Power Rangers being the International Version

People have said that Super Sentai is the "Japanese version," while Power Rangers is the "American version." Indeed, that's all true. But if looked into, one can see that Power Rangers can also be considered the "International Version." Power Rangers has had far more marketing around the world than Super Sentai has. And this tends to create a major imbalance between the two franchises.

Super Sentai has mostly remained in Japan only. In recent years, it has tried to leak itself out into other countries. Little by little. Unfortunately, many people really don't care for Sentai to try and expand itself outside of Japan, saying that Power Rangers is more than enough. And on an even more extreme level, certain people on Rangerboard wish to make sure that Sentai stays in Japan and to never expand from it.



Saban himself tends to play an interesting role in this himself. Many toku fans have wondered what in the world he thinks of the tokusatsu franchises. Some say he absolutely loves it, due to how he wanted to bring shows like Sun Vulcan, Bioman, and Jetman over to the states. As well as how he is bringing the franchise back with Samurai. And, how Power Rangers was given good quality when it was in his hands (Space, LG, LSR, TF). Others say that Saban could care less. People have blamed Saban for giving toku a bad image with MMPR. As well as making certain creations like Masked Rider, Big Bad Beetleborgs, and Mystical Knights of Tir Na Nog, which were all shows that many fans frowned upon. Fans have also complained about how Saban never acknowledges Super Sentai's existence in interviews. For example, when he was asked "why Power Rangers had been going on for such a long time," he did not mention Sentai or Toei helping him out at all. Overall, people love how Saban cares for the Power Rangers franchise enough to bring it back next year with hopefully good quality. While others just think he's a guy who doesn't care about the toku genre as a whole and just wants money.

While Power Rangers fans defend Power Rangers when it's quality is compared to Super Sentai..... Super sentai fans defend Sentai when it's amount of exposure is compared to Power Rangers. Which is indeed a big problem, and is a major fuel source for why fans rage a lot.

No Sixth Ranger = Bad?

A common problem amongst both the PR and non-Japanese Sentai fandoms is that a lot of fans refuse to watch a particular season, if it's missing a Sixth Ranger.



Before the non-Japanese Sentai fandom ever even existed, of course, most of these fans had grown up watching Power Rangers. And since the beginning of Power Rangers, every season had a signature Sixth Ranger. Even the Power Ranger ads on television acknowledged the fact that a sixth ranger was a major staple to the franchise. I even remember seeing a commercial where they were going to air a marathon of all the Sixth Ranger arcs in the Saban Era. The announcer said stuff like "Every season, there's always a sixth ranger. Now you can watch them all on Sunday...." And it was showing off clips of all the Sixth Rangers.

With such a staple engraved into the minds of the fans, the fans ended up expecting every season to have a Sixth Ranger. Fans began to expect each season to run in a particular pattern:
1. Introduction arc
2. Getting to know the rangers. The story doesn't quite start yet.
3. About 12 eps into the series, we get our Sixth Ranger arc! The Sixth Ranger arc is pretty much the first big thing that fans look forward to after seeing the Introduction arc.
4. Now that the Sixth Ranger has joined the team, NOW the story begins and works it's way up to the finale.


Now, let's fast forward to when the non-Japanese Sentai fandom now exists.



I remember when Dino Thunder was first airing, despite it's popularity, many fans were REALLY bummed out when it was revealed that the Triassic Ranger was a power-up for Conner, rather than an actual Sixth Ranger. Some fans even going as far as saying that it was one of the worst things to ever happen in Power Rangers history. Dino Thunder was the very first season, after 12 seasons to not have a Sixth Ranger. Thus, the 11 year old tradition was finally broken, and that didn't sit too well with some fans. Not even additional rangers like Trent made the fans feel better, due to him being #5. Kinda silly if you ask me. =P



Of course, some people didn't count the Spirit Rangers as official rangers, due to them not have any proper human identity, and just manifesting from the three main rangers like a weapon. Thus, some fans considered Jungle Fury to have just five members instead of eight. And like Dino Thunder, it didn't sit well with fans, with some fans calling Jungle Fury to be another major offender to Sixth Rangers like Dino Thunder did (despite airing like 4 years later =P ).

                  

On the Sentai side of things, a huge portion of the franchise has either been bashed or ignored due to the absence of Sixth Rangers. A lot of fans tend to ignore the pre-Zyuranger Sentai, and there are several reasons why. One of the reasons is cause there's no Sixth Ranger. Fans believe that if a Sixth Ranger never arrives, then there will be no story to tell. And that was something that Power Rangers tended to do, only after the Sixth Ranger arrived. Thus, many fans believe that the pre-Zyuranger Sentai are all just lots of nothing. Lots of fans tend to cover this up by saying the shows are "Too old." Which I think is silly. Even additional Warriors like Big One from JAKQ and Black Bison and Green Sai from Liveman don't get acknowledged due to not being #6. Which is why most fans tend to praise Burai from Zyuranger as being the first "true additional warrior in Sentai" due to being #6, and why the DragonRanger/Green Ranger suit is often considered the icon for additional warriors. Also, for fans that say the older shows are "too old," and because they don't have sixth rangers, it's kinda contradictory, if they happened to also think Kakuranger, Abaranger, and Gekiranger were good. =P  Though some people consider Gekiranger to have seven members, if Rio and Mele are included. Some people also tend to ignore GoGoFive, due to the lack of the Titanium Ranger, who was quite popular in Lightspeed Rescue, which is rather unfortunate. Since Lightspeed Rescue has such a split fanbase, many fans think that GoGoFive will not be very good without a sixth ranger.



As silly as it sounds, some fans tend to watch only episode 39 of Maskman, just so they can catch the very first Sixth Ranger in history, and just end up ignoring the rest of the season. Lots of fans even go as far as saying that X1 Mask is the only good thing about Maskman.

 

For a very long time, fans have always wanted to have a female sixth ranger. And many fans were a bit bummed out when both Miu from Go-onger and Gemma from RPM ended up being #7 instead of #6. So apparently, #6 is still considered to be the "better number" amongst fans than #7.



Gosei Knight has been quite a controversial character amongst the fandoms. There are those who say that Goseiger started out bad, but then the show became good after Gosei Knight appeared. But then there are the fans (myself included) who think Goseiger was getting good, but went downhill again due to the arrival of Gosei Knight.


Overall, the Sixth Ranger element has played a huge role on how many fans in the toku fandoms view each series and their stories.

Differences Between Power Rangers Villains and Super Sentai Villains

Now this crossed my head. Bwahahaha! Enough. Cough. Headache. At last the idea is free from my head and now it's time to write it...

Sentai villains that die usually meet a more tragic and deserving end compared to Power Rangers villains.

In Super Sentai, villains have their own theme song and in some, their own song numbers. Bandora's group was a musical gang of their own. Bandora even had her own catchy theme song "Song of the Witch Bandora".

In Power Rangers, most of the supernatural were changed into aliens in MMPR. It was only in Lightspeed Rescue when supernatural enemies were introduced in the Power Rangers universe.

If any Sentai villain is dressed too sexily (like Zonette and Shelinda), the U.S. doesn't port them over for censorship reasons.

Many Super Sentai villains were downright more evil (and scary) than Power Rangers villains, which may have inspired the dark nature of Lost Galaxy's Trakeena. In fact, we see how evil they are when MANY civilians die in just one sitting. If one saw Zyuranger, Bandora is WAY MEANER than Rita Repulsa!

Also some Super Sentai villains were ported to become simply"guest characters. Shaddam and Exhaus are among the few. Shaddam was just known to MMPR as Mondo the Magician (a monster of the week) and Exhaus was just known as Goldyle in Turbo while in the Japanese version, he was the MAIN VILLAIN.

Differences Between Power Rangers' Girls and Super Sentai's Girls... LOL.

Between Power Rangers and Super Sentai, there are just some differences between Power Rangers girls and Super Sentai girls:

In Power Rangers, we don't see girls wear short skirts that often save for Maya, Jen and Alyssa. In Super Sentai we do. In Power Rangers in the earlier days, Kimberly Hart wore short shorts, not a skirt presumably as not to do any upskirt performances. In Super Sentai, the women's legs were very exposed. In SPD and Operation Overdrive, the women wore pants instead of short skirts.

IMO many of Super Sentai's girls these days look hotter and sexier than most of Power Rangers' girls proving being American doesn't mean one looks better.

In Super Sentai, there were more airheaded female rangers than in Power Rangers. Not even Kimberly Hart got that ditzy nor was she an airhead.

More Sentai girls are seen wearing swimsuits than in Power Rangers in the crossovers, movies or series.

Most Super Sentai girls have a very unfortunate characteristic of becoming a victim of perversity both by the show and the audience. Now we don't see Justin groping Kat as Kou does to Lin do we?

So far no female Power Ranger ever gets to become a bad cook. In Super Sentai, some of their female rangers get to be bad cooks- first there was Juri Nijou a yellow ranger. The rest were pink rangers namely Yuuri, Mako Shiraishi and Eri. I wonder why Power Rangers humor doesn't have this.

Also Super Sentai's female rangers are more prone to funnier moments more than Super Sentai's rangers. Not even Kimberly Hart gets into that much comedy and honestly, Skull's advances towards her, I find it disgusting.

Differences Between Power Rangers' Males and Super Sentai's Males... LOL!

There are some few differences between the male rangers in Power Rangers and Super Sentai. I think these are some of them:

The most obvious might be the attractiveness of Power Rangers males over Super Sentai males. Super Sentai had some attractive males but none of them really had that much of a muscular body. Check out Cole Evans, Ryan Mitchell and Leo Colbert for example. Jason Lee Scott, well he wasn't that muscular but he counts. Ha ha. Can't comment much as a straight male! Although Tetsuji Tamayama is quite handsome, however he didn't have much of a muscular body.

Another of the obvious has to be this- most Sentai males had harder, more brutal especially when they are into out-of-suit action than just the regular civilian action scenes they do. For example, some Sentai males destroyed monsters out of suit. They also get stuck in more sticky situations and tragedies than Power Rangers' males most of the time.

Hyperactivity and impulsiveness are traits more common in Super Sentai's males than Power Rangers' males. I mean, for example Banban Akaza is way more hyperactive (and overenthusiastic) than Jack Landors was. While Jack Landors just didn't do his part in the obstacle course during his earlier stages, Banban Akaza would try to beat the others in it. Besides more Sentai red rangers suffered from that problem too. Genta Umemori is 100x more hyperactive than Gem and Gemma combined.

Not to mention, it's all about the idiotic rangers too. In Super Sentai, idiots are more common in the team than Power Rangers. Think of Skull as a Power Ranger. :-P

Some Power Rangers Fans Still Call Super Sentai "Power Rangers"

It's kind of something that there are Power Rangers fans who saw some episodes or even a complete season of a Super Sentai series yet... they still call it Power Rangers. These kinds of fanboys are the type to say "huh" when they hear the words "Super Sentai" and are the type to make comments like:

• Power Rangers is originally created by Toei and Saban franchised it for the American audience so Toei could make sales in America.
• Goranger was the first Power Rangers show.
• My favorite Power Rangers seasons would be Shinkenger, Dekaranger, Boukenger, Lost Galaxy, Lightspeed Rescue, Time Force and Timeranger.
• My favorite Power Rangers girls are Hikaru, Momoko, Haruna, Trini, Kimberly, Cassie, Jasmine, Sakura and Mako.
  
• The last Power Rangers series I saw was Shinkenger. Saban will make the American version by 2011.
  
• Power Rangers in Japan is more serious than Power Rangers in America. It's even more violent during its early stages.
• There's a Power Rangers conference in Japan going on and I'll be going there to see it so I can see the differences between Toei's original and Saban's adaptation.
  

Strange isn't it? Hee hee. I admit I've met some people who talk like that.

The terms "Power Rangers" and "Super Sentai" are almost alike. Super Sentai means "Super Task Force." A task force can mean a group of rangers. Power can be similarly used with super as well. So in short, Power Rangers is almost synonymous to the term Super Sentai.

I think it also has to do with the fact that although Super Sentai came first, the Power Rangers craze had managed to delete the word Super Sentai from common day to day fan conversation and calling every Super Sentai season as Power Rangers.

Why I prefer Power Rangers over Super Sentai

Go ahead. Scream at me for using a remastered MMPR image.

People think it's kind of a shocker that I prefer Power Rangers over Super Sentai, but I think Super Sentai is a better franchise, and I like Power Rangers more....if that makes any sense?

Super Sentai has higher quality of writing, characterization, believable performances by the casts, and a bigger budget. Not to mention a better handle on what entertaining action looks like. Above is an image of Bioman, which I think is probably one of the BEST series I have ever seen! Thank you Fantasy Leader! XD

Power Rangers, on the other hand, is my childhood. I grew up with it. It's the thing that has stayed with me since I started watching it back in '97, and from that point on it's played a large part of my life. The key to continuing success for Power Rangers is always present something new and inventive, even knowing that most of the material comes from Sentai. Without originality, Power Rangers would be known as nothing more than an "English version" of Super Sentai. And no matter how bad the season may be, there is always at least one original thing that wasn't seen in the original material. Like for example, MMPR is about overbearing teenagers living their teenage life while fighting off a evil alien witch and her minions, where as Zyuranger is about ancient warriors from the past defending the planet from their sworn enemy.

Wild Force was an exact replica of Gaoranger, but watered down a little bit, and bad acting. The only thing that was new was Master Org, I think? Another example is Lost Galaxy. The setting was way different from Gingaman, took place in a Space Colony called Terra Venture. As well as added the Megaship, DECA, and Alpha from the previous season.

There was a thriving fandom for Power Rangers long before there was one for Sentai and Toku itself, and I knew people for years based purely on debates about how Astronema was Andros' sister, or why Goldar suddenly became lame in Season 3. You can't override those memories.

No matter how good Sentai is, it will NEVER take the place Power Rangers holds in my heart. I'll probably never grow out of Power Rangers, but I know for sure that I won't ever leave it for Super Sentai. I think both should just be enjoyed on their own merits.

One thing I do like about Sentai is how they let their heroes be their own comic relief. Even someone who's as much of a steadfast adventurer as BoukenRed has his silly side. It used to be with Power Rangers that they'd have the villains played for laughs or comic relief supporting characters like Bulk and Skull while the Rangers took themselves very seriously. The show's gotten better about that though.

These last few series of Sentai have been a let down for me. Last strong Sentai that I thought was really good was Gekiranger. Go-Onger was good, but RPM is amazing. Had a stronger plot, better characters, and a good tone, especially for a Disney season. Shinkenger is claimed as the best, it had a good start I'll admit, but I think it's greatly overrated...the story is too bland for me and episodes were boring. And Goseiger, like Shinkenger, the plot is bland for me. Had a good start until they started bringing in mecha that is really unnecessary and annoying. There's a plot for at least every mecha they introduce. There are a few good episodes here and there, but it's still not all that good. I'm hoping Saban won't let me down with Season 18, what I'm really looking forward to.