Dynoprisms/Energems

Ever have that moment when you’re watching a SIFI TV show that has some unique items appearing? It sucks when you want them because they may not be available at stores. That’s a feeling Power Rangers fans can relate to, especially if they are big on the current season “Power Rangers Dino Supercharge.”

Surprisingly, there is a talented individual who makes the beautiful gems in the picture above. Plastic Geek is the name; he, or she but let’s go with “he,” is an independent professional artist who situates himself in Wisconsin.

The set of five energems, which appear on the show that grant rangers their powers, are made as “Dynoprisms” and released for $35 each as a second edition from Plastic Geek. The prisms are still available upon pre-orders on his website for a limited amount.

There are currently 10 gems available on the artist’s online store: red, black, blue, green, pink, gold, graphite, purple, aqua, and silver. Recently the dark energem and a cracked red energem were added to the list. Check out his online shop for more information at plasticgeek.com.

I ordered my red, black, blue, green, and pink dynoprisms last December and got them this March. Waiting for 3 months was such a pain, but finally getting my hands on those bad boys was truly sensational and worth the $175 I paid.

The Dynoprisms are hand-casted resin materials. Each of them is dyed with a ranger’s representative color, and applied on it is high-quality Japanese  hobby paint. A strong rare earth magnet is also embedded to be attached to a necklace accessory that may be released in the future.

(Photo credit: powerrangers.com)

(Photo credit: RangerBoard)

These 2nd version gems were made after the show premiered in February 2015, so they are more show accurate than version 1. The difference in its appearance and size are obvious when seen together.

 

The Plastic Geek himself stated that the brightness of the gems varies depending on the dying condition, but they nonetheless look gorgeous. The translucent appearance gives them a high-end look, and each prism shines beautifully when shed with light in the dark.

The gems aren’t just nice to look at, but also has some play value thanks to the magnets inside them. The magnetism of those rare earth magnets are quite strong, so I display the on my lamp and they stand just fine. Perhaps they could also be attached to a ball chain for now for those who want to wear them for fun, even in the public (which I wouldn’t recommend if you want to take good care of them). Whether a necklace will be made is not known for now, but one user has said that the version 1 necklace is attachable to this edition.

It’s more of an item to look at than to play with so there isn't not much to it, but I am satisfied with my purchase. They are definitely worth possessing, and the transparent technicolor appearance is certainly fun to look at. Yes, each gem is over $30 but considering that it's handmade, embedded with a magnet, and how beautiful it looks, there isn't much reason to regret buying. Not to mention, this is the second edition, so those who missed out on the first version should be happy with a more screen-accurate sculpture.

And this concludes my blog entry for this month. See you again next month!

Kamen Rider Ex-Aid

(photo credit: Power Rangers Wiki)

Power Rangers may be known by non-fans a group of animal or sometimes ninja -looking superheroes with spandex fighting rubber monsters to save the day with a low budget. But what they may not know is that show is based on a Japanese TV series called Super Sentai in which Power Rangers gets its footage and costumes from. And the company that owns the franchise also owns the Kamen Rider series, another superhero series that is a little more than spandex.

(photo credit: Kamen Rider Wiki)

(photo credit: TV Tropes)

(photo credit: Kamen Sentai)

Kamen Rider aired its first season in 1971 and became an extremely popular TV show in Japan. The concept is a human who gets an operation to become a cyborg by evil forces but harnesses the power for good. The hero is known as “Kamen Rider” who wears a “kamen,” which means ”mask” in the Japanese language, and rides a motorcycle.

Kamen Riders used to have a quite simple design with spandex and a few armors until the series reached the year 2000, with the riders having a more armor-like design with a wide range of motifs. This includes: grasshoppers, vampire, Wizards, and even cars despite of the word “rider.”

(photo credit: JEFusion)

This year, the franchise celebrates its 45th anniversary with a rider nobody could have possibly imagined its debut: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid. The show just started on Oct. 2, and three episodes have aired so far.

(photo credit: TV Tropes)

1. The Rider is a doctor. Protagonist Emu Hojo is a novice Doctor who's just too climbs but truly cares about his patients. He’s the kind who injures himself three times on the first episode but shows the most care to patients with his kind personality.

2. The doctor is a gamer. Know as the genius gamer “M,” Emu has won numerous gaming competitions in the past. In fact, he was chosen to become Ex-Aid due to his high level gaming skills (whether that makes sense or not). Once he's into the virtual world, his kindhearted personality becomes passionate and aggressive.

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(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)

3. Video games grant the hero super powers. What’s hilarious is that Japan’s plan to obliterate the computer virus known as Bugster Virus to protect humans is using a freakin’ video game. Each Kamen Rider on the show has his own unique Rider Gashat, a device where the power is stored, and inserts it into the Gamer Driver to change into Kamen Rider. Ex-Aid in particular uses the Mighty Action X Gashat, a pink Gashat that is based on a new action game Mighty Action X that appears on the show. Other Kamen RIders posses Gahsats based on RPGs, shooting games, and more kinds that will appear in future episodes.

(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)

(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)

4. Level up! Just like how characters increase their levels in games, so does Ex-Aid and the other riders. At the chubby level 1, Ex-Aid utilizes the items scattered throughout the game area and conducts an “operation” to separate his patient from the Bugster Virus. When he levels up to 2, he is in full fighting mode to defeat the “boss” of the operation.

(photo credit: Henshin Sokuhou)

5. Doctors fight each other . The story focuses on “true heroes” that save people from computer viruses that started appearing five years ago, while the Doctor riders fight against each other for their own beliefs about being a doctor. As a matter of fact, the doctors start fighting against each other on episode 2. As of now, that’s all that is revealed is the rider battle and that the hospital Emu works at has ties with a video game company GENM which provided the doctors with their transformation devices.

So there you go, a little insight into Superheroes from the other side of the globe. If you are accustomed to the American rangers, this must be quite shocking in some ways, but believe it or not, fans are already used to Kamen Rider’s unexpectable ideas that actually make them who they are. I will leave the link to the theme song to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid because it’s so dang catchy.

So until I come back, good bye!

Red Hurricane

It’s that moment when you had no plan to buy it but you end up sacrificing your wallet. It was the last one on the shelf. I had no choice.

So here’s my mini review of the Red Wind Ranger from the 6.5 Legacy Collection, released in August, 2016 for $19.99. To be blunt, I didn’t expect much from this action figure because of the price, but the price turned out be one of the factors making this bad boy a great toy.

Included are the Red Wind Ranger, one megazord piece, and two weapons (ninja sword).

First thing’s first though, let's talk about the figure itself. The appearance of the body is very human-like. Not too thin or thick. The proportion is perfect.

The contours of the body are very smooth too, so certain poses, like bending the stomach, looks natural, rather than connected joints looking fragment.

(photo credit: www.powerrangers.com)

There is just enough detail to resemble the actual charter from the show. Sure, not the most detailed figure, especially the vaguely molded hawk symbol on the forehead, because of the price. But this shows that not all details from the actual thing aren’t necessarily needed to make an action figure look very nice. I guess this is also due to the fact that the human-like proportion does its job of covering the lack of details. The paint job on the accessories too are minimal, but is just enough to, like I said, look decent. Especially after playing with high-end figures, I always had a tendency to be picky about details, but perhaps I should stop.

Oh yeah, not necessarily about the details, but I really want to point out how on-point the helmet is. It looks just like the one from the show, no matter what angle you look at it from. Whether it’s a cheap or expensive action figure, there are many that fail to look accurate. It doesn’t give me an awkward “uh, this looks wrong….” moment. Congrats to Bandai for their great work.

With such natural body shape and enough details, the poses it can recreate are great and fun to look at. After all, action figures are meant to make poses. Articulation combining with great proportion makes a figure even better. Also, not many action figures of this price range, at least from my experience, don't move this much articulation. I just wish I had the necessary tools to take better pictures. Who knew I’d be writing a blog for class...

Now let’s talk about the price. Considering that Bandai plans to release every ranger from every season, $19.99 is relatively affordable because most seasons consist of 5 core power rangers. 5 for $120-ish with good possibility, not bad at all.

Nonetheless, some fans may still buy only their favorite rangers rather than full teams, so including a megazord (the robot the superheroes have on the show) piece for each ranger is good and makes collecting the figures fun. What’s a huge plus is that the megazord  that builds up by purchasing all core rangers of the same team too is an actual action figure rather than just a statue. The articulation isn’t as good as the Rangers, but still moves quite a bit for a bonus feature. A poseable megazord action figure isn’t something that exists a lot in the Power Rangers field.

So there you go, the Legacy Red Wind Ranger action figure. Cheap price, great poseability, enough details, and a megazord piece. I totally underestimated this product. The more I play with it, the more I dig it. Because many high quality action figures cost so much, it’s great to get something like this with just a $20 bill and a few coins. Will I buy this again? Definitely, if I'm not broke.

#hashtag

The title has nothing to do with what I'm gonna write about. Heck, I didn't even create an outline for this post because it's just introductory.

Anyway, here's some things about the guy in the pic, Ignacio Toshiaki Tejada, probably the most red guy you will ever see in the entire universe unless you're an actual Red Ranger. I was born in and lived half my life in Japan, and the other half here in the States. Also about 8 months in China. I speak Japanese, English, and some Mandarin Chinese. Spanish? I forgot. I'm also learning a bit of Korean now for fun (becoming able to write in the Korean language system in an hour makes you feel like you're the coolest person in the world).

I'm a mass comm major with a concentration in advertising, and hopefully will minor in Asian studies with a Chinese concentration. Oh yeah, I'm also an executive officer of the Chinese Language and Culture Association (CLCA) in the university. Club meetings will start soon, so keep up with the updates (if I ever write about them here) and feel free to come by!

Also, I may be one of the very few people you know who like Power Rangers. In fact, this blog will be about anything Power Rangers and similar Japanese superhero (Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc) related. Whether it be a toy review, an article translated from Japanese, or even about an actor I like from one of the seasons. So yeah, this may be the most boring blog you will ever see unless you're a Ranger fan. But I will keep in mind that the audience of this blog isn't from the Power Rangers fandom.

So why do I like such a cheesy show? Here's an answer for you: I don't know.

OK, I exaggerated a bit. I think it's just natural for me to like it because I've been watching it since I was 1.What attracts me the most is the fact that they "morph" (or transform) into a super hero; they don't just morph silently, the heroes have their own devices that allow them to power up with a freackin' pose and phrase. In real life, you don't have to do that crap. But hey, it's entertainment. It looks cool. That's what matters.

Aside from this blog being about Power Rangers, I will use this opportunity to improve my vocabulary and writing skills. Ever since I started a personal blog again this year after a long hiatus and now that I'm in college, I realized that writing a blog can be way different than writing an essay depending on the content. Since my blog posts may have some degree of variety, it may become challenging. But that's the purpose of me writing this blog.

So yeah, I guess that's about it for now. It's only introductory so hey, what else can I write about? My language skills? That would be really fun actually, but like I said, this blog will be about Power Rangers and super heroes of that ilk.

Unless I become dumb enough to forget about this blog, the next post should be up by the end of the month or whenever we are given a certain date by Professor Pazdera. So util then, good bye!