#tori from ninja storm was everything to me when i was little

[t-u-i-t-c]

currently watching rpm and it makes me feel really nostalgic about watching pr when i was a kid

#i'm watching it bc my mutuals have been posting about it and i wanted to watch a pr that was completely different from the source material #go-onger is my favorite sentai so this was a good candidate #the designs don't hold as much plot relevancy and the engine souls aren't important (they call them cells but the screen says souls???) #also the 'g' for go-onger that hasn't been explained to mean anything yet here... #they're understandable changes but the 'g' needs to be explained bc it's so prevalent in the toys they're trying to sell #pr lb #umbrella.thoughts #umbrella.posts #only 10 episodes in #i love summer btw #i was always really into the girls in power rangers when i was little 😶 #tori from ninja storm was everything to me when i was little #rpm lb

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: Power Rangers Ninja Storm

Michael’s Note: Tonight’s review is not brought to you by me. Tonight’s review is done by my friend @unadulteratedpiratepizza. I can’t watch everything after all, so it’s nice to get some help when I need something reviewed I’m unfamiliar with. Let’s not have me hold this up any longer; dive right in to this review and see things done a little different for a change.

When Michael said he was doing a “Disnovember” review block, I felt like maybe I could help out with a review or two. The only problem, he’s already covering most of the big Disney stuff worth going over, so, I had to sit and think “What could I do?”

Then, It hit me, since I’m a huge Power Rangers fan, maybe I could review some of the Disney Era Power Rangers! Before the conclusion of Power Rangers Wild Force, Saban Company was in some financial trouble, so they sold off a number of their properties and assets to other companies, this included Power Ranger, which was sold along with the Fox Kids Franchise block to Disney. Disney had planned to cancel the show after the conclusion of Wild Force, but when they learned that they could slash down the production costs by moving everything to New Zealand, they decided to keep it up and running.

Disney’s First foray into rainbow coded spandex karate men was Power Rangers Ninja Storm, an adaptation of the Super Sentai series “Ninpū Sentai Hurricaneger”. This series follows a skateboarder named Shane, a surfer named Tori, and a dirt biker named Dustin, three friends who happen to be training at a super secret Ninja school (because why not), when they end up as the only survivors after an evil Ninja lord from space destroys their school and all of the students, and turns their Sensi into a guinea pig. They must come together and become the Wind Ninja Power Rangers, and master their new powers, along with giant robots built by the Sensi’s son, to defeat space monsters and save their Ninja school. Will they be able to save the day and Power Ranger series? Or will this be a dark omen for the future?

Ninja Storm is considered a turning point for the whole franchise, with being more willing to make fun of the more strange and wacky elements that are brought over from the Sentai series. Ninja storm does not take itself serious at all, and that’s part of the reason a number of people remember it fondly. It takes the fact that it’s an action packed kids show and wears that with pride. The main villain, Lothar, is one of the prime examples of this. Where a number of previous villains try to be overtly melodramatic evil, he tries to takes things with a more laid back sense of humor, constantly taking crackshots at the things he sees, even looking into the camera with a “You see this shit?” look on his face. And when he pilots a giant robot in the finale, he looks like he’s just having a great ol’ time.

Then you have the Rangers themselves, who overact, in my opinion, just enough to bring a good sense to things, but not in a way that bogs everything down.  They take thing with enough seriousness to convey the depth of the situation, but are still cheesy enough to make you remember your watching a kids show about guys in rainbow spandex beating up dumb looking rubber suit monsters. Not only was the show’s plot was closer in structure to that of the Super Sentai it was adapted from, it now had more of the self aware humor they use as well.

But there is one downside to this show; the budget. Disney did not have too much faith in Power Rangers, they already wanted to can it as it was, so now, with an even lower budget to match the lower production cost, they had to cut some basic quality stuff. One of the most noticeable is the sheer amount of stock music and sound effects. I swear, they use the same stock dramatic sting at least 10 times.  And don’t even get me started on the poor early 2000’s CGI, the guinea pig model always unsettled me.

So, all in all, while this season was a bit of a step down in quality from the previous season, it was a bit of a step up in other areas. Despite its more light-hearted nature, It did fairly with viewers (to the point where Disney started giving the studio bigger budgets going forward), and it is fondly remembered even to this day. I would have to say that Ninja Storm was a decent stepping stone between the first Saban era of Power Rangers into the Disney era, and the series kept that upward momentum for a while, that is until a certain season that I think I might go into further detail on another day….

#Michael After Midnight #review #TV show review #Power Rangers #Power Rangers Ninja Storm #Disnovember #Disney

[power-rangers-grid-spirits]

Premise and Basic Plot and Whatnot

anthony's author notes: I know Power Rangers for being "that series with colour-coded heroes who consistently blow shit up for the good of Earth". Power Rangers has a cookie-cutter idea of what constitutes a good storyline, and as the local writer dude, I decided I want to subvert those tropes in my own series.

Grid Spirits or Spirit Grid (i like and use both, but grid spirits is technically the “official” title) is entirely founded on and reliant on Grid Theory. Grid Theory is the concept that every Ranger ever is connected to the Power. (It's not canon, holy heck is that a tragedy) Sometimes this comes into play from birth, while other times it doesn't kick in until the character(s) become Rangers. You can find my favorite Grid Theory fics here and here.

The idea of this series is that each colour has a coloured spirit attached to it, and to all the Rangers of that colour. The Red Spirit is tied to the colour red (duh) and to all the Red Rangers, even if some of the Reds (side-eyes Tommy) don't use their Red Ranger Powers anymore.

I did have to make decisions on how to divide the colours up. Ninja Storm has both a Red (Shane) and Crimson (Hunter) Ranger, as well as a Blue (Tori) and Navy (Blake) Ranger. I went with having the different shades go together (for example, Hunter's Crimson is considered Red) with the sole exception of Aqua (James Navarro of Dino Charge), which is its own category. As for the Rangers whose titles aren't colours (hint hint half of S.P.D.), I looked at each of their pages on the Fandom Wiki and used those. (seriously that site is a gift from god)

One by one, the Grid Spirits run off into a new universe (a carbon copy of ours. It has the franchise; oh the headache my Rangers could give the execs) and each "possess" an individual whom they deem "compatible". This grants the individual full access to every Ranger power of their colour we know, some that we don't, and the ones I made up for this. This does include different elemental-kinesis power sets specific to each character, but I gave Jaiden the reins on those. The Grid is also now an actual physical space. It is in a different dimension, but with the Spirits' powers, the team can teleport there.

Unfortunately, because all of the Grid Spirits are out and about, the villains from every season are let loose as well. Madame Odious is in charge because I said so and I want her to. Rita is naturally her second-in-command. 

Cue the dramatic fight scenes...with a TWIST!! :0 oh my so surprising

I think we all know that every city the Rangers have ever been in is an absolute disaster zone. A crater courtesy of idiots in spandex. We all knew it was the truth.

I don't know if you've ever seen Lolirock. I myself watched about ten episodes before I got bored. The point, though, is that they have this little mascot thing (it has a name but i don't know it) and it can teleport the princesses and their monster of the week into an arena dimension. Since the Grid is now a place the Rangers can go, and I make the rules here, it has an arena where the Rangers can fight the bad guy without, you know, destroying everything around them. It also cuts off any communication to the main villains (e.g. Rita, Lothor, i'm bad at remembering these characters please ignore me)

Power Rangers is not terribly well-known for its plot. However, since we don't have the big studio budget for a television show, we'll have to write the story in book form and actually have the desperately needed Rangers’ character development. (oh no how so very dreadful)

jaiden's art notes: Hi y'all! I do the character designs and art (and excessively make picrews but that's not important here).

Each character has a unique and special backstory, and I wanted to make each character unique and special designs to match. Anthony let me pick each character's elemental powers so I could incorporate them better into my designs, so if you're curious about that, it's a question for me.

The Rangers have two appearances: their regular civilian appearances, and their Spirit form appearances. The reasons for this are because this is more mystical-y than the Power Rangers we know and love, so it makes sense that their Spirit appearances would be influenced by their powers. Each design is a mash of their civilian appearances and one ranger of their colour. Design-wise, this is also because I hate, HATE doing helmets with a burning passion and no way in frozen-over hell am I making those here. (I am aware of the fuck-ups in the Turbo movie when they tried to film with pieces of the helmet missing. I do not care. They look different, what identity could they reveal if they look entirely different. They could only reveal it if they specifically told someone "hey, i'm a grid spirit" or if they transformed in front of someone.)

The suits are pretty simple. Each Ranger wears a dark grey bodysuit with geometric tessellation patterns in light grey. These extend to their wrists, ankles, and have a high neck. Over this, they each wear white gloves and boots, but the specifics vary between Rangers. The boots may extend to any height, as can the gloves, which may also be fingerless in some cases. Each of them, finally, has a "regular outfit" over their bodysuit in their signature colour (for example, several of the girls have short dresses), and a wide black belt around their midriffs with a stripe around the middle in their colour. (think martial arts belts, but wider.) Each costume is specifically designed so that it doesn't draw attention to any *ahem* particular locations.

So, you know, this'll be fun. The two of us are excited to get this train out of the station. Wanna stick around?

#power rangers #power rangers fanseries #power rangers grid spirits #power rangers spirit grid #introductory post #long post #anthony and jaiden bullshit their way through what they deem good expo: the series