The Nerd Fortress Mini Episode #1

The Nerd Fortress Podcast by Supersentaifan1983 on Mixcloud

This was supposed to be originally about the 20th anniversary of Power Rangers, but unfortunately, there were a couple of technical difficulties so the entire thing wasn't recorded. Good news is that we at least talked about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers Zeo, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie.  Unfortunately, Skype ended up crashing and the MP3 Skype Recorder only got over the first hour, so I decided to make this a mini episode with what was already recorded instead.

Anyways, next week will be the first official episode without any technical issues hopefully so please keep you're eyes glued to this blog for when it will be uploaded onto my Soundcloud page! And please feel free to download the mini episode to hear how the podcast has improved!

The 20th anniversary of Power Rangers

Today marks the 20th anniversary of when the Power Rangers franchise first began! Back on this day on Saturday, August 28th of 1993 on the Fox Kids Network here in North America with the premiere of "Day of The Dumpster". This was way before the internet as we know it came into existence so we didn't have any idea back then that it was being adapted from the 16th entry in the Super Sentai Series, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, but it was something ahead of it's time that had never been done before which really took the American audiences by surprise.

Teenagers that could also be superheroes and know martial arts was an idea that had never been done before which I think that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers resonated with so many kids back then! And adapting a Japanese show for an American audience was also something that was brand new that had never been done before. Haim Saban was taking a huge gamble and risk when finally getting Power Rangers to come to fruition, and luckily for him and the rest of Saban Entertainment it ended up paying off!

As with all shows from the 80s like Transformers, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers has become a very successful franchise because of the merchandise and in my opinion, I think it's the merchandise that helped Power Rangers stay afloat and alive during it's darkest times during the Disney era of the franchise and during the run of Power Rangers Turbo. Here we are, 20 years later, and the franchise is still a huge success because of merchandising alone as well as the fact that Saban Brands has decided to take advantage of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube to help promote the most recent incarnation of the franchise, Power Rangers Megaforce and it's previous entry Power Rangers Samurai as well as the previous seasons which are now available on Netflix's "Watch Instantly" streaming service and are being released on DVD which is something that Disney never did back when they owned the franchise!

And whether you like it or not, the Power Rangers franchise has become a intricate part of tokusatsu history. This was proven when Toei Company Limited, the owners and producers of the Super Sentai Series as well as co-creators of the Power Rangers franchise used some terms from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Power Rangers in general in the previous entry in the Super Sentai Series, Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers became so successful, that it was even parodied and referenced on shows and video games like American Dad, Animaniacs, Bakugan, Bill Nye: The Science Guy, Doctor Who, Dragon Ball Z, the Suda 51 video game Killer 7, Mega Man Battle Network 3, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers, the Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon franchises, etc. 

Happy 20th anniversary Rangers, and hopefully here's to another 20 more! Sorry for this blog entry not being as focused as my previous blog entries, my mind has been all over the place during the time I was typing this blog entry out so I hope you can forgive me.

"Go Go Powerful Rangers" What the...? and updates

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! 

Power Rangers 20th Anniversary!

It's almost been 20 years since the Power Rangers franchise began which is very hard to believe!

I know, I know, the official anniversary isn't until August 28th of 2013 but still. Now, for those of you who may or may not know, I've had this idea brewing in my head to have a special edition of the Nerd Fortress podcast celebrating the 20th anniversary of the franchise here in America.

And this is also going to be a good way to try and come back to the world of podcasting I feel!

Granted, I'm going to need to find a way to learn some audio stuff between now and August 28th, but this has been something that I've had planned ever since the original inception of the podcast. (No pun or relation to the movie intended)

I might get some other people to join in for this as well so it won't be just myself and my new co-host Devin which I feel would definitely work out a lot better. I'll try and talk to some people and see what happens but I'm not promising anything. But I'd really like to get some other people for this very momentous occasion. If I don't get anybody else on board, at least I can say that I tried!

Nothing is really set in stone as of yet so this gives me plenty of time to brainstorm and what not! And if anything does end up happening, I want it to be a surprise to everybody. That means I'm not going to be letting any type of information out into the open at all whatsoever, so you will have to wait and find out!

But for now I'll leave you with this, the 2nd intro for season 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that was used from the finale of the "Green With Evil" mini-series up until the start of season 2! "May the power protect you!"