I found this interesting. I wanted to do a compare and contrast between how Toei and Saban/Disney handled or handles discreetness of castmembers on the internet. Now that blogs, Facebook and Youtube has gotten more popular, even actors who play Power Rangers or Super Sentai heroes have had profiles and fans have responded and they have had revealed some secrets. So want to see how the companies handle them revealing secrets.
Above Yui Koike, who portrays Goukai Pink in the new series that has not premiered yet. All the Goukaiger actors have blogs. Two months before the show aired, and most of the actors have posted pictures on the web of themselves in the dressing room, with a script or with past Sentai actors.
This is Ryota Ozawa (Goukai Red) with Go-On Red, who hasn't been revealed yet to be Goukai Red, posted this pic and it was out already by December, making rumors circulate that he was Goukai Red. So far there has been no indication that Toei has penalized him or Go-On Red, as a lot of the former castmembers have hinted they were feeling 'nostalgic' but said they were sworn to secrecy.
Toei seems to be more lenient at castmembers hinting or slightly revealing secrets of upcoming series as they let them have blogs. Many past castmembers have had blogs with pictures during shooting, for example the actor who played Rio, often showed up in costume, but of course they never showed anything spoiler-y.
Past casts of Power Rangers haven't revealed many big spoilery things. A picture of the SPD cast partying was revealed before the series premiered but nothing else after that. Behind the Scenes photos turned up after the series ended. One picture of Once A Ranger did turn up before the episodes aired. 
And some spoilery RPM pictures did spring up but it wasn't on Facebook and I don't think Disney ever found out. There was that trailer that someone spilled on YouTube and got yanked a bunch of times by Disney.
As for the cast of Power Rangers Samurai, they have been posting pics of themselves together for months and months, probably mid-way in 2010 since shooting began in August.
And many months ago, fans were suspicious that Ricardo Medina Jr. (Cole/Wild Force) would be in the series as his facebook profile said he was in New Zealand and seemed to be communicated with the PRS cast.
Then more revealing, Hector David Jr. (Mike) and Rick both had pics of themselves together. Their profiles are now either been closed or made private. Probably done by Saban Brands.
Steven Skyler's (Gold) profile is still up I beleive. Above picture is him with Yellow and Red and some other unidentified people.
Also interesting to mention that Ayumi Beppu (Who portrayed Houka Ozu/Magi Pink) was invited to Disneyworld to participate in a parade (unknown which one or the significance) and got to be with the costumed Power Rangers of MGM studios and her counterpart the Pink Mystic Force Ranger in 2006. We found this out on her own blog. She also said she was not allowed to post pictures.
And if actors didn't post stuff up, we wouldn't have known that James Maclurcan (Mac of Operation Overdrive) met the cast of Go-Onger. Of course, this was not a spoiler and didn't reveal any secrets on the show because this was not show related. As James just had happened to visit Japan and stopped by the Go-Onger set. Kenji Ebisawa (Go-On Black) told my insider that he was not familiar with which Power Ranger series James was part of.In Conclusion, it seems Toei is more lenient while Saban wants to keep things on wraps but probably didn't anticipate actors spilling secrets on Facebook. I think Disney had a tighter grip but most of their casts were pre-Facebook.
3 comments:
probably seems that way in the states. it might have an direct or indirect effect on their shareholders.
Toei probably is open to these activities between cast members. Negative or positive, news is still news, anything that would generate buzz and publicity for the show/s :) nice post.
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OMG!! GokaiRed is SO HOT!!!!! And Go-on Red looks so cool, I want to look like him!
If you go on the power rangers website and go on fan zone, you should scroll all the way to the bottom to see the video of them at the thanksgiving parade. The video clearly shows the Samurai rangers theme in it and I AM SO EXCITED!
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