Power Rangers Ninja Steel: Toei Broke It, Saban Is TRYING To Fix It · 1:32pm Jan 22nd, 2017
Lily white ninjas in New Zealand? Sure, why the fuck not? 
Power Rangers Ninja Steel premiered this weekend. I actually didn't know it was time yet for this, and missed the Saturday premiere, but luckily I caught the Sunday morning repeat by chance. Here are my thoughts below.
Before I get into this, I have to note that I watched exactly two episodes of Ninninger before I noped out on it.
Okay, so we've got the usual mix of bad acting and bizarre rewrite-adaptation we've come to know and expect from Power Rangers.
In this case? That's actually a good thing, because Ninninger is objectively the single worst Super Sentai series in the entire 40-year history of the franchise. There's literally nowhere to go but up.
Ninja Steel took the feuding-ninja-cousins-fighting-to-be-top-ninja plot that kicked off the worst Super Sentai ever, completely trashed it, and replaced it with a story about a sacred relic being pursued by an intergalactic version of Richard Dawson's character from The Running Man. Elements of the King Arthur legend were added (in a ninja fantasy show), as well as a revenge story about a boy who spent ten years as a slave to an alien asshole who beat the crap out of his ninja master father.
The Rangers-to-be are the usual assorted cast of malignant dipshits. One's a dorky aspiring magician, one rides a BttF hoverboard to school, one's a gearhead.
As for supplemental characters, there's an annoying pompous jock/bully stereotype who's so stereotypical it's painful, a put-upon bullied geek stereotype who's so stereotypical it's painful, a wannabe Alpha-5, and a dude who can turn into a mop.
And yet despite all that it's STILL better than Ninninger.
Wow, Ninja Steel has already debuted? Well, here's hoping it'll turn out better than Dino Supercharge, what a way to kill a series that looked like it was finally getting the Power Rangers brand back on track.
4392076
I'm behind on my Power Rangers, and while I'm aware of how bad Samurai and Megaforce are (that's a super mega win!) What went wrong with Dino Supercharge?
4392076 I honestly blame Nickelodeon for a lot of that rather than Saban. If Nick wasn't forcing Saban to run 20-episode seasons and split the titles off, they could more easily directly adapt the Super Sentai like they TRIED to do with Shinkenger. But yeah, Saban has made some pretty stupid moves...I missed all of Dino Supercharge, but the promos I saw didn't exactly convince me it was a worthy heir to Kyouryuuger.
Well at less the cowboys sixth ranger will make a lot more sense in an American adaptation then it ever will In Japan
4392095 I loved Dino Charge in both its halves. To quote a post I made to someone else a while back: What they changed... they did in a way that managed to be awesome (such as Heckyl and Snide). And while Season 2 had its issues, they still managed to change things up in a way that worked, such as reworking some of the existing footage and suits for a story arc that was very different from the original version, yet still fit with what we had, and I quite enjoyed it. (And almost all the characters actually got their own moment to shine at some point, though the Aqua Ranger was kind of shafted - we never even got to see the Spirit Hammer outside of the opening credits, as far as I could tell.)
Ninja Steel looks kind of silly, but I haven't had any real complaints so far. And one definite bonus: this new Red Ranger isn't a hyperactive loon like his Ninninger counterpart.
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
4392085 You'll have to watch the entire season to know everything, but the basic problems are:
1. The season went through a revolving door of antagonists, including one who showed up for one to two episodes and then was destroyed.
2. The Silver Ranger had the shortest redemption period of any evil ranger to date, and his conflict after being freed was a rehash of Ivan's.
3. Despite gaining the purple energem at the end of Dino Charge, Miss Morgan seldom did anything now that she was a ranger
4. The gray and cyan rangers were put on a bus for most of the season, which is especially problematic considering the identity of the cyan ranger and all the build up he got.
5. The season finale was a mess and even ended with the rangers trapping Sledge on his ship reprogrammed to fly into the sun. The rangers basically murdered all the villains and it was completely shrugged off.
4392237 You can't entirely blame Saban for the Violet, Cyan, and Gray Rangers not getting much to do. They didn't really do much in Kyouryuuger to begin with. As to that last part...so it suddenly bothers you that Power Rangers destroy evil monsters, despite Powee Rangers having destroyed evil monsters since all the way back in the first episode?
4392465 In most cases they have done so after battles have escalated, and there have been some Ranger seasons that have not destroyed monsters (such as Time Force and S.P.D). With Sledge it was different, they had already defeated him and prevented him and his crew from stealing the energems, so why they felt the need to intentionally destroy him made little sense, especially since doing so prevented the dinosuars from becoming exctinct. Super Charge did do some things good though, most noticeably it marked the return of the battlizer for the Red Ranger, which has been absent since Jungle Fury.
4392237
Well, if the bad guys constantly getting killed off is a problem for you, S.P.D. has you covered. Aliens of the Week get arrested and captured. Only the giant piloted mechs get destroyed with any regularity.
4392576 I don't normally mind monsters being destroyed, because they usually attack the rangers first and pose a direct threat to the city the rangers inhabit. It was just that in the Super Charge finale, their goal was to stop Sledge from stealing the energems and they accomplished that, never was it said that they needed to destroy him and everyone on board the ship, especially when doing so altered the course of history. If it had been like the Dino Charge finale where the ship was accidentally damaged during the fight with Sledge that would've been different.
The really sad thing is that we're never going to see them adapt ToQger, Juohger or Gobusters.
4392709 I still don't know why they skipped Go-Busters, but they skipped ToQger for a reason. I don't know where you're getting the idea that Zyuohger won't be adapted. Even if Nick doesn't renew their deal with Saban, it's likely Power Rangers will continue on Netflix indefinitely.
Power Rangers would be one of the biggest single reasons (out of many) why I'm embarrassed by my memories of childhood.
The only saving grace is that at least Animaniacs is still funny.
4392465 Is it bad I kind of liked Samurai? I mean, yeah, them being mostly white was a bit odd, but the Red Ranger could at least be written off as being some part Japanese.
4395032 Eh, I doubt Super Sentai and Kamen Rider will EVER die. Power Rangers might...kinda go away again, it depends.
I'm still annoyed that they turned a show about Descended Angels into a generic "save the environment" show that seems to be trying to push Captain Planet off from the title of "most preachy environmental show targeted towards children"
I so would have watched the shit out of "Power Rangers: Angel Force"
Then again, everything after RPM has been a series of mistakes. Stretching a theme over two seasons and folding an unrelated season into the theme, Beating "Go Go Power Rangers" beyond death. Mistreating the RPM Red Ranger in the crossover with Samurai AND dismissing the fate of the rest of the RPM rangers with a single line.
I'm not sure if my opinion on Toku counts because I actually LIKED "Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight". It was a shame that it bombed, as we might have gotten more adapted Kamen Rider shows.