Power Rangers Samurai/YMMV


 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: For many different reasons:
 * The show was uncancelled again (This is about the fifth time we know about.)
 * The show was bought back from Disney (who Just Didn't Care) by Haim Saban, who was the original creator of the series.
 * It's being adapted from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, picking up where Disney left off and considered one of the best seasons of Super Sentai in recent years.
 * Jonathan Tzachor is back, the main producer and director of the Power Rangers series from the beginning up to Wild Force.
 * Unfortunately, that one quieted fast, because as becomes apparent if you only take Wild Force and Samurai into account, it seems that Tzachor - Judd and Jackie = Kalish. Sticking to sentai even when it doesn't work, referring to things that happened in the parent sentai but not PR, and Viewers are Morons (the major recurring complaints about some Kalish series) have all returned in full force.
 * According to said person, the Disney era never happened, except for possibly RPM (see below). Of course, we can't always trust him - sometimes he either messes with our heads or says things he'd like to have happen but knows he shouldn't. For example, every season is a different universe according to him - even the ones with several out-of-season connections. The Turbo Rangers of the world of Turbo went to Eltar as planned and the ex-Turbo Rangers of Space are 'alternate' versions, for example. Needless to say, we've never heard that in any episode and probably never will. However, RPM was depicted as AU to the rest of the PR-verse, a Parallel Universe - but that's of necessity, unless you want every series from RPM on to take place in a post-apocalyptic world (and one where pretty much everyone we met before RPM is likely pushing up daisies.)
 * The promo commercials are using the Original Series Theme Song. The first footage from an episode would appear to confirm that the Power Rangers Samurai theme will take several cues from the beloved original theme.
 * Most of the series is a gamble that people will have nostalgia for MMPR, with Mythology Gag after Mythology Gag. It paid off, to say the least.
 * Bulk is back!!!!
 * A team up with Power Rangers RPM has been confirmed. Adding to that, Saban will NOT be retconning RPM's After the End setting.
 * When Samurai was announced, Saban also reported that they had the rights to the crossover with Kamen Rider Decade. Nothing has come of it so far, but it's encouraging that they have the ability to.
 * On the toy side, the Shinkenger Figuarts (much higher quality than the normal, inferior-quality Power Rangers Samurai toys) being sold by Toys 'R' US.
 * Awesome Music: The opening theme, as well as several of the background themes.
 * Broken Base: Bringing up the topic of whether Samurai is officially season 18 or season 19 as a result of the 2010 Recut of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The official stance of Saban and Nick according to press releases and Twitter responses is that Samurai is season 19, though some fans try to reconcile this by counting Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers as a season instead of the Recut.
 * One big issue that frustrates fans regarding this (aside from them acknowledging that dreadful recut exists) is this: if they consider Samurai Season 18, that leaves a Goseiger adaptation as Season 19, which would turn a Gokagier adaptation (already an 35th Anniversary season for Super Sentai) into Power Rangers 20th Anniversary. That would leave Power Rangers with a built-in Big-Budget Beef-Up for their 20th Anniversary in Gokaiger footage instead of the comparatively lukewarm Goseiger footage.
 * Now there's an internal memo from Saban, dated November 2011, which has inspired Epileptic Trees over whether Saban will outright skip Goseiger in order to get Gokaiger as the 20th Power Rangers series.
 * Similarly, whether the first episode shown of the series should be considered Episode 1 or 3 given that the episodes telling the team's origin were not aired at the start of the series. There were also arguments over whether this was caused by Executive Meddling reordering the episodes, by some production issue, or by the show's writers; but a little digging revealed it's Nickelodeon's fault.
 * Also, fans are split regarding if it's one of the worst series ever or not that bad.
 * Nevertheless, fans generally agree that Deker's first human appearance marked the point where Samurai took a turn for the better. And general fan consensus also seems to have been quite positive since then. Antonio has also gotten a similar response.
 * The RPM team-up "Clash of the Red Rangers" started to split fans before it ever aired. Once it was confirmed that none of the RPM actors were planned to return, some people were already saying that if they don't have the RPM actors available, they just shouldn't bother, while others said that we should just wait and see, since they might surprise us.
 * Complete Monster: Serrator. In "Broken Dreams" we find out . Mia after seeing this feels sorry for  . Also unlike usual  . In his official debut episode "Something Fishy" from Super Samurai, he destroyed an entire mooger army to show his power to Master Xandred.
 * Master Xandred himself is also a qualifier. When he isn't drinking his medicine and yelling at people, he shows how evil he can be, being the Big Bad and all. He treats his followers horribly, threatening to kill Octoroo at one point, attempts to kill Deker because he was meddling in his affairs, and his plan revolves around killing Jayden. Also, unlike Octoroo, who sends Nighloks to cause misery, Master Xandred summons an army of moogers to cause meaningless chaos in the human world and destroy everything. In episodes "Broken Dreams" and "Test of the Leader", we see that his moogers destroy entire buildings, meaning that he is responsible for hundreds of deaths of innocent humans. He brutally punishes Arachnitor when he tried to usurp him by mutating him into a mindless slave. He also ruined Dayu's harmonium and attempted to erase her memory. She even says "I knew you were evil, but this..." It seems that Xandred's cruelty truly knows no bounds.
 * Ear Worm: The Rebel Rockers' song from "He Ain't Heavy Metal, He's My Brother." See here. Some of the songs Bulk and Spike sing as well could possibly count.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Everyone loves Deker. Antonio seems to be heading in this direction as well.
 * Mike, thanks to Hector David Jr's standout performance, which seems to be a recurring thing with Green rangers. (Not to mention Hector is the most blatantly One of Us in the bunch.)
 * Evil Is Cool: Serrator. Perhaps the most Badass character in the show. He shows his power to Master Xandred by destroying an entire army of moogers. Later, he gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome during his fight with rangers: he defeats them easily, turns their own attacks against them, and to top it all off, he says that he wasn't even trying.
 * Master Xandred took the title of the most Badass character in the show from Serrator and makes Serrator look like a mooger. Just watch "The Master Returns" and see what i mean.
 * First Installment Wins: Samurai is playing on people's nostalgia for the original Mighty Morphin by returning to the original "Go Go Power Rangers!" theme song, as well as the morphing call.
 * Growing the Beard: Once Deker's human apperance came, the series has become much better.
 * Which is ironic, seeing as how Deker's human form not only has a beard, but is a bearded Rick Medina, who was known for playing one of the least-loved Rangers ever, Cole.
 * The Gold Ranger's arrival also came with improved quality. It may be because he's more unique compared to his Sentai counterpart than the other Rangers.
 * The beard grows ever longer with the introduction of Serrator, dimming the lights of the story yet again.
 * He Really Can Act: Ricardo Medina. Okay, he's not Oscar-caliber or anything, but he's come quite a ways from Wild Force.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: "Party Monsters" was the first real attempt to shake up the Shinkenger formula, by having the Nighloks able to wind up in a "third life", which was little more than a harmless ghost. Actually this had been done in the sentai that came before, Engine Sentai Go-onger, where the recurring villain Hiramechimedes came (arguably) Back from the Dead one last time, as a yuurei or ghost.
 * There was talk about that the Shinkenger's Super Mode would entail, and a few subscribed to the theory that the kanji on their helmets would double up. Cue the Shogun Samurai Rangers forms, which have the kanji doubled up.
 * Ho Yay: Jayden and Antonio.
 * It wouldn't be Power Rangers without the Ho Yay. Jayden and Antonio are merely joining Tommy/Jason, Rocky/Adam, Andros/Zhane, Carter/Ryan, Eric/Wes, Danny/Max, Bridge/Sky, and Dillon/Ziggy in the ranks of Bromance Rangers.
 * They've replaced Genta's oversized suit and gong from his big arrival at the Shiba house with a suit and shiny tie for Antonio, making it look like he's taking Jayden to the prom.
 * It doesn't help that both Antonio and Jayden are reuntied childhood friends, if that's indication.
 * The end of "Broken Dreams" adds a whole new level of Ho Yay when Jayden and Antonio are limping to the bench, panting and catching their breath while saying things like "Every muscle hurts" and "Just like old times."
 * Its the Same So It Sucks: Some long-time fans are already criticizing Samurai for being too similar to Shinkenger. Not the first time this criticism has arose, incidentally.
 * Others are criticizing it for referencing things that never happened in PRS but did in Shinkenger, making it closer to They Changed It, Now It Sucks because it's not the same. For instance, unlike Shinken Green, Mike acts rebellious for all of one episode (that we've seen), but Master Ji continues acting as though Mike is still rebellious, simply because of how Shinken Green behaved in the original script.
 * Subverted by Antonio, the Gold Ranger. While he is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass and Large Ham like Shinken Gold, he's a different kind of ham than Genta. And he's been recieved somewhat more positively as well.
 * It's gradually been pushing away from Shinkenger as it's progressed. Among other things,
 * Memetic Mutation: Emily and those wacky arms from the episode "The Team Unites" (sort of).
 * Say it with us, now: "Wow! He's so sparkly!"
 * Moral Event Horizon: Switchbeast's plan in "Trading Places". He turns a lot of innocent people into several objects, so that unsuspecting humans would get rid of them, not knowing that there are human souls in those objects and if Power Rangers didn't stop Switchbeast a a lot of innocent people would have been killed and it was the entire point of his plan- to have a lot of people killed. Usually Nighloks want to cause misery, but this time they wanted to actually kill innocents
 * Dayu thinks that Master Xandred crossed this line when he ruins her harmonium and attempted to make her lose her memory. She even says "I knew you were evil, but this!"
 * Narm: The Monster of the Week's big plan is... making a little boy give up baseball... Made even more narmy by Mia's line of "This is what you get for making Ryan sad!" (Then again, he lied that by giving up on baseball, )
 * In episode 5, "A Fish Out of Water" (really episode 7, but Nickelodeon has skipped the first two), the new zord is a swordfish. When it combines with the Megazord in the obligatory boss battle, the final attack has the mech's usual katana attaching to the swordfish helmet which sticks straight up! Someone should dub it "Narwhal Mode" or take a clip of its head-sword-swinging Finishing Move and synch it to Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair."
 * "Forest for the Trees" features innocent bystanders wangsting and actively lamenting with a passion usually reserved for the death of loved ones... the fact that its starting raining. It was caused by a Nighlok, but still...
 * But that's what the rain does.
 * In one episode, a Monster of the Week tries to bring down Yellow Ranger's confidence, which such lines as "Everyone loves to tease you!" In his defense, he'd already tried half a dozen other insults on her with no effect.
 * Octoroo's big plan in "The Blue and the Gold"? Stealing toys, which from the looks of it, can pretty much all be easily replaced.
 * Although, considering that they had to use a specific axe to destroy the toys and drop the destroyed toys into a specific well, it seems to have been some sort of evil ritual to get Sanzu River water into the well.
 * Octoroo explicitly stated that the plan was to use the misery produced by the children from having their favorite toys go missing.
 * The misery was never the goal. Completing the ritual was the goal. Making kids sad because their toys were stolen wasn't their big plan. And come on, kids get upset over toys being lost, regardless of whether they can be easily replaced.
 * But there's the misery element about those being the kids' favorite toys, as in, if they got another of those to replace the loss, it possibly wouldn't feel like before. Just look at Spike's reaction when his teddy bear was taken: it can be assumed that, even if he got another, it wouldn't be the same thing as that bear in special.
 * Paranoia Fuel: Any crack or crevice can be a potential portal for a Nighlok... Sweet dreams.
 * In "The Blue and the Gold," the monster was in Bulk and Spike's house while they were asleep, completely unnoticed. Although the "unnoticed" part was partly due to the fact that it was Bulk and Spike it's not hard to imagine that this was how he stole the children's toys (aside from the ones we saw in the park). Let me repeat that: the monster snuck into houses with children in them without anyone noticing.
 * Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In a lot of ways, Rick Medina. His Wild Force character, Cole... wasn't well liked, which wasn't made much better after he left the show (especially his appearance on the reality show Kept.) However, between Deker's Ensemble Darkhorse status, Medina's improved acting ability, and the fact that Samurai started improving right after his debut, opinions have changed.
 * Special Effects Failure: The digital animation sticks out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, one could find it preferable to Shinkenger's.
 * In "The Blue and Gold," Octoroo's mouthpiece was changed for a few scenes, ostensibly to make it less creepy. The change was discarded almost immediately.
 * The mecha suits from Shinkenger are looking even more fake than the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Zyuranger. Seriously, the Megazord looks like it's wearing Styrofoam cutouts while in past series they at least looked metallic.
 * There's also the Gold Ranger helmet, which switches between practically mirror-coated and more like frosted glass. It even did so in Shinkenger footage, so it can't be blamed on Japan/US prop differences (They probably use the frosted glass one to avoid accidentally reflecting the camera crew in his helmet.)
 * In "Jayden's Challenge," and likely a few other places, when Kevin jumps into battle, it cuts to a second of Kevin's (obvious) stunt actor. The stunt actor does a pretty good job of hiding his face; unfortunately, he does this with his hands. The problem being Kevin is black and the stunt actor is (likely) Japanese. Previous teams actually used makeup tricks to match the stunties to the actors, with results that can be downright creepy, but that might lean a little too close to blackface for the current team (or they were short for time, who knows?)
 * Tear Jerker:
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Samurai started suffering from this early. When the casting sheets went out, the characters had the names Reese, Parry, Baron, Sadie, and Ava. Fans got a little upset when the names were changed to the slightly more generic Jayden, Mike, Kevin, Mia, and Emily. (Much later, it was revealed that the mentor's name wasn't Takeru, but Ji; and later still the Sixth Ranger's name was shown to have gone from Wesley to Antonio.)
 * "Reese", "Parry", and "Baron" could still work as the respective characters' last names.
 * The toy designs are also receiving criticism - most understandably in the case of the Megazord, which lost a number of its details in the transition from Shinken-oh, but also for the new Ranger figures, which were given samurai-armor-esque revamps including Shoulders of Doom. This has been given some in-show justification, however (they use the armored form while piloting the zords), and they also made normal Ranger figures.
 * Though that isn't really the series' fault, as rumor has it the figures were made prior to Saban buying back the rights to Power Rangers, when it was expected that Power Rangers RPM was to be the final season.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Clash of the Red Rangers. Where do we even begin? Well, for one thing, at one point in the story the Samurai Rangers (barring Jayden) are sucked into the RPM-verse by Professor Cog's portal. Now, the idea of a team of Samurai crashing into an After the End setting where humanity is fighting for survival against a virus and its army of machines would make for a pretty good plot. And it would also have been great to see how the Samurai Rangers would work with the RPM Rangers. So, what do we get out of this possibly awesome plot thread? The Samurai Rangers return after being gone for a while, and Emily tells Scott "Your team says hi." That's all we get.
 * Not only that, but remember the implication at the end of RPM that  Yeah, this episode/movie/whatever you want to call it never even addresses it. Given this and Saban's statements about RPM lacking in humor, one suspects that those at Saban Brands didn't even bother to watch the season before filming this.
 * Given the ending of RPM, it's not only possible, but downright likely that the spoilered event hasn't happened yet in RPM. They talk during the episode as if the events of RPM are still going on.
 * Also, there is hope: the actual teamup fight footage has yet to be used, and General Cog was clearly not shown to go 'boom,' leaving the door open for it to be done right someday. I assure you, Amit Bhaumik, who is involved with this series and gave us Wild Force's teamups, has watched RPM. Fingers crossed, folks.
 * Also, the footage of the Shinkenger movie was wasted on a Random Events Plot.
 * This troper couldn't have been the only one who suspected Spike might become the Gold Ranger, considering the comical aspect of Shinken Gold's portrayal in the original, and the subplot about Bulk training Spike to be a Samurai. What a great twist it could have been to have Spike *actually* become a Samurai ranger, and have to hide his role from Bulk, not to mention the indirect MOA it could have been to have the son of one of our original Those Two Guys become a ranger.
 * Ah yes. But what they did do does mimic the Gold Ranger saga from Zeo. Spike's father was a Red Herring for the identity of the Gold Ranger, one of the suspects... and the actual person turned out to be someone the audience had never heard of before. The same thing happens here. His being an old friend of Jayden's mimics the second Gold Ranger from Zeo being an old friend of the current Red.
 * Tough Act to Follow: Coming after Shinkenger and RPM and running at the same time as Gokaiger, you bet it is.
 * Unfortunate Implications: This early casting call for the show. With the exception of the Red Ranger, every other character is listed under "Any Ethnicity," reflecting the franchise's history of colorblind casting. What's the Red Ranger's requirement? Caucasian. This was fixed in more recent casting calls. To be fair, there may be a reason for specifying race, such as making sure Jayden and family members that show up don't look blatantly unrelated to each other.
 * Also, some are calling PRS sexist due to the very close adaptation to Shinkenger... without accounting for the differences between cultural views on women (Japan's paternalism vs. America's post-feminism).
 * How about giving the job of a Fisherman to a Latino guy? Sounds prejudicial.
 * Uncanny Valley: Octoroo's American mouth actually made him more creepy.
 * Not exactly "American"; we get to see Shitari's mouth in Act 46 of Shinkenger and it does look kind of like that. All they did in the adaptation was remove the front tentacles that hid it, but yeah, the results weren't any more pleasant.
 * Values Dissonance: Inevitable when they're trying to be entirely accurate to Shinkenger.
 * One example: In "Sticks and Stones," Emily tells the team how she was bullied as a child, and was taught by her sister to ignore what the bullies said. This is a common part of Japanese culture, and, at first glance, seems fit in an American show. Then you realize that it seems to be implied that Emily apparently never told anyone about the bullies. The flashback seems to suggest that only her sister (a Power Ranger in training, mind) helped her out, whereas she could have told her parents, a teacher or some other Reasonable Authority Figure.
 * Sadly, though, this is more or less in tune with children's shows, where Adults Are Useless. And fairly common amongst bullied children in any corner of the world. Many of them will internalize and not tell anybody for several reasons. Parents, who might not understand how severe the bullying is (or assume that it's a right of passage in childhood), will likely tell children to simply get over it. Similarly, telling a parent or teacher, who usually can do very little to stop it in the first place, can make bullying worse.
 * See also Unfortunate Implications above regarding gender.
 * The Woobie: Emily possibly became this in "Sticks and Stones." See Values Dissonance on top for some details.
 * Ryan from "Deal With A Nighlok" can be considered one, too.
 * Ryan from "Deal With A Nighlok" can be considered one, too.