I was highly surprised in 1993 when Saban brought Sentai in the form of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It was an instant hit with the kids, but some parents tried to boycott it because of the violence. In the Japanese versions main characters die left and right, swearing is a norm, and the rangers get bruised and battered in their non ranger/sentai form. Cultures see things in different ways, so I can see why things were toned down.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about one of my favorite Rangers, Tommy the Green Ranger, as well as his Japanese counterpart Burai. First lets start with Tommy (Jason David Frank). Tommy met the Rangers at a martial arts tournament and was well matched against Jason the Red Ranger. If my memory serves me right Tommy won the match which got Rita Repulsa interested in using him to defeat the Rangers.


Rita brainwashed Tommy to fight the rangers, and he did a pretty good job sending the rangers running home on several occasions with his Dragonzord or Dragon Ceaser in the Japanese version. The spell is eventually broken by Jason when they go mano a mano and Jason destroys the Sword of Darkness.


Tommy's powers are taken away from him for betraying Rita and in the 2nd season of Power Rangers, Tommy becomes the White Power Ranger. I liked Tommy better when he was the Green Ranger rather than the many incarnations as a leader because he could take on the bad guys by himself, and seemed like a Lone Wolf. He was friends with the other rangers, but liked to keep to himself most of the time to train.




BURAI THE DRAGON RANGER

Burai the Dragon/Green Ranger was the older brother of Geki the Tyranno/Red Ranger.

The Rangers were originally from 5 ancient tribes. Their father (Geki's and Burai's) the Black Knight, didn't get along too well with their king Yamato, so the king took Geki as his own to be his heir. The Black Knight tried to get his son back but was killed in a duel with the king. Burai witnessed the whole thing, seeking vengeance and blaming his younger brother for their father's death. I'm not trying to get off subject here but this seems to happen a lot in martial arts/ fantasy storylines: Hero takes on bad guy, hero loses, bad guy "adopts" hero's only son, son finds out the truth years later about a brother he never knew he had. (Then again it could just be me.)
FYI: In the 1985 Sentai show Dengeki Sentai Changeman, Shiro Izumi(green ranger) played Change Pegasus. It was one of my favorite shows as a kid though their leader Change Dragon was actually my favorite of the five.

Burai didn't work full time for Bandora/Rita, but was told by her if he wanted to get his revenge he would have to get the Sword of Hellifiende/ Sword of Darkness. However, she didn't tell him that whoever wields the sword will go insane.( Then again maybe she tried to and he didn't have Verizon and was in a dead zone). Burai even turned on Bandora and failed miserably. Luckily he was saved by the Guardian of the Water of Life, Klotho. Klotho had him stay in a cave where time was frozen and as long as he stayed in the cave he would be fine. If not, he would die because his life energy/ki/chi was contained in a green candle.

In the final battle between brother and brother, Geki refused to kill Burai. Geki walked off and as Burai was about to attack him from behind, he gave up which broke the spell the sword had over him.
Before Burai died, he gave his brother his armor and Zyosouken/Dragon Dagger to him.



Tommy the Green Ranger was lucky he didn't get killed off, but then again there is no way Saban could have pulled that one off on a kids show. While I tend to like Sentai over Power Rangers for their more serious tone, I still like the first season of Power Rangers more because I saw it before the original version. Let me rephrase that. At the time Power Rangers came out I liked it. But to this day I am afraid to go back to those old episodes for fear it just won't be as cool as I thought it was. A perfect example would be while growing up the A-Team and Knight Rider were my favorite shows. Watching them now I can't help but laugh at the cheesy dialogue and SFX. Maybe some things should just be left in the memory bank so as to not ruin the nostalgia.






Until next time...