Tiger Ranger

Height: 16cm

Articulation: 19 total points: Swivel neck; 4 points each arm - universal shoulders, hinge elbows, forearm swivel; 5 points each leg - universal hips, thigh swivel, hinge knee, hinge ankle.

Colors: Molded red, black, grey (accessories only); Painted black, white, orange, silver.

Accessories: Jungle-Chuks; Tiger Blaster

Release Data: Released in November 2007 in the United States, at a suggested retail price of US$6.99

Gallery: 17 images.

Additional Media: MP3 Soundbyte(52 kb)

Author: ExVee

It has been the trend for some time in Power Rangers that in general each season of the show is all about the Red Ranger. Every other color is just a supporting role. Though the toyline balances it out a little bit more, it's still little question that the Red Ranger is the one getting the most attention in vehicles, weapons, armor, and other assorted power-ups. Since we're still early in the Jungle Fury line, Tiger Ranger hasn't really pulled into the lead yet. As of this writing, the vehicles and various armor form and transforming toys have been split more or less equally among some or all of the male Rangers. But just wait, and see how over the next few months more of the stuff will come in red and fewer other colors, if any at all. The only major question right now is what morpher toy will be recolored as a Battlizer. As it stands right now, there's three separate morpher designs for this series, and no sixth Ranger on the show. Typically the sixth Ranger's special morpher gets the Battlizer treatment, but it's not so easy this time around.

The Figure

Tiger Ranger shares a common body design with the other four male Ranger figures, so some elements of this review is likely to read very similar for any of this group of five.

The head is jointed on a simple swivel, meaning a greatly reduced range of articulation compared to having a ball jointed neck. In contrast to Jaguar Ranger's neck joint, this one has noticably smoother movement, though some resistence is still present. In a similar note to an occurence I observed with Evil Space Alien, Tiger Ranger's head sculpt seems oriented in such a way that the figure appears to be gazing slightly downward all the time.

The gimmick for this series of Ranger figures is motion activated sounds. The sound is activated, rather than via impact, by sharp motion. Tiger and Jaguar each seem to have different sensitivity, so some figures may be able to be activated by a quick tap, but both of mine require being shaken more. Tiger Ranger requires actually some considerable effort to trigger the sounds - think of the motion if you were to beat something against your desk. The sound is emitted through a small speaker, cleverly disguised in the scratch logo on the chest. But, since the main body color is much lighter than Jaguar's dark blue, the speaker slots are a bit more visible in this case. It's also worth noting that more than half of the figures I tried before selecting my purchase were dead on arrival, despite not having had their battery interruption tabs pulled, so make sure you check the figures before you buy one. No telling whether the batteries died anyway, or if the motion sensing mechanism is somehow damaged during shipping.

In Tiger Ranger's case, we again have a growl sound, though different from Jaguar Ranger's, followed by something like an energy blast sound. It's not dis-similar to the kind of sound you'd find in one of those cheap space gun kind of toys you find in dollar stores.

The articulation in the arms is equal to Cheetah Ranger, but slightly different. Cheetah had swivels in the upper arms, but none for the wrists or forearms. Tiger, as was the case with Jaguar and the other male Rangers, lacks a swivel in the upper arm and has one in the forearm. Just like Cheetah's opposite situation, this creates its own share of posing problems. I can only hope the Super Mode figures in the Summer assortments are given a slightly greater range of jointing. Even if not, there will be a great variety of Tiger Ranger figures released before the series is done, so Bandai has plenty of chances to turn out something right. But suffice to say that as it is, posing with the weapons is even more difficult while lacking the upper arm swivel. Plus, the swivel joints in the forearms have a habit of popping off a bit easily.

The leg jointing is just as unobstructed here as on Jaguar - sort of. Tiger Ranger's legs actually seem to be forced apart even more than Jaguar, which seems really odd considering both figures should be using the exact same pieces. I can only guess that the dark blue and bright red plastics have slightly differing tolerances, leading to a change in the moveable range of the hip joints. An interesting extension of this is to discover that the upper and lower legs are made of two different plastics. There is a noticable difference in color from the knees down, as compared to the thighs. This lighter plastic seems to not have quite the tension, since Tiger Ranger's ankle hinges feel a bit less tight than Jaguar's did. This could make posing, or maybe even standing issues, if the ankles are not as readily able to hold their place. We'll just have to see if this comes to anything.

Sculpt and Deco 

As expected, the sculpting is simply excellent. The build of the body is nicely subtle, with just the suggestion of definition in the torso, and the heaviest musclulature in the thighs. It's a very nice way of striking a balance between comic styling and more realistic guy-in-suit style. Unlike Jaguar, the loss of the white stripe outlines is not a major issue. Tiger Ranger's suit design lacks the thick, vertical black strips up the sides of the body, so none of the stripes get lost in the sea of undistinguished black paint. There's a more complex patterns on the back, which I think might have been served by outlining, but it's nothing terrible. The only real paint error to be found on my example is that the visor paint is slightly off. The shape is present exactly as it's supposed to be, but it doesn't fall precisely within the molded visor space. There's also some paint errors around the Tiger Battle Claws. However, in both cases, the errors are only visible upon purposeful, close examination.

Accessories

-Jungle-Chuks

As you might guess from the name, it's Nunchuks. Though unlike a Ninja Turtle, Tiger Ranger only plays with one. These aren't based on the baton design that Cheetah and Jaguar Rangers' weapons use. Instead, these look very much like regular nunchuks. The neat little detail is the very well sculpted, tiny Tiger Zord heads at the top of each grip. basically it's designed to look like the cord is being held in the mouths of the tiger heads. I'm just really impressed by how well sculpted these tiny, tiny details are.

The whole accessory is a single piece of plastic, so the flexibility of the "cord" is limited. The fit in the hands is okay, and as expected, the lack of bicep swivel makes good poses with this weapon difficult. However, you can manage the often reproduced under-the-arm stand-by pose seen with nunchuks.

-Tiger Blaster

Made the name up myself. It's a small cannon, made to resemble the head of the Tiger Zord, and it has a cannon barrel inside of its mouth. The weapon fits over either forearm, and has short pegs to fit into the hand for stability. It fits quite snug on the arm, and makes for a reasonably nice add-on. It also has a pair of sized pegs on the back end, which fit into Cheetah Ranger's robot gun to make a larger combined weapon. Nice little piece, especially for a (presumably) toy-exclusive weapon. Amazingly, the Tiger Blaster is a completely separate mold from the Jaguar Blaster.

Closing Remarks

Tiger Ranger to me is just a further example of the gimmick not being well-executed, since as I noted above, you have to act almost as though you're going to pound the figure into your desk or table before the sound will trigger. And I of course maintain the position that this could just as easily have been dropped in favor of added articulation.

Tiger Ranger at least has a better time holding his main weapon, but I'm a bit concerned by the joint tension in the lower legs. It's a sure thing that you'll have your pick of many versions of Tiger Ranger as the line progresses, but there's no fatal problems with this one. Still, if you feel like holding out to see if Bandai moves out some version that's a little more articulated, I wouldn't worry about this figure - it'll be available for many, many months to come.

Tiger Ranger gets a Good.

-ExVee, 12/23/2007