Toy Collectors- Do you still play with your toys?

[Reprise]

Received wave 2 of the Super7 Power Rangers Ultimates line today. I only had a chance to open up Dragonzord. It looks and feels nice. Looks more like the man in the costume, if that makes sense. Only issue is the legs are a bit loose.

[Anapan]

I was about to ask where you got that awesome Kirby figure until I realized...

[Raging Justice]

Received wave 2 of the Super7 Power Rangers Ultimates line today. I only had a chance to open up Dragonzord. It looks and feels nice. Looks more like the man in the costume, if that makes sense. Only issue is the legs are a bit loose.

I remember someone on youtube mentioning the "man in the costume" thing as well. That's something they only did with the zords in the original Japanese series I think. I could be wrong though, I'm more familiar with the show's Western incarnation.

I got the green ranger figure from that Super 7 line because Tommy is awesome. I also got his dino thunder black ranger figure from the lightning collection even though I never even watched that season LOL. I am just a big Tommy fan. He was the coolest of the OG team

I really need to get my hands on a Dragonzord and a White Tigerzord. I don't have any zords and yours look cool.

[Reprise]

Received wave 2 of the Super7 Power Rangers Ultimates line today. I only had a chance to open up Dragonzord. It looks and feels nice. Looks more like the man in the costume, if that makes sense. Only issue is the legs are a bit loose.

I remember someone on youtube mentioning the "man in the costume" thing as well. That's something they only did with the zords in the original Japanese series I think. I could be wrong though, I'm more familiar with the show's Western incarnation.

I got the green ranger figure from that Super 7 line because Tommy is awesome. I also got his dino thunder black ranger figure from the lightning collection even though I never even watched that season LOL. I am just a big Tommy fan. He was the coolest of the OG team

I really need to get my hands on a Dragonzord and a White Tigerzord. I don't have any zords and yours look cool.

With Power Rangers, 99.9% of the zord footage was from the Japanese counterpart, Super Sentai, which always used to be a man in a suit. Then at some point in the early 2000s it changed to CGI. There were a few exceptions where Power Rangers shot their own zord footage and I believe they used the toys to create most of it, but I could be wrong. There's some American shot zord footage at the start of season 3 of MMPR that looked too good to be the toys I think.

Most of the scenes with them in suits and fighting is/was from Super Sentai too, although it got complicated with Mighty Morphin, as they basically ran out of Sentai footage part way through season 1. They commissioned Sentai to put together new unique zord and ranger footage they could use initially and then started filming their own ranger scenes (but changing the zords each year to keep up with Sentai in that area).

Basically, Saban didn't want to change the ranger suits too soon, when MMPR became a huge success, because those designs became iconic for kids.

Edit: And here's Rita out of her box and set up:

[Raging Justice]

I honestly wish I could catch up on every season of Power Rangers I haven't seen, then watch all of their Japanese counterparts as well.

Sigh, i just don't have the free time though. I was really enjoying the Boom Studios comic books, but every time they'd start throwing in stuff from the shows I always felt like I should watch the seasons they were pulling stuff from before continuing to read the comics. I'm only familiar with the TV show up to the season where they went to space. I've seen a few episodes of the outer space season but never finished it. That evil space queen was hot. Blew my mind when I saw the show crossover with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The crossover kind of sucked, but it's still kind of awesome that they did it.

Man, it seems like you can crossover TMNT with anything. I loved the animated crossover with Batman if for no other reason than this:

[Reprise]

I know what you mean about the comics. I absolutely loved those at first, right up until the Shattered Grid story arc concluded. That was Kyle Higgins' run and I think that was Boom's Power Rangers at its best. After that, they just keep trying to do crazier and crazier big "events" and out do themselves, with lightning fast pacing. Ryan Parrott's run was ok, but he kept adding to the lore and trying to explore all these new ideas and I found it tough to keep up. His prequel series Go Go Power Rangers was pretty great though.

My main problem though is also that I haven't watched a lot of Power Rangers and just am not that aware of all of its history and the different rangers. As a kid I only watched up until Zeo, which was season 4 (the one after Mighty Morphin'). I later went back as an adult though and watched parts of Turbo, all of In Space, parts of Lost Galaxy, all of Time Force, all of Dino Thunder and all of RPM (which I watched as it aired). I also recently watched bits of Dino Charge, Beast Morphers, Dino Fury and the recent Cosmic Fury.

Years ago I did watch a series called Linkara's history of Power Rangers that helped get me up to speed. You should find it if you google it.

Regarding the Japanese counterparts, I have seen some of those, but again it's just hard to watch and keep up. Jetman is the only one I have more or less watched from start to finish and I really enjoyed that one.

[Raging Justice]

I know what you mean about the comics. I absolutely loved those at first, right up until the Shattered Grid story arc concluded. That was Kyle Higgins' run and I think that was Boom's Power Rangers at its best. After that, they just keep trying to do crazier and crazier big "events" and out do themselves, with lightning fast pacing. Ryan Parrott's run was ok, but he kept adding to the lore and trying to explore all these new ideas and I found it tough to keep up. His prequel series Go Go Power Rangers was pretty great though.

My main problem though is also that I haven't watched a lot of Power Rangers and just am not that aware of all of its history and the different rangers. As a kid I only watched up until Zeo, which was season 4 (the one after Mighty Morphin'). I later went back as an adult though and watched parts of Turbo, all of In Space, parts of Lost Galaxy, all of Time Force, all of Dino Thunder and all of RPM (which I watched as it aired). I also recently watched bits of Dino Charge, Beast Morphers, Dino Fury and the recent Cosmic Fury.

Years ago I did watch a series called Linkara's history of Power Rangers that helped get me up to speed. You should find it if you google it.

Regarding the Japanese counterparts, I have seen some of those, but again it's just hard to watch and keep up. Jetman is the only one I have more or less watched from start to finish and I really enjoyed that one.

I think I'll check out Jetman sometime, and I'm bookmarking Linkara's stuff.

The differences between Power Rangers and its Japanese counterparts are fascinating to me. Like, Tommy is considered by many to be the most popular character in the franchise (R.I.P. Jason David Frank), but I heard that in the Japanese versions of the early seasons of the show, the Green and White Rangers were actually played by some obnoxious little kid. Quite the contrast.

I also wonder if there is like a Japanese manga focusing on the Japanese versions of the show the way Boom Studios make comic books for the Western variant of the show.

When I first saw Power Rangers in the 90s, I knew nothing about this genre or that it existed in Japan. To me, seeing a show like Voltron done in live action blew my mind. I had never seen anything like that before. I never realized it'd become such a massive franchise, though I do remember at the time there were a LOT of shows copying it. Power Rangers is sort of like Doctor Who now. It's been around for so long with so many different cast members that every generation of viewers will have their favorite team just like different generations of Doctor Who fans have their favorite Doctor. My favorite team will always be the original team of Jason, Billy, Kimberly, Zak, Trini...and later Tommy (the whole sixth ranger thing was a cool idea and even cooler introducing him as an evil ranger). As I learn about other seasons and teams over time I will probably have other favorites as well. I really dug Astronema in the few episodes I saw of Power Rangers in Space and the comics kind of spoiled for me that she actually becomes a Pink Ranger, which I think is pretty cool

Nice Rita figure by the way. My god the comics did so much good work with Rita. She was fun in the TV show but she is SO MUCH cooler in the comics.

[Reprise]

I forgot to say I agree Astronema is super hot, if that's who you meant earlier

I love what the comics did for Rita. They really added extra depth to her character, history and motivations and made her a far more serious villain. I really like how Boom made the series more 'mature', without resorting to cheap methods like just upping the violence and adding bad language or something equally cliche. For example, I like how they portrayed Tommy's early mental health issues with him struggling to deal with the trauma of being under Rita's control after becoming good and his lack of self-confidence in his ability to join the team, whilst also showing the other rangers' unease and lack of trust in him (particularly Zack).

[Raging Justice]

I forgot to say I agree Astronema is super hot, if that's who you meant earlier

I love what the comics did for Rita. They really added extra depth to her character, history and motivations and made her a far more serious villain. I really like how Boom made the series more 'mature', without resorting to cheap methods like just upping the violence and adding bad language or something equally cliche. For example, I like how they portrayed Tommy's early mental health issues with him struggling to deal with the trauma of being under Rita's control after becoming good and his lack of self-confidence in his ability to join the team, whilst also showing the other rangers' unease and lack of trust in him (particularly Zack).

Yeah, I couldn't remember Astronema's name at the time so I called her the "evil space queen"

Patricia Ja Lee was cute too. It seems like they always make the pink rangers attractive.

Yeah, the comics did a remarkable job of staying true to the show, but also having a more mature feel to it. I feel like they took a lot of stuff from the show and fleshed it out more.

The only minor thing that bugged me a bit is that Trini came off a bit too perfect in the comics, like she was just good at everything. She could lead like Jason. She was smart like Billy. She had Kimberly's emotional intelligence. I think she even beat Jason once in a sparring session when him and Tommy are supposed to be the top fighters. On top of all that she was involved in all these programs to save the planet and protect the environment. They made her like this perfect ranger and this perfect person. She felt like a Mary Sue. Though I guess the writers probably wanted to portray her really well out of respect for the late Thuy Trang. I found myself liking Kimberly more than Trini in the comics though, because Kim felt more like a real person with strengths as well as flaws. Plus, her alternate universe counterpart was frigging awesome.

[Raging Justice]

Oh, I forgot one thing in particular I loved about Rita. I'll spoiler text it in case anyone reads this who hasn't read the comics

I love that story where she came back from the dead in the other universe as a powerful ghost witch. That was awesome. Like she's so badass that even death can't stop her

Her appearance was very cool in the comics too. Very majestic, but also sinister and powerful and mysterious. Very different from how she looked in the TV show. They gave her a presence on paper that was never there on the show.