Toyologist Review: Power Rangers Samurai Megazord

Haim Saban is my hero. True, I don't know anything about him beyond his work, but how can you not love the man who's name appears on the TV shows that defined my childhood? Inspector Gadget, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, M.A.S.K., He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Kissyfur, Spider-Man, X-Men...

Jack Olesker's also my hero (he worked on The New Adventures of He-Man, M.A.S.K., Heathcliff...) and Saban is Jack's hero.

Hero of a hero - does that make Haim Saban a superhero?

Saban is most famous for creating (with his ever-present pal Shuki Levy) the Power Rangers franchise in (eek! It's been going forever!) 1993. It took footage from the Japanese Super Sentai franchise and then sprinkled in some new bits with American actors where required.

It was a big hit and has been running ever since, rebooting itself (almost) every year to keep things fresh.

Power Rangers arrived slightly too late for me. All I really know about it is that the pink one was quite attractive. Saying that, there's probably been enough for an army of pink ones by now.

Oh, and the Dragonzord thing was cool.

The boy next door is the world’s biggest Power Rangers fan (that’s probably an exaggeration, but I've learned from job interviews that underselling yourself is a big mistake). Despite running round in a Power Rangers outfit and generally being ‘pro’ Power-anything he’s never actually seen the show. ‘Huh?’ you say. Well, he spent a big chunk of time in South Korea and apparently they advertise it like CRAZY there. Yes, the advertising is even worse there than it is here.

Since my boys play with this boy, they’ve now been infected with the disease.

So we have three boys, all Power Rangers mad, and none of whom have ever watched it.

So we come to the review...

As well as Power Rangers, my boys love Transformers, so this Megazord went down a storm since it’s a bunch of little things that stick together to make a bigger thing. As my 4 year old son said,

"I can build it. I can take it apart and build it back into a big one and little ones again. It is very quick to do."

After making a billion Megazords over the years, Bandai have got the process perfected. It's solidly built, quick & easy to transform which is good for playing (far better than Transformers which can take weeks to convert), and looks exactly like the one in the TV show (you may complain that lionzord doesn't look much like a lion, but then the one on the show doesn't either). The box has an age of '4+' but my 2 1/2 year old easily manages to play with it (even though he couldn't find on of the legs of the bear at first - see video).

Really a review is pointless, however. If your children don’t like Power Rangers, then they’ll have zero interest in this.  If your children like Power Rangers, then they’ll demand this.

Of course you could say ‘no’. In fact you’ll likely say that since it’s the initial reaction of any parent (apart from me) when a child asks if they can have a toy. But when they ask and ask and ask and ask and ask…

Well, then you get a grandparent to buy it. Because that way if young Jimmy never plays with it, at least it wasn’t your money wasted.

But my boys love it, so definitely no wastage here.

Note: the Transformers on either end aren't included,

but my son took the photo and insisted they were in it.

A small sample of the other photos my son took (and he took a lot)...

 

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