Lost and Found in Translation

In the episode "Lost and Found in Translation" from Power Rangers Dino Thunder, the rangers were watching an episode of Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger. Here, it was just a Japanese TV show dubbed in English. And the episode just reminded me so much of the Power Rangers-Sentai flame war going on. That episode was good, seemed like a tribute to Super Sentai in my opinion. I laughed when Conner said "What would they know about Power Rangers in Japan." But there's a really good lesson in this episode that I think we can all learn.

The discussion between Conner and Kira is kind of a metaphor for the Power Rangers-Sentai flame war. I'm not involved in this constant Sentai vs. Power Rangers "piss and moan" fest that goes on every time someone opens their mouth and says something like "Power Rangers is crap. Sentai is better" or "Sentai is retarded, Power Rangers forever!" However I see it all the time. And every time Conner opened his mouth, it reminded me of each person who has either bashed Power Rangers or Sentai and say the other is better. And it seemed like the episode was a lesson to those that can never shut their mouths about this flame war Power Rangers and Sentai have. Granted, I prefer Power Rangers over Sentai and Sentai is starting to bore me now, but I don't bash it constantly. I'm not one of those Sentai bashers you'll see on Rangerboard.

According to Doug Sloan (EP at the time), this is what he had to say about the episode after it came out, direct quote from Rangerboard:

"If you think this was a slam on Sentai, you're wrong. We made very sure that it wasn't going to be insulting to them, by having Koichi check and re check to be certain that there was nothing that our Japanese partners would deem inappropriate. We have a partnership with them that goes back 12 years. Do you think for the sake of one episode we would throw that all away. Get a freeking clue.

I personally feel like the reason so many of you got so angry about this show is that you had some vision in your minds of how it was going to turn out, sort of a Sentai American team up and when it didn't you got angry. Well, guess what, life doesn' t always come out how you think it is going to. If you don't like it, do something to change it. Get on a plane come out to Hollywood and become a writer. It worked for Ahmit...sort of."

Whether intentional or not, I think this was Doug's commentary (and perhaps the commentary of many other PR insiders) on the state of adult PR fandom, particularly (but not limited to) Rangerboard. I think it goes beyond Sentai vs. PR. Many people are unnecessarily cruel about lots of things in the PR universe that they don't like when maybe they should give it a chance. That's what I did with Disney's Power Rangers - I couldn't get into them back then, specifically, Ninja Storm. But I happened to catch an episode of Dino Thunder and that's what brought me back to the show. Continued to watch Dino Thunder, loved it. And during that time, that's when I discovered Sentai and started to watch Dekaranger. I really liked it. Then SPD came along, I liked it more than Dekaranger. I'm rambling now. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that you should give chances to everything. And if you don't like something, have something to back up why you don't like it. This is lesson we got to follow, we can't hate both versions just because they are different or incorrect, just a different interpretation of the shows.