RPM Talkin'

You might notice I put in the "griping" tag there. Guess why?

It's because the release of new episodes of RPM has become chaotic and unpredictable. Come on, guys, what are you trying to do? This is serialized, and it's best to watch them in something resembling consecutive order.

That being said, the series is happily not losing any steam. Since I last posted, two new episodes have aired (sporadically), and they were great.

I don't have much to say about Ghosts, partly because it's been a bit. (It was awesome seeing Dr. K flip out and hug Gem and Gemma, though.)

In Or Out had me worried for a minute. There was just something in its atmosphere that made me think there was something off.

Then I got over it.

It was extremely funny to note that apparently, Tenaya 7 is significantly heavier than the Rangers are. I thought those Ranger suits were supposed to be heavy or something. (In an episode of the Sentai Dekaranger, when a character morphed, the bike he was riding that was rigged to blow up detected the change in his weight. Not that it said how much, or that Sentai is PR canon, but still...)

Also, poor Ziggy. As the comic relief, he sure takes a lot of abuse, doesn't he?

Response

Wow, that round of reruns didn't last long, did it?

Venjix's personality, which really doesn't come out very often, came back in force today. The episode kind of begs the question of why he doesn't personally control all his robots, but then, the series would be a lot less fun.

You get bonus points if you noticed that he hinted at possibly being more than just a computer virus. ("I've waited longer than you can know..." or something like that.) This is the first real sign he may actually be that Venjix.

Also, it cracked me up that the henchtypes actually thought Venjix was dead when the twins aced him. I could see Shifter and Crunch thinking that, but Tenaya? Heh, that ranks with her getting owned by Ziggy in terms of "oops" moments.

Wow, Where Did The Time Go?

Hmm... YouTube seems to have changed the way it codes the widescreen embeds. I'll have to do something about that.

In the meantime, RPM is still stupid awesome.

Thirteen episodes in, and this is still quintessentially Power Rangers being all that Power Rangers could and should be.

Dr. K talking girl talk (while in fluffy slippers) is priceless.

Also, finally we get some development between Dr. K and the Rangers over the Venjix virus.

Let's look back at my earlier predictions and see how they've fared:

Hypothesis One: The person "Dillon" is trying to save is Tenaya 7; he has no clear memories because Venjix moidered his brain while trying to upgrade both of them into whatever Tenaya 7 is supposed to be.
Sub-Hypothesis: They are siblings.

Well, we know Venjix moidered his brain for sure now, and we even know about how he did it. And I'd say chances are still good for this one.

Hypothesis Two: After Dr. K's big reveal (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't watched the promo trailer, and probably shouldn't be reading this), we learn that the Zords look the way they do because she likes cutesy things.

We do have an explanation for the eyes now, and it's not this. Ah, well. (Her love of cute things seems to be confirmed, on the other hand; like I said, slippers.)

Hypothesis Three: This is actually an alternate reality from MMPR through Jungle Fury.

This is actually looking better now with the big reveal from "Dr. K." It could of course be, though, that they used Machine Empire programming as a base, so... I hesitate to care. Venjix's origins beyond Dr. K creating him aren't relevant.

Hypothesis Four: There may be an actual reason for the choices of "Retrofire" Zords made by Bandai.

No word.

Hypothesis Five: The midseason disconnect will be rough this year.

Well... No word.

Hypothesis Six: Once "Dillon's" current character arc is over, they'll pretty much ignore how awesome he was during it.

Happily, this hasn't happened yet.

Hypothesis Seven: Corinth is small and crowded, so Dr. K made the Zords able to take on those tiny forms and teleport for purposes of avoiding city damage due to Zord stampedes.

Well, I still like the idea, anyway, and it hasn't been disproven. The idea, at least, has also been reinforced by the Croc Carrier destroying Tokyo Tow-uh, I mean, that unidentified building in "Ranger Red."

As an aside, the latest episode of Shinkenger was kinda trippy, but I have this feeling it was a tribute to the older sentai stuff, because the monster of the week sounded like the yellow Goranger (who, by the way, is frikkin' awesome from what I've seen of him).

Well, I think I had something else to say, but I can't think of it and I'm on a tight schedule.

Commentary...

On the last few things which came up, which I haven't yet commented on.

Shinkenger:



So, the next MOTW's power is to summon spandex grunts to do sleeper holds on people? That's kinda stupid awesome.

As for the latest episode of RPM, well, as always, stupid awesome, and the story behind Flynn is touching and moving. (I thought so, anyway.) Seriously, someone who wants to be a superhero literally his whole life (and purely because he genuinely wants to help people) gets to become a Power Ranger? It sounds bad on paper, but it works so well in the episode.

Since I've Updated So Infrequently...

...might as well react to this.

Boo-yah.

The only thing I don't much like about this is that it'd be hard to convert to Power Rangers (well, relatively speaking, since there are Japanese actors laying in plain sight there). Sad.

Anyway, I barely knew what was going on, but anything where the badguys suddenly get invaded by mutant yellow tribble things, apparently as a result of a guy getting hammered...

...is pretty fun in my book.

I'll try to step up content a little bit here, but no promises.

Hmmm...

Sorry for the... long stretch... between updates here. I've been both sick and tired (not entirely in that order).

RPM is still very, very good.

Shinkenger is still better than Go-onger. (Looks like it's a little too Japanese traditional, culturally speaking, but other than that... And I love that skeleton guy who's been showing up the past few episodes. One of the nicest costumes ever, and that's saying something.)

Also, I've figured out why Dillon stopped being quite so tough after his Ranger debut.

It's because he gets +15 Awesome when fighting the Grinders, and -10 when fighting Tenaya 7.

An actual thing my sister said while the episode was on: "That suit really compliments [Tenaya 7's actress]." Orly? Took you long enough to notice, no offense.

More content soon, knock on wood.

Weekly RPM Happy Rant

Still stupid. Still awesome.

In all seriousness, this is probably the best Power Rangers in terms of storytelling, mood, atmosphere, and so on ever. The only seasons that I can remember that approached it were PRiS and Time Force, pretty much the top two of my three favorite seasons (the other is SPD, mostly for the Zords and Rangers being super awesome, and the fact that the bad guys used naturally giant robots).

Ziggy is turning out to be a genuinely interesting character. I'm worrying that whatever it turns out he did is actually a noodle incident sort of thing, actually. Also, it's funny that they all think he's so pathetic, but he's still busting out all these crazy moves. (That spinny thing he did with his bag-wow.)

Also, Tenaya 7 is freaking awesome. They found a great-looking actress and gave her the most megalomaniacal "goon" personality ever, and then the Rangers lampshade it all over the place. It doesn't matter that she's as awesome as she is, Ziggy owned her. (My sister remarks that she sounds like a teeny bopper. Also, both of us agree that her costume looks kind of like a Cobra operative from GIJoe.)

Watching RPM is like watching an action movie, only more fun. The dialogue is much better than a lot of PR fare, the action is workable, and the characters and setup are (still) superb.

It occurred to me a bit later that if I were in the habit of swearing, I probably would have shouted "{expletive of your choice} yeah!" at least five or six times during the episode.

I'll try to step up the content a bit. I have been working on the blog, but they're fairly extensive things that will take time.

A Quick Note

This week's Shinkenger excited me less than the last few. The monster's costume was, well, a mishmash, although it had interesting powers. The giant battle made up for it some-it was fun watching Shinken-Oh do that stuff with its limbs.

The real highlight of the episode was the preview for the next one, though.



Sure doesn't take 'em long to break out the ol' powerups anymore, does it?

Ah, well, at least it looks pretty decent.

First Impression: Shinkenger

Thus far, I've watched the first three episodes of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger on YouTube.

What do I think? It's a pretty good start.

Japanese storytelling is more likely to be clear and concise than its Western counterpart, and even though none of what I've watched was subtitled, that's not a big deal.

From what I've read, this is the most emphatically Japanese Super Sentai ever produced. While it's hardly the first to use heavily Japanese themes and mecha, I can't think of any remotely such intrusively Japanese elements as some of what has appeared in Shinkenger.

For instance, the good guy's leader, the Red Shinkenger, apparently is answerable directly to the Japanese Emperor, and is his vassal.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

The villains come very directly from Japanese folklore; more amusingly, their leader calms his rages by chugging sake from a dish.

Since the characters are apparently literally considered to be samurai, they are served by a large number of... servants, who are based on the stagehands of traditional Japanese theater. (And they are hilarious.)

And an integral part of the powers the characters use is the writing of kanji to morph, summon things (including horses, which cracks me up), and cause their teeny tiny, itty bitty magical pseudo-animal companions to turn into giant Zords. (I sense that the series is intended to encourage Japanese children to learn their writing.)

It makes me very curious about just how they'll adapt Shinkenger for an American audience, as the rampant... Japaneseness... is rather more overt.

Anyway, I like the look of the season. The costumes are really sharp thus far, and with the exception of that thing from the first episode with the faceskirt, the monster costumes are solid. (Even that thing was pretty good from the waist up.) I particularly like that short and fat Cthulhu guy. They seem to be going with a combination Japanese folklore/sea life theme.

One thing that does concern me is that they'll try to take out the "gattai gag" from the second episode.



(Er, if you saw the intro a second time here, sorry. Had some issues with YouTube there... It's fixed.)

Of course, it's not exactly like it's something that would be labeled as inappropriate in the United States, it's just something that would make me sad if it wasn't there.

And this year's mecha are the best since at least Boukenger/Operation Overdrive. Forget that nonsense from last year (or coming up in RPM), these are proper Sentai mecha designs. It's also nice that they made the stylistic choice of the animal mecha being puppets rather than CGI; it's a nice, refreshing change. (I really miss those old sequences.) In fact, the whole series feels like it's a '90s Sentai/Power Rangers, except with a little bit sharper effects. (Don't take this as a criticism of the modern series-they're often highly enjoyable. I was even enjoying watching some Go-Onger the other day, and I hadn't thought that was possible.)

Another refreshing facet is that the Red Shinkenger is not the same exact character as every other Red Ranger has been for the past however many years in Sentai. The typical Sentai Red Ranger's role (reckless guy leading the charge) has been taken by the Green Shinkenger, while Red is a cool, even-tempered, and calculating warrior.

Overall opinion so far? Refreshing and nostalgic, and rock-solid as Sentai go. Invid approves.

I really ought to get to work on the season summaries... Or maybe get that first essay straightened out.