For a whole year, I never bothered with any of the MMPR Reignition toys as someone who was already tired of buying stuff based on Season 1. More power to those who got them, but I already have versions of the team, the villains, and the Zords I wanted. Plus, the super generic voice clips of half of the toys not sounding like any of the actors was a double pass. Then came the leaks for the Godzilla crossover figures, and those got my interest immediately. It took a good while for them to come out, but I was happy to finally get my hands on the first wave. The Power Rangers comic books have been a good read in general, and the same goes for their crossovers with Goji himself; hell, I wish more people would give them a shot instead of just either only reading Absolute DC and Skybound Transformers or claim PR is a dead brand while whining Sentai will come back ASAP (which is likely a side effect from the toku community losing braincells from watching recent Toku slop). Plus, seeing the Kaiju monsters lend their powers to the MMPR team as they take on both Rita AND Astronema surprised me even more than the usual fights people put both IPs in. So let's take a look at the first wave of Kaiju Rangers and see how well they turned out!
Here we have the Green Godzilla Kaiju Ranger in-hand. If you're familiar with the history of mainline Power Rangers figures, then these should be a bit closer to the proportions of a 5 inch Action Hero like what we got from Super Megaforce through Super Ninja Steel rather than the ones we got from Beast Morphers and Dino Fury. I say that because they have a slight bit of muscle to them, somewhere between the builds of both figures we had before Playmates. Thankfully, the chainmail representing the scales of the Kaiju, as well as the spikes in the back, forearms, and boots, add to an overall armored look that I would like to see more of in Power Rangers. Not sure what the suits would be made of, but I bet that if we got these in live action, then I hope they are made of a slightly denser material than the usual spandex we get to better convey the "scaly" influence of Godzilla and co. And at least for the Green Ranger he has his signature dragon shield but redesigned to go with the Kaiju aesthetic.
As for the Blue Anguirus Kaiju Ranger, whose shade of blue is much lighter than on the normal MMPR Blue suit, but with this being a whole different aesthetic for the most part it gets a pass. One interesting thing about this suit is the two tone blue combo to distinguish the stomach, biceps, and thighs from the pectoral armor, belt, helmet, and knee pads. The thing that will stand out the lost for this figure is the spikey shoulder pads and backpack, which makes sense for both Anguirus as well as correlating this loosely with the Triceratops associated with the Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger. The coolest aspect is that almost none of the figure is reused from the other characters except for the hands and maybe the thighs, at least for green and blue.
And finally, we have the Red Rodan Kaiju Ranger. Unique to this design is not just the pair of wings on his back but the more segmented armor design that is not borrowed from his fellow Rangers. The swept up shoulder pads combined with the tapered paneling and spikey claws already make him a favorite, even if Godzilla is a bigger name than Rodan.
The helmets are sculpted pretty well all around, arguably better than the regular MMPR Playmates figures. I love that we get new designs from the ground up even if we have that small hint of the classic design philosophy with the beast faces on top with the mouths being the visors (no sculpted lips though).
Articulation is consistent with all 3 of them: ball jointed necks and hips, swivels for the shoulders, wrists, and ankles, elbow rotation/hinge combos, and double jointed knees. While I know they had to preserve the sculpts, it really sucks they can't move their arms out like on the average Power Rangers figure we got since the beginning. Also while double jointed knees are great to have, the elbow joints they used are both questionable and remind me of some early Hasbro Marvel Legends we got in the late 2000s. Also, wrist swivels are fine, but those ankle should be ball jointed at least.
I do like that they each come with a color matching Blade Blaster in regular gun and dagger modes as well as their unique weapons. Red comes with a stubby Power Sword, Blue comes with a Power Lance that would have been fine being stubby if the trip was weak, and Green has the Sword of Darkness. Maybe it was repurposed as the Sword of Brightness because Godzilla is not a bad guy.
The display bases are neat, and I like that they have a resemblance to what the team's Power Coins could look like. The names in the bottoms are to tell who is who, which helps for anyone not super familiar with any Kaiju last Goji.
Here they are with the Lightning Collection Remastered MMPR team, at least half of them already represented with the Kaiju upgrades. While they are 5.5 inches in height and therefore not in close scale with the 6 inch Lightning figures, you can fudge it a bit somewhat with the display stands if you wanted to add a "new" team with that collection. Overall, the Kaiju Rangers have some minor issues, mostly with the articulation and weapon sizes, but having them uniquely sculpted from one another, coming with a handful of accessories, and even being priced at $15 a pop makes them easier to recommend Ryan when Hasbro did those 30th anniversary basic 6 inch versions of the MMPR team. Sadly, much like how those were sold at Walmarts, the Kaiju Rangers are sold only at Targets. While Red and Blue were easy to get, Green was much harder to find (wonder why). If you can find them with ease, pick them up instead of the rinse and repeat Reignition Season 1 stuff.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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