Tokusou sentai Dekarenjâ

I'll admit, having watched Power Rangers for a long time and not realizing its' Japanese origins, I was slightly curious to find out exactly why the two were compared and the fans split into the infamous "PR Snobs" and "Sentai Snobs". I chose Dekaranger as my first Sentai show to watch since I was very familiar with the americanized version and I thought I would be able to look at it better that way...

I was simple blown away.

Dekaranger has EVERYTHING! It's funny, sweet, has lots of action, drama. No two episodes were exactly alike and it was nowhere as cheesy as it's Americanized counterpart. While Power Rangers used a lot of the same story lines I found myself enjoying the Dekarangers characters more. While I couldn't bring myself to like Jack of PR, I LOVED Ban...and all of the team.

While I still like Power Rangers, Dekaranger is MUCH MUCH better and more fun to watch and I strongly recommend it, especially if you are not a normal fan of Sentai. After this show, you will fall in love with it.

I'm not much of a fan of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger, although, I can see why other people would feel more invested in watching this show.

But, I will say this. At least the ranger suits and the SPD uniforms look nice. The music is actually pretty good, loved the movies, "Full-Blast Action" and "Dekaranger: 10 Years After!" and I'm hoping to see what the team-up movie, "Space Sheriff Gavan vs. Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger" has in store for us.

Now for the characters.... The only characters that I do like the most are Senichi "Sen-chan" Enari, Tekkan "Tetsu" Aira and Doggie Kruger. But, unfortunately, I can't really say any nice things to say about the character of Swan Shiratori (Deka Swan) and here's why....she's a freakin' stereotypical damsel-in-distress. Aka, the "Nell Fenwick from Dudley Do-Right" of this show, and I honestly do not give a damn about this character at all. Everyone else....they're okay. Just not that spectacular, in my opinion.

Favorite episodes: -Episode 31: Princess Training -Episode 32: Discipline March -Episode 33: SWAT Mode On -Episode 37: Hard Boiled License -Episode 38: Cycling Bomb -Episode 40: Gold Badge Education -Episode 41: Trick Room

Overall, I thought was an enjoyable show, but not something that I would want to add to my personal collection of sentai shows. But, the movie, "Full-Blast Action" and "Dekaranger: 10 Years After!" are the best ones.

8 out of 10.

"Dekaranger" is the 2004 entry in Japan's long-running series of "sentai" action-adventure programs highlighting the exploits of various teams of "Rangers" in color-coded costumes. I watched four episodes of "Dekaranger" after watching the season opener for "Power Rangers S. P. D.," the American counterpart of "Dekaranger." Interestingly, the characters in "S. P. D." are considerably older than their Japanese equivalents, who all seem quite young. Dekaranger's Pink Ranger is quite short (under five feet) and looks and behaves as if she was 14 or 15, while the others all have a late-teen vibe about them. (The ages given for their characters on one website are considerably older than they look and behave.) They squabble amongst themselves, much more than usual for a sentai team, which makes them a little different and, in fact, a little refreshing. It helps that Pink Ranger, Umeko (played by Mika Kikuchi), is so darned cute and perky, and that Yellow Ranger, Jasmine (played by Ayumi Kinoshita), is so pretty. Green Ranger is the quiet, serious no-nonsense one, Red Ranger is the wild, irresponsible, individualistic one and Blue Ranger is the one who fights with Red Ranger the most. (This relationship is echoed in "S. P. D.")

There's a lot of good action in the episodes I watched, including lots of battles with aliens and robot henchmen. There's a rousing Zord battle reminiscent of the Zord action in "Go Go Five" (also reviewed on this site) and its U. S. counterpart, "Lightspeed Rescue," and several good martial arts battles and stunts. There's a clever bit in ep. 4 where an alien opponent sends the combatants teleporting all over Tokyo, so Red and Blue Rangers find themselves fighting the alien in an empty speeding commuter train one minute and then on the back of a truck immediately thereafter. What I've always liked about sentai series is the frequency of on-location battles as characters in outlandish costumes go at each other in dramatic locales and sprawling public spaces. It gives a sense of believability and immediacy to the otherwise preposterous (but highly enjoyable) goings-on.

Ever since Disney got the rights to Power Rangers they forgot the art of storytelling let alone adaptation. This is where the original came from in SPD. Great vast number of individual characters. Ban the fireball, Hoji the professional, Sen-chan the thinker, Jasmin the calm ESPer, and Umeko the perky one. They are later joined by Tetsu the one with the gold badge. The story are well done. They have their fare share of series and comedic episodes. The actors are way more into their characters when compared to their SPD counterparts. It is a great series. If you like Power Rangers and saw SPD. You should not miss how it was rightfully done in Dekaranger.

Great casting, over the top action, and incredible sense of humor rounds up this very fine series that was made for kids, but has many adult fans.

In the near future, where space travel has become common, earth is faced with criminals from outer space. In order to deal with these criminals, Special Police Dekaranger (SPD) was formed.

There're more regular super heroes in this series, than other Sentai Series drama. There's the usual core five team members consisting of Deka Red (Ryuji Sainei), Deka Blue (Tsuyoshi Hayashi), Deka Green (Yosuke Ito), Deka Yellow (Ayumi Kinoshita), and Deka Pink (Mika Kikuchi). Add to this, the white colored Deka Break (Yuichi Yoshida), and Captain Doggie Kruger turned Deka Master (Tetsu Inada) that joins the battle, and Shratori Swan aka Deaka Swan (Mako Ishino) that takes care of gadgets Deka Rangers uses.

There's something different about this series from all the other Sentai Series. Production is far more elaborate, and more than few of the actors are A list or have gone on to become A list actors since this series. Action is bigger, and special effects that didn't rely too much on CG made the action look even wilder. This series also has one of the best props, and the best designed bad guys costume. None of the bad guys looks really evil. They look like wanna be scary guys, but instead looks kind of humorous. The humor is built into the costume, and you have to see it to appreciate how funny and awesome some of these characters looks.

This excellent series won the 2006 Japanese Nebula award in media division which was the first for Sentai Series drama, and third for sci-fi drama series after "Ultraman Tiga" and "Kamen Rider Kuga".

Fantastic sci-fi series that defies imagination in many ways. Highly recommended along with "Dekaranger The Movie" , and two other made for video specials co-starring Abaranger, and Magiranger.