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The true Power Rangers are coming to the West for the first time ever

If you were a child of the 90's, looking at the picture above will probably elicit the response of 'Yeah, Power Rangers!' - but you're only kinda-sorta right. These are really the Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger, and they're making their way to the west for the very first time.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger was the 16th Super Sentai show in Japan - you can read more about the genre's development, and Marvel's role in it, here - but American audiences will recognise them as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

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Zyuranger was made in 1992, when Saban and Toei brought the idea over to the west they decided to use the Giant Robot and combat sequences from Zyuranger as the basis for a new western adaptation. The original Sentai - Legendary human warriors from a time when Dinosaurs and Humanity lived in harmony (hence the Dino-themed Zords), who were awoken from suspended animation to fight the evil Rita Repulsa Bandora - were replaced by the American 'teenagers with attitude' we came to know and love, but aside from that, MMPR's first series featured scenes and combat sequences from all 50 episodes of Zyuranger spliced in. So while MMPR fans are familiar with the series in a certain way, they've never had the chance to see the original show as it was intended, until now.

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Shout Factory will be putting out the complete series on DVD, although there's no current release date revealed there is this box art that they revealed on their Tumblr, depicting the original heroes Geki, Goushi, Dan, Boi and Mei as well as their more familiar appearances in their Sentai suits. The box art seems to imply that they'll be bringing more Super Sentai series to the west, but I guess it makes sense to kick it all off with the series that truly introduced the concept to mainstream US audiences.

It might be the Nostalgia talking, but we might have got the better opening song. Or at least, the most nineties one.

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[Comics Alliance]


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