Power Rangers

[Christopher]

"The yellow ranger is racist."

Well, yes, it was kind of questionable that they cast an African-American as "the Black Ranger" and an Asian-American as "the Yellow Ranger." There were some complaints about that implicit "color-coding" at the time. Which is probably why they reversed it when the first cast change occurred, with Johnny Yong Bosch becoming the Black Ranger and Karan Ashley the Yellow. Indeed, we haven't had an Asian Yellow Ranger since Trini, although we've had a mix of other ethnicities in the role, and plenty of Asian Rangers of other costume colors. A different kind of color-coding has set in more recently, though, since the last five consecutive Yellow Rangers have been blond women.

As for Black Rangers, only one since the original has been "black" (Afro-English, specifically), and again there's been a pretty good mix of ethnicities overall.

 

[Stephen!]

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Interesting. Still looks overly blocky, though not as bad as the ToQger "pan flute" mecha. Neat how the smaller red one looks like it's "sitting" in the big block thing, and can swap out with the blue dragon thing.

And the last ninja one started with Red, Blue an a male Yellow, so nothing new there. The suits look far better than ToQger as well, though admittedly that isn't tough..!

Mark

 

[Samurai8472]

Full toy catalog is out

DX Shinobi Ichibangatana

Release- February
Price-NA

Comes with AkaNinger’s Shuriken and all Shurikens can be read by it

DX Gama Gama Ju

Release- February
Price-3980 yen

Comes with AoNinger's Shuriken

DX NinNin Buckle

Release- February
Price-2800 yen

Comes with ShiroNinger’s Shuriken.

DX Karakuri Hengen


Release-February
Price-4500 yen

Shuriken capable of transforming into 3 different weapons : blade, bow and claws. Sold with KiNinger’s Shuriken.

DX Goton Shinobi Shuriken

Release- February
Price- 1800 yen

Shuriken capable of launching attacks of 5 elemental types : fire (katon), water (suiton), wood (mokuton), metal (kinton) and earth (doton).

DX Shurikenjin

Release- February
Price- N/A

Comes with

Shinobimaru (red robot)
Dragomaru (blue dragon)
Dumpmaru (yellow dump truck)
Wanmaru (white dog)
Byunmaru (pink train)

Alternate mode is Shurikenjin Drago.

Otomo Shuriken Series 1 : Paonmaru


Release-March
Price- 2800 yen


Otomo Shuriken Series 2 : UFOmaru


Release-March
Price- 2800 yen

Ninnin Action Series figures



Release- February
Price-1500 yen

Basic action figures of Red,blue and yellow ninninger


Soft Series figures



Release- February
Price-800yen

Soft figures of ninninger

 

[Stephen!]

Jeff Pruit has released more of the "Zyu2" footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZs9LRBIT9c

 

[Stephen!]

This must be a new record for Sentai. The amount of enemies blown up in just three minutes during a ToQger mecha battle.

http://tinypic.com/r/svgs2c/8

 

[Samurai8472]

 

[Stephen!]

Ninninger first preview footage

http://tokusatsunetwork.com/2014/12/27/first-ninninger-preview-streamed/

 

[Samurai8472]

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm surprised this hadn't already been mentioned, but back on the 18th, Yoshi Sudarso (AKA Koda, the Blue Dino Charge Ranger) opened a huge can of worms when he posted the following on his official Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialYo...1545367557705/822216921157210/?type=1&theater

Nothing more has been said about it since, but what's worth noting is that there would have been no reason for de Lautour to be interacting with the Dino Charge makeup and hair technicians in the fashion that Yoshi said he was unless he (David) were on set for some official reason (he had been in the area filming another project, which led some people to dismiss the whole thing as nothing more than him being on set for a visit)

 

[Chris3123]

That's interesting. Even if he is appearing in DC though, he could very well be playing a completely different character. There is precedent of a lead actor in PR coming back to play another significant role in a later season, for example Wild Force's Red Ranger Ricardo Medina Jr. appearing on Samurai as Deker.

We shall see.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ If de Lautour is in fact back, he's more than likely playing a completely new character (possibly the older brother of Riley, the Green Ranger).

We will indeed see, though.

 

[DigificWriter]

Bumping the thread to say that I'm rewatching Samurai and finding that it's even better the second time around.

Characters I couldn't stand before - Kevin and Bulk, namely - have grown on me, and I've found that the majority of the characters were more fleshed out during the first half of the season than I'd remembered them being.

The overall story - aside from Forest for the Trees and the baffling airing decisions re: Origins 1 and 2 and The Team Unites - flows very nicely and smoothly, and there's a really strong escalating progression, with things starting out slow and then escalating until we get a really satisfying and well-handled pseudo-culmination in The Ultimate Duel, which in turn serves as the perfect lead-in to Super Samurai and the second half of the season.

Even with 17 episodes still left to go, I'm all set to add the season to my Top 10 Favorite Seasons list. It's FAR better than it gets credit for being, and really deserves more appreciation than it gets.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, Samurai basically slavishly adapted the scripts from Shinkenger, so the credit for the quality of the stories goes to Toei. My problem with Samurai was the poor acting, and the conceptual mismatch of presenting all these non-Japanese actors as hereditary samurai. Granted, historically, there were a very few foreigners who were given at least honorary samurai status, so it's not totally indefensible, but at least Jayden and his sister should've been Japanese.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ Speaking personally, I think the team's Ethnic diversity is actually one of the season's strengths, especially since they could easily be me and any 5 of my 7 siblings. I'm particularly fond of Jayden and Lauren because they remind me very much of me and my eldest sister (who's actually two years than I am).

As far as bad acting goes, that's another objection to the season that I've never quite understood, but that might be because what constitutes good acting vs. bad acting is so very subjective.

 

[Christopher]

^ Speaking personally, I think the team's Ethnic diversity is actually one of the season's strengths, especially since they could easily be me and any 5 of my 7 siblings. I'm particularly fond of Jayden and Lauren because they remind me very much of me and my eldest sister (who's actually two years than I am).

Don't misunderstand me. Of course I would never object to an ethnically diverse team. But it probably would've been better to change the team's origin to one that would make more sense given an ethnically diverse team, rather than slavishly adopting a backstory that's deeply grounded in the Japanese aristocracy. And in fact, my fondness for ethnic diversity is exactly why I find it so obnoxious that they cast the blondest, whitest people possible as the members of the Shiba samurai clan. That was ridiculous. Fine, keep the other cast members, but the Shibas shoulld have been Japanese. In fact, we've never had an East Asian Red Ranger (we've had a Samoan one, but that's more Pacific Islander), and this would've been the perfect opportunity.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ I'm not sure if you picked up on the literal nature of what I was saying. My father is 1/2 Japanese and can directly trace his heritage back to actual Samurai, so Jayden could easily be me or my younger biological brother, Lauren could easily be either my two younger biological sisters (all four of us look Caucasian), Kevin could easily be my younger African-American adopted brother, Emily could easily be my younger Caucasian adopted sister, and Mia could easily be my younger Chinese adopted sister.

Therefore, it's hard for me to see any issues with the concept of a largely non-Asian team of Samurai.

 

[Christopher]

^Okay, granted. Still, I doubt the actors they cast were part-Japanese, and it would've been nice if they'd given an Asian actor the opportunity to play the Red Ranger for the first time in Power Rangers. We've had at least a dozen Red Rangers who were white, three who were black, three who were Hispanic (counting the Dino Charge Red Ranger), even a Samoan and an Arab Red Ranger, but in over two decades of a franchise based on a Japanese show, we have never seen an East Asian actor as the team leader, only as a subordinate or mentor. And here we had a show whose Red Ranger was supposed to be a direct descendant of the samurai, whose surname was actually Shiba, and they cast yet another white guy. I call that, at the very least, a missed opportunity. And that's putting it kindly.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'll acknowledge that they had the perfect excuse to go with the first Asian Red Rangers in the franchise's history, but where I have to disagree with critics of Samurai is that it was a NECESSITY that they go with two Asian Reds.

Even if none of the actors themselves have Japanese heritage, it's not by any means a stretch for me to believe in a team of ethnically diverse characters all having Japanese heritage, up to and including Jayden and Lauren, because I can see a lot of similarities between that team and my own family (as noted above).

To each their own, though.

I don't know if you've ever shared your overall thoughts on Samurai aside from where you think they season 'went wrong', so I'd be interested in hearing them (or getting a link to somewhere where you have shared them).

 

[Christopher]

The franchise has been wrong ever since Saban bought it back. They did it as cheaply as possible, with mediocre actors and writers, and it's been dumber and more superficial than it's been since the earliest seasons. Bringing Judd Lynn back to produce Dino Charge is a good sign, though.