If you happened to grow up in the 90s, not a single Saturday morning went by without at least hearing about the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. With the first Americanized super sentai team engaging in weekly battles against the evil sorceress Rita Repulsa and her monster army, the five teenagers with attitude quickly sent the world into a pop culture frenzy.
There have been over twenty-one differently themed series since their initial debut in 1993, which not included seasons where our team of rangers were stationed high above in outer space but another where aliens seemingly live peacefully with humans on Earth and the craziest of them all, the last remaining city on Earth in a post-apocalyptic wasteland had to be defended from a quickly evolving and rabid AI computer virus.
With all the plots mentioned above being canon to the official run of the Power Rangers legacy, hardcore fans of the superhero television franchise will be sure to point out that there were even wackier storylines included in some of the Japanese spinoffs that have surfaced in recent years. These included a live-action super sentai spinoff series called Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger which aired in 2012, and a romance-centric adaptation called Love After World Domination which premiered just last year in April 2022 that is currently streaming on CrunchyRoll.
While the former title follows an anime-crazed trio who not only hope to become an official sentai team one day but also don familiar yellow, red, and blue suits to defend the Earth from the Blatantly Evil Marketing Firm, the latter explores a rather charming storyline where a much younger, blonde headed version of Rita Repulsa and the Red Ranger (Red Gelato, in this case) fall in love and begin a secret relationship.
Well, thanks to the Shochiku Company based in Tokyo, Japan, another retooled Power Rangers story will soon begin. While the many Putty Patrollers in Mighty Morphin’ were never considered to be any serious threat (except for the one episode where there surprisingly wasn’t a villain of the week), this same type of enemy will soon be presented very differently in an upcoming anime.
Hiding a Terrible Truth
Putting a foreboding spin on the iconic chorus of the original theme song, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! will follow along with the usual trope of differently colored heroes trying to defend Earth from hostile aliens. Quickly diving into the fact that this will have a unique storyline that no Mighty Morphin’ fan should ignore, the audience will be sent thirteen years into the future after the invasion of Earth from the Villainous Army of Evil.
A team of five called the Dragon Keepers, along with their Divine Tools, remain steadfast in waging war against these insidious invaders and their raging plot to take over our home. In reality though and as a shocking plot twist, these intergalactic perpetrators were actually all defeated just within a year’s time and instead, monsters are continuously cranked out and crushed by our team of do-gooders on a weekly basis all for the sake of fan entertainment.
Seeing all this manipulation unfold before his very eyes and drowning in shame at seeing his army’s morale constantly being hammered into the ground, one of the few remaining first-line soldiers of the Villainous Army of Evil decides that enough is enough. Using his regeneration abilities and power to shape-shift into anybody he chooses, this rogue agent slowly enters the Dragon Keepers’ ranks. Once inside, he will finally try to reverse the destruction they caused upon his race and destroy them all one by one.
Detailing a Darker Side of the Power Rangers
First released in February 2021 as a Manga that is presently collected in nine volumes, Go! Go! Loser Ranger! is drawn and written by Japanese artist Negi Haruba. While he is acclaimed in the print world for The Quintessential Quintuplets, which won Best Shonen Manga in the 43rd Annual Kodansha Manga Awards, he also worked on the twenty-four episode anime of the same name as well as the movie that concludes the series.
Furthermore, the director of Go! Go! Loser Ranger! will be none other than the renowned Kei’icho Sato. Mr. Sato not only worked on the animation of such classics like 1992’s Giant Robo the Animation: The Day the Earth Stood Still and the numerous iterations of Gundam but was the director behind modern endeavors like the instant hit Tiger and Bunny and Inuyashiki, which is regarded as a visual masterpiece by many within his field.
An official teaser was uploaded to the official Shochiku YouTube channel in November 2022, promising egotistical rangers, bloody moments, and helmet-shattering explosions. With a formal release date not officially given yet, no Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger fan should miss out on the dark and gritty twist that Go! Go! Loser Ranger! will bring to the table.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
