Super Sentai Battle: Ranger Cross Trailer

The first full promotional trailer for the upcoming Super Sentai Wii game title Super Sentai Battle: Ranger Cross has been released. It features five sentais, including Go-Kaiger, Goseiger, Shinkenger, Go-Onger, and Goranger, in a Musou-style combat game where, like in the series, you have to fight the main monster on foot, and then finish them off in the team mecha! Let’s check out the trailer:

Not bad, not bad at all. And for having so many characters, they didn’t have to sacrifice too much in the way of character and gameplay resolution.

Super Sentai Battle: Ranger Cross will be available September 8th for 5800 yen.

-M.C., the Quantum Twin

Saban Brands registers the name “Power Rider”: Not again! I’m not sure if I can take it this time….

Saban brands has registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office something called “Power Rider”. No confirmation on what it is of could be, but that hasn’t stopped any speculation about it. For those of you who might know, Saban Brands once claimed that they had licenced the footage from the Kamen Rider Decade/Shinkenger crossover special. So, is this another attempt at a Kamen Rider adaptation, of is this something else entirely?

For those of you who may know, Saban first attempted to adapt a Kamen Rider series way back in the mid-90’s, when the popularity of MMPR was very high and still climbing. Their first attempt was simply called “Masked Rider”, and was based off of footage from Kamen Rider Black RX, and some footage from Kamen Rider ZO. The series barely made it through it’s first season, inevitably failing due to the now-deceased “Power Rangers Stigma” (i.e., they tried to hard to copy the Power Rangers style of writing and storytelling, and it was evetually written off by viewers and critics).

Then years later (or two years ago depending on your perspective), Adness adapted Kamen Rider Ryuki under the name “Kamen Rider Dragon Knight”. While the series failed in the US (so much so that the last two episodes didn’t even air, and you had to go online to see them), it was very successful outside the US, especially in Japan.

And as a little something else to add to all of this, KRDK director Steve Wang mentioned at last year’s Power Morphicon that he would be interested in adapting either 555 or Kabuto, so who knows.

I’m not sure I really want to know at this point, every attempt at adapting a Kamen Rider series has failed, for one reason or another, despite Kamen Rider’s overwhelming success in other countries (besides Japan). I just don’t know if I could take another failure. We’ll just have to wait and see where this goes.

-M.C., the Quantum Twin

Go-Kaiger Romance?: Are Ozawa Ryota and Ichimichi Mao dating?

I haven’t even started on the post, and already I feel like a sellout.

Anyway, there have been rumors spreading around the Japanese tabloid sites that Ozawa Ryota and Ichimichi Mao of Kaizoku Sentai Go-Kaiger might be dating each other. Here’s a grainy photo supposedly of the two kissing each other while on a date:

Here’s a translation of the online article where the picture was found:

“A picture of Ichimichi Mao & Ozawa Ryota on a date …holding hands together somewhere in some city was taken. They look lovey dovey together & from the looks of it, they look rather good together (from the writer’s perspective)!! holding hands tight & sticking close to each other, you can see what a pair of love birds they’re!!

The young couple look very cute together through the whole process (walk, shopping, whatever they’re doing back there). But that’s not all, instead just being lovey dovey, one thing i found very shocking personally, is the moment where they shared a passionate kiss when they were about to part… now with both Mao & Ryota both being in the spotlight, such a brazen display of their love is really shocking indeed!!

Ichimichi Mao & Ozawa Ryota seems to have became intimate due to acting together, but having already progressed to such a stage is something really unexpected & shocking!!

Although I’ll pay attention to their activities nonetheless from here on out, the progress of their is really some private thing I’d be interested about!!”

So, is this story a bunch of phoney baloney, or the first sentai actor romance since Jetman?  Personally, I DON’T CARE. I’m not even sure why I bothered to cover this, other than to appease and disappoint the Ichimichi Mao fanboys. You know, you try to convince yourself that your above this kind of crap, and then it pops up, and you find yourself powerless to avoid it.

Oh well, my soul to the highest bidder, I guess.

BTW, if you follow the link to the original article, do NOT click the link to the video. Trust me on this one.

-M.C., the Quantum Twin