Tag Archives: Yellow Ranger

#3097: Zeo Yellow Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

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.

#2587: Psycho Rangers

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

IN SPACE PSYCHO RED, BLUE, BLACK, YELLOW, & PINK RANGERS

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

Remember yesterday, when I was talking about Power Rangers In Space, and how it’s my jam, man?  Well, that continues to be the case.  While the main team of Rangers from the show is just now starting to make their way into Hasbro’s Lightning Collection, we do already have one complete team of Rangers from the show, specifically the Psycho Rangers.  These evil counterparts of the main team were notably absent from the show’s tie-in toys at the time.  They eventually surfaced in Bandai’s Legacy Collection, but the line was cancelled before the whole team could be completed.  The Lightning Collection initially started out with seeming plans to release each Psycho Ranger individually, but then rather quickly threw in that towel and just dropped the whole darn team all at once.  So, uh, here we are.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The Psycho Rangers were released as an Amazon-exclusive boxed set, as part of the Lightning Collection line-up, hitting towards the end of the summer of this past year.  Black, Yellow, and Pink are exclusive to this set.  The Red and Blue Psycho included in this set are indistinguishable from the prior releases, reviewed here and here, though there is also an effects piece included for Red’s sword, albeit one re-used from elsewhere in the line.

PSYCHO BLACK RANGER

Psycho Black was fortunate enough to be one of the ones Bandai got to, by virtue of being largely a parts re-use of the other male Psychos.  Hasbro’s version sticks with that, rather unsurprisingly.  He’s still 6 inches tall and he still has 34 points of articulation.  The articulation on this body, specifically the arms, is a bit on the limited side, but otherwise, I do really like this sculpt, and I certainly don’t have any issues with its re-use here.  Obviously, he swaps out the paint scheme, with the primary color accents of the least two being changed to black here.  I do appreciate that they kept the shinier finish to the accented parts, thereby keeping those parts from getting too lost in with the rest of the black on the costume.  Psycho Black is packed with his Psycho Rod, and two sets of hands in gripping and a fist/electrical effect combo pairing.  I’m bummed that he didn’t get an effects piece for his weapon, but it’s worth noting that his effect hand is actually a unique sculpt from the other two male Psychos.

PSYCHO YELLOW RANGER

Absent from Bandai’s attempt at the Psychos were both female members of the team, Psycho Yellow included.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 34 points of articulation.  The articulation here is pretty similar to the male body, with the slight limitations on the shoulders and all.  The double elbows are swapped out for the universal joints, as is usually the case for female bodies, but no major posability is lost.  On my copy of this figure, there are a lot more loose joints, notably in the arms and the neck.  This means she struggles a bit with holding a pose and staying standing, but fortunately not as bad as some figures, but it’s still annoying.  While Black was a total re-use, Yellow, being female and all, is mostly new, apart from the helmet, which is identical for all of the Psychos.  The sculpt matches up well with the other version, and it means she slots in beside the other three team members just fine.  The paint on Yellow pretty much matches up with everyone else, with the accents changing to Yellow, of course.  Yellow is packed with the two sets of hands to match the male body’s and her Psycho Sling.  Again, no effects piece, which is a shame.

PSYCHO PINK RANGER

See what I wrote above, about Psycho Yellow?  Great, you can pretty much just swap the word “Pink” in there and you’re good to go.  Okay, maybe not quite, I guess.  The joints on my copy of Pink are a little tighter than on Yellow, so that makes her a slightly more easily used figure.  At the very least less frustrating.  Paint’s more or less the same, color change aside.  She gets the same hand selection as Yellow, plus her Psycho Bow.  Also, somewhat astoundingly, she gets an effects piece, the firing arrow that MMPR Pink and Ranger Slayer got.  I guess that’s not too bad.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As cool as the Psychos are, and as much of a fan of In Space as I am, I will admit that I was kind of cold on this set.  I was all prepped for picking them up one by one, and that’s why I’d gone and gotten Red and Blue.  I was waiting for the other three, so when they decided to drop the whole set of them all at once, it sort of felt anti-climactic.  Not helping things was the fact that Red and Blue are included again and are also completely unchanged for this round, meaning I was only actually getting three new figures in a set of five.  And, of course, one of those three new ones is a straight repaint, and the other two are the same mold as well.  It’s just a lot of sameness all in one go, I guess.  So, I opted not to jump right in on this set.  Max, on the other hand, did, but upon receiving them, was iffy on keeping them.  Since I’m a big In Space fan, and I did want to get them eventually, I was happy to take them off his hands.  Ultimately, the set’s fine.  Nothing amazing, and I still think spacing them out would have been better, but I’m glad I have them.  Now, I need to figure out what to do with the extra Red and Blue, I guess…

#2586: In Space Yellow Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

IN SPACE YELLOW RANGER

POWER RANGERS: LIGHTNING COLLECTION (HASBRO)

It’s not much of a secret around these parts that, when it comes to Power Rangers, Power Rangers In Space is kind of my jam, man.  I’ve been eagerly waiting for a solid plastic version of the team pretty much since the ’90s, if I’m honest.  Hasbro’s been trying to introduce at least one new Rangers line-up with each series of Lightning Collection, and they’ve finally come around to the inclusion of the Space Rangers.  As has become a trend for a lot of the line-ups, they aren’t starting with the Red Ranger (classically the obvious choice); instead, they’re going with Ashley Hammond, the Yellow Space Ranger, who I’m taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Space Yellow is another piece of Series 6 of the Lightning Collection line-up.  As I touched on in the intro, she’s our first Space Ranger in the line (though not our first character from In Space, since we already got the whole Psycho Ranger line-up).  She’ll be joined shortly by Andros, who’s coming in a two-pack later this year.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 30 points of articulation.  Unlike the prior female Ranger I looked at, the articulation on Space Yellow is a bit closer to her male counterparts, and subsequently gives her a slightly easier time of standing.  I’m definitely okay with that.  Ashley is sporting an all-new sculpt, based on her show appearance.  Presumably, it will be more or less entirely shared with Cassie when they get around to her.  They won’t even have to change the skirt piece, since Cassie’s one of the handful of times that the original Japanese counterpart of the Yellow Ranger was also female.  The sculpt’s a pretty strong offering.  It’s appropriately sleek and clean, just as the Space Ranger outfits are supposed to be.  I particularly like how well the helmet’s turned out.  I felt the MMPR helmets ended up looking a touch off for this line, but the Space helmet looks spot on.  The paint work on this figure is pretty clean, and the application’s nice and sharp.  There’s minimal slop or bleed over, and as with Zeo Red, the figures are definitely better across the board in terms of paint consistency this time around.  In terms of accessories, Ashley keeps up with the slightly better standard we saw with Zeo Red.  She’s got two sets of hands (in gripping and a fist/flat combo), her Astro Blaster, Star Slinger, effects piece for the Slinger, and an unmasked head.  Again, I’m glad to see her get her Ranger-specific weapon here, and I like how well the hands work with the Slinger.  The unmasked head is…kind of rough.  It’s definitely not one of the better ones from this line, and it ends up making Tracy Lynn Cruz look a good deal older than she did on the show.  Still, it’s better than nothing, I suppose.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Back in 2014, when I got the Figuarts version of the MMPR team, I was hoping for the chance to get the Space team in a similar quality.  When the Legacy Collection did the team, I gave it a try, but I just wasn’t impressed enough to spend the time trying to get the whole line-up.  I’ve been patiently waiting for the team to turn up in Hasbro’s line, and I was thrilled when Ashley was announced.  She’s another strong entry in the line, and I look forward to getting the rest of the team.

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.

#0291: Yellow Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

YELLOW RANGER

SH FIGUARTS

YellowRanger1

The Birthday reviews are officially over, so now it’s more or less business as usual. Still, I may be referencing some related things for a little while, just so you’re all aware. One of my main gifts this year was a near complete set of Rangers from Bandai’s most recent take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Being me, I couldn’t let that set be near complete for long. That would be criminal! So, it’s the final piece, the Yellow Ranger! The Yellow Ranger is interesting, because it’s a girl here in the US, but a man in Japan. Through some creative cutting and a few reshoots, they were able to completely change the gender of the character. This does lead to one issue, however: when doing a line of Rangers who are being sold in Japan first but will also be doing a large portion of their sales in America, which version do you release? According to Bandai, both. Yep, the regular release that sees US distribution is the female version, but in Japan they also released an online exclusive male version. How about that? In case you’re wondering, mine’s the girl.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

YellowRangerWilsonThe Yellow Ranger was the seventh, and final, release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers sub-line of their larger S.H. Figuarts line. She was released just last month, not long after the Blue Ranger. The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and features 36 points of articulation. The figure’s sculpt borrows heavily from the Pink Ranger, which isn’t a huge shock. She’s been given a new pelvis piece to accurately represent her uniform’s lack of skirt, as well as a brand new head based on her signature Sabre Tooth Tiger helmet. She probably has one of the sharper helmet designs, and Bandai has managed to translate it pretty much perfectly, so that’s pretty cool. Like with the Pink Ranger, I find that the female body is less plagued by obvious elbow and knee joints than the male, so that’s a plus. The Yellow Ranger’s paint is pretty straight forward, no slop or bleed over. If you’ve seen any of the other Rangers, you’ve seen her. One plus is that the yellows all match better than the pinks on the Pink Ranger, a very definite improvement. The Yellow Ranger has a pretty decent selection of accessories, including a folded up Blade Blaster and a Thunder Slinger, same as the ones included with all the basic Rangers, plus her dual Power Daggers, and four pairs of hands: fists, open gesture, Blade Blaster grip, and Power Dagger grip. The Yellow Ranger also includes an extra Power Axe for use in assembling the Power Blaster, and, most importantly, the instructions for how to assemble the Power Blaster. It goes together without too much trouble, and each of the pieces looks accurate to the individual ones included with the Rangers, plus it’s a pretty key item from the show, so kudos to Bandai for adding in the extra pieces to build it!

YellowRanger2YellowRanger6YellowRanger3

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Yellow Ranger was not amongst the gifts I received for my birthday this year. She was only released a day or two before, and you have to draw the line somewhere, so I wasn’t the slightest bit offended. I ended up getting a little bit of money from my Grandmother, so I put that towards completing my Rangers, which makes the Yellow Ranger sort of a pseudo Birthday gift, I suppose. She’s a pretty great figure and she’s in line with the rest of them, which is really great. Plus, she finishes off the team, which just makes the whole set that much cooler!

YellowRanger4