Explaining Lavender Ranger

For years I have been in the Power Rangers/Super Sentai fandom since 1995 or so and I have not had a successful alias, avatar, or screenname. I would usually go by first name (Gerald) but most people I know have successful screenames that stick like poweranimals or dukemon22. Names I have had are GoBlue (GoGoFive), MegaSliver (Mispelling Mega Silver), etc. Finally, I have picked one and I think I am sticking with it. Lavender Ranger has a colorful background (pun not intended), I like purple and violet but Lavender is unique; plus that only one Violet Ranger exists.

Many people know I am gay, maybe some don't even know, doesn't matter. Lavender is a synonym used for the original gay liberation movement which began in 1969 is referring to the movement as the lavender revolution. The Lavender Menace was a group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in 1970. Before the word 'Gay' (which is a pretty new slang term) was used for Homosexual, 'Lavender' was used before that. For Example on "The Simpsons," Grampa asks Raul "Are you going to get lavender on me?" in the 2004 15th season episode "Catch 'Em if You Can." It is an accurate use. The best part is that this is not that well-known these days. I am like, why didn't I think about this before?

Above is my rendition of a Lavender Dairanger, based on the mythical creature Hippogriff. She is female because there is never enough female Rangers.

New Shinkenger Mecha Chart

Well, my friend Dukemon22 posted this on his blog Toku Insider but I decided to post this anyway since people come to my site for stuff too. Top Right/Red Arrow: ShinkenOh with Kabuto Origami becomes Kabuto ShinkenOh and ShinkenOh with Kaijiki Origami becomes Kaijiki ShinkenOh and ShinkenOh with Tora Origami becomes Tora ShinkenOh; Light Blue Arrow: Kabuto, Kaijiki, and Tora Origami become DaiTenkuu; Dark Blue Arrow: ShinkenOh and DaiTenkuu become TenkuuShinkenoh; Top Left/Green Arrow: ShinkenOh and Red's dino KyoryuOriGami becomes KyoryuShinkenOh; Middle/Dark Purple Arrow: DaiTenkuu + IkaOriGami= IkaTenkuuBuster; Light Indigo Arrow: ShinkenGold's EbiOrigami/DaiKaioh and his squid IkaOriGami= IkaDaiKaiOh; Light Purple arrow: ShinkenOh and IkaOriGami becomes IkaShinkenOh; Bottom Left/Orange Arrow: ShinkenOh + DaiKaiOh= DaiKaiShinkenOh; Bottom Right/Dark Red Arrow: All the Origami together, no name yet I suppose.

UPDATED 5/24/09
KyoryuOriGami close-up.



Shinken Red's power-up, I like the tails in the back. I am not crazy about the shoulder wings and pebble necklace though. I will do a full review when we see them in live-action.

I was wrong about Ebi Origami, it is not a copy of the Kabuto origami, it is actually quite bigger than it, it can form a whole new robo! Ans when it becomes DaiKaiOh, it has four different faces it can change to!

Related Topic: Shinkenger Gold

Power Rangers RPM - Episode 12 - "Blitz"

Episode Summary:

Dillon is walking down the stairs and into his car, he drops his morpher and has his pocket watch in his other hand. He stops in his tracks as Dr. K's door opens and we hear the watch music play. Dillon checks the end of his chain and there is nothing there. He walks toward the room and he groans as he gets a flashback as he twirls around. Suddenly he is elsewhere and sees a man with his pocket watch. He takes it out of the man's hands. The man turns around and it is Dillon and he asks "Who am I?" Dillon puts his hand in the air and then becomes the Dillon in the gown. A woman with a walking cane comes towards him and is attacked by Grinders. Dillon tries to save her but she falls and he grabs her hand and tries to pull her up. He is pulled away from her and she slips and falls. A bot with a satellite (Go-Onger Episode 11 Antana Banki) comes up to him and asks Venjix if he should do the upload on Subject D44. It is take his memories.

Dillon wakes up in a cold sweat, the Rangers are after two signals, one is trying to destroy the city's dome shield. Dr. K tracks the signal. Summer asks Dillon about his dreams and he lies. They race off and morph. At the evil lair, Venjix shows the generals what is going on. They fight the red Go-Onger Episode 13 monster Hikigane Banki (a water gun). Black and Green fight the monster and Black tells Green that he needs a bath. They get washed out by the monster, Yellow and Red try to fight him but he is hard to defeat. Dr. K tells Blue to conduct 'Wishbone Alpha,' which has nothing to do with a wishbone. Blue uses his time stop to beat up the red monster and they use the RPM Enforcer (5 weapons in one) to defeat him, he then becomes bigger because bigger is better. Zenith Megazord plays tag with the monster and then destroys it. Crunch says something against the monster and Venjix blasts him. Tenaya is to go to bed but Venjix wants her to stay, she says it is his fault since he gave her human body and emotions. Venjix's plan is to keep sending down attack bots while the shield is disrupted by his most reliable bot.


The Rangers then fight Kama Banki of Go-Onger Episode 14 in the forest, it is a big vat with teeth, which bites Ziggy. Dr. K has pinpointed the moving signal finally. The Rangers fight the monster with their individual weapons and then finish him off with the RPM Enforcer. The team then splits, Ziggy and Dillon go to the signal and the other three go to the 'alarms.' With all the cars are screeching, I wonder if they are using fuel-efficient cars. Ziggy and Dillon find the monster on top of a building. Dillon faces it and recognizes it from his dream/flashback. The bot says he still holds his memories and shows it to Dillon, he now knows it was not a dream. Dillon morphs and fights the bot.


The bot says his modifications are incomplete and he can fix that, he zaps his arm. He then zaps up in the air, effecting the climate controls. Ziggy jumps in as Dillon is capped from above, falls down the building and Ziggy saves him by teleporting mid-air. Their helmets come off and they stand up. K and the colonel track the monster. The trio says they are finished at the docks, we didn't see who they fought. The trio meet the SatBot and fight him. K tells them to destroy it. Red is about to but Black stops him, telling him it has his memories. The bot runs off. Dr. K wants it destroyed. Summer is for not destroying it, Scott says they have no choice and tells Ziggy to 'get him.' Ziggy teleports and fights the Satbot. Black is against it. K says she has no choice but to put him offline. Black fights it and sends a big signal of energy pouring through the other three, bringing them down.


The Satbot attacks upward and the blasts come down, blasting the five. Black gets up, saying about his memories, K tries shutting him down again, he says he doesn't shut down so easily and fights it again and then fights the bot. Black wants the memories back and now the Bot's hits don't phase him anymore. Black says it is over for him and beats him up. He then wants to destroy it. They form the RPM Enforcer, the Satbot says the old memories are all he has, Dillon says he has something else.. new ones and destroys the monster, not before him saying he'll never know the truth. The shields are then at 100%. Venjix is not happy. Tenaya goes to bed. Dillon is being analyzed by Summer and Dr. K. Dr. K says that SatBot activated a dormant virus inside him, meaning that the machinery inside him has restarted self-generation process that is growing. It will grow until it takes Dillon over entirely, there is no cure.

Episode Review:
It seems that the showrunner Eddie finally realized he had to get cracking with the footage and skip some monsters, and this case squeeze in a couple of monsters. They didn't use Episode 12 robot, which switched minds with the red ranger, so maybe they will use that for next week. Anyhoo, interesting they went back to the Dillon backstory, of course we are not going to find out everything so early, so they are going to spread it throughout the series. And the Dillon/Summer relationship hits a snag as Dillon isn't exactly letting Summer in. Also, I think it is a bit curious that Dillon switches his mind rather quickly to destroy the monster. This is another rushed episode and could have been a 2-parter.

This episode has no watermarks.

Queer Eye for the Rider Guy: Decade Complete Form and Kuuga new form

I decided it might be fun to critique the new uniforms in Kamen Rider Decade. The reason I call this "Queer Eye for the Rider Guy," as a reference to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"--I know that show is old, but I thought it would be cool to have a perspective of a gay person.

Kamen Rider Decade Complete Form
First off, they almost completely discarded pink from the outfit and went to black and silver, still keeping the barcode look and bulkiness of the last one. He gets a 4-pack abs like the last one had abs. What people don't' like are the cards on the front, of all the past Riders, it looks like a display case. I think it is distracting when he will fight. It looks so awkward. There could have been a better way to show the past Riders, like symbols on the chest and back or something like that. I like the Pink eyes, I like the shiny look. What is curious is the card on the top of his helmet, it is a picture of this helmet, meaning there is a mirror-like repetition of the same image, an endless paradox. Meaning the picture has the card as well and then in the card of the card, there he is again in a endless cycle. I am not loving the silver shoes, they are so boxy, they look a bit tasteless. The belt buckle looks like a PSP!

Kuuga

I think it doesn't have an official name yet. It is more gold than black. It has more horns and more details, it reminds me of the new rider Goldra in Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade NEO Generations The Movie: The Onigashima Battleship. The helmet looks like a bit like Kamen Rider Another Agito but it is black and the mouth is more normal. I think it looks good, I would love if it had some red in it, maybe on the belt. I don't like how the eyes go black though. I hope Norihito Itou plays this form, like he played Kuuga in an early episode of Kamen Rider Decade.

The Song Dr.K plays in Power Rangers RPM Episode "Doctor K"

My friend says the song Dr. K plays on her violin is from the baroque period, but doesn't know the name. And the other classic music in the episode in this is Chopin.

UPDATE MAY 17, 2009
Thanks to Ballerinafairy, it is not baroque, it does sound like Paganini's Caprice.

Power Rangers RPM - Episode 11 - "Doctor K"

Episode Summary:
Dr. K is playing her violin and trying to configure the Zenith Megazord with no avail. She breaks the strings on her violin when Summer walks in. Meanwhile, Venjix presents the Reflex Bot and it opens up its mirror and the two dumb generals say how ugly they are, without realizing it is them. Venjix releases another one for Tenaya, saying she is his wisest and most trusted general. She says it is not saying much as the others continue being dumb. Back at the garage, Dr. K explains to the Rangers and Colonel that the Venjix hardware has gotten better and they can't match up. She needs a new flux overthruster for the Zenith Megazord, she doesn't have the answers and everyone is full of questions. Ziggy asks his question once again, "Are we or are we not the good guys?" Dr. K asks him what it is like. Ziggy is "like what?"


She asks what is it like being stupid your whole life, she wants to know if it is wonderful as it seems. Flashback to Dr. K as a child and playing with chalk making circles around one girl's pretty little house with equations. A mysterious man and woman, walk up to her, we do not see their faces. Dr. K offers them a chalk. Fade to black, no title as most origin episodes had titles. Dr. K blows the candles on her birthday cake and she wants to go outside but she is told her skin is sensitive to the sun and she is very sick. She has been taken in by this man and woman in the government corporation Alphabet Soup for her whole life. The man and woman tell her over and over again to do work, equations, and make a computer program. They ask her what is her wish on her birthday (she is probably a teenager by now), she says she wishes she could remember her name. Back to reality, the rangers go fight the monster.


The two megazords are formed and the bot can replicate a solid object and it does so with the Shark and Wolf and splits ValveMax apart. The bot replicates their saber and attacks the High Octane Megazord and the other three go down. Dr. K is distressed. The Rangers are at the mercy of the robot but it slows down and has a system failure. It shuts down and shrinks to adult size. Back at the lab, the soldiers bring in the robot, Colonel wants to destroy it but Dr. K wants to study it. She asked by Corporal Hicks how she created the Ranger Stuff. She says she had help. Flashback to her playing with her musical keyboard. The Man and Woman of Alphabet Soup bring her two test pilots for the Ranger hardware project... twins Gem and Gema who complete each other's sentences. They were raised in 'The Soup' as well.


They wish her happy birthday and give her a present... a big pencil of two colors (green and yellow). They say they are her friends. The present was wrapped with a gold ribbon and silver ribbon. She says she doesn't even like them. They say they still like her anyway. She worked that pencil to a nub working on the Ranger hardware on her computer. She spots a butterfly on her keyboard and follows it. The butterfly reaches a window and Dr. K is shocked to find out that the sunlight does not effect or harm her. Back to the present, the Rangers fight the drones and Tenaya surprises K again in her lab. K blasts her with her cannon and Tenaya blasts the lasers.


Tenaya makes it so Red can't control his zord. K puts a tub over Tenaya so she can't escape but of course her hand does. K tries to get things working again. Tenaya says she is getting out of there. K remembers when she wanted to escape 'The Soup' and take Gem and Gema with her. She explains they aren't allergic to the sun. It was all a lie. K planned to blind the security servers for a few minutes so the three could escape... with the Venjix virus they told her to create. She detonates it and then security comes to take Gem and Gema. So K tries to stop the virus but soldiers come and get her but she says she has to stop it or it will infect the entire world. She says all she wanted was to go outside. Present time, the Rangers gain control of the zords. The monster becomes big and K fight Tenaya. High Octane fights the suped-up robot with new additions. Tenaya whistles the 'Farmer in the Dell' again and mentions how K 'royally messed up.' K blasts at her angrily.


We see K do the message we heard in the first message and pack up the five Ranger morpher and cells. The Man and Woman want the computer back and don't want anyone to know Venjix started at the Soup. She tells them the world needs the Ranger technology. The two point guns at her. Gem and Gema beat them up for her. Gema says they are going back for the Gold and Silver series. K tells them they have no time. They run anyway and there are blasts and she thinks they are dead. K cries for her friends in a mini-freak out, Dr. K points the mirror of the fake bot at her and the flux thingy she needed is duplicated so they can make Zenith, which they do. They destroy the monster, Tenaya is kicked out by K's violin/sound blaster and she then looks sadly at the gold and silver ribbons of her only friends in the whole world.


REVIEW: (SPOILERS!)
BEST EPISODE OF POWER RANGERS EVER!!!!
One of the best! With the classical music and a few twists and turns, some expected (K asking Ziggy how it is being stupid) and unexpected (the reveal on Venjix). And a mega big other surprise! Gem and Gema! Yes, Gem and Gema are the Gold and Silver Ranger, not Scott's dead brother and Tenaya how some have theorized. This episode has so much backstory that the monster being destroyed was reduced to the end. And now we can theorize on why the two generals of Venjix are so dumb, the virus was created by a super genius teenager! This explains a lot and I am glad it was not all reduced to the day the virus hit. OOOOhhh, and K is keeping a secret from the Rangers! I couldn't count the candles on her cake, it's hard because the cake is white, the candles are white and almost the whole room was white!!! So does the 'K' stand for Katherine or Kim? We may never know! K doesn't even know.