[Tokumonkey]

Faaascinating.

I'm not taking the concept art at face value, yet. The scans we have is... hm! From what we can see, it looks like the suit pattern is identical-but-inverted, and the basic helmet shape is the same. It's like they took the typical visual concept of the Sixth Hero and extrapolated from there, kinda like the Goraigers.

How the transformation gun works is interesting in terms of the placement of the widget. The widgets... could have looked cooler. At least the Lupinrangers' mecha are adorable with their little top hats. I can't see the teams' symbols in the background clearly enough to work out how they relate to one another.

As to the sliver we can see of the mecha... Okay, that the pink Patoranger vehicle gives the police version of the mecha a baton is awesome, and it looks like, unshockingly, the green arm will feature a canon. I'm most interested in the leg, since it looks better designed than those of the last several mecha. I wouldn't be entirely shocked if it had some articulation, even if just as a result of the transformation process.

I'm flat-out surprised they didn't mold mouths onto the helmets.

I'm hoping this series will manage to surprise me. I imagine that at a minimum, the first episode will be very entertaining. I've been assuming that if the teams start out antagonistic, they'll eventually merge into a single team in order to fight a larger threat. But who knows? This is a setup that practically demands that the show's writers get creative.

HEH! Since I started typing this, images of PatoKaizer and LupinKaizer have been leaked. I'm kind of... neutral on them.

I'm hoping that the PatoKaizer in the image isn't put together properly, because the enclosure (hat?) over the head... what is that even supposed to look like? The arms continue the no-significant-transformation trend, pretty much just looking like cars tacked onto the side. Nothing particularly armlike about them. Then again, the toy version of Dekaranger Robo had something similar going on, but the arms weren't quite so oversized, and it had something closer to fists. Is that a light in the center, or another wheel? I like the concept of the billy club/baton, although I wish it were a different color. PatoKaizer's not a bad mecha, but unfortunately, it has to stand next to a cooler design.

LupinKaizer fares better, which is not surprising, since Toei clearly seems to favor the LupinRangers. (They get the classic red/yellow/blue color scheme and top billing.) The arms don't overwhelm the design the same way, and the hat-thing reads way better than whatever's going on with PatoKaizer. The hands/extremities read better because they're actually differently-colored. It even has something that looks like elbow joints, although I doubt they'll function on the DX toy. The jet chest-piece is much better-looking. I get where they're going with the top hat, but it doesn't read quite right for their intent. It looks like the shins on PatoKaizer's legs flip over to five LupinKaizer's legs some differentiation.

Is it me, or does the blue LupinRanger jet look an awful lot like GokaiJet in this configuration?

I'm guessing that the PatoRangers will acquire the central mecha (GoodStriker?), then the LupinRangers will steal it, and then, there'll be some back-and-forth shenanigans. Since the mecha shared a body, it sounds like we're unlikely to have the two teams get into a giant-mecha battle, at least with these robots.