Sean Akizuki's Super Sentai Blog

Am I excited for the Ninja Sentai Kakuranger 30th anniversary movie (because they can be so rare) OR am I just looking for something to nitpick ? I even said  Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Once and Always was proof that Power Rangers was too stuck in the past.  An update I got from UkiyaSeed reveals that Ninpou Sentai   Hurricanger and Shuriken Sentai   Ninninger will be part of the movie's continuity . Most Super Sentai entries are usually self-contained or take place in some other dimension -- unless specified. There are times when the convenient portal or "It's just a special." plot device is pulled during certain crossovers. Most Super Sentai crossover movies are like the Dragon Ball Z movies -- they probably just exist as some form of distraction or a fun What-If scenario.  I have a bit of my hypothesis for the return of three seniors. Kohei Yamamoto was born in 1980, Nao Nagasawa was born in 1984 (her husband Koji Nakata was born in 1979), and Hideya Taw...

  There are many terminologies commonly used in Power Rangers that I still welcome. Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters used the terms "It's Morphin' Time" and Megazords. As the anniversary of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers approaches - Let's look at the past Ranger History lessons that Super Sentai did even before Saban Entertainment got its green light.  The first Ranger History lesson happened during Kosoku Sentai Turboranger's "first episode" Turboranger can be a very strange season and I can understand why some people don't like it. Kaiju No Kami's review pointed out how Denji Sentai Megaranger made Recruit Teenagers with Attitude WAY MORE BELIEVABLE. I'd still say Turboranger is still unfairly maligned and it deserves some credit for ACTUALLY TRYING NEW THINGS. Sure, the Bouma main characters are lame personifications of wickedness (as they are pretty much Stupid Evil and For the Evulz). I even want to agree with Kaiju No Kami that Emperor...

It's no secret that I'm no fan of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger.  Regardless, I still think Ninninger is a series that eventually got vindicated by history. Why is that? Well, it's because of something really far worse than Ninninger namely Power Rangers Ninja Steel . Ninja Steel would have probably been MUCH LESS awful if Victor and Monty weren't there. If I have to give one bigger reason why I dislike Power Rangers Samurai - I'd attribute that more to Bulk and Spike than the rangers themselves. Thought Bulk and Spike were that bad? I'd probably say Victor and Monty are much worse. The two really just started to make Ninninger look like it was a masterpiece. Maybe, just maybe, I needed to cut Takaharu some slack. He got way better in Super Sentai Strongest Battle even if it may not be canon. Sure, the guy isn't intelligent but he doesn't spend his time engaging in Victor's and Monty's type of nonsense. He does get some decent character develo...

Just because I had been a longtime viewer of Super Sentai doesn't mean I won't be pointing out its weaknesses. I would want to think I'm showing tough love. I remembered writing a crazy rant about Power Rangers becoming beautifully pointless . Now, it's time for another crazy rant for the sake of a crazy rant from me. Just remember this is just my opinion, okay? How I felt Ninninger and Zyuohger were beautifully pointless I don't want to deny that my preferences with both old and new shifts a lot and I mean a LOT. Sometimes, the best is found in the old and sometimes the best is found in the new. So I don't care only if something is old school or new school. What I care about is if you can give me a good story. Sadly, I think these two seasons eventually start to sour up in my mind. The first one has to be Ninninger. I decided to check it out for myself. The real problem can be linked more to Kento Shimoyama and maybe Naomi Takebe. Takebe's n...

It's no secret I think Super Sentai is already having suffering from what I'd call a franchise fatigue. Ninninger just ended and we're having Ninninger vs. ToQGer coming up, Zyuohger is coming in (with it being the 40th Super Sentai, man do I feel old ) and I really have a very mixed impression on the series itself. Kento Shimoyama is still new to being a headwriter so I was wondering what kind of juice he'd pump in. But I guess the bigger problem might be Naomi Takebe (While she was responsible for some of my favorite Kamen Rider shows but I tend to really dislike her as a Super Sentai producer) as the producer or that the action directors involved aren't good at all. I could give another rundown into the series. Plus, aren't there any other themes that they can use already? It can be good to repeat a theme twice but more than twice, it can turn out pretty bad depending on who's in charge.  The series itself may have had the problem of lower rating...

Considering Ninninger is already starting to come to an end and the first episode sort of took a bit of Shinkenger's first episode, I might write on ninjatos and katanas. I would admit in the past, I was confused between the difference of a ninjato and a samurai sword until I did some more research on the matter. If anybody has anything to add, just comment. The ninjato The type of swords used by the Kakurangers, Hurricangers and lately Ninningers are examples of the Ninjato or Ninjaken. It has this description that it has a straight-edged compared to the samurai. In history, these swords were used in a stabbing motion which required more stealth to get closer to the victims. What was interesting was that they were usually shorter while the scabbards were usually longer was for other reasons than combat. These swords could be used to be shoved into the earth or a wall all the way to its hilt to reach higher. The scabbards also carried other weapons like poisons and other small...

Twas the fight before Christmas. This one takes place after that Santa Claus ahem monster tried to rob everyone of their wealth. Now it's time to really have a Christmas party with Kibaoni Mangetsu. This one also has a scene of people turned into peanuts but fortunately, nobody got eaten but other people have died off-screen. The first event is a kite battle. Yakumo manages to use his magic to win. I'm not really a fan of mounted archery... so I don't want to comment on this one.

This week's Ninninger is almost a public service announcement. Knowing it's the Christmas season, it's very easy to fall for dirty business, isn't it? And here's a bit of what went on... The first thing to happen was that this "Santa Claus" guy (actually the monster of the week) says there's this magic ring that brings wealth. Like every dodgy guy, the monster tells the yet to be victims to never tell anyone.  It was too predictable to have Birbougami disguise as Santa Claus. Abaranger had Reirannibisanta who was assigned to give gifts that would turn humans into Barma Hei. In this one, it promises wealth but the results are not pleasant. Like any real scam that promises wealth, the people become poorer and poorer instead. Many people get conned by several double your money scams during the holidays. I guess this week's message really showed a lesson not to fall for scam artists that promise easy money.

After several senior actors guesting as their old roles like you had like Takumi Tsutsui as Toha Yamaji/Jiraiya, Teruoki Ogawa as Sasuke/Ninja Red and Shun Shioya as Yousuke/Hurricane Red so I am not a bit surprised to see Hiroya Matsumoto. Okay I may not be doing episode reviews but I'll share a bit of my thoughts here. I developed a new opinion. I figured out that I might cherish Ninninger more than Magiranger even if both shows tend to suffer from too many power-ups. Considering that Ninninger may not belong to its own timeline , it's only normal that Tsubasa made a guest appearance in contrast to Sentai seniors appearing as different characters. His guest appearance as his Magiranger makes a whole lot of sense considering Yakumo is a magical ninja which I'll admit, I was impressed that we get to see a badly needed do your own stunt scene in this one. If you saw a lot of old school Super Sentai, you may notice Super Sentai actors from previous shows or those who...

I may not be a huge RPG lover but I remembered playing Dragon Quest VIII for the Playstation 2 and I am looking forward to owning a Playstation 4 together with Dragon Quest Heroes (English version). Honestly, this was much better than the story mode time in ToQGer IMHO as the Ninningers enter into the game themselves while foiling a game related monster. References to Tsubaraya's hero Gridman (or Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad) anyone? The first one is where there is the quest to liberate a kingdom. It just reminded me of how often that my RPG-playing video gaming peers would talk about Final Fantasy's and Dragon Quest's cliches. I guess to save time or what, they decided to use a 16-bit Super Nintendo-like graphic since making 3D graphics would take time and well, you know Tokusatsu special effects do have a tight budget. I thought it was nice to throw back to 16-bit gaming and honestly, I miss a lot of my old games. Now here's where things get a bit more ...

Well I felt this episode of Ninninger had people I'm happy for namely Yoshi Sudarso (Power Rangers DIno Charge) and for the Ninningers, for meeting a childhood hero. Okay, I only heard of Jiraiya just NOW and yes, NOW and I felt like Ninninger's sending me on the mission to watch... JIRAIYA.  Yoshi Sudarso is seen speaking in English in this episode and Yakumo Kato and he speak in English. So I was wondering, was he simply going "uhhhh..." like any guy who can't understand Japanese. Perhaps the actor Gaku Matsumoto was able to interpret everything so, lucky him. He's the first Power Ranger to actually make a cameo role and honestly, I wish there were more scenes though but time may have not allowed it. Here's Sudarso's video and sure, he really looks happy in this one. All I can say is congratulations to him for his fun moment. Not everyone has the opportunity to even make a cameo. I just wish he had more screen time. But again, did he just d...

So some of you may say I'm too backwards because I prefer the older Super Sentai series but as said, it doesn't mean I'm not open towards modernization and I can't enjoy a new seriers. It's not modernization that's the problem but it's the writing style and quality. Like ToQGer could have been a good series but IMO, assigning a burnt out Yasuko Kobayashi instead of Naruhisa Arakawa (or any new writer) was a terrible mistake. Now for Ninninger, one thing is certain, I still find the series to be pretty entertaining. As much as I want to call Takaharu as Bakaharu because he's an idiot but I couldn't find him annoying. I'll admit, I may make fun of his idiocy but I find him to be "another Ban". I know I didn't immediately like Ban in Dekaranger but I warmed up to him, the same happened with Takaharu, I slowly warmed up to him considering the guy is not an attention grabber. Everyone in Ninninger is starting to show some signs of imp...

While watching Ninninger and expecting it to be its own timeline, I just gave a thought that perhaps like Gokaiger, it belongs to the VS. Continuity rather than its own continuity. So why am I making this stand? Here's what's happening in the series, and if you think that a Super Sentai timeline is possible, you should watch more of the 80s Super Sentai which will make things obvious that there is no Super Sentai timeline. The first instance was the guest-starring of both Sasuke (Kakuranger) and Yousuke (Hurricanger) as themselves, rather than the actors guesting as another character. I mean, if you remember, we see Super Sentai cast members coming back as different characters after their respective roles are over. But here, they came back as their previous roles. Common sense will tell us that if Super Sentai had a timeline , there's a lot to account for and the series will have to explain a lot of plotholes like, "Why didn't the ninjas and samurais of the pas...

As much as I'm having mixed feelings with Ninninger considering that I wasn't so impressed by the earlier episodes, but the show tends to give me the "so bad it's good" vibe that I want to watch more of it, now for the dance! A combination of green and gold? Two yellows dancing!

Here's some Troper's opinion (though IMO, I think TV Tropes needs to really tell us who's editing what because as said, for discussion reasons and we're all subjected to make mistakes and different views) wrote this: Starninger could be a reference to the relationship between Super Sentai and Power Rangers: He is a westernized version of the other rangers and both find the other's methods unusual, which mirrors the fact that Power Rangers series are perceived as more serious and violent by Japanese fans while Sentai is seen as more oddball and aloof by Americans. Starninger notably comes off as ignorant to the way the rest of the team works, but is slowly starting to enjoy them, similar to how the American Sentai fandom is more of a recent development. I don't really have a positive view of Ninninger but I still can't ignore the possible mythology gag. Now it's time for me to discuss somebody's opinion and whoever he/she is, I feel like there...

Although I'm not a fan of either Kyoryuger or Dino Charge (and I'm just a passing by Super Sentai fan ) because well, neither show click for my personal preferences, but I'll give credit to Indonesian actor Yoshi Sudarso (who I am not really a fan of) for going to Japan and meeting Toei's cast and doing a great service for the fans of shows that I'm not a fan of.  As said, as of late I'm NEUTRAL with Power Rangers, I don't like it but I don't hate it.   Yoshi Sudarso and Robert Baldwin Oh wait!  Now I'm warming up to him for posing near my favorite Boukenger, Masayuki Deai!  I'll give him more credit for that.