Patricia Ja Lee in Extreme Challenge

For anyone who's a Cassie fan (Turbo/In Space Pink) she plays the lead female role in Extreme Challenge. It's a Hong Kong film centered around this martial arts competition. She enters the competition and goes pretty far, meanwhile she develops a bit of a romance with one of the other main fighters. I own the movie. The version I have isn't that good. It is dubbed in English by completely different actors, which doesn't make much sense because virtually all the actors in the movie are English speakers. You can tell because it is clearly not Patricia Ja Lee's voice. The voice dubbing is also terrible, and doesn't match the emotions displayed by the actors. Yes, I've made it clear before that I hate listening to dubbing, however, this is the worst dubbing I've ever heard. Not because of inaccurate translation, which is actually pretty good, but because of terrible voice acting. However, there are two plus sides to watching it. One it has Patricia Ja Lee in it. The other is it has some awesome fight scenes that are well choreographed, as you can see above. So despite the terrible English dubbing that wasn't needed, if you're a big fan of Cassie I recommend checking it out.

MMPR S3 Review

MMPR S3 (1995-96) continued MMPR S1 and S2's story and used footage mostly from Kakuranger, with a touch of Zyu2 and Dairanger footage. This season came off a moderately successful movie (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie) and used a ninja motif. This season starts similar to the movie in that the rangers lose their powers and their zords, and then go on a quest to get new powers and zords. There are a few new characters added to this season, such as Rito Revolto and Master Vile, as well as a new army of foot soldiers, the Tenga Warriors. The rangers also have a powerful ally, Ninjor, who's like the team's 7th ranger. Leaving the show during mid-season was Kimberly because her actress Amy Jo Johnson wanted to pursue other career opportunities. Replacing her was Katherine, a tall, blond Australian girl. This season tends to have mixed reactions, with MMPR old faithful fans still loving this season. Still, this season gets it's criticism for Kimberly's departure, villain decay, having too many multi-part episodes, and for the Alien Ranger arc. This season had the most American footage of any season, and relied less on Sentai footage.

The Good

This seaason still has much of the likable cast that it had the previous two years. Some of the characters that received little development the previous season, like Rocky and Aisha, got some development here. Kimberly's departure was handled perfectly, and is IMO the best story arc during this season. The writing and the acting is also much better in this season than it was in the previous seasons. Also, unlike the second half of S2 that felt more like "Tommy and his sidekicks," the other characters got a fair amount of attention and we saw the rangers working together as a team. The zords are cool, cooler than season 2's zords IMO.

The Bad

This season was the worst of all MMPR seasons in terms of villains. Yes they were the same villains as the previous two seasons, but they suffered massive decay during this season. It had already begun with Lord Zedd and Goldar towards the end of season 2, but this was an entire season of it. Meanwhile, Master Vile is suppose to be "the supreme evil of the universe" but yet he gives up after like what, 7 episodes? Also, this season dropped nearly all the cool music it had in season 1 and 2, although they did keep the extended version of Go Go Power Rangers. The American ranger footage during this season was terrible, and there's lots of it without Sentai footage. While many fans don't like the Alien Ranger arc, I actually liked it better than most of the rest of this season because I hated watching the awful American footage. Also what was awful were the ultrazord combinations using the toy zords.

The Ugly

While Kimberly's departure was well handled, Aisha's departure at the very end of this season was terrible.

My Rating

6/10 (Grade C-). Ok, this season isn't all that bad, but it is a season that bugs me and by far my least favorite season of MMPR.

My Favorite Episodes

Episode 10 (Wizard for a Day)- This one gives Rocky some development and helps him to mature some, when he learns that being a teacher isn't that easy. It's a good life-learning episode.

Episode 11 (Fourth Down and Long)- One of only two episodes in Power Rangers that I can remember involving football. The other one in season 1 is better, but this one is alright.

Episodes 12-13 (Stop the Hate Master)- A descent two-parter that gives Aisha more development than she had in all of season 2.

Episodes 18-20 (Changing of the Zords)- A well written three parter that involves Kimberly losing her powers, being kidnapped, Tommy fighting Lord Zedd one on one and getting owned, and the introduction of the Shogun Zords.

Episode 21 (Follow That Cab)- A filler episode but a good one in which Bulk and Skull actually do some good, by catching a car theif.

Episodes 22-24 (A Different Shade of Pink)- The arc that involves Kimberly's departure, and IMO the best story arc during this season.

Episodes 41-42 (Hogday Afternoon)- While Aisha's send-off during this two parter is terrible, it is a good final battle for the Alien Rangers arc and ends MMPR with the command center completely waisted.

Edited Series Reviews, With Additional Features.

I've went back and edited all of my series reviews thus far. I've also added some new features, such as my rating for the series I'm reviewing, and a list of my 10 favorite episodes/story arcs in the particular series. I feel this gives a little more depth to my opinion about each series. Keep in mind that some of my favorite episodes in each include story arcs that are several episodes long. Instead of listing the episodes separately, I included all the episodes in a story arc into one on my list. As for the ratings system, I'm using two different ratings systems. The first is on a scale of 1 to 10. The second would be a letter grade, with A+ being the highest and the lowest being an F. Usually in America, letter grades are given A if it's 90% or higher, B for 80-89%, C for 70-79%, D for 60-69%, and F for anything below 59%. I do not have such a grading scale for my grades, as you'll notice a couple series I gave both a 7.5/10 and a B-. Anyways, here's a list of all my newly edited series reviews. More will come shortly. Enjoy. :)

Dekaranger Series Review

Boukenger Series Review

MMPR S1 Review

Gekiranger Series Review

Power Rangers in Space Series Review

Timeranger Series Review

MMPR S2 Review

Shinkenger Series Review

A Recent Ayumi Kinoshita/Mika Kikuchi Picture

Here's a recent picture of Ayumi Kinoshita and Mika Kikuchi. They've changed quite a bit. Mika looks older and a bit more pale. Her hair has grown longer as well. Ayumi looks as hot as ever.

Gedoush, Demons of the Sanzu River

Next to Gekiranger, Shinkenger IMO has the second best set of villains among any 2000's Sentais. Many of them are not only evil and fearsome, but quite deeply developed, though not as well developed as the Gekiranger villains. Here's a look at some of my favorite Shinkenger villains.

Doukoku

Doukoku is the big bad in Shinkenger, and he's just a badass. Sealed temporarily by the Shiba Clan's 17th lord, he came back approximately 17 years later to reek havoc on humanity. He has more of a tough guy, fearsome, intolerant attitude in comparison to many recent Sentai villains. He's also one of Sentai's biggest drunks and is seen regularly drinking Sake. Despite being short tempered and usually in a state of rage, he has a soft spot for Dayuu and the music she plays on her shamisen. Ultimately, when he fights the Shinkengers the first time, he just beats the crap out of them. The only thing that stopped him was that he quickly ran out of water.

Dayu

Dayu is perhaps the most well developed villain in Shinkenger. She is half human, half gedoushu. Originally, she was full human and obsessively in love with Shinza, a man that never loved her back. Eventually finding out that Shinza loved another woman, she killed Shinza and his love interest. This led to her soul falling to Gedoushu. Shinza's soul was trapped in her Shamisen, and often Dayu would play sad music on it. She later developed feelings for Juzo, but couldn't give up Shinza because it would end her existence. She developed a rivalry with Mako/Shinken Pink, who sympathized for her after seeing a vision of Dayu's past in the dream world. Ultimately, she was sacrificed to give Doukoku human life, which made the sealing character useless against him.

Juzo

Juzo is a menacing, cold-blooded figure. Like Dayu, he's half human and was formerly full human. But unlike Dayu, Juzo can still switch from human to Gedoushu form. In his human life he was a master swordsman who ultimately ended up killing his opponents for pleasure. When he became sick, he entered the Shanzu River which cured him which also turned him into half Gedoushu. He then discarded the last bit of goodness he had in him. He's a stray gedoushu, a bit of a lone wolf. He yerns to fight a swordsman of equal skill level to fight. These fights are pleasurable for him. He would find his opponent in Takeru/Shinken Red, which initially angered Doukoku because Takeru was at the time thought to be the head of the Shiba clan. Juzo had two major sword battles with Takeru, one in episode 26 and one starting at the end of episode 45 and lasting through episode 47. These two sword fights are awesome, among some of the best swords fights in Sentai. His katana, Urasama, is made with the souls of his deceased family members.

Super Sentai Episodes Available on Super Sentai Planet

As many of you know, a lot of Sentai episodes are being deleted off of youtube. Luckily, you can still watch and download these episodes on Super Sentai Planet. This includes all Sentai episodes that have either been subbed or dubbed in English. Some of the subbing on some Sentai series aren't very good, but they're still watchable.

Jetman Dance

I found a video of the Jetman dance. The embedding is disabled so you'll have to click the link. Personally, I don't really like the dance that much, but Kaori is unmorphed, teaching the audience how to do the dance. She's pretty and lovely as always. I also like the Jetman theme song and there's one really funny part when Yellow Owl falls on his ass while attempting one of the dance moves.

Agent Abrera, the Evil Crime Lord

Agent Abrera (actual name Rain Seijin Abrera) was the main antagonist in Dekaranger and the only recurring villain in the series. He is voiced by Ryusei Nakao, who's notable for voicing many Dragon Ball Z animes and video games. Agent Abrera's voice can be quite chilling. He's truely an evil, menacing figure that wanted to see crime overrun the earth and the universe. His name is a pun off of the word umbrella. Unlike other Sentai main villains, he did not lead an army and didn't actually lead the alienizers in battle. Instead of the alienizers working for him (like most Sentai monsters working for the main villain), Agent Abrera worked for the alienizers. He provided weapons to the alienizers through the black market. He hid mostly in the shadows until he revealed himself to the Dekarangers in Episode 30 when one alien he hired to do a transport job, instead decided to steal from Abrera. At first, the Dekarangers don't know much about him but they eventually find out that Agent Abrera started intersteller wars that wiped out several galaxies. After a series of failed projects, Abrera became fed up with the Dekarangers and decided to attack their base with an army of Androids and other alienizers. He was successful, demorphing the Deka's and attacked the city using Dekabase Robo. Little did the Deka's know that this was intended as a trap to wipe out the rest of the space police. He put a shield around the earth that would destroy the SPD academy on impact.

Gekiranger Villains, a Level in Badass.

I've decided that I haven't given enough focus on my blog on Power Ranger and Sentai villains. Since I already started with Ikki Kasumi yesterday, I'll try to make my entire blog focus this week on villains, though it will be difficult because I have a midterm on Thursday. To start, I decided there's no better place than to look at the Gekiranger villains. Why? Because they are some of the most well developed, and some of the most cruel villains in Sentai. In fact, it's one of the few Sentais to give equal character development to the villains and the good guys. These villains are just badass. Two of them become good in the end, and the plot centered around them is pretty good as well.

Long

Long is the manipulative bastard of the group. Long plays a similar role to Captain Ryuuya of Timeranger, but his role is a bit more extensive. He doesn't appear until episode 23, but had already done his fare share of damage before he appeared in the series. Long is an immortal, indestructible dragon that can take human form. Being immortal, he found life boring so he decided that he wanted to destroy the world just for the fun of it. He was initially responsible for Maku creating RinJyuKen, the evil school of JyuKen. But this was only the beginning. It was also revealed that he destroyed Jan/GekiRed's village, as well as killing both of his parents (it was initially thought Rio had killed Jan's father Dan but Rio couldn't make sense of the wounds Dan had). The shock of this event would eventually cause Jan to lose his memory. However, his most evil deed was still underway, which is where Rio comes in.

Rio

Rio is the badass of the series. tvtropes.org describes Rio as a walking, talking, CMoA tanker, and he truly is. I remember debating on youtube who would win between Rio and Dokouku, my pick was Rio. I think Rio was intended to be romanized as Lio (close to Leo) because that's a common name given to lions, which is his beast power in this series. As a young boy, Rio was adopted and raised by Master Shafu after his parents were killed on a rainy night in a forest. This drove him to an unquenchable desire to become stronger, and led to him developing a rivalry with Dan, Jan's father. This led to Rio wanting to surpass Dan, by any means, even if it meant using RinJyuKen to do it. This is exactly what he did, and he killed Dan, or so he thought. Eventually, it was revealed that Long was the person who actually killed his parents and manipulated Rio so he could become the "God of Destruction" due to his desire to continually seek strength. Eventually, after saving Mele and finally returning her affection, Rio joined the Gekirangers in an attempt to defeat Long. After it appeared that they had defeated Long the first time, he and Mele wanted to face Ran and Retsu in the Confrontational Beast Hall in an attempt to replenish their sins. However, this was used more as an excuse so Rio and Mele could die instead. However, they were interrupted by Long, and in a heroic sacrifice, Rio and Mele sacrificed their lives to save the Gekirangers from death. In a dream, Rio, Mele, and a hand full of defeated RinJyuKen generals showed the Gekirangers how they could defeat Long.

Mele

Several years before Gekiranger took place, Mele fought for the RinJyuKen side and died during battle. She was later revived by Rio and Mele loved him ever since. She was fiercely loyal to Rio, and would fight to prove her love, even willing to die to protect him. Mele was also the first to recognize that Long had mischievous plans for Rio, and when Rio did briefly become the God of Destruction, it was Mele's voice that stopped him. After recognizing Rio had been manipulated his hole life by Long, Mele attempted to fight Long one on one, but was ultimately captured and tortured. After Rio and the Gekirangers rescued her, Mele, along with Rio, joined the Gekirangers attempting to defeat Long. As mentioned above, Mele along with Rio would sacrifice themselves to save the Gekirangers from certain death. Mele was the first, shielding the Gekirangers from Long's jaws (in his dragon form).

Besides the development and the story behind these villains, the romance between Rio and Mele is quite interesting as well, even though it's one-sided for most of the series. This romance is also a key plot point in the series.

Ikki Kasumi, Father of the Goraijers.

Ikki Kasumi, the father of the the Goraijers, is perhaps one of the most overlooked and cold blooded villains in Sentai. Perhaps this is due to him appearing sparingly during Hurricanger. He played a role similar to that of Ryuuya of Timeranger and Long of Gekiranger, though he wasn't the main culprit of Hurricanger like the other two were of their series. Ikki was considered such a dangerous man that his own ninja school, the Ikazuchi Ninja School, didn't trust him. While rampaging in Egypt, he discovered a meteor shower. This meteor shower provided a message on how "that" could be born. Ikki trained his sons, Ikkou and Isshu, to fight with emotions such as hate and rage. Years later, Ikkou and Isshu became the Goraijers. The Goraijers were initially as cold blooded as their father. They didn't care what happened to the earth or its people. They saw it as their duty to defeat the Hurricangers and to ensure that "that" was born. This was until they discovered that in order for "that" to be born, the Goraijers had to fight each other until one of them died. This meant that their father could care less if one of his son's died. Ikki cared more about "that" being born and didn't care at all for his son's lives. What exactly was "that"? Towards the end of the series it was revealed that "that" was a massive black hole, powered by an evil force, that was big enough to swallow the entire universe. Though seldom seen in the series, Ikki Kasumi is one of the main culprits of the series and a downright cruel, SOB.

What Type of Fan I Am

Sean Akizuki and the Henshin Grid have each made their own posts about the different types of Super Sentai and Power Ranger fans, so I decided to describe myself. As you can guess from this blog, I'm a Power Rangers and a Super Sentai fan. For Power Rangers, I'm mostly a Zordon Era fan, though I still like a good share of PR seasons after the Zordon Era such as Lost Galaxy, Dino Thunder, and RPM. I think other series such as Time Force, Ninja Storm, and SPD are descent as well. As for Sentai, mostly what I've seen are 2000's Sentais, because they're mostly the ones that are subbed. I have however, watched about half of Zyuranger and am in the process of watching Jetman.