My Issues With Power Rangers Jungle Fury

I'm sort of doing this because I've seen a resurgence regarding the fandom's opinion on Jungle Fury. I just seem to run into more and more fans of it. If you've spoken with me on Facebook and Twitter, you probably already know I'm not a fan of this particular season. I figured I might as well tell you guys why I don't like it. Note: I will have to draw comparisons to Gekiranger to make certain points so please bear with me.

Lets start off with something simple: the action. Jungle Fury's action is not that good. I'm speaking of the American footage here. It just lacks a certain oomph and it doesn't mesh well at all with the stock footage. It makes it really easy to pick out the American footage from the stock footage. Heck, RJ doesn't even use Gou's fighting style in the American footage.

For a series whose main motif is martial arts, we rarely get to see them training. Heck when I think of their base, the first thing that comes to my mind is the pizza restaurant, not their loft. We actually see more scenes of them working in the pizza restaurant than we do actually training. Now normally that would sort of be ok but the show itself doesn't really give off the impression that they're getting stronger. The only time we get the feeling that they've gotten stronger is when a new power-up or weapon gets introduced.

I'm one of the people who can't stand Casey feeling guilty about Jarrod getting possessed. Jarrod was nothing more than an arrogant bully in the beginning. If Casey hadn't been the target of Jarrod's arrogance in the first episode, he would've simply targeted someone else. Jarrod's arrogance is the entire reason the show even happens and it his own fault that he got possessed. I get that its supposed to give Casey some more character but its utterly irrelevant given how Jarrod was before being possessed.

I like the designs of the Spirit Rangers but their introduction and the Phantom Beast stuff leaves something to be desired. I'd have preferred it if the actual masters had become the Spirit Rangers instead of just being stand-ins for them. Its kind of waste in my opinion since they still had access to the actors. Like pretty much everything else in Jungle Fury aside from RJ, they left absolutely no impact on me.

My biggest issue is the way Jarrod and Daishi are handled. Daishi makes no sense as a villain and this is where I have to bring in the Gekiranger comparisons to make my point. Having Daishi possess Jarrod pretty much combines the characters Rio and Long from Gekiranger into one being. Normally that might not be an issue, however it causes a major problem imo. They combined both characters without changing the context of the surrounding arcs to fit the new context. Daishi is supposed to be a god-like being in Jungle Fury yet for some reason despite possessing Jarrod, he still needs to train. There is no reason given why Daishi has to train. If Daishi is possessing Jarrod, he should be at full power. If that were the case, he wouldn't lose to Grizzaga at all. This could've easily been fixed by adding a line saying that Jarrod's body is too weak to withstand Daishi's full power, hence the need for the Overlords to train his new body. It makes Daishi seem weak if someone that strong can lose so much. Rio lost a lot in Gekiranger to but thats because he was still basically human and like the Gekirangers, he constantly trained to get better. Combining the two characters for Jungle Fury makes the training scenes irrelevant because there is no reason why he needs to train. I can't even count the Phantom Beasts as a change added to fit the new context. On its surface, it is something different but each episode minus the stuff with Wiger is still stuff from Gekiranger.

Daishi needing to train unfortunately makes me think that Jarrod at least has some control over himself while being possessed. It sort of paints Jarrod in a worse light for me because if he was, the backstory they tried to give him to make him more sympathetic is irrelevant. It means he may have chosen to do evil. I can't really back that up but its just a vibe it gives me. Thats what happens when they only show him fighting for control near the end or when the hawk dude was training him.

I can't really say much else for it but yeah, thats what I think of Jungle Fury. It is definitely in my bottom 5 seasons for the franchise. As usual, if other people like it, more power to them. Its definitely not for me because not only did it bore me as a PR season, it bored me as a kung fu movie fan. I seriously can't remember any of the action that isn't Gekiranger stock footage. If I had to guess, the reappraisal of Jungle Fury is probably due to Linkara's History of the Power Rangers episode. I usually see this sort of thing after he releases a new one.