I don't regularly do these kinds of posts, so I'm going to make this an exception!
If you haven't been watching season 2 of Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger which is known as Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger: Season 2 (非公認戦隊アキバレンジャー シーズン痛(ツー), then you are really missing out on what is looking to be another very great season! Just like the first season of Akibaranger, season 2 is geared towards more mature audiences for fans of the Super Sentai Series who used to watch it as kids.
I'm not going to give too much away, but season 2 takes place in an alternate world where certain things that happened in the first season didn't happen and the original Akiba Blue, Mitsuki Aoyagi was chosen to go to America to work for the Pentagon instead of Nobuo. In the previous episodes, we have had Kiba Ranger and Ryu Ranger from Gosei Sentai Dairanger make guest appearances as well as Mitsuko Horie, Yuko Yamagata, and even Koichi Sakamoto who is best known for his work as a fight coordinator and director for various shows in both the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai Series as well as various shows in the Power Rangers franchise!
Anyways, on to the reason that I decided to make this latest blog post. There will be some minor spoilers for those of you who haven't watched episode 5 of Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger: Season 2, so if you don't want to be spoiled, you might want to skip ahead. I'm also not going to spoil the entire episode either so please keep that in mind! (SPOILER WARNING!!!!)
Luna Iwashimizu, the new Akiba Blue who replaced Mitsuki Aoyagi saw George Spielburton (A combination of the directors George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton) playing with some Zyuranger figurines and Nobuo Akagi finds out that somehow, Super Sentai's history was changed to being from the United States instead of Japan under the name Powerful Rangers. Dragon Ranger and Tyranno Ranger, now known as Green Powerful Ranger and Red Powerful Ranger attacks the Akibarangers and eventually had to retreat.
Back at the Sentai Cafe which is the Akibarangers headquarters, Kozukozu informs everyone else that somehow reality had been written that Powerful Rangers is the source of the Super Sentai Series instead of it being the other way around with Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger being the first entry which was made from it's American version without permission! (End of spoilers!)
This episode to me played off of the whole "Power Rangers vs. Super Sentai" situation which has been going on within both fandoms in a very comedic and great way. I can understand why the Power Rangers brand name wasn't used again to an extent even though it was used by Ryuji Sainei who made a brief cameo appearance in episode 2 of season 1 of Akibaranger since he voiced Jack Landors, his Power Rangers counterpart in the Japanese dub of Power Rangers SPD. But for the long time fans of Power Rangers that have next to no knowledge of the Super Sentai Series at all whatsoever, they will get quite a few laughs!
It was very strange and weird seeing those things reversed, but it was also funny that Powerful Green Ranger and Powerful Red Ranger as well as the Akibarangers acted exactly just how Power Rangers fans and Super Sentai purists act whenever they get into one of their many debates over "which one is better" and captured that very well in my opinion.
For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, the term Super Sentai purist basically means that the person believes Super Sentai to be better than Power Rangers and that Power Rangers is inferior to the Super Sentai Series or vice versa. Power Rangers purists are pretty much the same way except that their love for Power Rangers does tend to make them closed minded which happens among people in the fandom, but not all Power Rangers fans are like that though however.
I like both Power Rangers and the Super Sentai Series and just don't understand why we can't all get along and learn to like both! Anyways, I promise to try and keep this blog updated regularly even though E3 is right around the corner. So if I don't update the blog right away, don't worry about it since I do have a tendency to get sidetracked. I might not be able to post about everything that happened at E3 this year, but I'll certainly do my best! May the power protect you, always!
