POWER RANGERS SAMURAI Gives Little Hope for the Neo-Saban Era
Hasbro has uploaded the entirety of Power Rangers Samurai to YouTube which means I got to watch the first season of the Neo-Saban era. At this point, Saban had reacquired Power Rangers from Disney and the result was a samurai-themed season adapting Samurai Sentai Shinkenger from 2009-2010. It’s a cool concept, but we’ll see if it holds up. The entire season ran for 22 episodes (including two holiday specials) on Nickelodeon in 2011. Let me know in the comments what you think of Power Rangers Samurai.
Centuries ago in Japan, Nighlok monsters invaded our world, but samurai warriors defeated them with power symbols, passed down from parent to child. Today the evil Nighlok have risen once again and plan to flood the earth. Luckily, a new generation of heroes stand in their way. They are the Power Rangers Samurai.
That little bit is read at the start of every episode as part of the intro credits. The Power Rangers Samurai are made up of Jayden Shiba (Alex Heartman) as Red, Kevin (Najee De-Tiege) as Blue, Mia Watanabe (Erika Fong) as Pink, Mike (Hector David Jr.) as Green, and Emily (Brittany Anne Pirtle) as Yellow. They are eventually joined by a Gold Ranger named Antonio Garcia (Steven Skyler). I don’t know why, but it really rubs me wrong how three of the six Rangers apparently don’t have surnames. It’s also important to note that their mentor is Mentor Ji played by Rene Naufahu.
The Rangers have to stop the return of Master Xandred and his hordes of Nighloks who are kind of like demons. Nightloks get to our realm through gaps which sounds interesting at first, but then it just seems like literally any small gap between things counts which just begs the question why they don’t just swarm from literally everywhere
I’m going to be blunt. In my opinion, Samurai is absolute garbage. The actors are not good, the writing is bad, and there are zero risks even thought up. I understand that there were some production problems, but this is still really bad. The coolest moment of the show is the opening of the first episode when Jayden shows up morphed and defeats a few Moogers (the season’s footsoldiers). It’s a really cool moment and then he demorphs and the show just goes downhill from there.
What’s sad is that even the two holiday specials are lame. For Halloween, you have the defeated Nighlock monsters sharing stories about fighting the Rangers. It’s reminiscent of “Almost Got ‘im” from Batman: The Animated Series and that aspect is cool, but it is just their way of trying to use their clip show episode. What’s even worse is that the continuity is completely screwed with. At this point, Dayu has left Master Xandred but she’s with him here like nothing happened. To anyone saying that it takes place before Dayu left, how do you explain the appearance of Rhinosnorus at the party? You can’t. Meanwhile, the Christmas episode is Emily reminiscing about her time with the other Rangers as she writes a letter to her sister and is just another clip show from the Ranger perspective. It’s also very boring although it does have an important moment for Mike. While everyone’s getting presents, he gets upset because he doesn’t get any, but it’s then revealed that he got a motorbike. He’s excited and goes for a ride, but then walks in covered in snow and no sign of the present because he ended up giving it away. It’s a small thing, but I do appreciate trying to show some kind of growth even in holiday episodes.
Another disappointment was the reintroduction of Paul Schrier as Bulk. I love Bulk and Skull from the original Saban era. They were fun characters that went through a surprising character arc. Bulk is brought back in Samurai to teach Skull’s kid Spike (Felix Ryan). In theory this isn’t bad and Ryan looks like he could be related to Paul Narvy’s Skull. However, these characters fall completely flat. First, it seems like Bulk doesn’t really know anything about being a samurai and is instead just some guy repeating things he maybe saw in movies as a way to teach his ‘nephew’. Second, there’s no connection between these two characters and the Rangers. Bulk and Skull worked so well in the first seasons because they were connected to the Rangers. They were the antagonists when Rita wasn’t causing problems. They then evolved over time, but there was always a connection to the other Rangers (except in Lost Galaxy but Bulk’s role there is so minor that it doesn’t matter). Here, they maybe interact with the Rangers once? There is one episode where Spike overhears Mike talk about his Samuraizer and catches on that a Ranger is nearby, but that seems to be just a random bit of interest with little to no follow up. They feel like a lazy attempt at appealing to older fans and attempting to have comedic relief characters. There could’ve been more here and I’m sad.
Okay, I want to stop being a downer on Samurai. There are some things that I do like that warrant some discussion. I already mentioned the first moment being awesome. Also, I know I’m being very critical of the story writing, but I do want to highlight a few very small wins for the season. The first one happens in episode 16, “Team Spirit.” In this episode, the weekly Nighlok steals Emily’s spirit and then runs to hide away in the Netherworld. In order to get to the Netherworld, a human must become a Nighlok which becomes a point of debate among the Rangers. Mike is fully willing to go for it, but Antonio shows up just in time and with the help of the ClawZord they are able to bring the Nighlok back to Earth so no one has to become a Nighlok. Honestly, I was far more interested in the consequences of one of the Rangers having to become a Nighlok than the actual result, but even for a few minutes, they had me thinking that maybe something absolutely incredible was going to be happening in the story.
The other story element that I want to praise is how they handled Dayu’s story. For the majority of the season, we think Dayu is just an ordinary Nighlok general that has a thing for the half-Nighlok Deker. However, in the final two episodes, “Broken Dreams” and “The Ultimate Duel,” we learn the combined backstory of her and Deker. It turns out that they both were human and lovers and through some trickery and a tragic story, they become Nighloks. During this mess, Deker was cursed with losing his memories, but Dayu maintains all of hers which explains the one-sided affection. This actually shows some depth in the season and I genuinely liked it.
I’ve now mentioned Deker a couple of times, so I feel like he’s worth talking about. As previously mentioned, he was a human who through a series of unfortunate events ended up being cursed to be a half-Nighlok whose only goal is to have the ultimate duel. He’s portrayed by Ricardo Medina Jr. who I literally just learned was Cole from Power Rangers Wild Force. Wow. Medina is actually one of the better actors in the season, but he still overdoes the mysterious hot evil stranger. Deker’s biggest problem is that he’s very one note with his only goal being to have a duel with Jayden. This means that he has no allegiance to anyone and as such is willing to take down some Moogers in hopes of getting that duel. His Nighlok form is actually pretty cool although I’m not sure why he uses the back side of his sword in the duel against Jayden. It’s got some kind of serration or sawtooth on the back which is cool, but it’s still a katana and so the curve is opposite what it usually is. It’s like when Kenshin uses the sharp side of the reverse blade sword. Deker’s not an uncommon character type in Power Rangers with predecessors like Merrick and the Magna Defender but he’s not a direct copycat of any of them and does not join the Rangers by the end of the season.
Other cool things about the season follow. First, the original five Zords are based on origami which introduces a cool design aspect. Also, each of the Rangers has a unique weapon that I think is pretty cool. The costumes are also pretty cool in my opinion. I don’t know how I feel about the spinning discs that the Rangers use for all their different weapons though. It just seems cumbersome.
At the end of the day, Power Rangers Samurai just is not very good in my opinion. There are some gems within, but it seems to really start with the best moment and then quickly jump off a cliff. I guess now I get to watch Power Rangers Super Samurai and hope that everyone learned how to act between seasons.
Current Power Rangers Ranking:
Power Rangers In Space
Power Rangers Zeo
Power Rangers RPM
Power Rangers Time Force
Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 1
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3
Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2
Power Rangers Ninja Storm
Power Rangers Jungle Fury
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1
Power Rangers Wild Force
Power Rangers S.P.D.
Power Rangers Turbo
Power Rangers Lost Galaxy
Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 2
Power Rangers Mystic Force
Power Rangers Operation Overdrive
Power Rangers Samurai