Remembering MYSTIC KNIGHTS OF TIR NA NOG, the 1998 American Tokusatsu

Back in the 1990s, Haim Saban and Shuki Levi were living the dream with Fox Kids and bringing tokusatsu adaptation after tokusatsu adaptation to American children. It started in 1993 with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers which utilized footage from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger mixed with some original footage shot in the United States to create a beloved show celebrating its 30th anniversary. Over the following years we got Masked Rider based on Kamen Rider Black RX; VR Troopers based on Space Sheriff Shaider, Dimensional Warrior Spielban, and Choujinki Metalder; and Big Bad Beetleborgs based on Juukou B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto. I watched and loved every one of these. However, there was then an outlier. In 1998, Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog launched.

Mystic Knights was for all intents and purposes, an original tokusatsu from Saban. The show doesn’t use footage from a Japanese show, or any other show for that matter. The team actually shot everything on location in Ireland and kids were gifted with about 50 episodes. The story takes a lot of inspiration from Irish mythology and it’s a show that I rarely hear people talk about despite the fact that I loved it. It used CG monsters, the cinematography was consistent, and I liked the aesthetic. Instead of futuristic armor as seen in most of the other tokusatsu shows that kids were exposed to in this era, Mystic Knights is more medieval fantasy.

Here’s the synopsis per IMDB:

The story is based on Celtic legends. When a tyrant queen from the land of Temra invades the peaceful land of Kells, King Conchobar must rely on an ancient legend which foretells of an orphan who will find the mighty warrior Draganta and "bring peace to Kells for 1000 lifetimes." The legend also tells of the four Mystic Armors and Pyre the fire dragon. The recipients of the Armors are Angus, a miscreant of sorts; Ivar, a Moorish prince; Deirdre, Princess of Kells; and Rohan, a destiny-bound druid's apprentice and the young man foretold in the legend. They are joined by Aideen, a young fairy; Fin Varra, the king of Tir Na Nog; and Garrett, the eventual fifth Mystic Knight. Together, the five Mystic Knights continue to defend Kells from the Queen Maeve and all her evil magic.

Basically, you had four teenagers who get magical weapons from a magical being and they have to stop the evil queen from taking over the realm. They then had to get magical armor, a dragon, and eventually face off and recruit an evil knight who was manipulated by the aforementioned evil queen. Sound familiar? Each knight was connected to an element and had a unique weapon which was awesome. Rohan was fire with the Sword of Kells, Angus was earth with the Terra Sling Mace, Deirdre was air with the Whirlwind Crossbow, and Ivar was water with the Barbed Trident. Garrett (the fifth knight) would eventually join them with his element being forest and his weapon being the Twin Timber Axes. Interesting enough, each of these weapons did have a ranged attack with the funniest to me being that the mace could throw boulders.

The show starred Lochlann Ó Mearáin as Rohan, Lisa Dwan as Deirdre, Justin Pierre as Ivar, Vincent Walsh as Angus, Stephan Brennan as King Conchobar, and Charlotte Bradley as Queen Maeve. It was kind of a shame that the show only lasted for one season. A second season that was titled Mystic Knights: Battle Thunder was originally planned, but it was eventually canceled and its budget went to Digimon and Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. Last year, Conventional Relations got to interview Joel Barkow who worked as a writer for Mystic Knights along with many of the similar titles and he shed some light on a few areas.

In the interview, Barkow explains that Mystic Knights was born in part because Beetleborgs was canceled after its second season. What’s even crazier is that Beetleborgs was only canceled because the tokusatsu series went “to really kind of a Teletubbies audience” and they couldn’t really use the footage for a third season. The toy sales for Beetleborgs were strong according to Barkow. Unfortunately, toy sales are the very reason as to why Mystic Knights would not get a second season. Barkow explains that part of the problem arose because Bandai would make toys for things that weren’t part of the show and so kids and their parents weren’t buying those. That’s rough. As previously mentioned, this led to the show’s cancellation and it was labeled a flop.

This is kind of a bummer because here we had an original show that didn’t rely on another show for footage. Also, I wrote this article because the other day my brother shared a link to watch the show on YouTube (check the bottom of the article). Mystic Knights never got a wide home release and you can’t find it on any streaming service. In the Conventional Relations interview, Barkow mentions that this might be because it can be a bit of a mess trying to figure out who has the rights. He mentions how Saban had the rights and then Disney bought them, but then Saban bought them back, and then it’s considered a failure, so why would anyone put it out there? All of this is to say that Mystic Knight of Spirit on YouTube has uploaded the show in a convoluted manner. The uploads use German TVRips but then Mystic Knight of Spirit swapped out the audio for the English rips they could find. Sadly, some of the audio is very bad quality, but it’s been fun to revisit Mystic Knights.

I went back to watch a few episodes and honestly, it’s not as bad as I was expecting. Sure, it’s cheesy. It was a children’s show in the 1990s in the same vein as Power Rangers. What do you expect? I don’t know that I’ll finish rewatching it, but I would be interested in seeing someone re-release Mystic Knights on DVD and streaming with some cleaned up video and audio.

Do you remember watching Mystic Knights? What’s your favorite moment or character from it? I loved Rohan and do remember having his toy as a kid.