MMPR Green Ranger

Height: 14.5 cm

Articulation: 17 total points: Swivel neck; 4 points each arm - Universal shoulder, hinge elbow, swivel wrist; 4 points each leg - universal hip, mid-thigh swivel, hinge knee.

Colors: Molded dark green, grey; Painted white, gold, black, dark green, silver, red.

Accessories: Dragon Dagger; Shield

Release Data: Released with the Spring Assortment of basic Jungle Fury figures at a suggested retail price of US$6.99. This figure is short-packed and is difficult to obtain at retail.

Gallery: 19 images.

Author: ExVee




Just as I observed with Lord Zedd a couple weeks ago, Green Ranger is kind of iconic among the adult Power Rangers fanbase. No matter how suitable Lord Zedd may have been for this purpose, Green Ranger thoroughly trumps him and any other choice in factor of demand. Green Ranger is the choice for an adult consumer-appeal character toy. Green Ranger, even several weeks after retail release still demands as much as four times retail value on the secondary market, and unless a hidden cache of Super Legends Figures in the near future, there's a good chance it will stay that way. It's not just a matter of the figure's rarity, or that it's Green Ranger (but it helps). The fact is, no Green Ranger/Dragonranger figure before now has actually gotten so close to getting the appearance correct. Let us have a brief history, shall we?

Naturally, Bandai Japan came closest to getting it right during the actual run of Zyuranger. Their four and a half inch tall Dragonranger figure (same basic body mold as what Power Rangers used with the motorcycle toys) had stickers for the cuffs and boots to provide the unique gold bands and triangles, plus the figure had chromed gold bands around the upper arms, as well as a passing shield and dagger. But some of the details just weren't there. Bandai America's attempts during Power Rangers didn't come nearly so close. Check out this figure's gallery for some comparison against the predecessors.




This is without a doubt the most overall accurate representation any figure has been able to provide of Green Ranger's helmet. It's not a hundred percent perfect, but it gets pretty close. By and large the details are all correct, and from certain angles, it looks dead on. My big gripe is just that the visor is smaller and more narrow than it proportionately should be. But from most any angle besides straight-on, you can barely tell. For some reason, every Green Ranger I've seen pictures of has a crooked head. It's only a slight tilt to the figure's right, but it's sadly just within range of perception. It doesn't help that the chin seems to be slanted in addition to the tilt of the head itself.

The torso shape is basically identical to the Jungle Fury figures, but with a number of small differences. The musculature is all the same, but besides the belt and the fact that there's no speaker openings in the middle of the chest, the outlines for the white diamonds are molded in on both sides. The diamonds sadly were not produced very accurately to the TV costumes. From the front, the middle diamond should appear as the largest, with the other two only partly visible around the shoulders. The figure has the side diamonds much larger and more visible from the front, with the middle diamond quite small by comparison. I can identify a number of factors for this. First off is the need for the middle diamond to be hidden beneath the shield. Though to be fair, from the front with the shield on, the other two diamonds should barely be visible either. Another element at work is the build of the figure. Where the person in the suit has a torso that is taller than wide, the figure's distance across the shoulders is more or less equal to the distance between belt and neck. It'd be difficult to proportion the diamonds to match the suit perfectly given this build. Considering the two figures that are using this torso also have shields to largely disguise this admittedly minor failing, it's probably not worth getting hung up on. I don't know about you, but I don't plan to display my Green Ranger without the shield very often.

Green Ranger's morpher is rendered surprisingly well given the scale, with fully molded (if not painted) details, right down to the Power Coin itself. On the left side of the belt the holster for the dagger is attached. It can swivel around, and if you intend to pose the figure doing some kind of high kick or other pose likely to push on the holster, I recommend swiveling it out of the way first. It is very likely to warp out of place if left bent by leg extension for a while.

The arms are functionally very similar to the Jungle Fury arms, though with considerable tooling differences. For the very first time in an American Green Ranger figure, the gold arm bands are reproduced. As well, the special design of the cuffs is present as another first, but it's really not the best part here. Viewers of Power Rangers who pay extra attention to small details may recall a particular styling of gloves used on basically all Ranger suits regardless of other costume differences. The most recognizable and readily visible portion of this is the presence of a set of ridges on the backs of the hands, a detail which is very well reproduced in this figure. Besides that, realistic fabric creases have been molded into the gloves, to really put the extra little something into making the appearance of the costume. Along the same trend, the cuffs have the gold-bordered zippers visible, and are molded so as to be just slightly pointed along the zipper line. The forearms and hands are among the most detail-oriented portions of this figure, as far as the sculpt goes. I'm quite impressed. Sadly, since there's only a single hinge for an elbow, and only a swivel wrist, it is completely impossible to get the figure anywhere close to looking like it can play the flute. Grand shame right there, I'm telling you.

The legs are mostly typical of the current state of articulation. Likely due to slightly better tolerances on this type of plastic, the hip joints are a bit tighter than most of the Jungle Fury figures, giving the legs a better, more secure feeling for posing. Much like with the arms, the real show here is on the lower half of the legs. The boots have been rendered in a similar level of details as the cuffs and gloves. Though as a result of the new, really nice boot sculpt, ankle articulation has been lost. This also seems to have resulted in minor loss of height for the figure, who comes in a touch shorter than his ankle-bending contemporaries. Anyhow, the same level of detail has been applied here, with all the expected ripples, creases and folds you would expect around the ankles of well-worn leather boots. The band over top of the foot has been reproduced, as has the accurately styled black soles. All it's really missing is the tread patterns for the soles. I have to admit I really don't miss the ankles being hinged here, and if having that meant I'd have to give up this greatly detailed sculpt, I'm just as happy to have no jointing there. Notably absent from the boots is peg holes in the heels, which are even present on Lord Zedd, as well as the normal range of Jungle Fury figures. Oh well, it's not like there's anything to plug them in to anyway.


Paint and Deco

Although not constant across the run, just about every Green Ranger figure I've seen photos of have featured some kind of really sad painting errors. Be it ranging from a not-quite-entirely filled in visor, or maybe overdone teeth on the helmet, to paint splatters on the torso, or even missing silver paint on the mouthpiece, it seems like it's really difficult to find a correctly painted Green Ranger. Given the scarcity of the figure, I don't think collectors will have much room to be choosy here, and will likely have to be content with performing their own touch up work later on. I'd have to say that somebody must have really been asleep at the switch when these got to the painting stations. I've even heard some reports of the white paint on the chest peeling off and sticking to the inside of the shield.

All that being said, there's very little "missing" paint here. The only points of interest are a lack of color in the morpher, which is showing in the promotional photos having some added black and red detailing.



Accessories


-Dragon Dagger

The dagger has been reproduced in beautiful detail, if sadly unpainted as most Power Rangers accessories are. Now, there's some odd history with the Dragon Dagger. The Japanese version, the Zyusoken, was made that when played the blade pointed to the right shoulder, and that was just fine when the thing only appeared in the adapted Japanese footage. But eventually, US footage had to be produced involving it. For some reason I can't begin to guess (aside from gross incompetence), the US made prop pointed left. And it would point left in every appearance, even when oddball alternate props appeared. Like a one-off curved-blade variant in season 2. For a long while I was unsure which version of the dagger the toy would represent. To my surprise, Bandai went incredibly neutral. The dagger is basically symmetrical front-to-back, and the mouthpiece is not curved. In effect, this can be either the right hand or left hand version of the Dragon Dagger, entirely dependent on the desire of the owner. The really tiny details are molded incredibly well - the representation of the Dragon coin here is even better than the one on the figure. Some accuracy is lost for the front-back mirroring, but the result is worth the small sacrifice.

-Shield

This is actually pretty interestingly executed. The whole shield is soft plastic, split up the middle of the back. The idea is to spread it apart and wrap it around the figure. Then comes a really clever bit - there's two large pegs inside the back of the shield which fit into the screw holes on the figure's upper back. The fit is quick, easy, and secure, doing a really great job of holding the back of the shield closed. Older attempts at the shield which spit in half across the top of the shoulders were plagued with spontaneously falling apart and unsightly seams, but none of that is at work here. The shield does a very very good job representing the look of the Japanese footage shield. Proportional limitations prevent quite as much of the figure's neck being visible as would be expected, but the overall feel is much more consistent with the TV costume.

Other figures using this body type can also wear the shield, and so can Cheetah Ranger. In any case it's a little difficult to get the shield on since the collar will tend to want to catch on and bend around the figure's neck, but it's not anything to worry about, since it won;t stay that way long enough to make warping any kind of danger. It's also pretty hard to fit the shield to Elephant or Bat Rangers because of the unusual shape of their helmets. All in all, I feel confident saying this is very likely the best way this shield design could have been executed at this scale. All it's missing are the straps to go under the arms.



Closing Remarks

One other note I couldn't fit elsewhere in the review was that while the packaging shows a very shiny, obviously painted and photoshopped figure, the actual figure managed pretty well with the bare plastic. The plastic has the pearlish finish we've seen in figures such as Gundam's Qubeley, used to give the figure a little bit different kind of sheen than is normally thought of with unpainted plastic. It's not quite as nice looking as the package photo would lead you to believe, but it definitely brings to mind the appearance of the Japanese spandex suits.

What else is there to really say? Like Lord Zedd, this is the Green Ranger figure collectors have been wanting for a good fifteen years. The downside is that said collector will probably be required to do some paint touchups to have it just perfect. It's hard to find at retail, and calls for an honestly unreasonable markup at resale. But I can't tell you that it might not be just a little bit worth it. I'm really happy to have my Green Ranger, and while I was thankfully spared having to overpay for mine, for many of us this is the Power Rangers figure that's a real must have collectible. Put it this way: There will very likely never ever be a better Green Ranger figure than this one, so you might find it worth your while to go that extra step to get your hands on one.

In my estimation, this figure accomplishes everything it's set out to do, with only one significant problem area. I'm certainly satisfied, and feel very justified in granting this long-sought Green Ranger a rating of Very Good.

-ExVee, 5/14/2008