Power Rangers Super Samurai: The Complete Season

The seemingly indestructible, candy-colored Japanese-American co-produced kid-kitsch Power Rangers continue on in this iteration that finds grotesque monsters called Nighlok being fought by the teen descendants of elite mystic samurai warriors. Despite the samurai angle, most of the multi-ethnic kids playing Rangers are decidedly non-Asian, assembling in each ritualistic episode to battle a particularly grotesque Nighlok. These fights are the centerpieces in a loose storyline in which shipboard monster Master Xandred is sending infernal invaders out to make the human world suffer, although the formula is fairly standard: namely, a guest Nighlok with weird powers (gluing people together; duplicating itself; causing others to eat uncontrollably) temporarily stymies the Power Rangers, until they fight back with "BullZord" or "LightZord" or some kind of ultimate weapon (which looks suspiciously like it might be selling now at toy stores). The saving grace is that nothing is taken very seriously, the violence is basically acrobatics, and puns spice up the rudimentary dialogue. When Antonio, the Gold Power Ranger, survives being changed into a dead fish (it's a long story) and afterwards suffers the equivalent of Power Rangers Traumatic Stress Syndrome, it's almost—unintentionally—a moment worthy of the satire Robot Chicken. Compiling all 20 episodes aired during 2012, extras include a music video, an exercise training segment, and footage from a licensing expo show. Sure to be popular, this is a strong optional purchase. Aud: P. (C. Cassady)