Dairanger/MMPR Season 2 Review
My favorite series of all time. Nothing much more to it than that, is there? Let's get on with the review.
The Good: I'll start with the plot. Not the standard "aliens try to take over Earth" by any means. This is something entirely original: two tribes fighting. Of course, under Shadam's rule, Gorma existed to try and take over Earth, but that's beside the point. Gorma monsters did not turn into humans; Gorma humans turned into monsters. This plot is a complex one with many twists and turns which finally pays off in the big finale, which deals more with human themes like loyalty, trust, and realistic death, instead of the standard beat-the-living-tar-out-of-the-main-villains evident in other Sentai finales. Not at all like an ordinary Sentai whatsoever.
The Chinese feel is very evident, especially for me since I am Chinese and have grown up with Chinese movies. Ryou and Daigo both use a type of kung-fu, Shouji and Lin use wushu, and Kazu uses drunken fist (an awesome idea, if not the first of its kind in a Sentai series). The Kiden Juu are clearly patterned after Chinese, not Japanese, designs (the pictures in the OP credits and Episode 4 really give this away). The weapons are Chinese in nature; for example, Ryuuranger uses twin straight swords instead of the traditional Japanese sword found in almost every other series. Kirinranger uses the nine-section staff, another cool idea. The Dairanger basic pose (a right-hand fist against a left-hand open palm) is actually the traditional kung-fu bow. This list goes on and on and on.
No really flashy effects in this series; they would just take away from the fast action in its kind of fight scene. The ki powers are pretty much the only special effects in the show. Even the tenshin sequence is simply a shot of the Aura Bracelets coming together. It shows just how quickly the series moves.
An interesting note about the characters is that they don't 'mature', at least not like the other Sentai characters. In a normal Sentai, the heroes (and usually the villains) start out behaving according to a set pattern, with no discernable individual personality. Over time, episodes focusing on one character expand that character's personality. In Dairanger (at least from my point of view), the heroes start out with individual personalities of their own. There is no expanding of personalities; all character-focused episodes merely build on the character that has already been defined.
The mecha look awesome when separate. When they're together . . . let's leave that for the "Bad" section.
The OP and ED rock! BGM isn't quite as inspiring (more on that later).
The Bad: The mecha look rather weak when together. The Dairenou looks bulky (I imagine the guy in the suit has a hard time moving). The Juukou Kiden, in particular, looks ridiculous.
Quite frankly, almost every piece of BGM in the series either sets up a fight scene or signals the entrance of some evil guy. There aren't that many BGM in the series that offers hope. While I like realistic, we-just-might-lose-this-one music (as compared to Ohranger's how-can-we-possibly-lose BGM, which I'll talk about in the Ohranger review), I thought the "good triumphs over evil" bit is supposed to offer hope.
The villains-of-the-week look goofy at best, seriously deranged at worst. My favorite design is Ikazuchi (Silverhorns). There are way too many least favorite designs to list here. And with goofy costumes invariably come goofy powers, and as such, goofy storylines. Good thing these oddballs don't detract from the overall feel of Dairanger nearly as much as they did from Zyuranger.
Final Analysis: Not a dark, moving serious, but incredibly enjoyable nonetheless. I've seen people on the net claim this series is dark, and really, it's not. What it is is a very well done series, with its own batch of emotional turmoil.
Ahh . . . so much to say, so much to do. However, delicate ears may be listening, so I probably won't say as much on the bad side as I would like to.
The Good: Once again, Tommy saves the day. The loss of the Green Ranger powers is again the most interesting part of this season. A lot of episodes were dedicated specifically to draining Tommy of his powers. The final battle of the Green Ranger (as a good guy, anyway) was perhaps even better than his original final battle with the Cyclops monster.
Perhaps even more awe-inspiring was the return of Tommy as the White Ranger! Now, forged from the light of goodness, Tommy's powers could never be taken away by the forces of evil for at least half a season (just kidding there, folks). Seriously, one of the better moves was to guarantee, at least for the moment, that poor Tommy could have a decent set of powers for a change.
Better unmorphed fighting scenes. These suckers lasted for minutes on end. Usually four or five minutes long, the fight scenes showed what improvement is all about. Hey, it doesn't hurt that the BGM during these scenes were awesome too.
Lord Zedd. A chance to see when he was really threatening, not that dumb piece of **** he is today. His premise was simple: he was Rita's master. He single-handedly brought down the Dinozords. Here was a guy to be scared of.
The arrival of three new rangers brought home the fact that nobody could keep this kind of work up forever. While it was clearly forced, the power transfer showed that every ranger's time was short.
The Bad: Plot. Plot. Plot. Or, more accurately, the lack of any good ones. If it was not "The Muntiny" or "White Light", it was almost certainly worthy of the scrap heap. I use "Storybook Rangers" as an example of what this season was like. Especially after the superior writing of the 2nd half of the first season, this season was an incredible let-down in terms of writing. Even the Green Ranger stories began resembling each other near the end.
Rita's dumpster, launched away from Earth, crashed on Earth not once but twice. In the same year. With about two months in between. Does that strike you as terribly convincing?
Saban chose not to use Dairanger costumes. I can understand that, even though I think it was a bad idea. But Saban linked the Dairanger creature with the rangers extremely poorly. In "White Light", for example, it was incredibly clear that Nimrod was not fighting the rangers. The background showed trees. However, when the Power Rangers were on screen, they were in a desert. Not only that, but much of the Power Rangers footage had already been shown in a previous episode.
Same complaint with the early zord fights. Not once did you see monster and Megazord in the same shot. Heck, it was pretty clear (at least to me) that the Dino Megazord was the one being shot at, even if they showed a close-up of the Thunder Megazord.
White Ranger Tommy wins my vote for most degraded character. This guy was a sick man. It looks like the writers took badly written comic books, took what "Captain Super Fighter Man" was preaching, and stuck them into Tommy's mouth. This guy didn't know when to shut up. He was forever going on about what the best thing to do is, or that the bad guy will never win.
"Return of the Green Ranger" was a blatantly last-ditch ratings-grab. There was tons of hype on "The Fight", but when it was finally shown, there was maybe three minutes of actual fighting. How pathetic.
Final Analysis: Far too little time spent on making the series actually enjoyable. Hey, at this point in PR history, kids were eating up this PR phenomenon like there was no tomorrow. Toss them a big, fat, inexplicably boring bone every day at 4:30 and watch the money come in. Good for Saban and Bandai. Bad for people who don't watch Power Rangers to get their daily dose of primary colors.