Ninja Steel

[akinoame]

I haven't posted my thoughts on Ninja Steel in a while. And with all of the stuff with the hurricanes, I never put into words what I thought about the recent revelation that Levi Westin was actually a mindwiped Aiden Romero.

So when I first saw "Aiden" appear in Ninja Steel, I was disappointed. There was no buildup, nothing. Plus, he was the whitest white boy Power Rangers had ever cast. At least Jordi Webber looked somewhat like William Shewfelt. So it was pretty obvious he couldn't be the real Aiden. As for the revelation itself...I still don't know how I feel? On the one hand, I'm glad that we did get what I said I wanted--Aiden became the Gold Ranger. Things built up to something. And Madame Odious indeed had gone after him and gotten him under her control somehow, which is important when you consider the complex relationship between Starninger and Kyuuemon. That needs to have some buildup on the Power Rangers side of things. But I question why she erased his memory of being Aiden in the first place? I mean, she literally could have just brainwashed him and USED his memories to her advantage, since we saw that Brody instantly took fake-Aiden's side over all logic which is a basic Red Ranger trait anyway and it could have led to some great tension among the Rangers. Odious could have done this. The Rangers instantly trust the Levi because he's the Gold Ranger and Brody's brother. He gives enough explanation as to what he's been doing since, explains that he recently escaped after Odious found him thanks to the Nexus Prism, and Brody is already naive enough to accept it at face value. Mick would have even less reason to be suspicious of him than he was of fake-Aiden. Odious could have had a much more effective saboteur and assassin, and she blew it. But whatever.

Levi's reasoning was...look, it makes sense for Ninninger. They are shinobi, but they don't hide--that's their motto. Their Gold was an orphaned demon hunter who fought with a star-shaped electric guitar/gunblade, morphed using a hamburger phone and a sheriff's badge, learned stilted Japanese from watching subbed j-dramas, and turned into a werewolf. Literally NO part of Kinji Takigawa was subtle. The idea of an orphaned son of the hero who split the Nexus Prism into six shuriken and sent them off into the world not even hiding out, but touring the world as a country singer? That would fit in perfectly with the Igasaki family, who are a hotblooded ninja, his clumsy sister who now wants to be an actress, a genius scientist, a frickin' WIZARD who may be sexually attracted to his lawnmower, and Nagi. But the Rangers are composed of...well, Nagi.

There's nothing specifically WRONG with Nagi, but he's very much the normal one. The guy who's there. He doesn't fit in with the other insane people in his family which would actually have made him much more compelling as Akaninger, not Kininger, but I digress, but in nearly any other series, he would have blended in perfectly. In Power Rangers Ninja Steel, he would be a well-rounded character. We still haven't built the Rangers very well beyond...well, Preston, Levi, and Brody in roughly that order. Which is a worse record than Ninninger, somehow. Where Nagi faded into background noise in Ninninger, you have Calvin, Hayley, and Sarah. And Mick. And Redbot. And most of the villains. I still have to be REMINDED of Gabi Raizou's name in Power Rangers--he has so little personality and overall impact that I constantly stop and go, "Wait, what monster was Ripcon? OH RIGHT, that's Gabi." Even the name doesn't leave much in the memory.

All of that finally brings me to "Ace and the Race." While I didn't remember the monster or much of the plot, I did remember Nagi, Takaharu, and Kinji participating in a three-legged race, and realizing that Nagi had everything it took to lead them to victory. When I sat there, wondering why they chose to adapt THAT episode out of all of them, I realized it was because it's one of the few Ninninger episodes that focused on Nagi and developed him. It proved he had what it took to be Last Ninja, even if it really didn't give him as much of a desire to win it--he'd looked at it as another certification dude, you were a high school student, wtf and then realized he wanted to beat Takaharu and his other cousins. But his compassion, optimism, and determination proved that quite honestly, he was the best possible candidate. He should have been leading the team. He had two enormous egos on either side of him, and he showed them how to work together, at a time when Kinji had JUST stopped trying to assassinate them. Again, things that really could have been adapted that weren't. Nagi deserved a better season, and this episode was one of the ones trying to make it right. Even if it, of course, led to Red and Star leading everything again.

It's a critical Nagi episode, but as a Calvin episode, this falls flat. Sure, we have him dealing with his obvious crush on Ace and Power Rangers, enough with the 1950s stereotypes. Literally NO ONE behaves like that, especially not millennials, but he's MIA from most of the episode. It focuses on everyone else. He learns that his crush is an ass, not an ace, and he doesn't know how to fix his own car which is the end of the world, apparently, since Calvin acts like it's far more scandalous than Ace abusing him and making him push and repair the car himself, without pay, preying on Calvin's admiration. But it's the B-plot. Everyone else is dealing with being turned into a trophy or being brainwashed into being a jackass by what I can only assume were once a pair of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid's sneakers that he threw into a somehow-Austrian jungle. We even have more focus on not-Bulk and Skull and their antics, which become even less funny the more they appear. I understand wanting to show punishment of assholes, but come on. These guys are such enormous douches that the slapstick is starting to feel like it's rewarding them instead of punishing them. You've yet to show ANY redeeming qualities about them.

Calvin is shoved to the sidelines in his own spotlight episode. He's not really given a chance to shine the way Nagi was. Nagi shone in his episode because he was rational and methodical, while compassionate and patient. He won Kinji's trust and figured out how to channel Takaharu's energy. Calvin just told a couple of assholes to move over and let him drive. Mind controlling Brody and Levi to make them jerks was not only a giant waste of a superpower for the love of darkness, do you realize that you could have had the Red and Gold Rangers just DESTROY all of their friends and take the Ninja Power Stars themselves you fucking MORONS ARGH!, but it meant that Calvin didn't have to do anything more than tolerate them until the spell was broken. His personality didn't win the day. He didn't surpass any egos. He just went through the motions, and that's exactly what this episode did.

There are moments when this season really looks like it's going to do something interesting, but it drops the ball every time. I really think it's time to get a new head writer. Chip Lynn has been with the franchise for a long time, but it's showing. He's been out of ideas for a long time. Power Rangers needs fresh blood and fast. It's struggling just as bad as Sentai, and it's going to suffer more in this new Saban era if things continue.