode 5

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Zenkaiger episode 3

The green screen was definitely STRONG in this episode. Episode 3 was as CGI-heavy as the second episode of Saber. One part of the mecha battle I couldn't tell if it was CGI or actual suits. It looked flawless

There was a good LOL moment when Magine shots herself with the GearTlinger.

I liked the antics with the team running around town to various locations

It's neat how the Kikanoid rangers low-key represent their themes. Magine is magic themed, but is just a fortune teller (and not much of one at that). Gaon is animal themed but just likes animals. Juran is dinosaur themed and... is old.

 

[Christopher]

Zenkaiger episode 3

The green screen was definitely STRONG in this episode. Episode 3 was as CGI-heavy as the second episode of Saber.

It had to be, to convey the idea of the world being covered in ice. I thought it was pretty effective, though I wouldn't want them to do it all the time. Still, at least it's better than doing practically the whole thing on the studio lot like last week.

This show continues to be more fun and better-written than I expect. I wasn't sold on Magine from her appearance in the cast intro event, where she came off as super-shy and insecure. There was some of that here, but she largely seemed to outgrow it. And it seems she's the character type where she's normally shy and quiet but gets scary when you hit her berserk button. I liked the suit actress's body language when she went into rage mode.

It was nice that the story didn't treat horoscopes and fortune telling as real, just as a fun thing that can lead somewhere interesting even when it's wrong. That's an interesting way of looking at it. And it kind of fit with the use of the ToQger gear, because that series was all about the power of Imagination!!! Come to think of it, Magine's arc bore a certain resemblance to how Kagura psyched herself up and summoned superstrength just by imagining it.

It's amusing to me that the Kikainoids come from an alternate dimension, yet nonetheless care just as much about polite use of honorifics as the Japanese do (in the final scene where Gaoon was offended that Magine dropped the "-san" without his permission). I imagine non-Westerners watching Star Trek or the like are similarly amused by how many alien cultures default to American cultural norms.

 

[Christopher]

Saber 27: About time they finally resolved the "berserker mode" arc and let Touma find a way to master the crazy-making upgrade and turn it into a new, stable form. They seemed to spend more episodes on that process than usual, though I haven't counted. Nice idea for Touma to do it by forging a connection with the childlike spirit within and helping to heal its pain. And it was particularly cool that he did it by telling a story. (As soon as he listed the four elements around the dragon in his story, I knew the new armor would have an elemental theme.)

So the Megiddo were once human, but Legiel doesn't last long after being made to remember that. I wonder if there's a chance of redemption for the other two.

Touma finally meeting Tassel is a big moment. The storyteller meets the meta-storyteller.

 

[Samurai8472]

The character of Legiel and the actor are officially done. The actor got his ceremonial bouquet closing out his time on Saber

Also there will be a special featuring the original sword of logos members

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What’s interesting is that the original Kamen rider Kenzan was a woman

 

[Samurai8472]

The TTFC youtube channel has uploaded Kamen Rider Zo.

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I was not aware this was the first time Bandai and Toei collaborated on a Kamen Rider project

 

[Samurai8472]

Power Ranger's Dino Fury episode 5

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An Izzy focused episode. I think it's funny that Izzy's profession matches Sena's from Kiramager which is the next season after Ryuusoulger which is what Dino Fury is adapted from. She's also the green ranger. She just needs a creepy talking green gem as her partner and she's all set

Special Olympics athlete Sarah Dalton guest starred as Lily

 

[Christopher]

Power Ranger's Dino Fury episode 5

Not bad. A pretty routine "Ranger learns valuable life lesson" plot, but decently executed. At first I was expecting that Izzy would learn the lesson about prioritizing helping over winning as part of the race with the bad guys to find the Zords, passing up a chance at that to help innocents. But I guess they're constrained by the available Sentai footage, even though they still aren't using much of it.

I almost regret that they had Black and Green join the team so readily instead of having them initially be rivals of the others like in Ryusoulger. Maybe not rivals in the same way, but maybe not being team players, sticking together as siblings and not being inclined to cooperate with the other three. That could've tied into Warden Garcia's "winning is everything" attitude, raising his kids to be really competitive.

But they didn't go that way, and as a result, we get our first full-team morphing sequence this week. And they're even doing a proper roll call much like Sentai, which is something I don't think I've seen Power Rangers do in quite a while. It's pretty similar to the Ryusoulger roll call, with the Rangers swinging their swords against an animated background, saying a brief intro phrase and then their code name. Although the visuals are a lot simpler.

 

[Samurai8472]

The Kiramei Green admiration continues. It might be because she's so recent

A bunch of Japanese toku fans voted on their favourite sentai heroines and female villains. The video is very long, but here's their top 10.

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10. MagiBlue
9. ShinkenYellow
8. Yodonna
7. Patren #3
6. Mele
5. GokaiYellow
4. KirameiPink
3. GokaiPink
2. DekaYellow
1. KirameiGreen

 

[Christopher]

A bunch of Japanese toku fans voted on their favourite sentai heroines and female villains. The video is very long, but here's their top 10.

Hmm, not a bad list, but way too weighted in favor of recent characters. I can't believe Nanami didn't rate higher.

 

[DigificWriter]

Special Olympics athlete Sarah Dalton guest starred as Lily

Which, as Special Olympics athlete myself (and an OG Power Rangers fan), makes me happy even without having seen the episode yet.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

The TTFC youtube channel has uploaded Kamen Rider Zo.

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I was not aware this was the first time Bandai and Toei collaborated on a Kamen Rider project

Kamen Rider J, as well:

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[Christopher]

I doubt they'll upload Shin Kamen Rider, though, since that's an R-rated horror movie with nudity and gore. It was aimed at the audience that had watched the original series as children but was now two decades older.

Then that was followed by ZO, which told a similarly dark story but in a more toned-down, kid-suitable way, followed by J, which was much more of a classic Showa-style Kamen Rider premise, albeit with elements of Super Sentai (in that the hero was empowered by friendly aliens) and Ultraman (in that the hero could turn giant). So they started out trying to be edgy and revisionist and ended up far more conventional -- though I feel J is the most successful of the three at being what it sets out to be.

Incidentally, the lead actor of Kamen Rider J is the same actor who played TyrannoRed in Zyuranger (the basis of the first Power Rangers season).

 

[kirk55555]

I doubt they'll upload Shin Kamen Rider, though, since that's an R-rated horror movie with nudity and gore. It was aimed at the audience that had watched the original series as children but was now two decades older.

Its been on their youtube channel for almost a year, actually

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[Samurai8472]

Coming in early May

Toy listings call the new ranger "TwoKaiser". His outfit resembles the Gokaigers(note the pirate looking hat)

He has two kikainoids that are based on Ohranger and Shinkenger. Apparently they will be more of mecha support and not like the other Zenkaigers.



Also past mecha and past rangers will be summoned to go up against the Zenkaigers!

Well that escalated quickly. Looks like Toei has recreated some of the older mecha suits since i'm sure the original suits are in terrible shape after 20+ years

Heck even the Daizyujin suit from Gokaiger VS Go-buster is 10 years old

 

[Christopher]

Zenkaiger 4: Another fun episode, with the final member Vroom, formerly the bad guys' janitor, joining the team when Ijirude tries to have him killed to cover up the fact that the captured worlds are being freed from their gears when the Zenkaigers defeat the monsters powered by them. Still, the episode is played mostly for humor, like the whole series so far.

Vroom is fun. I like the idea of a character motivated by curiosity and love of learning. And it's pretty unusual for a Ranger to be recruited from the villains' organization, even though he was just a servant and not really one of them. When it does happen, it's generally Sixth or extra Rangers, like Akira from ToQger or Torin from Kyoryuger. Not counting characters who were brainwashed/possessed before being freed, like GaoSilver or ZyuohTheWorld.

It's a bit surprising that it took until episode 4 for the Zenkaigers to realize exactly what they were achieving in their victories. They were freeing the imprisoned worlds without even knowing it. But now they do know and have an intensified sense of purpose.

Okay, so if all the other worlds have been captured, but Sentai Gears are just using Sentai teams as a "motif," does that mean the actual Sentai worlds are being held captive in the villains' gears? I thought that was going to be the storyline here, that the Zenkaigers would be rescuing the other Super Sentais' worlds. There's none of that so far, though. Hmm... it'd be interesting if the villains started creating monsters using captured Sentai powers.

Anyway, I have issues with the nature of the parallel world this week. A world of mushrooms and a world of ice aren't that hard to accept, but an entire universe defined by boxing? How does that even work?


Saber 28: This is largely a clip show recapping the storyline so far, but I generally don't mind getting reminders of the storyline around this point, especially when I'm only seeing one episode per week. And it's mainly just the first half that's recaps, with some pretty significant action in the second half. Tough for Ren -- no sooner does he decide to leave the Southern Base and fight alongside his friends again that Kento seals his blade and leaves him powerless.

Meanwhile, turns out Reika has a big brother who's also an enforcer for Master Logos's evil scheme. We only glimpse him this week, but he gets his big debut next week. It seems redundant to introduce another enforcer when Reika/Sabela was introduced as such an unstoppable badass. But maybe the idea is to give her a redemption arc while he stays the bad guy. I hope so. I'm tired of the lack of female Riders on the good guys' side.