History of Power Rangers Jungle Fury – Unofficial Companion Piece

Merry Christmas, one and all!…Okay, I don’t normally do this. I feel as though doing companion pieces to reviews is kinda stepping on the toes of the reviewer. However, something odd happened after watching today’s History of Power Rangers. For those uninitiated, History of Power Rangers is a show done by Atop The Fourth Wall host, Linkara, that talks about…well, the history of Power Rangers, season by season. It’s generally a broad overview of each season, keeping only the important details in. And, in that sense, today’s HOPR, which focused on Jungle Fury, did exactly that, and I really enjoyed it…With that said, for some weird reason, a lot of details to the show that I felt were overlooked kept popping up in my head. It was made worse when, after I was done watching, I brought up Netflix and decided to watch some episodes, and these details seemingly increased in number. Now, admittedly, a lot of this could be seen as pointless trivia, but I really like it. So, I thought I’d get it all out by compiling a list of details that either weren’t covered for whatever reason, or just helped explain them when they were. Obviously, though, you’ll wanna watch HOPR FIRST before reading this, in case you haven’t done so already. And I figure we might as well start off with the first thing we saw in the review…

#1 – The Strike Rider

While the Strike Rider IS shown in the beginning of the video, primarily so Lewis could make a snarky comment, there was one thing about it that I wish he’d talked about. See, up until now, every season since In Space had a Battlizer, an American-made powered-up form for the Red Ranger, usually in the form of some advanced armour. However, Jungle Fury doesn’t really have a traditional Battlizer. Instead, the Strike Rider, and the armour that comes with it, are often considered by many to be the Jungle Fury Battlizer. Now, not everybody is in agreement over that point, and anyone reading this is free to make their own call, but personally…yeah, in my opinion, it kinda is. It gives Casey an advanced form, it’s unique to him, and he’s even seen using it at times after the team gains access to Jungle Master Mode. It’s not really anything vital to go over, but I thought it still could’ve been brought up.

#2 – The Wolf Ranger Costume

Okay, I’m not gonna debate costume fashion sense here, but I think there’s a theme present in RJ’s morphed form that I think Linkara may have overlooked: He’s supposed to look like a Muay Thai kick-boxer. Even the Wolf Morpher itself has a little ring bell switch to it. Why? Because in his morphed fights, he’s constantly employing that style of martial art. Granted, I would’ve preferred if he used that style a bit more unmorphed, so it was more clear when the time came that the suit was made with that combat style in mind (having kick-pads and whatnot), so I suppose I can see where Lewis didn’t recognize that.

#3 – The Shark Sabers

Alright, admittedly, this is probably one of the lesser points to bring up, but I just find it kinda neat. If you watch the show (and if you don’t, I don’t know why you’re reading this), you probably noticed that the Shark Sabers look kinda…flimsy. In that, they’re VERY flimsy, resembling HORRIBLE props. However, and I admittedly only know this because I watched Gekiranger, where this point was actually specifically covered, that’s actually part of the design. Think of the blades like if the edges of rubber were sharp. They can bend and flop around, but they’ll still cut. This way, while swinging them around, anything that gets close to them is getting sliced, and they’re also harder to get around, making them every bit as good as defensive weapons as they are offensive. Again, kinda pointless trivia that only the most geeky of people would care about, but…well, what can I say? I excel at being a geek. lol

#4 – The Wolf Zord

Getting back to RJ for a sec, I thought I should bring up how his Wolf Zord works with the others. Basically, it replaces the Cheetah Zord as a new right leg for the Jungle Pride Megazord, and uses its bladed tail to improve kicking power. Again, RJ mostly uses kick-boxing in the field. However, the Wolf can’t combine with the Zords that form the Jungle Master Megazord (or, if it can, it was never shown to be able to in either Jungle Fury OR Gekiranger). Instead, when the others are piloting the Jungle Master Megazord, RJ can project copies of the Tiger and Jaguar Zords to form the Wolf Pride Megazord, which functions exactly like the Jungle Pride Megazord with Wolf Power, only usually piloted by RJ on his own. Although, one cool thing about having the two Megazords usually working together that they never fully took advantage of was the fact that the Elephant, Bat, or Shark Zords could each combine with one of the two, so they could power up even further, although that could require them splitting up between the Megazords, so not sure if that would work or not. Whatever, still cool to think about…at least more-so than the last thing I need to talk about…

#5 – The Pai Zhua Masters’ Spirit Forms

Okay, this one is actually more about confirming a suspicion Lewis had. Yeah, the spirit forms of the Pai Zhua Masters were from Gekiranger. In fact, it’s what their Sentai counterparts each looked like. I’d say that it makes more sense in the Sentai, and it does, but rather, I’ll instead just say that, after a while of watching, you kinda got used to them. HERE, however, I have NO idea why they used them. It’s not even a thing where they were used so that certain shots from the Sentai could be adapted either, since their appearance in Jungle Fury was ALL original footage. So…Yeah, I don’t know. lol

Anyway, that’s all I really wanna talk about. I hope that Lewis Lovhaug understands that I don’t necessarily want to step in on his show. It’s just…I dunno, I guess Jungle Fury, and Gekiranger for that matter, left a pretty big impact on me. As such, I’m gonna NEED to reel this in, because as anyone who knows me personally can tell you, I LOVE Power Rangers RPM and Engine Sentai Go-onger, which are next. Hopefully, I’ll keep a better thumb over my need to exposit more needless details and trivia. In the meantime, though, here’s one Ranger fanatic who can’t wait til March. Ja né, and Merry Christmas. 🙂