#3319: Gold Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Bandai, Gold Ranger, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo March 23, 2023

GOLD RANGER

POWER RANGERS: SUPER LEGENDS (BANDAI)

You know who’s pretty cool? The Zeo Gold Ranger. Like, just pretty top-notch, really. At the very least, top three when it comes to Power Rangers, at least as far as I’m concerned. It’s really him and Space Silver. I have a draw to toy coverage for both of them, and Zeo Gold winds up being ever so slightly more prevalent, so, you know, there’s a little bit more of him, I suppose. So, anyway, here’s one of those Zeo Gold Rangers. Let’s check him out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Gold Ranger (who is listed as such, with no specific “Zeo” denotation or anything) was released in 2008 alongside an MMPR White Ranger as part of the second round of Power Rangers: Super Legends figures from Bandai. The Super Legends figures were released intermixed with the Jungle Fury product as a special release for the 15 anniversary of the franchise. They were officially designated as chases, so they weren’t super plentiful or easily found back in the day. Because that’s definitely the best way to celebrate the franchise: by releasing its most popular characters as hard to find chases. Oh, Bandai, you sure know how to Bandai. The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 17 points of articulation. By current standards, the articulation scheme’s not premium or anything, but it was pretty good for the time, and matched up with the best of the line at the line. Honestly, the only glaringly missing things are a waist joint and maybe some lateral motion for the arms. It’s definitely workable, though. The Gold Ranger’s sculpt was an all-new one at the time. Like the articulation, the sculpt is a bit dated by current standards, but it was honestly a notable step forward compared to prior Zeo figures. The biggest drawback is definitely how the articulation’s worked in, but it’s not terrible, just a little obvious. The proportions are a little bit stilted, but generally decently balanced, again, relative to prior offerings. The detailing on the outfit’s pretty strong, and the armor’s actually a separate piece for a change. The paint work on the Gold Ranger is fairly basic, but it does what it needs to. The finish on the gold is consistent and the application’s all pretty clean. He’s packed with the removable armor, as well as his Staff of Gold, which is, ironically, totally silver for this release. It’s not a bad piece, aside from perhaps being a little bit stubby, and, of course, the aforementioned silver coloring. Why it wasn’t just molded in gold is something of a mystery, but there it is.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve always been a big fan of Zeo Gold, and even though I was well and truly out of Power Rangers when this line hit in ’08, this guy almost pulled me back in. I say “almost,” of course, because the fact that I was never able to find one at retail meant that, you know, I never got one. Well, not for a good long while, anyway. This one wound up coming to me courtesy of a big Rangers collection that came into All Time back in the summer of 2020. I’d just gotten the Lightning Collection version, and I was feeling rather nostalgic, so this guy struck something of a chord. He’s an interesting half-step between modern and vintage. I like him, but he’s definitely got a more limited audience these days.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review. If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#3097: Zeo Yellow Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Yellow Ranger May 17, 2022

ZEO YELLOW RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

Hey, how about some more Power Rangers stuff? It’s been a little while, and I got important stuff to talk about. I’ve been doing a fair bit of alternating as of late between my two favorite Rangers shows, Zeo and In Space. When last I discussed Zeo, I talked about the cast change-over mid-Mighty Morphin. Most of that cast carried over to Zeo, but Karan Ashley’s Aisha Campbell, who had replaced Trini as the Yellow Ranger, did not. Since Ashley wanted to leave the show, Aisha was written out at the end of MMPR, and replaced with Nakia Burrise as Tanya Sloan, who would stay in the role of Yellow Ranger for all of Zeo, and the first half of Turbo. Today, I’m focusing on her Zeo incarnation.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zeo Yellow Ranger is part of Series 10 of Hasbro’s Power Rangers: Lightning Collection line. Tanya is a rather notable release, as she’s the final member of the Zeo team to join the line. Hey, it’s a finished time that’s not MMPR! Nifty! The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 30 points of articulation. Tanya’s construction is largely identical to that of Zeo Pink, which was expected, and is also a pretty sensible choice. Their designs and builds are fairly close (they don’t even require a new waist piece, since Ohranger was a rare Super Sentai that actually had a female Yellow in the original footage) and it follows the model employed with the male Rangers in the set. The elbows are still rather restricted in their movement, but the articulation is otherwise still pretty solid, and the detailing on the sculpt remains a pretty solid recreation of the suit design from the show. She’s got an all-new helmet sculpt, depicting her unique visor shape. The two slits aren’t as practical as Adam’s rectangle or Kat’s oval, but I guess it’s okay. It’s a pretty straight forward sculpt, which is in line with the rest of Rangers from the set, and the new visor differentiates her pretty well from the others. Tanya’s paint work is pretty straight forward. The application is all pretty clean and sharp, and the plastic yellows match more closely than the colors on Pink. In general, it looks quite sharp. Zeo Yellow is packed with her Zeonizer, capsule sword, Power Clubs, two sets of hands, an effect piece, and an unmasked Tanya head.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

At this point, it’s a matter of momentum on a lot of these figures. I can’t very well quit the Zeo team five members into a six person team, right? So, you know, I was pretty happy about her getting a spot in this particular set, so that I could finally finish up the team. I started building this team in 2020, and two years later, I’ve wrapped it up. I’m pretty happy about that. Tanya’s not the star of the show or anything, but she’s a strong finish to a strong set. Pretty dope.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure for review. If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#3047: Mighty Morphin & Zeo Pink Rangers

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with GameStop Exclusive, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Pink Ranger, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Pulse March 8, 2022

MIGHTY MORPHIN & ZEO PINK RANGERS

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

“Originally under an evil spell that allowed her to transform into a white cat to spy on the Power Rangers, Kat Hillard becomes the second Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger and, later, Zeo Ranger Pink”

Okay, we did a week of Marvel, and two weeks of Star Wars before that, how about doing more of a mixed week this time around? I’m still sticking to the Hasbro side of things, because, honestly, it’s a bit hard not to these days. I’m setting my sites on one of their less frequent ones around here, Power Rangers: Lightning Collection. My last several Lightning Collection reviews have been centered on my favorite Rangers incarnation, Power Rangers In Space, but today I’m looking at my second favorite incarnation, Power Rangers Zeo…well, partly, anyway. For the backstory on this one, it’s important to bring up the mid-show replacements for half of the MMPR Rangers, Rocky, Adam, and Aisha, who replaced Jason, Zach, and Trini. Initially, Amy Jo Johnson’s Kimberly remained with the team through the change over, but she was still replaced a bit later by Kar Hillard, who would serve as the Pink Ranger for the last batch of MMPR, carrying over into Zeo. Today’s focus covers *both* of those incarnations, in one convenient set…well, for Hasbro, anyway, since it means we have to buy the MMPR Pink Ranger again. Alas. Such is the way for us.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair of Pink Rangers is a GameStop-exclusive Lightning Collection two-pack, with limited quantities available through Hasbro Pulse as well. They were part of a larger celebration of the Pink Ranger specifically, all of which were made available for order last summer.

MIGHTY MORPHIN

With the base versions of all of the Mighty Morphin Rangers released, Hasbro’s doubling back for some variants, just to get some extra mileage out of them. All of the replacement Rangers got the metallic/translucent variants, but now they’re following up with some more straight forward releases for them as well. This figure follows up on Aisha’s standard release getting packed in with Scorpina, giving us a standard MMPR Pink, but with Kat under the helmet instead of Kimberly. The figure stands 6 inches tall and has 30 points of articulation. Her sculpt is the same as the prior release of Mighty Morphin Pink (and, by extension, the Mighty Morphin Yellow figures). Since it was the same suit (and a good chunk of the same footage), the shared sculpt makes sense. It’s a pretty okay offering, with a decent articulation set-up, which is pretty well worked into the sculpt. The color work is alright, though there’s some notable clashing in the molded colors of the pink plastic, which seems to be worse on this release than the prior one. The application is at least pretty cleanly applied. The figure is packed with her power bow, an arrow, the blade blaster, and two sets of hands. The bow and blaster are notably sporting slightly inferior paint work, compared to the single release, which is a bit of a bummer. Also included with this release are an unmasked Kat head, as well as Kat in her cat form from before her time as a Ranger.

ZEO

The real selling point of this set, of course, isn’t a re-pack of MMPR Pink, but is actually Zeo Pink, our fifth of the six Zeo Rangers. She brings us just one figure away from completing the team (Tanya will be rounding things up in the next assortment of the main line), and gives our first female Zeo Ranger. The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 30 points of articulation. Her articulation scheme is essentially the same as the Morphin body, with the one notable exception being a slightly more restricted range of motion on the elbow joints. Given all the advancements we’ve been seeing with the elbow joints on Hasbro’s other lines, it’s a bit of a shame that we’re still seeing things this restricted over on the Power Rangers side. The sculpt is largely new, though she shares the upper arms and most of the legs with the standard Morphin body. The new parts match up with the male Zeo bodies, and she gets a unique helmet sculpt sporting her character-specific helmet, with the oval visor, the second most sensible visor shape, after Adam, of course. The color work on this figure is a little bit better than her Mighty Morphin counterpart. There’s still a slight mismatch on the pinks, but it’s not quite as bad here. The paint application is pretty sharp and all of the major elements are properly detailed. Zeo Pink is packed with her Zeonier, capsule sword, disc shield, two sets of hands, and another unmasked Kat head, this time sporting a truly ’90s-tastic pink scrunchy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Zeo is one of the two line-ups I’m looking to complete in this line, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting each successive release for the team. I was less than thrilled by Zeo Pink being stuck in a two-pack with another MMPR Pink. I was even less thrilled by this two-pack being a GameStop-exclusive, as I’d really prefer to pretty much never give that company any money ever again. Thankfully, I was able to get in on the Pulse quantities when they went up for order. I’m still not thrilled by the set-up here, but Zeo Pink is at least a pretty nice figure, and I look forward to getting to complete the set shortly.

#2741: Zeo Green Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Green Ranger, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo April 16, 2021

ZEO GREEN RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

The color thematics of the core Power Rangers teams for the show’s early run (and, in turn the runs of the Sentai shows that Power Rangers was adapting) generally followed a pretty established pattern. The starting team of five always included red, blue, yellow, and pink, but the fifth color would typically bounce back and forth between either black or green (and early on, the sixth ranger would frequently sport a costume predominately made up of whichever of those two wasn’t already in play). When the show was still attempting to keep a running narrative and share some of the same rangers between seasons, this meant that we wound up with situations like Adam Park, the second MMPR Black Ranger, becoming the Zeo Green when the footage switched over. Pretty nifty!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zeo Green is part of the 8th main line assortment of Hasbro’s Power Rangers: Lightning Collection. He marks our fourth of the Zeo Rangers, following Red, Blue, and Gold. Just waiting on the girls now. This figure also marks our first non-Tommy Green Ranger, as well as our first non-sixth ranger Green Ranger. The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation. Surprising no one, Zeo Green is predominately made up of the same parts as both Zeo Red and Zeo Blue. I did note that this time around, the arms seem to have an easier time sitting flush with his sides, as opposed to their slight tendency to stick out on prior versions. He gets a new helmeted head sculpt, which follows the same general set-up as the prior ones, but swaps out their respective visor shapes for Adam’s rectangular visor. Truly his was by far the most sensible of all the Zeo visors. Zeo Green’s paint work follows the trend set by Zeo Red, being rather clean, even given some of the more lax paint on a few other Hasbro figures recently. The colors are nice and bright, and that green really pops. Zeo Green is packed with two sets of hands (one gripping, one in fists), his pod sword, laser pistol, an unmasked Adam Park head, a blast effect for the pistol, and his Zeo IV Power Axes. At this point, I’ve accepted that we’re not going to be getting the collapsed version of the pod sword, at least with the standard releases of these figures, so I’m deciding to not let that bug me. Beyond that, the Adam Park head is probably the best of the Zeo-era likenesses we’ve gotten so far, so that’s nice. It’s also nice that he included his Power Axes, though it does make it more glaringly obvious that Rocky didn’t get his own power weapon, now that both Tommy and Adam have gotten theirs. Perhaps Rocky’s weapon can get packed in with someone else?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Adam, specifically as the Zeo Green Ranger, is a rather important piece of Power Rangers for me, less because of anything to do with the show directly, and more because Zeo Green was my very first Power Rangers toy, back in the day. The summer Zeo came out, my grandmother bought a batch of figures for the each of the grand children to have one while we were on vacation together. My cousins had already claimed Red and Blue by the time I got there, so Green was the one waiting for me. At the time, I wanted blue more, but I was honestly happy with anything. Over the years, I’ve come to have an appreciation for Adam as a character, and I was definitely looking forward to this guy. He’s probably my favorite of the basic Zeo Rangers so far.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review. If you’re looking for Lightning Collection, or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#2585: Zeo Red Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Red Ranger November 11, 2020

ZEO RED RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

Perhaps the most definitive Power Ranger in the entirety of the franchise, Jason David Frank’s Tommy Oliver began as the franchise’s first sixth ranger. Initially just an antagonist for the main team, he eventually became an ally and a member of the core team proper. When MMPR ran out of Zyuranger footage to use for the Green Ranger, Tommy was retired for a while, until footage of Gosei Sentai Dairanger’s Kiba Ranger was adapted into MMPR‘s White Ranger, granting Tommy a new identity. In this new identity, Tommy slowly shifted into more of a leader role, a transition fully cemented when the original Red Ranger and team leader Jason Lee Scott departed the show in the third season. When MMPR became Zeo, things were streamlined a bit, making Tommy the Red Ranger proper, and thereby the team’s default leader.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zeo Red headline’s Series 6 of Hasbro’s Power Rangers: Lightning Collection. He’s our third member of the Zeo team, following Series 4’s Zeo Blue and Series 5’s Zeo Gold. He’s also the resident Red Ranger for this assortment, and the fourth version of Tommy in the line. The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation. For the most part, he’s a heavy parts re-use of Zeo Blue. It’s expected, really, since the costumes are virtually identical, and the builds aren’t too far off either. It’s a solid sculpt, so certainly a good starting point. He gets a new helmet, of course, sporting his star-shaped visor. It’s as goofy here as it was in the show, but that doesn’t make me like it any less. The paint work on this guy is pretty straight forward and basic. I did find that it was a little more consistent across the board from figure to figure this time around, which is certainly a plus for the line. I’m glad it looks like things are generally improving for the paint work on the line, especially given the other paint issues Hasbro’s been facing this year. Like Zeo Blue, Red gets two sets of hands in fists and gripping poses, the pod sword, and laser pistol. He adds in the Zeo Power Sword, an effect piece, and an unmasked Tommy head. I still would have liked to get a collapsed version of the pod sword for more proper holstering, but I’m glad to see them actually including the individual Ranger-specific weapons. Hopefully they keep it up for more than just the Red Rangers. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the unmasked head is actually a new sculpt, and not just another re-use of the one from the White Ranger. This one’s a slightly better take on Frank’s likeness, so I’m glad Hasbro gave it another go.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

After getting Blue and Gold, I’ve been eager to fill out the rest of the Zeo roster, and Tommy was kind of an inevitable part of that. I don’t know that I was expecting him quite this quickly, but I’m certainly not complaining. He had the potential to be a far more by the numbers figure than he actually is, and I definitely appreciate Hasbro not just phoning it in here. Now we’re officially at the half way point on Zeo, and I’m honestly pretty excited about that.

#2477: Zeo Gold Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Gold Ranger, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo July 27, 2020

ZEO GOLD RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

ZEEEEEEEEOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLD!!!!! OH YEAH!!! …ya know?

I began my last Zeo Gold Ranger review with a note that I don’t review many Power Rangers here, a statement that has become patently untrue, so I guess I can’t very fairly repeat it. However, if I *didn’t* review many Power Rangers around here, this guy would still probably make the cut. Why is that? Because he’s the Zeo Gold Ranger, and the Zeo Gold Ranger is the best damn Power Ranger there is. And I will fight you on that. Okay, I probably won’t. It’s okay if you don’t agree. I’m gonna be sad, and that means you made me sad on my birthday, but I guess we’ll all learn to live with it. I can learn to forgive. Where was I? Yes, the Gold Ranger review. Excellent.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zeo Gold is part of Series 5 of Hasbro’s Power Rangers: The Lightning Collection, following Zeo Blue’s debuting the show’s coverage in Series 4. But, as I noted in the review of that figure, Zeo Gold was technically the debut figure, thanks to an early release last summer as part of an SDCC two-pack last year. At their core the two releases are the same, but there are some differences when it comes to accessories, which I’ll touch on when I get to that section of the review. This actually marks the third Gold Ranger in the line, after the Beast Morphers and Dino Charge versions, for those keeping track of such things. The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation. A number of Zeo Gold’s parts are shared with Zeo Blue, but he still gets a new set of arms, lower legs, head, and armor, which keeps him looking *fairly* unique when compared to Blue. It’s a solid selection of the parts for him, and does a really nice job of capturing the suit as seen in the show. The torso armor is a little more floaty than I might have liked, especially when compared to the White and Green Rangers. It’s not terrible, and the floating is preferably to being totally fixed when it comes to posability. It’s a really nicely sculpted piece, though, and it and the helmet are definitely the coolest parts here. On the helmet, I especially like the raised kanji element, as the Bandai figures usually didn’t have quite as nicely pronounced. It looks really sharp here. The paint work is overall pretty solid on this guy. The helmet’s definitely the best, with the sharpness again really coming though, but I also really like the accenting on the chest piece. There’s a touch of inconsistent coverage on the upper sections of the knees, but beyond that, it’s pretty good. Now, for the change-ups from the SDCC release, the accessories. The biggest shift is the unmasked head, because while the SDCC figure was Jason, this release is Trey of Trifecta, and gets the corresponding unmasked head. It’s just the one Trey head, and it definitely would have been cool to get all three triplets, but only one of them actually wore the suit at a time, so I guess this is fine. I totally don’t need three of him. That would be silly. It’s worth noting that the Jason head that went with Jason in the SDCC set actually got packed with the standard Mighty Morphin’ Red in Series 3, meaning it’s pretty easy to make him Jason on your own. No matter who you prefer to have in the suit, Zeo Gold gets two sets of hands in gripping and fists, as well as a yellow effects piece (both of which were the same on the SDCC version), and his Staff of Gold, which is in a slightly different configuration than the two versions included in the SDCC set.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As noted in the intro, Zeo Gold’s my favorite Ranger, so when be was initially released in the SDCC set, I was a little bummed, but figured a single-release was inevitable. It was quite a wait (with two other Gold Rangers taunting me in the meantime), but he finally showed up, and boy was I excited to see him in the line-up, and he was the first figure I tore into once I got the set in-hand. I was happy with the Legacy Collection Gold when he was released, but he’s not held up, and I was definitely glad for this upgrade. He’s really awesome, and I’m so happy to have him. ZEO GOLD!

#2449: Zeo Blue Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with All Time Toys, Blue Ranger, Hasbro, Lightning Collection, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, Rocky Desantos June 29, 2020

ZEO BLUE RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

When it originally started over in the States, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers was adapting footage from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. That was all well and good for the first season, since there was a whole season of equivalent footage to use. However, when Season 2 came along, Saban opted not to adapt the follow-up, Dairanger, quite as directly, largely due to wanting to keep the Rangers with a consistent look for US audiences. By the next season, Kakuranger, they came up with a story relevant reason for the new looks (being tied to the Alien Rangers, who replaced the de-aged Rangers). When it came time for the next follow-up, they had thoroughly exhausted any and all Zyuranger footage, and even burned through the extra footage they’d commissioned, so for their fourth season, they gave up the ghost and decided to fully revamp the show for Power Rangers Zeo, which adapted the 19th Super Sentai series, Chouriki Sentai Ohranger. Zeo is finally making its way into Hasbro’s Lightning Collection line proper, kicking things off with Rocky Desantos, the Blue Zeo Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Zeo Blue is one of the four figures in Series 4 of The Lightning Collection. Technically, he’s the second Zeo figure in the line, if you count the SDCC Zeo Gold from last year, but he’s the first at standard retail (a proper retail release of the Gold Ranger will be joining him in Series 5). He’s also our second Blue Ranger in the line. I’m always a fan of getting more Blue Rangers! The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation. A surprising amount of this figure’s sculpt is new, if you can believe it. I mean, I’m certain that, like, 90% of it’s going to get re-used for the other two male Zeo Rangers, but given how few new parts there were on Galaxy Red. I was expecting to see a touch more re-use here. As it stands, it looks like it’s just the upper arms, hands, and feet are shared with prior figures. Everything else is new, and looks pretty spot-on to the show design. As usual, the helmet’s really where the best work shows up, but I must admit, I was quite impressed by how ornate the detailing on the gold sections of the costume was. It really gives the sculpt that extra pop, that I kinda felt was missing from, say, Galaxy Red. The paintwork on my Zeo Blue is pretty decent, but as with prior entries in this line, I had to check against a few different versions to check for the best paint. As a whole, though, it does look like this assortment has less issues than prior releases. Zeo Blue is packed with two sets of hands (in fists and gripping), his pod sword (with an energy effect), laser pistol, and an unmasked Rocky head. While I’d love to see a little more variety in the weapon configurations, such as a collapsed version of the pod sword, or even a combined advanced Zeo Laser, this is a decent basic layout. I’m still definitely a fan of getting the unmasked heads, and Rocky’s is sporting a pretty decent likeness as well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve discussed previously how In Space is “my Power Rangers”, but Zeo‘s kind of the one that actually got me into it, and was the show I had the most toys from. Zeo Blue was actually my second Power Ranger, and I at the time still believed it was Billy under the helmet, before then erroneously believing it was Jason, because I knew it was the “former Red Ranger” and my mind hadn’t quite wrapped its head around Rocky as a character. I was actually pretty happy to see him show up as the first regular retail Zeo release, so he was a day one figure for me. I’m very happy with the final product, and look forward to getting the rest of the team in this style, hopefully sooner than later.

#1555: Gold Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with Bandai, Gold Ranger, Legacy, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo January 24, 2018

GOLD RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LEGACY (BANDAI)

I don’t review many Power Rangers figures on this site. And when I do, they’re pretty much always from the Mighty Morphin’ incarnation of the show. It’s amusing, because, while I certainly have an appreciation for MMPR, since it’s the original and all, I only caught it fleetingly in its original run. I’ve touched on this somewhat in past reviews. Power Rangers in Space is actually the first Rangers show I got actively invested in, but the first incarnation I owned any toys from was Zeo, Mighty Morphin’s follow-up series. My favorite Ranger design of all-time is definitely Zeo’s sixth member, the Gold Ranger, who I’ll be taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Gold Ranger was released in Series 4 of Bandai’s Power Rangers: Legacy line. He’s one of the three Zeo-based figures in this series, alongside the Green and Yellow Rangers (the other two figures are the Blue and Red Rangers from Dino Thunder). The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation. That’s slightly less posability than the Red Space Ranger, but the missing joints were mostly redundant on that figure and ended up adding a bit of extra work to pose him so that none of his extremities were oddly twisted. With this figure, he’s definitely less contorted looking right out of the box. That being said, I do feel it’s important to note that this guy does *not* have mid-forearm cut joints like the last figure. I gave one of them a small twist on my figure and the glue holding his wrist in place came undone, which was a pain to fix. The Gold Ranger’s sculpt uses the same basic starting point as the Red Space Ranger, so he has the same exaggerated, superhero build the Bandai America likes to give to their Rangers, for better or for worse. He also has the same wonky shoulders that I wasn’t super crazy about, but fortunately those shoulders are mostly covered by his chest plate, so the issue is lessened. In general, the new armor additions really help this figure out, since they cover a lot of Bandai’s usual sins on these figures, and in general help to keep him looking far more in line with his onscreen counterpart. The armor pieces also off Bandai the chance to add a little bit more intricate detailing to the figure, thus keeping him from being quite as simplistic and bland as some of their other sculpts. I also quite like his head sculpt, which does a great job of capturing the show’s design, and manages not to look too small in comparison to the rest of the body. The paint on the Gold Ranger is the source of some controversy. The prototype and all promotional shots of the figure showed him with armor that was actually gold, matching up with the show depiction. When he arrived on retail shelves, his armor was more of a orangey yellow, with only the slightest metallic twinge to it, which has upset a lot of fans. I can understand the complaint, and I’d probably be happier with the figure if he were in the proper colors, but I don’t find myself all that upset with the final product. As it stands, I think the color’s close enough to work, and his overall appearance hasn’t been altered all that much. I suppose it might bug me more if I had the Green or White Rangers, both of whom have a different shade of gold, but just on his own, I think this guy looks fine. As a sixth ranger figure, the Gold Ranger doesn’t include a piece of his team’s Megazord, but he does include his Staff of Gold, which is pretty cool.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy’s really the whole reason I got into the Legacy line in the first place. I’ve wanted a Figuarts version of him since I got the Mighty Morphin’ team, but the odds of that getting made are kind of slim at this point. So, when this guy was shown off, I was pretty pumped. It took him a little while to get here, but I can’t begin to describe the excitement when I found him. He’s got his flaws, but I’m overall very happy with this figure!