The Problem With Dimensions In Danger And Tommy Oliver

This is a post I've been mulling over for a while. I haven't done this in the past because well, I know how much the fandom likes Tommy and JDF. After seeing Dimensions In Danger, I figured it was about time I did this one because oh boy that was way too much Tommy.

Let me just clarify something before I get into it: I don't hate Tommy Oliver as a character. I like him a lot. I'm simply tired of seeing him. The dude went through a lot during the Zordon era and came out on top. He earned his retirement from ranger duty by the time Turbo rolled around. My issue with Tommy is that arguably since Dino Thunder, he stopped being a character and purely became a marketing gimmick. Oh sure, he had an arc in Dino Thunder, but aside from being the mentor for the season, he didn't change very much once it wrapped up. It felt like he was there simply for a ratings boost. I like Dino Thunder but honestly, you could've replaced Tommy Oliver with anyone else and the story wouldn't change all that much outside of the episodes where its revealed he has a database on all the ranger teams and the episode where he fights his past powers in that coma dream.

Now I'm also gonna provide a small review of Dimensions In Danger since it was the thing that sparked this. This is the most Tommy glorifying thing I've ever seen. This isn't a bad episode, I don't hate it or anything but it really needed a lot of work. The pacing moves way too fast and the fight scenes were so choppy they were sort of hard for me to follow. The old/new balancing of the cast is almost non-existent. You could legitimately remove every veteran except for Tommy and nothing would change. I legitimately forgot the Ninja Steel rangers were even in it until it cut back to them. Now for the Tommy stuff. He is god-moded throughout the whole thing. He gets captured, escapes from the villain's base with no assistance before the rangers sent to rescue him get close to the base, destroys the villain's robot making machine on his way out, and even saves the other rangers from an ambush. I'm sorry, thats too much even for Tommy Oliver. He crushed half of the villain's plan all by himself. It pretty much kills the tension when he does that. Oddly enough, the way its handled makes it feel like the exact opposite of the issue I had with the Legendary Battle. The major threat of the villain's plan was rendered irrelevant first and it felt like they were just cleaning up the leftovers when all they had to do is beat the big bad and his army of robot duplicates. I'm gonna be honest, the Master Morpher isn't that big of a deal to me. Its an ok idea but personally, I'd have just made it so that it combined all 4 of his powers into one. Yeah it would basically have been similar to Drakkon from the comics in that regard but at least it would give us something new and maybe more interesting to look at than just seeing him cycle through all of his suits and it might have saved time. While I don't dislike the idea of the Master Morpher, I really wish Tommy hadn't said "You may look like me but unless you've got a Master Morpher, you're just cheap copy". It just sounded kinda lame and only served to remind us just how outclassed the robot duplicate was. On top of that its a really blatant way to promote a new toy. How he escaped the villain's base also felt like it was done just to give him a way out. If you're gonna try to capture Tommy Oliver, you'd plan to counter his invisibility. Overall its a better anniversary than the Legendary Battle but thats not saying much.

Don't get me wrong, Tommy is powerful but not that powerful. Every big thing Tommy did in his seasons was possible because he had his team behind him. It feels like the special forgot that or ignored that just to say how cool Tommy is. Honestly, its that sort of glorifying that makes it feel like he has just become a marketing gimmick to me. Heck, even during the Legendary Battle all the promotion for that episode centered around the fact that Tommy was going to cameo. I get it, the dude is the face of Power Rangers and JDF is always willing to reprise the role. However, there is a fine line between iconic and overused, Tommy arguably crossed that line during the Legendary Battle. If I'm being totally honest, it irks me simply because Tommy stopped being relevant a long time ago. The special felt like it was trying to make him relevant again. The dude got more lines and screen-time than anyone else and he got to finish off the big bad in the Falcon Zord while everyone else simply shot at it with their blasters. Its a mistake to have one character out of sixteen involved in a team-up be the only one that matters at all. I honestly think its time for Tommy to take on the Zordon role now. He should purely be guiding newer rangers instead of fighting on the front-lines. Also for future reference, I'm not gonna review Ninja Steel because I missed a lot of episodes and have no plans as of yet to catch up on it.

Gosei Sentai Dairanger Review

This was actually the second or third Sentai I tried to watch back when I was starting out. Sadly I was also in college at the time and class workloads picked up so I had to drop it for the time being. Eventually I just forgot about it. Thanks to Shout Factory's dvds, I was finally able to finish watching this show. Lets get right into it with a show that I've seen universal love for: Gosei Sentai Dairanger. How did it work out for me? Well, read on and find out. Note: I'm not going to cover the Dairanger suits in this review because I've already given my thoughts on them in another post.

Plot: Centuries ago, the Dai Tribe and Gorma Tribe went to war with each other. The war was devastating, leading to the destruction of both tribes. However, the Gorma have risen again. It is up to the Dairangers to defeat the Gorma this time around. Its a pretty simple set up but the show handles it well. Throughout the show it keeps bringing up the war between the Gorma and the Dai alongside this theme of balance. It doesn't just say the war happened and then ignore it to solely focus on the modern day. It makes the conflict feel more "real" for lack of a better term. Evil can never truly be vanquished so good must always rise up to fight it. Balance must be maintained or the world is doomed. A good example of this is when the god-like Dajinryu shows up and almost destroys the world because the Gorma are getting a bit too strong.

Characters: The Dairangers are a pretty fun team. They compliment each other pretty well even if two of them don't get much to do in the show.

• Ryo/Ryuranger: Ryo is an enjoyable Red and I liked a lot of his episodes. I don't have much else to say about the character. I think what makes Ryo memorable more than anything for me is the actor's performance. Dude brings a lot of charisma to the role. The Jin episodes and the episodes with his father are without a doubt his best episodes in the show. The episodes with his father interest me for a reason you might not expect but I'll talk about that in a bit.
• Daigo/Shishiranger: This dude is probably my favorite Dairanger. His episodes get pretty intense and he gets a nice love story with Kujaku. The dude values life in every form, doesn't matter if its human, an animal, or a plant. Outside of his episodes with Kujaku, the Key Jester episodes are my favorite eps for him.
• Shouji/Tenmaranger: Shouji is probably my second favorite member of the team. His episodes are fun and I particularly enjoy his episodes with the 3 Stooges. He'd always take them at their word since he knew what it was like to be considered a joke and worthless given his former life in a biker gang. He pretty much found an outlet when he took up boxing and that got him out of that life. Other than his episodes with the 3 Stooges, the episode where he and Ryo take down the Golden Leg Gorma is one of his best episodes.
• Kazu/Kirinranger: I like Kazu but I really wish he had more to do in the show. I rather like that he basically admits to Kameo in one episode that this suave, cool guy persona is just a front he puts on since he is actually from the country. He essentially ran away from home and came to the city. He gets a couple of episodes to himself but the only ones that really standout to me are the Tofu Hermit episode and the one where is looking for Daimugen's crystal. That doesn't actually make his other focus episodes bad. Its just not much compared Ryo, Shouji, Daigo, and Kou. Without a doubt he has the best choreographed fights in the show.
• Rin/Houhouranger: Rin is kind, caring, and a tough fighter. She can definitely hold her own without the rest of the team behind her. However, like Kazu, I think she needed more to do in the show. Thats mostly because once Kou shows up her stuff kind of gets tied up into his plot-line. My favorite episode for her is without a doubt the Lipstick Songstress episode.
• Kou/Kibaranger: Kou should actually really annoy me but I'm not really sure why he doesn't. Its probably because he is written really well and he stops the annoying stuff shortly after he becomes Kibaranger. I legitimately feel bad for the kid. I love the parallel between him and Akomaru. Akomaru is legitimately what Kou could've become if he had let the heartbreak of his mother leaving consume him. I legitimately cried when the stuff with his mother ended.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite parts of Dairanger is the stuff with Kujaku. I remember loving these episodes even back when I first the first half of this show. I actually enjoy those episodes more than the Jin episodes. Kujaku's grudge against Gara is just heartbreaking given where it spawned from. I'll talk more about that when I get to Gara and the other two of the Gorma Triumverite.

Something I found really interesting about the episodes with Ryo's father is the reveal that his dad is not only one of the original five warriors who fought the Gorma but that he defected to the Gorma during the war. The timing and the way its handled really interests me because its done over the course of just two episodes. It also happens very early in the show and it lead to me an interesting thought: If Dairanger had been made today, that reveal wouldn't have happened until the late 20's or early 30's and likely wouldn't have been resolved until near the final few episodes. Thats something I think modern Sentai relies on a little too much as they tend to drag out stuff like that a little too long for the sake of drama.

Villains:

I like the Gorma Triumvirate. They're nice and threatening powerhouse villains. Though its a little distracting hearing the Imperial March from Star Wars play whenever they show up.

Gara's grudge against Kujaku is actually a lot deeper and more heartbreaking than I thought it would be. They used to be friends until Gara's face was scarred while projecting Kujaku. The scarring itself isn't what caused Gara to hate Kujaku as she admits that she would've been proud to have that scar as a memory of the time she protected her friend. She hates Kujaku because she thought Kujaku abandoned her while Kujaku was really just looking for away to get rid of Gara's scar. Its two friends turning into mortal enemies over a tragic misunderstanding. Normally that would annoy me but Dairanger handled it extremely well. Its heartbreaking when you consider that one misunderstanding lead to Gara joining the Gorma. Gara is probably my favorite out of them due to how personal her grudge with Kujaku was. She is played by Akiko Amamatsuri who played Mazenda in Liveman. Her performance is great and she really captures the anger, bitterness, and heartbreak that Gara needed to work. She will definitely be making my revised villains list whenever I redo that one.

I like Shadam's relationship with Akomaru. Its a nice case of father and son really despising each other and being at each other's throats. You really get the feeling that Shadam deserves every single bit of hatred that Akomaru has for him. Its a rather nice contrast to how Kou feels about his mother so seeing both relationships in the end works out really well. The big revelation about Akomaru's connection to Kou is just great. Shadam is just awesome overall and the dude is legitimately Long levels of manipulative and I love the reveal with him at the end of the series.

Zydos unfortunately doesn't really do much in the show compared to Gara and Shadam other than create Jin and fight the Dairangers. He is still a powerhouse so I suppose I can't fault the character too much for that. His actor just seems to love mugging for the camera. He always seems to make the weirdest face whenever the camera does a close-up on his face. It never failed to make me snicker.

Without a doubt the standout side-villain in the show is of course Jin Matoba. Yutaka Hirose always makes a great villain. It was always a joy to see Jin show up in the show and his episodes always kept me at the edge of my seat. When you get right down to it, Jin is a relatively simple villain: He just wants to prove that he is the best fighter there is. Zydos even gives him magic hoping to sway him to the Gorma's side but even then, Jin is way out of his league and kicks Zydos to the curb. Despite using his martial arts to outright kill his opponents, he still has this sense of honor as a fighter. He also has one of the best villain deaths I've seen in Sentai. I won't say what it is here because I'd rather people find out for themselves. I will say that it is without a doubt Jin's best episode in the show. At first I was afraid Jin was going to be overblown due to all the hype around him but I'm so glad he is as awesome as my friends were telling me. All in all, its a great performance by Hirose and its one I won't soon forget. He gave the character a nice air of malice yet also got the honorable nature across. It makes for a really intimidating villain. I'll probably be adding him to my favorite villains list the next time I update it. While watching Jin and Gara, a thought crossed my mind: Jin played Kemp in Liveman and Gara played Mazenda, if Gou's actor had showed up as a Gorma, we could've had mini-Volt reunion.

I normally wouldn't talk about individual MOTWs in detail but Key Jester is probably my favorite. He just hits that level of creepy that sends a chill down my spine. The actor does really well in the role imo. I particularly like that he gets around by roller-skating. This dude's plot is one of the creepiest plans I've seen in Sentai. He basically uses his keys to steal children's souls and put them into dolls so they can wreak havoc. He also played Dora Sphinx's human form in Zyuranger.

Speaking of actors I've seen before, Kubota's actor from Megaranger shows up as General Cactus. Its a bit weird seeing him play a character that likes to turn little girls into dolls after seeing a few episodes of Megaranger. Thats mostly why this Gorma stands out to me so I really don't have much else to say about him. There are probably other Sentai actors I've seen before who play Gorma but I can't think of anyone else.

Mecha: They're all pretty well designed and there is an amazing amount of detail on the models. My favorite of all the mecha is probably Won Tiger. I love how short and swift the mecha fights in this show are. They don't feel tacked on or dragged out. They're simply being used as the final blow against the Gorma.

Action: The action in this show is outstanding. You can really feel the amount of effort that the choreograpers and suit actors put into it. Kazu probably has the best fight scenes in the entire show for me. The movements he does are insane and his fights always flowed so well. This show probably has the most movement intensive fight scenes I've ever seen. It just shows how valuable suit actors are in toku. As someone with an eye for fight scenes, I just can't rave enough about how happy this show's fights made me. I don't normally mention the role-calls in these reviews but I absolutely love Dairanger's. It is the most intricate, precise, and movement intensive role-call I've ever seen, especially Kazu's. I'm still amazed that the actor himself can actually do that. They all look so simple but I've tried doing them now and then and they are much harder than they look. I can barely do Rin's without messing it up. I can't even attempt Kazu's without falling over.

Music: Outside the Imperial March playing when the Gorma Triumvirate hits the scene, the music for the villains is really effective. It managed to creep me out quite a bit. The shows opening and ending themes are great. The opening has a lot of power to it and I always found myself singing along. The ending theme is nicely addictive and happy sounding.

Final Thoughts: I like how the show continues to remind you just how long this war has been going. I love the twist at the end when we discover whats up with Shadam and the rest of the Gorma. It really helps sell the show's idea of balance. I'd mention it here but I don't want to spoil it since its an interesting bit of lore for Dairanger's world. Not sure where I'll put this whenever I re-do my Sentai rankings but I'd probably put it higher than Zyuranger.

My Thoughts On Hasbro Shaking Things Up For Power Rangers (Also The Gobusters Adaptation)

Ok, normally I don't speculate on things when it comes to Power Rangers in general. This is usually because I tend to have no idea what a season is going to do until it actually airs. I'm talking about this because in a short span of time the fandom has changed its tune on the franchise so I figured I might as well weigh in. I will talk briefly about the toys and then move on to how this might affect the show.

Hasbro buying up the toy license for Power Rangers is a good thing. I can see that even if I'm not that big on the toys myself. BoA has let the quality drop quite a bit over the years. The quality of the Ninja Steel toys in particular have been awful from what I've seen on the shelves. I fully expect Hasbro to up the quality of the toys since from what I've heard they're really into making quality stuff. This is a great thing for toy collectors and the toys for Gobusters adaptation are probably gonna end up pretty good. Hasbro pays a lot of attention to the little details in their toys as far as I can tell. However, I don't know much about toys or toy collecting so thats all I'll say on that.

Now this is probably going affect the inevitable sequel to the 2017 Power Rangers movie. This probably means that the sequel is going to become a reboot. I can totally see Hasbro wanting to redesign everything from the ground up. That would be a very good thing and it would be a change I welcome. I cannot not stand the suits or megazord from the 2017 movie. Those were wide misses as far as Power Ranger designs are concerned. It could even lead to us getting a movie that both looks and feels more like a Power Rangers movie.

Now for the next season...Beast Morphers. I don't like the name at all but moving on. I did not care much for Gobusters so I really hope that I enjoy the adaptation more. I honestly thought Gobusters wasted some really cool Sentai suits. Looking at the plot-synopsis, I'm a bit iffy on the Morphing Grid being a plot-point. You run the risk of over-explaining how it works and punching holes in it. Personally, I'm of the mind that the grid is best left as this vague power-source that people can tap into. With that being said, if they do bring in Enter's Dark Buster form and keep its origin the same, they had better apply the no duplicate powers rule since its basically a copy of Red Buster's abilities. Thats basically all I can speculate on with the info we have right now.

There is one last thing I want to address about the Gobuster's adaptation. The second it was announced the fandom brought back the idea of making it a sequel to RPM. I like RPM but my overall question is why make it a sequel to RPM? The thing about RPM is that its a send-off to the franchise in general. Thats why 90% of the human race is gone in RPM. Thats why all the other teams are presumed dead. Thats why the crossover with Samurai wrote it off as being in another dimension. Making a sequel season to RPM undercuts the impact of that season.

So yeah, thats basically all I have to say on the subject. Will it be a good show? Who knows, only time will tell. Will I watch it? Its Power Rangers so of course I will. I get why people are hyped but I just can't bring myself to get hyped until the show actually airs. For now, I'm going to keep my hype under control so I don't get burned like I did with Megaforce.

Thoughts and Opinions: Bloom Into You Vol.1

This is another one that I ended up leaving off my recommended reading list. It was not left off because it an on-going series nor was it because I couldn't get a feel for it. The reason is because after reading the first volume I forgot this series existed even though I own the second volume as well. The only reason I even remembered about this series is because I found both volumes while looking through my manga collection. Without further delay let's get started.  

Bloom Into You is a yuri manga written and drawn by Nakatani Nio and published by Seven Seas Entertainment. The story follows Yuu Koito, a young girl who loves romance manga and looks forward to the day that someone will confess their love to her in a way that will make her heart flutter. However when a classmate from her junior high does confess to her she feels absolutely nothing. Naturally she is disappointed by this. Flash-forward to high school where she meets Nanami Touko, a member of the student counsel. It just so happens that Nanami is in a similar situation to Yuu as even though many people have confessed to her she felt nothing for anyone... That is until she met Yuu. After making her own confession it is revealed that while she is attracted to Yuu, Yuu herself  feels nothing for her. 

After re-reading the first volume I can honestly say I feel bad that I forgot about this series. The plot is decent enough as its a story of unrequited love with the notable aspect being that both sides acknowledge it and are seemingly alright with it.  It serves it's purpose of introducing the characters and setting up character traits. The artwork itself is is passable though somewhat generic. The characters it introduces are portrayed well enough to were I can get a little bit of a feel for them. Out of the two main characters Nanami is the one that stands out in this volume. To me she is a very sympathetic character as she knows her feelings might never be returned and resigns herself to thinking that just loving Yuu is enough. Despite that she still makes an attempt to be close to Yuu even going as far as asking her to help run her campaign for student counsel president so they can spend more time together. As stated before I like reading stories in which one or more of the people involved are open with their feelings or openly pursuing the other. Yuu is also decently developed as well. While she isn't in love with Nanami she is shown to have a bit of remorse for not being able to return her feelings. She also wants to be there for her and to help support her emotionally. She even goes as far as telling her that she doesn't have to be anything special for her. Overall all the story is actually good. It does a good job of introducing the main cast and laying the ground work for later volumes to build off of.  As of the time of this post I have yet to finish the second volume or even purchase the third. If asked my for my honest opinion on this series I would recommend checking it out. As stated before I feel kind of bad that I forgot about this series as it would have at least gotten an honorary mention on my recommended reading list for 2017 (link here). Honestly I want to see where the story goes from here.

In the introduction I stated that I had forgotten this story existed. Some of you may be wondering why I did a post on this series even though I completely forgot about it. The reason is because in order to do these posts I usually have to go back and re-read books in question. Doing so allows me to refresh my memory of them and helps me pick up on things I missed during the first reading. Why is this important you may ask? Well it makes it so that my first impression is not the one I base these posts on. That is almost what happened here. I was ready to give this one a negative review and it really doesn't deserve it. This post was supposed to be out at the beginning of the month. The reason it is late is because after re-reading this volume I decided to completely rewrite it and give it a fair review. The reason I forgot about it may not have anything to do with the book itself. I was reading at least four other series at the time so it's likely that it just slipped my mind.

At the time of this post there are at least three volumes available for purchase. I will eventually get around to finishing volume two as I already own a copy.

I really don't have an idea for the next post. I am leaning towards either a post on my thoughts of NTR: Netsuzou Trap or doing something unrelated to yuri manga. I also plan on doing two reviews for romance series that are near and dear to me though I have no clue when those will be finished.

My Hero Academia Seasons 1 and 2 Review

Lets start the new year off on a positive note. I was seeing really good press for this show before my laptop went down and since I had time to kill when it went down, I decided to check it out. Man, this thing was right up my alley. At first I was afraid this was gonna be show one of those shows that was all hype and no substance like Attack on Titan. I got so engrossed with this thing. Normally I'd give a recommendation at the end of the review but before I go into detail I'll just say this: Give it a watch, you'll probably like it.

I've seen two other superhero anime, those two being Tiger & Bunny and One-Punch Man. This one differs from the other two in that superpowers are incredibly common in this world, roughly 80% of the human population has some sort of special ability (known as Quirks). Naturally, powers being that common leads to villains misusing their powers and heroes rising up to stop them. The show centers around Izuku Midoriya, a boy who grew up idolizing heroes and wanted to become one himself. Sadly, he was born without a Quirk which is almost unheard of at this point. That all changes when he runs into his hero All Might. After seeing Izuku's drive to become a hero and seeing his heroic nature, he decides to pass his Quirk One For All on to him so Izuku can achieve his dream. From there the show follows Izuku's life at U.A.

Before I get to the characters and other stuff, I want to talk about the Quirks themselves. I love how the show handles them. They're all unique and memorable. Some of them are extremely powerful but they also have some interesting downsides. There are a ton of Quirks so I'll just talk about some of my favorites. Tokoyami's Dark Shadow gets stronger in darkness and weaker in the light. There is a guy in the festival arc whose body can turn to metal and his downside is that he has to eat a lot of iron or the metal gets weaker. My favorite downside is Denki's. He can generate massive amounts of electricity but if he generates too much, his brain short-circuits and he becomes an idiot for a while. Heck, even though Midoriya has One For All, he can't bring out his full power without shattering his bones on impact. They go into so much detail about how the Quirks work that they actually manage to make characters who would normally be outright broken appear on the same level as everyone else. Whether is a flaw in the Quirk or the person using it, everyone has a weak-point no matter how powerful they are. Considering its in a genre known for being all about broken protagonists just wrecking every opponent, that is an amazing feat.

The characters are fine and enjoyable, I have no complaints about most of them so far. My favorite character is probably Deku since I tend to enjoy that type of character a lot. He is definitely my kind of protagonist. Todoroki is definitely a close second. Erasure Head is probably my favorite of the teachers since he is tough but also knows when to cut someone some slack. His Quirk is also really interesting along with how he fights. With that being said, there is one character that annoys me: Bakugo. Characters like Bakugo are normally fine with me but if this wasn't a show about kids learning to be heroes, I'd be treating Bakugo like a villain. His personality doesn't read like someone who would be a hero in any other context. He classmates even joked about him sounding like a villain at one point. Its an odd thing for me to harp on but he just feels out of place compared to everyone else. With that being said, he doesn't actually make me angry, just annoyed at him when he shoots his mouth off. I know he'll probably get better down the road so I won't hold him against the show itself.

I love that Izuku still has to think strategically even though All For One is technically the strongest Quirk in the show right now. Its sort of refreshing to see that level of power have that big of a downside for him. He is able to come up with so many work-arounds like focusing the power into his fingertips so he can stay in the fight. The dude even has detailed notebooks filled with info on the other students/teachers and their Quirks. He can figure out how an opponent's Quirk works and adapts pretty fast. That resourcefulness and level of analysis is something you'd expect from an admitted superhero fanboy who grew up idolizing heroes without a Quirk of his own. Seeing him train and learn to make One For All his own while learning to control it has been great.

What more can I say? Its a show that has definitely gone beyond my expectations and has a ton of charm to it. I highly recommend it to any of my readers who are fans of anime, tokusatsu, and superheroes in general. There is so much thought put into the show that I can honestly say it deserves every single bit of praise I've seen it get. Its a fantastic show and I can't recommend it enough. This is without a doubt the best show I saw in 2017. Thats pretty much all I've got to say so I'll leave you all with this: Go beyond...PLUS ULTRA!!!