Just when you think you have nostalgia figured out...
Okay, I'll admit that I used to watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A lot. There are many passions from my childhood whose candle burns as brightly today as it did when I saw six, but the Power Rangers? Melted wax, I thought. I never hated the Power Rangers, mind you, but after I turned twelve or so I never really had any desire to re-watch it. I considered myself Ranger-free.
Then, a few days back, I found out that Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger--the Japanese series whose basic premise and footage were recycled to create the first season of Power Rangers--was getting an official, English-subtitled DVD release, courtesy of Shout! Factory. By the end of the day, I was on Amazon, pre-ordering a copy and paying far more than I'd like to admit in the process. I'm not a Sentai enthusiast, or even a Tokusatsu enthusiast, and under normal circumstances I probably would have picked something more important, like Ultraman or Kamen Rider, as my gateway Tokusatsu series.
But I grew up on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and even though I then grew out of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, that didn't stop me from spending the last few days thinking about how much I want to see the Pudgy Pig again.
Super Sentai is not Power Rangers. I know that. But I'm not going to lie--part of the reason I want to watch Sentai Zyuranger is the fun of seeing familiar characters or footage in a different story and universe, possibly in ways that will completely change how I remember the original. I mean, what was really going on?
Almost two decades after I stopped watching the Power Rangers, two decades of thinking about the Power Rangers only intermittently, two decades of trying to remember why I watched the Power Rangers in the first place, and now I'm anxiously awaiting a DVD for a TV series that I have never watched just because it's related to the Power Rangers.
Well played, nostalgia. Well played.
