It Lives(?)

Boy, it's been a while.

My last post over here was nearly a year ago... Ah, well. I'm going to try to keep it alive this time. Honest.

So there are several subjects I feel the need to address that have happened in the past year, which I obviously haven't talked about.

MMPR 2010

I did talk about this a bit... let's all pretend that it never happened, okay? It was the worst rehashing of an old show I've ever seen, and I watch Transformers and He-Man. I've had some experience here.

(A lot of the "re-version" nonsense was tolerable, but when they started scribbling all over the Green Ranger saga's "To Be Continued" bits, it completely ruined it. It takes a lot to make me say that.)

Goseiger (Super Sentai 2010)

Goseiger wasn't too bad. I think its greatest strength came from its huge and fractious villain cast. I also adored Gosei Blue and Gosei Yellow, and Gosei Black was extremely tolerable. (Forget those "Skyick" dweebs, though.) Gosei Knight was essentially Batman as a giant robot's transforming head, which was pretty cool too. While Warstar wasn't that interesting a faction except for their visual aspect (they were essentially like Toho monsters done up as sentai enemies), Makuin was creepy in a usually good way, "his" relationship with Kinggon was the kind of tight partnership that is refreshing after all the backstabbing you see elsewhere, and that "Matlintis" bunch was exactly what mechanized enemies should have been. "Bladerun's" final appearances were essentially a particularly satisfying icing on the cake.

I'm reasonably hopeful that it has the potential to make a good Power Rangers season.

Saban Reclaiming Power Rangers...

Oh, gosh. I don't even know what I want to say about this.

On the one hand, Disney had clearly had enough of working with the franchise. They wanted an out, and Saban gave them one.

On the other hand, they'd finally gotten a handle on the franchise with RPM, turning a nonsensical comedy sentai into a serious business yet still fun series which was (I'll admit I'm biased) the best Power Rangers ever. That's not knocking other Power Rangers series; if I thought they were all bad, I wouldn't watch Power Rangers. I'm just saying that RPM is better.

And it took at least a year for Saban to really get going last time, guys. I'm not looking forward to this.

...and moving it to Nickelodeon

Hey, guys? I don't have cable. And I'm not likely to get it in the near future. There's still various video sites (except YouTube, which is apparently well-policed at the moment), but this series is going to be a pain for me to keep up with.

Power Rangers Samurai

Having said that, I have managed to watch the first few episodes. That, coupled with various news item type stuff I've read, leads me to the following conclusion:

Power Rangers Samurai is pretty weak.

First off, the adaptation: This is seriously the closest, tightest adaptation of a Super Sentai I know of since Time Force (possibly closer, except for all that stuff about headaches and medicine). That's all well and good, except I already saw Shinkenger. If it can't bring something new to the table, I'm going to have a hard time being interested. This has nothing to do with being a "bad" adaptation, though I'll admit I'm choking on a few of the additions they have made. Time Force was one of the best seasons of the show ever, but its similarity to the sentai was merely a part of its strength; Time Force made positive additions that significantly added to the story. The strongest element in the Time Force story was Ransik, not that sentai stuff, and he had nothing to do with any of the rest of that guff.

My point is that you don't need to be so slavish, and if you think the story could be improved upon, by all means do so.

Second major point: This is the worst storm of puns ever to "grace" Power Rangers. Except maybe in Ninja Storm, but I admit I didn't watch that long enough. This was like an episode of a cartoon I used to watch where there was a guy who tried to work a pun on "bee" into every sentence, except worse because everybody was doing it all the time.

And this is Power Rangers, where bad puns are commonplace.

I'm not sure whether to tell them that's the worst thing ever, or to give them a medal for their effort.

Third major point: Bulk and Spike. What. The. Heck.

There's nothing wrong with bringing back an old character. What is wrong is doing it in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

I have yet to figure out what these sequences, which are the same kind of low humor of the original Bulk and Skull sequences, but with no connection whatsoever with the main characters, are supposed to accomplish.

Hey, wait, Spike is Skull's kid? How old is he supposed to be? 17-18? That means he'd have been born somewhere between season two and four, doesn't it?

Fourth major point: Somewhere, I read that Saban intended to have a light-hearted tone "lacking in its predecessors Jungle Fury and RPM." These were the same series where a fly did announcing on giant robot/monster battles and where one of the villains was essentially just a self-important teenage girl who actually acted something like one (Tenaya 7). Were you guys paying attention?

Fifth major point: The episode where a kid was missing his dad in the army... I don't know whether to be furious at the cheap handling of the subject (making the boy's wish into a momentary vision was awful, and I'm sorry if you disagree with me, but that's how I feel about it) or happy that they covered a real-world problem that children face today.

Sixth point: Joining the ranks of such enemy mooks as Putties, Tengas, Cogs, and, well, the contents of this list, we have... Moogers?

So you decided to call the tentacle-headed, blood-red foot soldiers Moogers?

This is the only portion of the Power Rangers lexicon so far that infuriates me nearly as much as that old Lost Galaxy standby, "Power Up Mode" (although to be fair, it's still a distant second).

Gokaiger (Super Sentai 2011)

So there was a strange bit of information going around that the next Super Sentai team would be based on pirates, of all things.

Then, it turned out the rumor was true. They're pirates.

Then, we learn that they're going to actually be pirates-intellectual property pirates.

And having watched the first few episodes, they are also hilariously literal fictionalized Age of Piracy pirates.

You guys, this is the best Super Sentai idea ever.

And the first few episodes don't disappoint, either.

Finally

So, my conclusion is: 2011 won't really be as good a year for Power Rangers as 2009, but it'll be much better than 2010 (though how it could fail to be better than 2010 ultimately was is pretty much unfathomable).

Hopefully, I'll be able to stay focused on keeping up on this, and maybe get some of my back content going.

Gosei Blue is Batman

It's been pretty inactive here... (Apparently, the badly edited MMPR reruns are not good for this blog. Not that there's been much of a difference...)

This week's Goseiger deserved a mention, though:

Gosei Blue is really, really... Well, I'm going to use a euphemism that my sister and I use, and say he's Batman.

Look it up on YouTube (or whatever it is you particularly do if you choose to watch Sentai), because this was some pretty good stuff.

*crickets chirp*

Man, have I been quiet over here.

One of the problems with keeping this going regularly is that the local ABC station is managed by a bunch of *expletive deleted* jerks who show college football games rather than let Power Rangers air; in fact, I missed a huge chunk of RPM's later episodes.

Which, obviously, ticks me off.

I'm currently working through those episodes on YouTube (cough), but I don't know when I'll have more content here.

The fact that they're planning on rerunning the first season is kind of staggering and weird, and I don't know if I'll be more interested in working on this blog or not then. Here's hoping it will be helpful.

Gee Whiz...

I've been quiet here, haven't I?

Well, consider it a good sign for RPM's quality, if nothing else.

I need to get cracking here. I dunno what I'll do differently...

*lapses into three month silence*

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.

Friendly Reminder

(As well as an apology for the lack of consistent updates.)

The RPM rerun season has begun. If you for some reason aren't watching it yet, now (or rather, this upcoming Saturday) is the time to get on the boat.

Edit: Whoops, looks like they're doing the accelerated rerun schedule. If you took my advice earlier because you actually hadn't seen the first few episodes, then you may have missed the first. My bad.

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.

You Might Wonder...

...why I'm putting up Thai cell phone service commercials.



Because they're funny, that's why.

Bonus: Drink commercial.



No, I'm not completely sure what kind of drink, or even what language it's in. (And I'm not going to clutter up the page with more embedded movies, seeing as how they're all short and pointless, not to mention totally incomprehensible.)

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.

Why, YouTube, Why?

Normally I would vent about this in my other blog, but it's affecting my blogging here, so I thought I'd post it here. (I've already got a post scheduled for the other anyway, and none for this one, and it's more directly relevant to this blog than that one, too...)



This is the closest I could get to a proper Power Rangers intro to embed. (I actually kinda like it, but I had wanted actual intros to embed...)

YouTube's been driving me nuts lately.

For Future Reference...

I'm working on a series of "info posts" with general information on each series and the like. These posts, and any additional such I make in the future, will all be backdated to yesterday.

I'll be starting real content tomorrow, likely with commentary on this year's new Sentai.

(EDIT: Er, make that the day after tomorrow. Stupid combination of circumstances and a slow computer...)

Terms And Tendencies

I have a marked tendency to say ridiculous things, and in order to make myself a bit more understandable, I want to try to explicate some of my oddities.

Terms

Not terms of use, vocabulary terms. When talking about things, I may tend towards my own peculiar terminology. For instance:

• I tend to call a certain type of Power Rangers villain the "ninja death tank." This term is really fairly self-explanatory, but I want to be clear-a ninja death tank is tougher, faster, and stronger than anybody he or she fights. Any fight with a ninja death tank is going to be a curb stomp battle in the NDT's favor... unless the good guy has pulled out the SUPAH NUU UPGRADO SYSTEMU that tells you the fight has been escalated, in which case it's usually still a curb stomp battle, just going the other way. I will have a lot of other terms for different types of monsters, when I think of them, but that's probably the big one.
• I will probably tend to mix up "official" terms a lot unless I've been carefully perusing info sites a lot. This is also true for character names for several seasons, primarily Time Force through the most recent season, as I've increasingly been forgetting characters' names unless I either particularly liked them or characters had a tendency to shout them in an alarmed fashion a lot. ("NICK! NICK!") Sadly, the other night I was actually able to name off nearly every Power Ranger from earlier seasons without much effort. Whether or not I get these things right depends how much time I have when I'm posting.
• I will call the giant robots Zords even if I'm talking about the Sentai version. For that matter, I'll call the Sentai "the Japanese version" and Power Rangers "the English/American version" even though this is not 100% perfectly correct. Deal with it.

Tendencies

I will relentlessly make fun of things that I think deserve making fun of. In an essay I'm currently editing so I can put it up here, I insinuate repeatedly that Zordon is an incessant liar. Whether or not I believe it (I do actually sort of think this), it's a habit, and it'd be harder for me to break this habit than come up with a more polite way of saying I think he plays his cards close to his nonexistent chest.

I will probably have a lot of things that I will try to codify somehow. For instance, I will probably at some point do a reasonably detailed blog about ninja death tanks, and then make a list of notables, and then make a bunch of similar articles about other "types" of monsters, and... You get the idea.

This blog will make an attempt at being a "regular" information site as much as or more than a "regular" blog. There are a lot of info sites about Power Rangers and the like, I know, but few of them are what I would call "fun"-a joy to read yet still informative. I've seen a few sites like this, such as TVTropes and the Transformers Wiki, but not any for Power Rangers. Many truly exhaustive ones, yes, but none are quite "fun."

Anyway, I'm carrying on, which is another of my tendencies, so for the moment I'll stop yakking and get to work on actually making this content. See ya.

Content Incoming

(Sorry if you tried to read the wall of text version. Blogger is so stupid sometimes.)

I suppose I should establish right away (yeah, right) what this blog is for.

This is not a "blog-blog." I don't just post any old thing in here. That's what my other blog is for. If you're looking for completely random humor or some such junk, that's where you look.

This is a blog about Power Rangers, Super Sentai, Masked/Kamen Rider, and any other cheap live action special-effects driven TV shows (or movies) that are at least theoretically aimed at children sometimes. And this blog, rather sadly for my mental health, perhaps, will try to take these subjects halfway seriously most of the time. Not to say I can't have fun doing it, though, and the sarcasm tags are likely to be enabled. (If I have some random Power Rangers/whatever humor urges, I probably will also express some of them here.)

As the title indicates, of course, the primary focus will be "Power Rangers proper," whatever the heck that means. It comes from a pet theory of mine involving the Power Rangers universe.

You see, there's a phenomenon in Power Rangers where, at insanely convenient times, a conveniently good-aligned character, power source, weapon, or Zord will show up without any warning whatsoever, or with a bare minimum of warning. Or there will be a character with access to incredible technology and knowledge, such that you can't believe that it was developed independently.

My convenient explanation is simply that Zordon has been sitting around in that doggoned magic tube for an awful darned long time, and it makes sense that he would have been burning all of that time productively instead of simply wasting it waiting for some stupid space dumpster to open. Ergo, all random stupid good things that happen in Power Rangers must therefore be a Backup Plan By Zordon(TM).

I decided this blog needed to be made rather than just thought about, by the way, because right now seems to be one of the most interesting times to be a PR fan. We have a Kamen Rider "dub" being produced over here, a long wait until the new season (which promises to be most interesting, whether good or just plain awful) starts, and a really retro and nice sentai coming out in Japan. I also need to vent (heh) my inner tokunerd to someone other than my sister, who seems to be sick of it.

And for those of you visiting me from my other blog who think "This guy likes Power Rangers? What a weirdo!" That's why I'm spinning the blog off, so you don't have to put up with it.

More information incoming when I feel like it. Ta ta.

Coming Soon...

I guess.