Coming Soon: Shuriken Sentai Ninninger (2015)

The timely preview of next year's Super Sentai team.

Returning to the Ninja motif after 13 years (last series being Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger in 2002), the new Ninninger team adopts a new color scheme with both White and Pink as regular members.

With the catchphrase "Shinobi, but not hidden", Ninninger promises a flashier Ninja series compared to previous works.

Toy collectors can look forward to collecting shurikens which will be the main toy gimmick of the series. Interestingly, the main Mecha appears to be a mash of various themes combining humanoids, animals and vehicles together.

The Ugliest Sentai Mecha Yet...

Turns out that ToQ-Oh is not the worst as far as Sentai Mecha design is concerned, and I'm not only comparing within the same series.

While the Candy Toy version made up slightly for its increased points of articulation, the DX version of Diesel-Oh is not only blocky but really uninspired with its awkward proportions. Not to mention that it looks particularly bad when viewed from the side; the entire structure is too flat which explains why the box art features a front view of the mecha.

I don't think I would want to keep it in the combined form for long, but until the Hyper Ressha Tei-Oh is released, Diesel-Oh is officially the ugliest Sentai Mecha in ToQGer and Super Sentai in my opinion.

Horrors of High Definition TV!

Especially so for actors and actresses alike.

Creepy ToQ-Oh!

Episode 3 of ToQGer proudly presents: ToQ-Oh with a special ability.

Granted that the Super Sentai series are quite liberal in sexual humour, this is definitely a first for a Mecha.

Coming Soon: Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger (2014)

Once again, the time of the year has arrived for the preview of the upcoming Super Sentai team next year.

Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger is based on the (again obvious) train motif which utilises the trains themselves as the main series gimmick. This indirectly implies that Bandai is one up in the game once more; mecha collectors will also need to purchase the battle gear and weapons to collect the trains packaged together. Way to go!

Yellow returns to the core team to join Red, Blue, Green and Pink and the use of white gloves and boots.

Trains have been an integral part of their daily lives and hence is likely to be popular with Japanese kids and collectors alike.

Stopping At Go-Busters...

Bandai has just announced the new exclusive pack for Kyoryu-Blue and Kyoryu-Green to be released in Feb 2014. Meanwhile, Kyoryu-Red will be a regular release (as with all Red Rangers) and dropping in Oct 2013.

At the same time, I took the opportunity to make a conscious decision not to pre-order the upcoming Kyoryuger S.H. Figuarts because I think this is a good time to demarcate my collection for now. Having said that, I will still continue to collect new releases from previous Super Sentai series.

While space constraint is one of the considerations, Kyoryuger has largely been disappointing and boring up to the current extent though I cannot say the same for the kids in Japan. I simply do not know what is the actual popularity domestically.

At least from my observation, I'm pretty sure that both the Super Sentai and Kamen Rider franchises are pretty much exhausted in various aspects. As such, the appeal of the characters were pretty close to zero at this point (for collectors at least). I will probably elaborate this in another post if I have time.

Coming Soon: Jyuden Sentai Kyouryuger (2013)

It's this time of the year again where we have the preview of next year's Super Sentai team.

Jyuden Sentai Kyouryuger is based on the (obvious) dino motif and utilises batteries as the main series gimmick.

Interestingly, Yellow will not be featured as a regular team member color this time despite the long lasting tradition after Red and Blue.

According to a Bandai representative, this series will be more fun and much lighter in contrast to the darker story-line for Go-Busters which resulted in poor toy sales.