I know I’m showing my geek roots here, but it’s time to come clean.
I was a Super Sentai fan. -_-
There, I said it. It’s out there.
Sentai (and by default Power Rangers) was one of those things I would have sold my left arm to be able to watch as a kid if I had known it had existed. It was my 10 year old dreams come to life at a time when all I had were a few Godzilla and Gamera movies to dream of whenever Superhost showed them on Saturday afternoons. I loved superheroes, I loved giant robots, I loved giant monsters- what combines all three of these? Sentai!
I still remember on my trip to Disneyland when I was 14 or so I wandered into a shop there that was selling imported sentai toys, and to get interest they had a TV above the pile of toys silently playing clips from what I think was Google V. I just stood there in rapt fascination and watched for literally an hour, and then the next time we went back to that area two days later, I went back and watched them again!
That’s why when, ironically enough, Power Rangers came out in the early 90’s I was still interested. Now, I wasn’t fanboy level interested, because to be blunt the show was kinda stupid and at that point I was in University not elementary school, but the base appeal was still there. I saw there was something there, and if only it wasn’t written so badly I could see how it could be pretty entertaining. Eventually, of course, I discovered a way to watch actual Japanese sentai shows, and became a fan of those for a while, but I did keep an eye on Power Rangers, watching the occasional episode and hoping it would get better at some point.
It did, actually. There were a few seasons like Power Rangers- Time Force, and the most recent Power Rangers:RPM that actually transcended their genre to reach decent levels of cool. (RPM was intended to be the last season and the producers didn’t care what they did, so the creative team went all-out to produce quite a dark show.) Although in between those seasons there was a lot of drek, and lord knows I didn’t have the patience to go back and actually sit through the crap for those few gems that might be hidden in there someplace.
Luckily now we have someone else to do it for us! Louis Lovhaug of the blog Atop of the Fourth Wall has begun putting together a series of 40 minute retrospectives about each season of the series which are both funny and critical in a way only someone who truly loves something can be. So far he’s done the first six seasons of the show, and for even a casual fan they’re pretty entertaining. So if you’re curious how this show managed to stay on the air for literally 17 seasons, now’s your chance to see why.
