Friday, February 18, 2011

Representation of Colors


Red
Red usually represents aggression, love, negativity, passion, socialism, heat, fire, beauty, leadership, injury, danger, blood, and conservatism. We can all get into a big conversation on why Red is used as the leader of Sentai and Power Rangers. Red is used as a symbol of courage and sacrifice, as in blood split in sacrifice or courage in the face of lethal danger. Red Rangers are usually Reckless or Childish Leader, Stalwart Leader, or young upstart. The 00's Red Rangers have been reckless or childish, but there some that are serious and true like Takeru and Akashi, or in Power Rangers, Scott and Jayden. Most Red Rangers in both Super Sentai and Power Rangers have represented aggression, love, passion, heat, fire, and leadership, but rarely negativity, injury, danger and conservatism. Most of the time when a Red Ranger has a elemental power, it is to do with nature, Mystic/Magiranger and Samurai/Shinkenger had to do with Fire. By the way, I am not saying conservation is a bad thing.


Green
Green usually represents nature, growth, hope, youth, sickness, health, spring, money, and envy. In many folklores and literatures, green has traditionally been used to symbolize nature and its embodied attributes, namely those of life, fertility, and rebirth. Green Rangers usually represent nature, growth, hope, youth, health, and envy. Most Green Rangers are the comic relief, stubborn one, or the decent one. Hanto, Ziggy, Doc D., Sen, Bridge, and Joel are a few that represent comic relief. Most of the time when a Green Ranger has a elemental power, it is to do with nature, Mystic/Magiranger had Nature and Samurai/Shinkenger had to do with Wood/Forest.
Blue
Ice, water, sky, sadness, winter, royalty, boys, cold, calm, magic, and truth. In the English language, blue often represents the human emotion of sadness, e.g. "He was feeling blue". Most of the time when a Blue Ranger has a elemental power, it is to do with nature, Mystic/Magiranger and Samurai/Shinkenger had to do with Water. Most Blue Rangers are the calm one, sometimes the stubborn one, when a girl is a blue ranger, most of the time she is the calm one. Most Blue Rangers represent Calmness and truth. For example, Houji (Dekaranger), Souta (Boukenger), Hyde and Joe (Gokaiger) are serious and calm.


Yellow
Yellow represent sunshine, warmth, fun, happiness, warning, friendship, caution, intelligence, cowardice, love, hope, optimism, imagination, curiosity, surprise and thrill. Most Yellow Rangers are the happy-go-lucky ones. They have represented almost all the properties previously mentioned. There are some Yellow Rangers that are the opposite of happiness and optimism, like Tsubasa of Magiranger, Domon of Timeranger, Gaku of Gaoranger, and Taylor of Wild Force to name a few. When elemental, Yellow has been used for a variety of elements such as Earth and Thunder and Lighting.
Pink
Pink has represented girls, love, health, fairies, beauty, cuteness, and glamor. And all the Pink Rangers have in some way represented all those aspects (fairies only to a few). The majority of the Pink Rangers in Sentai had to represent feminine side, be super girly. The few Pink Rangers that have been tomboyish have been Yuuri of Timeranger, Jen, Sakura (Boukenger), Vida of Mystic Force, Rose, and Mia.
White
Most of the time, White represents bravery, purity, nobility, softness, emptiness, knowledge, snow, heaven, peace, life, clean, air, sunlight, surrender, clouds, frost, angels, weakness, protagonist, winter, and innocence. White Rangers have represented bravery, purity, nobility, softness, knowledge, snow, peace, life, clean, winter, and innocence since half have been female and half have been male. The one that represented snow and winter is Miyuki and Udonna, the one that has been complete opposite is Abare Killer.
Black
Black has represented darkness, secrecy, power, mystery, death, fear, antagonist, strong, chaos, evil, bad luck crime, elegance, anarchy, rebellion, non-conformity, individuality, and solidarity. Black Rangers have represented darkness, power, mystery, strength, rebellion, non-conformity, individuality, and solidarity. Masumi of Boukenger have brought to mine darkness. And Dillon of RPM reminds of rebellion and non-conformity and solidarity. Most Black Rangers are the serious one or bad boy. Sometimes the comic relief like Zack or shy one like Adam and Danny (PRWF). With strength, Tommy (PRDT) and Asuka come to mind.

Gold
A cousin to yellow (orange and brown as well BTW) is gold. While green may be the color of U.S. money gold is the color of riches and extravagance. Because gold is a precious metal, the color gold is associated with wealth and prosperity. It can also represent praise, commendation, valuable, positive, superior, outstanding, excellence, and favored person. Most Gold Rangers (save for Marigold and BeetBuster) as Sixth Rangers and are considered the best and powerful. Hiroto (Go-Onger) was cold and serious, Hikaru and Daggeron were stern teachers, Trey was powerful and serious, Gem was happy-go-lucky and liked shiny things and things that exploded, and Genta was happy-go-lucky, hard working and earnest. Jason, by extension of being the Gold Ranger as well was also seen as strong and powerful. I don't count King Ranger as gold, only Gold Ranger because the name. Antonio of Power Rangers Samurai is about the same personality as Genta, happy-go-lucky and determined and doesn't give up.

Silver
Silver, especially a shiny, metallic silver, is cool like gray but livelier, more playful. Silver can be sleek and modern or impart a feeling of ornate riches. Silver often symbolizes riches, just as gold does. Silver can be glamorous and distinguished. While women are seen as old, gray-haired men are seen as graceful aging. The silver-tongued is considered witty, eloquent speaker. Most Silver Rangers (except for Stag J. Beetle/StagBuster) are sixth rangers and are considered the most powerful. Yuusaku, Zhane, Shirogane, Merrick, Tyzonn and Eiji are fall under this. Both Deka Bright and Miu/Go-On Silver were stern women. We did see Miu's softer side. Gema like her brother liked exploding things but was a bit judgmental but that changed. Gai/Gokai Silver is seen a lot like Genta, happy-go-lucky, he is also reckless.

Violet
Purple is associated with royalty and nobility (stemming from classical antiquity when Tyrian Purple was only affordable to the elites). A mysterious color, purple is associated with both nobility and spirituality. Since there has only been one Violet/Purple warrior in both franchises, there is not much to go on. Gou/Geki Violet was hot-headed, serious and creative, he cared a lot about his little brother. R.J./Violet Wolf Ranger was a neo-hippie, very calm zen master, with his own daddy issues. There was also Wolzard/Koragg who was dark and mysterious.

Orange
Orange represents desire, fire, engineering, determination, compassion, endurance, and optimism. Fire is repeated from Red and Optimism is repeated from Yellow. There has not been many orange warriors. Most of the time it is mixed with white like with GekiChopper/Rhino Ranger and DekaSwan/Kat Ranger. The only real orange warrior in Sentai is BattleCossack, he was good at science, that's all I know since I never seen the show Battle Fever J. Deka Swan as compassate, Ken (Chopper) had endurance, and Dominick (Rhino) had determination.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love how you word conservatism as a bad thing. Nice job.

Anonymous said...

Love how you use conservatism as a bad thing.

Anonymous said...

Nice article! Minor correction - under the White section you've put "since half have been female and half have been female". Unless Ken and the other guys are a lot more femine than I realised, the other half are guys. :P

LUKE said...

Gold?

Luca said...

For me, Green represents intelligence/intellectual/wisdom/trickster/sly, and yellow represents money/greed/gold.

Luca said...

For me, dark purple represents evil, particularly zombies and plague. Perhaps this is because most poison type pokemon are purple.

Xavier Price said...

This needs an update, as there have been new purple sentai and rangers, in Kyoryuger and it's adaptation Dino Charge. And in there actually IS an orange sentai now, as of Resha Sentai ToQger. He's also... about the only good thing from that one.