Toybox REVIEW: Power Rangers Super Samurai Shogun Mode Red Ranger

It's been over a year (and 44 toy reviews) since I last looked at a Power Rangers Samurai toy, which just goes to show how long this series has been running for now. While I did like the 3 1/2" Mega Mode Red Ranger figure I previously reviewed, I haven't been tempted to pick up any of the other figures Bandai of America have put out. That has all changed with the release of a Shogun mode Red Ranger in this scale, which is the battlizer of this season and one of the better US-only creations that have come from Power Rangers.

There's nothing particularly excited to say about the packaging - its your typical card/blister pack you get with Western action figures. Like all of the other toys, it refers to the character as the fire ranger rather than the red ranger. The back of the card features images of the rest of the toys included in the assortment.

Like the onscreen suit, the Shogun mode is a more subdued maroon colour rather than the fiery red the other red ranger suits are. There's a huge amount of detailing on here - from the notches and grooves all over the armour to the fully detailed shogun belt buckle. The golden head crest is smaller and much more rounded than its real life counterpart (and larger battlized ranger figure), but even without the chrome the gold plastic stands out nicely with the dull silver. As far as articulation goes the shoulders and hips can rotate 360 degrees, but this is limited by the shoulder pieces (which do swing back) and the skirt. The elbows and knees are hinged, while the hands and boots can also turn around 360 degrees.

The Shogun ranger comes with two weapons, a Mega Blade and the Bullzooka. Sadly neither are painted, but both have a fair amount of moulded detail. Like on the Mega Mode figures the blade can be pegged to the side of the figure, and the Bullzooka horns can move forwards and backwards (they come unattached in the packaging). As an added bonus, the two weapons can be combined into the Shogun Spear.

If you're a fan of these new smaller scale figures (which to be fair seems to be the standard for American action figures now) then the Shogun Mode is a great purchase. The suit design is fantastic and this toy retains all the little details of it, even if many of them remain unpainted to keep this as a budget release. It might not be to the standard of a Figuart or toy of similar price range, but for its cost (around £7 at a UK store) it comes as one of the best ranger figures in the Power Rangers Samurai line.

Movie REVIEW: Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

With Power Rangers Zeo ending on a rather high note (the return of Lord Zedd and Rita), the next instalment in the Power Rangers franchise seemed to promise to be a good one. Amping up the scale, Power Rangers took to cinema screens for a second time, only this time around the film was in continuity with the television series. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie was originally released in 1997 and bridged the gap between Power Rangers Zeo and the next series Power Rangers Turbo. It served as an introduction to the turbo powers, as well as new blue ranger Justin and new villain Divatox.

I already miss the Zeo suits.

On a distant planet, a wizard named Larigot is hunted by the space pirate Divatox, who seeks his golden key in order to travel to another dimension to marry an demon known as Maligore. Larigot transports himself to Earth in search of Zordon and Alpha for help, but despite finding them is taken by Divatox when she threatens the life of his wife and child. To make matters worse, Divatox has also kidnapped Bulk, Skull, Jason and Kimberly, planning to use the latter two as sacrifices to awaken Maligore.

With Rocky hospitalised due to a back injury, the four remaining rangers take on new turbo powers and zords in order to cross the dimensional barrier on a mysterious ship named the Ghost Galleon. When they reach the ship, they are joined by a new blue ranger - Justin, a child who attends the Angel Grove Youth Shelter (which the teens are trying to raise money to save) and accidentally stumbled upon the rangers' identities. Armed with new powers and zords, the turbo rangers travel across the Nemesis Triangle in order to stop Divatox and put an end to Maligore.

Space pirate Divatox

So the most important question raised in this film is, what happened to the Zeo powers? Well, that isn't exactly explained very well. It's established that the keys to the turbo morphers work like Larigot's golden key (allowing them to pass into the other dimension), but why an entirely new set of powers is needed to do so (especially when the Zeo powers were forever growing in strength) is a mystery. Of course the real reason is because the show was moving on to use footage from the Super Sentai series Gekisou Sentai Carranger, but a proper in-show reason would have been welcome. After season after season of dinosaurs and mystical beasts, cars just seem a bit bland.

Get used to this face, you're about to start seeing it a whole lot more.

Although he would make a short appearance at the beginning of the Power Rangers Turbo series, this is where we say goodbye to Rocky and hello to Justin. Justin is considered by some fans to be one of, if not the worst characters to serve as a Power Ranger, and in this film its immediately clear why. Other than the fact he discovers who the rangers are, we barely know him as a character before he's chosen to take Rocky's place and has shown no redeeming qualifications worthy of even being considered. From spouting terrible jokes ("Good thing you don't need a license to drive a zord!") to hopping around and proclaiming how much fun this life-or-death situation is, Justin is not only a terrible character but completely overshadows the more serious (and better) veteran rangers. Making a kid a ranger might have seemed like a good idea on paper on how to get children to relate better, but any child watching this would probably have a much better demeanour toward to role than Justin.

Maligore looks awesome.

Then we have Divatox and her minions Elgar, Rygog and the Piranhatrons (who look like their armour is too small for them here), who we'd be seeing much more of in Power Rangers Turbo. The absence of Rita and Zedd (although the two make a small cameo) and the Machine Empire isn't too bad here, as Divatox doesn't show any desire in conquering the Earth and is simply after Maligore. She isn't a bad villain, but thinly balances on the line between competent and comical. Plus she doesn't really do very much physically, since the action and zord battle are shifted towards the excellent looking Maligore.

Larigot escapes David Bowie's Labyrinth and comes in search of Zordon.

One of the biggest problems with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie was the lack of morphed footage, and that problem is even worse in Turbo. A significant chunk of the beginning of the film is dedicated to Tommy and Kat running around a jungle looking for Lerigot, and then the action shifts to them sailing around on a boat before morphing to simply running around a jungle and fight some piranhatrons. They fail to do anything against Maligore, so the action shifts almost right away to a zord battle. This film needed to be a platform to showcase the new powers and fails miserably at it. But one thing that works in the film's favour is the location footage. There's barely any part of it that takes places in the city, and its refreshing to see a zord battle surrounded by moutains, trees and volcanoes as opposed to roads and buildings.

The Megazord fight is the only real highlight of the film.

Just to further add to the mysteries raised by Turbo, Bulk, Skull and Lt. Stone are suddenly back on the police force, despite being fired in Zeo and then Bulk and Skull walking away to take a detective case in Paris at the very end. It isn't properly explains, and completely regresses all three characters. Not that there's much relevance to Bulk and Skull's appearance in the film anyway, since they're mostly used for spouting poor jokes in funny accents.

Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie is a very poor start to Power Rangers Turbo. The appearance of veteran rangers and interesting locations don't save the film from its extremely dull plot, lack of action/consistency with the previous season and introducing a character which would be key in the darkest hour the franchise had faced yet. It just goes to show that just because a film is in-continuity, it doesn't make it better.

Anime REVIEW: Dog Days

From anime studio Seven Arcs (responsible for Lyrical Girl Nanoha and erm...Night Shift Nurses) comes Dog Days, a cute and colourful story about a bunch of anthropomorphic animals warring against each other. Or so you might think. Originally a 13 episode series released in 2011, a second 13 episode season (titled Dog Days') was released  earlier this year.

Shinku, our seemingly flawless hero

Athletically-gifted boy Shinku Izumi is summoned to the alternate world of Flonyard, where the humans of various countries have the ears and tails of different animals. There he meets the dog-like Princess Millhiore Firianno Biscotti (of the Biscotti Republic), who summoned him to be their hero and help them win their war against the Galette Lion Dominion and their fierce leader Leonmichelli Galette des Rois (or Leo for short). Shinku finds that rather than it being a war in the Earth-sense, wars on Flonyard are more like mass sporting events which raise funds for the kingdoms involved. As Shinku accepts Millhiore's offer and becomes the hero of Biscotti, the Princess' subjects also frantically search for a way to return the boy home in the next 16 days.

Season two sees Shinku return to Flonyard during his summer vacation, bringing his childhood friend Rebecca and older cousin/rival Nanami along with him. Nanami is chosen to become the hero of Galette, while Rebecca is chosen by the squirrel principality of Pastillage and their leader Couvert to become their hero as the war turns into a three-way Union Festival.

Millhiore, princess of Biscotti

The world of Dog Days has plenty to offer in terms of characters, but few are particularly memorable and none of them really have any real character growth. Shinku is a Mary Sue character through and through, showing no any flaws and demonstrated as vastly superior to everyone else from episode one. The only way the second season tries to balance this out is to bring in another two human characters, who are just as awful in terms of characterisation.

Leo riding her trust Chocobo Cercle.

Everything is beautifully designed, from the floating islands and historically-flavoured cities of Flonyard to the lead cast and Millhiore's randomly placed musical numbers. But despite the effort that clearly went in the landscape and character design, the animation itself often comes off as cheap. The "wars" lack any sort of real scale, along with repeated footage and cgi that sticks out like a sore thumb.

With all these flaws, season two already had a lot to work upon. While the animation has received somewhat of a boost, an extended cast means development is even more thinly spread. On the plus side, it means more screen time for the some of the more interesting characters, such as Biscotti knight commander Éclair and Imperial Guard Unit Génois member Noir. It's just a shame the season also tends to go down a much heavier fanservice route, and features possibly the most discomforting magical girl transformation I've seen in any anime that wasn't hentai. But hey, at least this time they didn't try to cram some sort of "serious" plot into the last few episodes.

Maaagic!

Dog Days is a happy-go-lucky series that plays everything as cheery and safe as it can, yet this proves to ultimately be its downfall. With sub-par animation, a paper-thin plot and even thinner characters, this series lacks any ambition or interesting story developments. What could have been an interesting play on the age-old 'rivalry' between cats and dogs is instead an extremely generic series that eventually becomes weighed down by unnecessary fanservice. This dog is going to have to learn some new tricks if it plans to live to see a third season.

Reviews in Time & Space: Doctor Who Season Seven Part One - An Overview

I know I'm very late to the game writing this, but following my rather strong feelings on Asylum of the Daleks and the fact that the second half of the season won't be airing for a while it seemed appropriate to split this year's Doctor Who review into sections. The two sections also reflect the two different tones the two parts will have, as we say goodbye to Rory and Amy here and say hello to Oswin next year. But enough of that, let's take a look at the episodes one by one.

I've already said everything that needed to be said about how much I hated the portrayal of the Daleks in Asylum of the Daleks (★★), so in order not to sound like a broken record I'll refrain from repeating. But what I will say is that this episode could have been so much better had it used any other monster in their place. While the introduction and resolution of Amy and Rory's apparent divorce was abrupt and reasonably pointless, the surprise introduction of Oswin was very interesting. While the smarmy, "cleverer than the Doctor" attitude being pushed might not be to everyone's tastes, the twist to her story and how this will affect next season is bound to be a topic of heated discussion. It provided great emotion, but then was spoilt by having the Daleks chant "DOCTOR WHO?" repeatedly.

Next came Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (★★★★★), which personally for me was the absolute gem of this half-season. It was a fun Doctor Who romp that blended the two aspects of the series (the historical and the science fiction), but also included a glimpse into the Doctor's dark side. We got an expansion on Rory as a character that didn't involve him dying or using Amy as a crutch, as well as introducing a member of the extended Pond family. Finally it illustrated how much better Who would be using a larger main cast again - new Who has always limited itself to one of two companions, but this episode saw the Doctor travel with a total of five other people. And it worked brilliantly.

A Town Called Mercy (★★★) was the first of this season's obligatory American episodes, despite actually being filmed in Spain. While many might have been salivating at the idea of a Western-themed Who episode, in reality there was very little in this episode that was unique to a Western setting (other than having the alien dressed as a cowboy of course). The story plays with the Doctor's morals a bit, but its all ground that's been covered before and the episode has very little to offer in terms of suspense. The truth behind the Red Dwarf simulant lookalike Gunslinger is revealed reasonably early on, and from that point on its just a case of trundling through the episode to see what they actually do with him.

Every season has some sort of character-driven episode that's relatively low on plot, and season seven's comes in the form of The Power of Three (★★★★). But to lump it in with similar offerings from previous series' would do it somewhat of a disservice, because its a very good episode. The best way to hit your audience hard when a character leaves is to build them up just before it, and here life with the Ponds is at its most comfortable. Just how much time the couple have spent with the Doctor is finally revealed, and the Doctor is at his comical best with his inability to sit still. The slow invasion storyline shows a lot of promise and long time fans will be extremely pleased with the revival of UNIT (including more tributes to the late Nicholas Courtney), but the shoddy resolution really lets down what could have been a flawless episode.

Finally we have The Angels Take Manhattan (★★★), which seems to be a culmination of all of Moffat's favourite recurring things he's brought to the show. Amy and Rory? Check. Weeping Angels? Check. And just for good measure he's also thrown in an (unnecessary) dose of River Song. As far as companion farewells go it isn't the worst Who has ever seen but its far from the best either. The angels' inclusion is glossed upon and it only really feels like they're here for what they can do (not to mention the utterly ridiculous Statue of Liberty angel). But the biggest problem with the episode is just how much focus it gives to Amy over Rory. Granted Amy has been a regular member of the show longer but Rory does nothing but suffer in this episode, yet he isn't even granted a proper goodbye scene. Its a massive disservice to the companion that's actually grown in the last two seasons and a half (as opposed to Amy who's just got more annoying) and further proof to the sad realisation that we may never seen a full-time male companion that isn't playing second fiddle to a female lead.

So that's the end of the Ponds, and the end to a very mixed half-season. How exactly the second half will go is anyone's guess, but after seeing the Ponds take most of the limelight away from the Doctor I'm looking forward to things perhaps taking a more traditional approach for a while. As the Christmas special draws ever closer, we won't be much time in the dark about Oswin's origins and potential fate...

Toybox REVIEW: S.H. Figuarts Deka Red

"One! I hate evil being done to the people!"

We're back again with another red senshi figure from Bandai's S.H. Figuarts line, once again made possible (or rather, hurried along) thanks to Akibaranger. This time its the fiery hero from the 28th Super Sentai series Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, Banban Akaza aka Deka Red. Originally released in June this year, since Deka Blue and Green have been released as Tamashii web exclusives and Pink and Yellow on show at various Tamashii Nations events. Here is the review.

Sporting a slightly thicker box to house the extra Akibaranger goodies inside, Deka Red's packaging is very in-keeping with the character. The black "1" on Deka Red's costume is on the left hand side of the window with the SPD logo also on display next to the character name. The back features two action shots of the figure, pictures of all the accessories and then a smaller sub-section covering the Akibaranger inclusion.

While the Deka Ranger suits are relatively basic, they do include little bits of detail which it was important Bandai didn't skimp on. Little touches like the SPD badge, the belt buckle and helmet crest are all present, albeit a little simpler than I might have liked. The use of translucent plastic for the helmet sidelights is perfect, but my copy of the figure has very limited motion in his neck. Deka Red shares the same type of shoulders previously seen on the Shinkenger Figuarts, only this time they've seen some improvement. The movement around the joint itself is much more fluid, covering the inner-mechanics without stressing the whole arm is about to break off when positioning it. Its a shame the upper arm swivel that was included on the Gokaigers is missing, but everything else not already mentioned is in tip-top shape. Included in the box are three holsters (two side ones for the guns, and a back one for the SPD license) which can be clipped to the belt. The license one fits very snugly, however the other two are prone to falling off when posing the legs.

The policeman's accessory count include 11 alternate hands (closed fists, open hands, variety of gripping hands and two special right hands to help recreate Ban's various rollcall poses), SPD license, D-Magnum 01, 02 and the hybrid magnum combination. The SPD license is nicely detailed on the outside, but sadly features no inner detailing for judgement decisions. While it can open up, it only reveals a plain black plastic surface. It would have really added to feature had a sticker been included, even if it was one you needed to apply yourself. While I expected it (as this was an earlier release than Bouken Red), thankfully he doesn't share the problem the fiery adventurer's penchant for fiddly hands that are difficult to change.

Finally we have the Dekaranger inordinate power included to be used with the Akibarangers, which takes the form of a giant set of D-Wappers. These huge handcuffs are hinged and can be separated from the central piece, so that they can also be wielded as claw-like weapons. The D-Wappers can also be combined with the Bouken Scooper (included with Bouken Red) and Jet Winger (included with Red Hawk) to form the Akibaranger Inordinate Cannon!

Since Dekaranger is one of my favourite Super Sentai series, I was really looking forward to getting my hands on Deka Red. While he isn't the best Sentai Figuart released and in some way feels a step backward from the Gokaiger releases, its still an excellent representation of the character and an insanely fun figure to play about with. The inclusion of the Akibaranger inordinate power only sweetens the deal. He's still readily available from Japanese retailers, so if you're a fan of the series or franchise what are you waiting for?