Well, seeing as how I was so coldly and bitterly left out of the emergency episode of DTR (and I mean that in the most loving way possible), I’m going to (ever so briefly) explain my thoughts on the… rather shocking (well not so much at this point), news about the upcoming RPM vs. Samurai team-up special. To be perfectly honest… I am cautiously optimistic, yet completely and utterly terrified. To those who know me well enough, I absolutely adore RPM (and have a healthy respect for Go-onger), but they are completely different atmospheres and the characters are polar opposites. You may ask, why do I bring this up? Because, to those of you who have been keeping up with ANY PR podcast (read: DTR), then you know that Samurai is a souless translation of a (generally) loved sentai, Shinkenger and that it’s not being well-recieved by fans. I bring this up because, the upcoming synopsis that was given for this team-up special is basically the plot of Shinkenger vs. Go-onger, with a tweak or two. Now this wouldn’t be much of a problem, buuuuut, as I said, the Go-ongers were completely different from the RPM rangers. So if this is a direct adaption (give or take a plot element or two), then the entire team would be out of character. Scott will be a hot-blooded (and hot-headed) racing-obsessed lunatic, Flynn would… honestly not much would change in terms of personality (footage or otherwise), Summer would be SMILEY SMILEY SMILEY! And butterflies and rainbows!, Ziggy would… eh, not much change either (the humor might suck, unless they get Tellegan or Lynn to write it).Dillion… I don’t want to think about and… oh dear… my poor sociopathic twins… they’ll be turned into a psuedo-incestous ‘grr, we’re serious’ duo… and I would cry to see this happen. Not to mention that absurdities that happen IN the team-up footage. Oh, and as Tom so tactifully pointed out, the Goseiger casting will be completed soon, so that brief in-suit cameo of the Goseiger can be utilized to their advantage, which is cool and all, but… we won’t see these guys in action for ANOTHER DAMN YEAR. Goseiger aired maybe a week or two after the team-up had been shown in theaters, so they were able to see them in action as a teaser till the show started. I mean, we probably won’t even see this special for sometime to come, but still… Regardless… with the current standard of writing and the general direction the show is going? This team-up, past the initial shock value, is in all likelihood going to have severe fan backlash once they actually see the damn thing, much like how Samurai was hyped, and now people are still indenial that it’s the best thing ever (I kind of like it… at least, VERY select episodes). I guess we’ll see what the future holds at some point, but until then, I’m going to be enjoying the other toku in the stream (Let’s Go, Let’s Gokaiger~ Heehee~!) And that’s pretty much it.

~With love,

Anthony