PMC3: The Aquitar Rangers and I!

 As some of you might remember, I got to interview Alan Palmer a year ago or so and he is so awesome. He's gay and married (3 times to the same guy! Hope it sticks now!) with 2 kids. He has done shows before, he has written and starred in. He is down to Earth and shy about the Con. I had to encourage him and Raija Baroudi (Delphine/White Aquitar Ranger and also voice of Jara in Beetleborgs) into stuff I will explain later. 

 Alan Palmer was there Friday and Saturday and participated in the "Unsung Heroes" panel on Friday. Video on the panel is available on this blog and my Mythical Destiny YouTube channel. Alan said he wished his character would talk more and explained about his mask makeup. Both Raija and Alan liked the makeup. Raija had longer hair at the time and had to spool it through a hole in the mask thingy and she said it was a bit of a bother. 

[Picture above thanks to Jill Sylvan]
Here is Raija Baroudi with my pal Jill. Raija is half Kuwait/half Irish, born in Ireland and has a wonderful accent! She is so much fun and she loves being a female leader, the first! She is also proud of being Jara. She was hanging and talking to Catherine Sutherland. She was there Saturday and Sunday. When the David Yost panel was going on Saturday, Walter Jones dropped in, then Steven Cardenas, Catherine Sutherland, and Nakia Burrise. So I decided to go get Raija and Alan who were in the big room with autographs. So I encouraged them to go on stage with David Yost.

[Picture above thanks to Jay of MorphinLegacy]
So Raija did and hugged him. On Sunday, Raija was late for the AmeriToku panel for Beetleborgs and VR Troopers. I urged her to go, but she had fans waiting. She said she'd go to the restroom and then go, I dunno if she did go, I think she did. She also was present for the 18 and over Scott Page-Pagter Audio Retrospective in the audience with Paul S., and Morrigan Mahan. I will discuss more of that later. Raija and Alan are both a delight!

http://www.facebook.com/mobileprotection#!/rajiaas.delphine

http://www.facebook.com/mobileprotection#!/alan.palmer2

Related: http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-alan-palmer-corcus-black.html | http://henshingrid.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-alan-palmer-corcus-black.html

PMC3: Bandai (Megaforce toys) and Tamashi Nations

I know you guys have seen it before, but what is it to have another?

 They had two Mooger pinatas that looked awesome. I kept asking when they would break them but they didn't know. Sunday they did it, maybe when the Over 18 Audio Panel was going on and they told me they did one with kids and it went crazy that they didn't do it again. Word is that inside where mini Samurai figures. They were giving out translucent mini MMPR Red figures too. They said the second pinata would probably go back to Headquarters.

 This was actually the Red Turbo Ranger and they reformatted it.

Original. I couldn't take a picture of the diagram of them changing it because they said it was not allowed.

 They added the Retrofire figures later day.

With Augie (AJ Yellow of Rangerboard), my expression is not from him, it is I was tired. Augie is a great guy! He volunteered for Bandai at PMC two times (three times?)

Back of the PMC3 Exclusive toy package, it has '7th Mystery Ranger.' It looks very much like female Red. Bandai reps were mum. 

Joe Rovang (@Rofang) was told she (Female Red Ranger) would be released before Christmas. RRR thinks it will be in mid-October.

http://rrrotoku.com/2012/08/18/bandai-sets-timeframe-for-spoiler-samurai-figure/

PMC3: Chat with Guest of Honor Nonaka Tsuyoshi

UPDATED 8/23/12

Pictures thanks to Raz of Rangerboard.

   On Sunday at the PMC, I was looking for a friend and bumped into Nonaka Tsuyoshi smoking a cigarette. At the show, I was not able to speak to him because he was always drawing and had a long line. Even though he speaks little English and I speak even less Japanese (Jay of MorphinLegacy would tell you when I said 'Hello' instead of 'Thank you.'), we were able to communicate. He was impressed with my Sentai knowledge. He says he has been working with Bandai for over 20 years and he was plucked from product development school. 

I had lots of questions about color choices Toei and Bandai had. He said that Silver and Gold are always popular for additional Rangers because they are well.. 'shiny.' He said how toy sales and ratings go up for Silver or Gold Rangers in Sentai. But in 2007 for Gekiranger, Bandai wanted something new. Paraphrasing what he said, he said that they were like... 'we need a new color! What color would be good? Which haven't we done? Oh okay purple!' He says GekiViolet and GekiChopper did not do well. But BeetBuster and StagBuster of Go-Busters are doing extremely well. They have gone through the roof, big success. I was concerned if they would do it again (Red, Yellow, Blue, Silver and Gold mix) and he said they (Bandai or Toei I guess) would not do it again because it would not be as successful every year. Also I think kids would get bored and it wouldn't have the same impact. I told him I loved purple and wondering if they would do it again. He said he wasn't sure, he was hesitant to say 'maybe.' 

So I asked him about the color changes in Gokaiger. He said 'it was crazy.' He was not involved as he is just the designer but he said it caused a frenzy in Japan. From how he said things and what he was saying, I got the impression we might not get a  male pink, female black or green anytime soon in a regular show. I think the thinking behind it is that if you are going to have Red, Blue and Green, they have to be male, or if it is Red, Blue and Black or Red, Green, and Yellow. That if a woman was green or blue, it would leave less for the guys. But they can always use Silver, Gold, Crimson, Cyan, etc. I did not ask him about this aspect. And I forgot to ask about the Spirit Rangers. But as for Gokaiger, he was impressed I knew about the all-pink change in Gokaiger vs Gavan and he laughed when I said 'short time.' So I assume it was indeed on purpose the scene was short because of the stigma behind men in pink. We did not discuss it because he had to go and same in the last conversation we had.

I asked him about the mega mode for Samurai and why Gold had no blue like his ShinkenGold suit when in Mega. He said it had to do with team thinking and color coordinating. That what looked good in an overall scheme for the six. Also he (or some other higher ups) confirmed to some other fans that Gold Shogun would not appear on the show. As for Shogun mode, I asked about the Kanji on their heads. As Red Shogun's symbol looks like the Kanji for flame. I spoke to him through an interpreter late in the day inside the convention center and I don't think they understood me well. He said it was meant to 'imitate' Kanji but didn't really mean anything. I knew this. I asked if the others meant anything. They said Yellow did but nothing major, a very rare minor used Kanji but I didn't really understand what they said it meant or if they even said it. I said how I was surprised the girls had Shogun, he said it was the Saban company's request for the whole team to have Shogun mode.


He said he was no one special, he was surprised he had fans. I explained (best I could) that the 80's brought so much merchandising, TV shows with toy lines, and mass producing, so we kids of the 80's and 90's saw many many toys and looked at these toys all the time and how could we not fall in love with the designs? I mentioned Transformers and Go-Bots, he nodded. He asked what I thought about the differences between Transformers and Super Sentai. I told him even kids can tell the difference and told him about my nephew. That the Transformers are way more complicated than the Super Robos and Super Sentai Super Robos are more brighter and colorful. He said 'Zord,' and I asked him what they called the zords in Japan, he said 'Robo.' I asked "Even the animals? Like Lion? Tiger? Wolf?" He said yes. 

PMC3: Unsung Heroes Panel Video

UPDATED 8/21/12 5:30PM EST
Unsung Heroes:

Jack Guzman, Audrey Dubois Marchionno, Ron Rogge (Captain Mitchell of Lightspeed) and Royce Herron (Ms. Appleby).

BEFORE the Megaforce promo

Paul S. presents the Megaforce trailer as the Power Rangers Samurai cast leave and almosts hits Hector David Jr and he makes a flip and I miss it.

PMC3: My Chat with Elie Dekel. Re: Zyu2

Oh Twitter, not enough space to explain stuff and that's how rumors start or stuff gets misconstrued. I was hoping Elie Dekel would be at the Power Morphicon, no one was sure. But when I was invited to the Power Force Breakfast, I was sure he would be there. When we waited outside and he passed by, I called his name and he looked like a deer in front of the headlights. He was surprised but nice. So later we went inside for the breakfast and Elie did his awesome speech and introduced the Samurai Rangers.

Then I spoke to Marni, who is in charge of online stuff and digital things (I have to get the official title some other time) about an idea of doing an encloypedia chronicling all 20 years of toy guide, character guide and episode guide. I had reservations about talking to Elie. Jill Sylvan, my old friend who I just met after 13 years thanks to PMC, pushed me to go to Marni and Elie because I was shy and had butterflies in my stomach. Marni was surprised and wasn't sure but did give me the all clear. I didn't want to be pushy. 

After all was said and done (with breakfast, Samurai cast, kid photo ops, etc.), we (Elie and I) grabbed some ice teas and found a nice quiet corner. It was like a dream. Elie is not only the president of Saban Brands but he has been there since the beginning. I wanted to ask him about 'Zyu 2.' I said: "You know that footage that Saban asked for from Toei and Rainbow productions for season one and two?" He nodded and smiled and laughed. I continued, "You know that fans call it 'Zyu 2' after Zyuranger?" He laughed. He liked it. I asked him if they had the raw footage. He wasn't sure at first. He said they have the masters (final cut of the episodes is what we see on the DVD box set). But he wasn't sure about that footage. Now, I am just paraphrasing... That basically everything went to the mouse house but not everything came back. He said that as we spoke they were going through all the old stuff like props, monsters, suits, weapons, etc. to sort through things.

In a panel with ADR director (audio) Scott Page-Pagter, producer Tony Oliver, director John Stewart, and writer Mark Litton about Behind the Scnes stuff, Mark Litton and Scott Page-Pagter said how they only got chunks of Sentai footage and didn't know the names of the shows. When some one said 'GoGo Five,' Mark Litton was like "What?" So if they saw Zyu 2 footage, they just treated it like regular Zyuranger footage, because they didn't worry what series it was. Some monsters were not selected NOT because the monsters were too scary but mostly because if something they did or they were afraid kids did. For example, Mark talked about a tongue monster that licked the Rangers, which was Impersenator ("Rangers of Two Worlds" part 1 & 2 from Zeo). He also spoke of a Iguana monster for "Putty on the Brain" which is 'Zyu2' monster Saliguana and Fox Kids didn't want them using the word Fire extinguisher on the script. They used the extinguisher because it was in the footage.

Anyway, going back to my book idea, Elie liked the work I put into it. He said they had one of his staff I believe, didn't catch her name, did a whole 'Series Bible.' When he said 'Series Bible' I thought he meant THE Series Bible. The one writers used. He said it had Red binding. I remember one of my insiders mention it. But this what he was talking about was something this woman put together with weapons, bios, zords, etc. He said they tried with publishers and the publishing companies said it wouldn't sell enough. It might sell but not in the numbers they want. That is why I had people retweet the idea. I know lots of fans would want it. He liked those white books that they do for Harry Potter, Cars, Star Wars, and Legos and others that are encyclopedias. Nothing is set in stone, it might still happen. He said maybe something digital like you download for a Nook from Amazon would work. He has great ideas. But there is a lot of legal stuff and publishing companies and other stuff to go through. So we'll see how that goes. Like I said nothing is set in stone and take this info with grain of salt. 

Also, remembering now... He said he was taken aback that fans knew more things than he did. He asked how much I knew about Super Sentai. I said a lot and reminded him about my website Supersentai.com. 

PMC3: Elie Dekel at Power Breakfast (Samurai cast and Rick MEDINA!)

Bits and pieces of the Power Breakfast because I didn't want to use up my battery and also I was eating. LOL. Also they gave us pins at the end, I did not put that in the video for private reasons.