Toybox REVIEW: Power Rangers Megaforce Vrak

I'd like to first begin this review with a happy new year to all of my readers. Thank you for taking a look at the blog last year, and I hope that you'll continue to do so throughout 2014 as I continue to badly write my way through reviews of the toys and shows that interest me. With that out of the way, we begin a new year of reviews with a figure that's been out for a good while now across the globe, but also one that I hadn't seen in person until a lucky trip to Asda over the weekend. With both Vrak and his Japanese counterpart Buredoran being my favourite character in Power Rangers Megaforce and Tensou Sentai Goseiger, there was no way I could go without picking up this 4" figure from Megaforce's main figure line.

Series REVIEW: Power Rangers Megaforce

Can you believe it's been 20 years since Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first aired and took over the world? Well time flies and it has indeed been that long, and with the franchise now back in Saban's hands this anniversary was certainly not going to go uncelebrated. Power Rangers Megaforce was teased as one of the most expensive and action-packed series' to date, combining two different Super Sentai series into one show for the first time since the original did back in 1994. But after the lackluster return that was Power Rangers Samurai, long-time fans were already approaching Megaforce with some skepticism. Is this the anniversary series Power Rangers deserves?

Usually I would wait until the full 40 episode run is completed to give my thoughts on the show (like I did with both Samurai and Super Samurai), but with Super Megaforce adapting a whole new show it seemed appropriate to separate them and review them on their own merits. Power Rangers Megaforce is an adaptation of Tensou Sentai Goseiger, reducing the 50 episode series into a mere 20-episode run.

"It's Morphin' Time!"

When an evil race of insect-like aliens named the Warstar arrive on Earth with plans of conquest, Earth's ancient guardian Gosei and his robotic aide Tensou recruit five new teenagers with attitude to become the Megaforce rangers and battle the forces of evil. These are new kid in town Troy (Megaforce Red), tech nerd Noah (Blue), fun-loving Jake (Black), popular girl with attitude Gia (Yellow) and the nature-loving Emma (Pink). However the Warstar aren't the only threat the rangers face, as they also employ the help of toxic mutants and highly advanced robots. Luckily, help comes in the form of Robo Knight - an ancient zord that has gained advanced sentience and now protects the planet and its environment.

Throughout the series Troy also experiences visions of a great battle between a huge army of aliens and every Power Ranger there has ever been. But these may not just be dreams, as among the Warstar's fleet is Vrak, youngest Prince to a Royal Family that seems to have much bigger plans for the Earth than just the Warstar.

Not quite Zordon, but he's got the disembodied head thing down

One of the main criticisms of Power Rangers Samurai (well, other than the fact it was a straight adaptation with little-to-no thought behind it) was the employment of a pretty dire cast of rangers. Thankfully the Megaforce team is a vast improvement, but in some cases its still very much an uphill struggle. Jake and Noah are the best of the bunch, feeling like the most natural characters since the RPM days and working well both apart and as a double act (Noah is a tad stereotypical geek, but this is not new for the franchise). Troy starts out pretty awfully, seeming even more wooden than our previous Red Ranger. This does start to improve as time goes on though, and hopefully this will continue through into Super Megaforce next year. Emma is so-so, which in some ways probably makes her the most forgettable of the five. The only one I had problems with was Gia, who's "badass popular girl" act quickly seemed to degrade into "snarling is my only emotion". Still, Gia seems to have gone down as somewhat as a fan favourite, so your tolerance may vary for her.

Mentoring this season's rangers are the duo of giant head Gosei and the Wall-E rip off Tensou. Despite apparently being Zordon's protégé, Gosei has to be up there as one of the most useless/pointless mentors ever - not offering much advice and barely appearing in the show as a whole. Tensou isn't much better, being little more than a terrible CGI robot. 

With all this talk of wooden actors or actors that seem stiff/robotic, it's ironic that the best character by country miles just happens to be a robot. Blazing onto the scene like a horrific amalgamation of Robocop and Captain Planet, Robo Knight's initial appearance wasn't really anything worth raving about. However he very quickly improved, stealing every single scene he appeared in - whether it was simply being badass in battle or learning about humans in the most amusing of ways. Robo Knight rapping isn't something that should be awesome, but by god it really is.

Robo-badass

Handling three separate factions of villains is an area Megaforce could have easily gone very wrong in, much like the last series that tried it - Operation Overdrive. However the series cleverly works its way around it by making both the mutants and Metal Alice's robot army an extension of the Warstar, offering three different types of enemy under the same threat. Considering that in Goseiger each set of enemies follow the other, Megaforce does an excellent job at having them all around at similar points in time which just goes to show how some cleverly timed original base footage can go a long, long way. With only 20 episodes to spare no one gets a huge amount of character development (if I had to pick one I'd say Metal Alice got the most despite only appearing at the very end of the show), so it's squarely on Vrak to provide the main drive for the villains. And he does not disappoint.

Awesome in any language

Vrak is an excellent villain, and is constantly rivaling Robo Knight for the title of best character in the show. Even when working under Warstar leader Admiral Malkor he oozes authority, suggesting that he's really the one in charge of the whole thing. His multiple forms offer a nice little bit of variety to the great design, and with a bit of luck his return for Super Megaforce will be equally as glorious if not more so. Goseiger's Buredoran (or Brajira if you'd prefer) isn't the easiest villain to adapt because he's already excellent, but Megaforce successfully put their own unique spin on him without losing too much of the character's brilliance.

The main source of frustration this show creates is in it's central card gimmick, which while not bad in itself constantly illustrates the laziness Saban often show in adapting the Sentai footage. The show is littered with up-close shots of the various cards the Rangers use and the English text that adorn them, only the problem is this text is the Japanese name of things - which 9 times out of 10 has been changed for Megaforce. There are a couple of things that could be easily explained ("Gosei Red"? Well, its a red ranger card and Gosei made it...) but when you start getting stock footage of zords with completely different names to what's being said on screen it all starts getting a little ridiculous.

This Megazord is the "Ultra Gosei Great Megazord"...spot the problem?

That being said the zords themselves look great, along with the suits themselves. Both share striking similarities to the original Power Rangers (but naturally with less dinosaurs) so are very fitting of being part of the franchise's 20th Anniversary celebration. Of course a lot of this is going to get thrown out of the window when Super Megaforce rolls around, but it will be interesting to see what elements are retained.

While on the whole Power Rangers Megaforce doesn't seem to have met with that much better praise than its predecessor, I personally found it a step up from Samurai and something that evolved to have more enjoyment than the unrelenting nostalgia the first few episodes were going for. Make no mistakes there were plenty of aspects that could have been ironed out, but for a half season adapting a full 50 episodes it surprisingly manages to hold its own. If Super Megaforce is going to be the part that delivers all the expense and explosion, that fantastic cliffhanger ending sounds like its off to a good start.

First Impressions: Power Rangers Megaforce

It's here, it's finally here.

After the relatively disappointing combo of Samurai and Super Samurai (from a show perspective anyway), the next Power Rangers series has a lot to live up to. Long time fans were looking for something more original with better actors and a 20th anniversary celebration that could rival Super Sentai's recently past 35th anniversary series. The result is Power Rangers Megaforce, a curious series that will be using footage from both Tensou Sentai Goseiger and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. Here is a review of the recently aired first episode, "Mega Mission".

When evil space aliens arrive with plans to conquer the Earth, the mystical Gosei and his robotic aide Tensou summon five "teenagers with attitude" to carry on the legacy of the Power Rangers as the newest team of heroes - the Power Rangers Megaforce. Armed with an array of power cards and weapons, Troy, Noah, Jake, Emma and Gia show evil that "Earth's defenders never surrender!"

Right off the bat Power Rangers Megaforce opens with a bang, opening with what is sure to become an iconic moment for the franchise just like it did across the pond with Super Sentai - the Legend War. Although here its only a foreshadowing dream sequence, it does give fans a taster of what's to come. Brief snippets of new filmed footage sit alongside Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger footage that features the pre-Zyuranger teams that never received a Power Rangers adaptation. How will the series explain them? Only time will tell.

From then on its just a barrage of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. We're back in a high school setting, the team hang out at "Ernie's" (sadly not THE Ernie, as actor Richard Genelle past away back in 2008), Gosei's mentor was apparently Zordon, lines and scenes directly lifted from "Day of the Dumpster". We're only one episode into the series and its playing very heavily on nostalgia, and this is without mentioning the ranger "statues" (aka the Ranger keys from Gokaiger, even if they haven't been called that yet) adorning the new base of operations. Nostalgia is all well and good, but can Megaforce stand on its own strengths too? After all, the series' main audience wouldn't have even been alive when Mighty Morphin first aired...

This season's cast were also a cause for concern, given how bad last season's cast was. As far as first impressions go, our five new heroes are of the usual Power Rangers standard - nothing amazing, but believable nonetheless. Jake and Noah seem to have a good dynamic together, as do Gia and Emma. "Mega Mission" introduces Troy as somewhat of a loner, and thus feels much blander and actor Andrew Gray doesn't instil much life into him either. But its early days yet, and he could grow into a better character much like Billy did in the original series.

The episode contained both unmorphed and morphed fight sequences, the former being something Samurai had severely lacked. It was also refreshing to see the team fight with what skills they had, rather than be proficient in martial arts from the very beginning. Stock footage from Goseiger was well used, although I can see the use of the Japanese-text cards becoming a point of contention. It makes sense to save on new footage costs, but it's happening constantly and is even more noticeable when the cards say one thing, yet the rangers say another.

It wasn't perfect, but this is a brilliant start to Power Rangers Megaforce. It was a fast paced introductory episode that served to introduce the characters, set the scene and was full to the brim with references. All the way through Samurai I kept telling myself that Saban were holding out to make a great 20th anniversary series. I just hope that I'm right and future episodes build upon this.

Toybox REVIEW: S.H. Figuarts Gosei Knight

While we have the entire teams of Shinkenger and Gokaiger released in the Figuarts line, the Super Sentai series that falls between them hasn't been so lucky. At the time of writing, only one character from Tensou Sentai Goseiger has been released - the evolved Groundion Headder and sixth member to the team Gosei Knight. But with Goseiger have new life breathed into it via Power Rangers Megaforce, maybe this is the year we'll see the rest of the team. Gosei Knight was released as a Tamashii web exclusive back in April 2012.

Gosei Knight has a fairly simple packaging design, entirely in gold and with a faded image of the figure in the bottom right-hand corner. The spines also feature similar images, while the back has solid colour images of the figure and its accessories on top of a black background. Open it up and you'll find the accessories included on the plastic tray, although the cards are mounted to the back of the silver backing card in a plastic bag.

Upon first glance Gosei Knight looks like he might be shorter than the average Super Sentai Figuart, however this isn't the case. His bulkier, armoured build plus lack of visible neck give the illusion of this. Technically not being a ranger (although Gokaiger seems to count him as a sixth ranger rather than an extra hero, so make of that what you will), his design and aesthetics are very different to any other Sentai figuart - in some areas feeling much more like a Kamen Rider release. Aside from the obvious bits of detail like the headder port on his back and segmented armour, there's some brilliantly done finer detail on him like his head crest and multi-tone red visor. Sadly, Gosei Knight is a figure that's become somewhat renowned for its quality issues and sadly mine is no exception - there's some mould flash on his side, and paint scuffs all over the place where the silver and black bits meet. If it were a mass release figure I'd perhaps let it slide a little more, but with web exclusives commanding a higher price tag its a more bitter pill to swallow.

While the articulation is to the usual Figuarts standard, one element of the design severely hinders the poseability - his shoulders. Not only are mine loose and pop off at the smallest sign of movement, but they are an absolute nightmare to mess around with as they get in the way of most dynamic posing. I'm not quite sure how Bandai could have got around this, but I have no doubt they could have if they'd given him a little more thought.

As far as the accessory count goes, things seem impressive but upon closer inspecting things aren't as special as you might think. Included in total are 12 hands (2x closed fists, 2x card holding hands, 2x open hands, one pointing right hand and a number of weapon holding ones), a closed version of the Leon Cellular, an opening version, the Leon Laser, the Leon Laser Sword, the Vulcan Headder, the Leon Laser with the Vulcan Headder and Leon Cellular attached finally a selection of Gosei cards. It sounds like a lot, but why exactly a second version of the Leon Laser with the pieces attached is included is baffling when you realise that the Vulcan Headder and Leon Cellular can be attached to the other Leon Laser and it looks EXACTLY THE SAME. So essentially the same thing has been included twice. It'd have been much better if they'd included a black-visored "Dark Gosei Knight" head as he appeared in episode 46 of Goseiger. The best accessory for Gosei Knight comes with Figuarts Gokai Green - Navi the robotic parrot.

I really want to like Gosei Knight - it's a great design and significantly different to any other Super Sentai Figuarts that's been released thus far. But the problems are just too significant to ignore, especially considering this was a web exclusive. The shoulders are so awkward that anything other than "dramatic arm out" is difficult, paint scuffs are too common to ignore and the amount of accessories misleading. I don't buying this figure, but I'm glad I didn't pay the price it would have commanded on release and I recommend potential buyers seek out a similar deal before pulling the trigger.