[Den-O]

"We're the Power Rangers!"

When 5 teenagers with attitude were chosen to defend the Earth, each of them was given access to a universe of power. Transported to the Command Center, and introduced to the quirky robot Alpha 5 & the inter-dimensional being Zordon of Eltar, these young heroes were bestowed with the strength of the ancient dinosaurs. Fearless and agile, Trini Kwan was honored with the powers of the mighty Saber-Toothed Tiger Dino Zord! Power Daggers in hand, Trini joined her teammates as they battled the likes of Goldar, Scorpina, and the evil sorceress Rita Repulsa!


Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro.

Main Figure
We keep inching closer to the completion of the full Mighty Morphin Power Rangers team from Hasbro's Lightning Collection. After Red, Dragon Shield Red, Dragon Shield Black, Fighting Spirit Green, Pink, White, the upcoming release of Blue, and today's subject the Yellow Ranger, the gap has closed considerably. Leaving only a standard version of Green Ranger, and non-shielded Black Ranger to come. The Yellow Ranger is yet another welcome addition to this team though, and despite some of the molding reused from Pink Ranger, it feels like a slight improvement.

As the first female ranger in the line, the Pink Ranger definitely set the bar at an underwhelming level so building Yellow off that base didn't have me super enthused. From the outset the big difference here is that Yellow Ranger doesn't have a skirt, which is of course an accurate look. What I don't really care for is the general build of the body. I get it, Trini was a female Yellow Ranger in Power Rangers, but the source footage used for a majority of her appearances of course depicts the male Tiger Ranger. I would have really preferred a more neutral sculpt for this figure than the proportions given to it. As is it really suits more of a season 2/3 Aisha look, where a majority of the appearances were US filmed footage with a female suit. I know it's a nit-pick, this figure just feels a bit off because of this to me. But at least it isn't the long and lanky outrageously proportioned Bandai 6.5" figure.

Structurally we have exactly the same articulation cuts as the pink ranger. Rocker ankles with forward/back ratchets, swiveling boot cuffs below the knee as well as a double jointed knee, a great but tight thigh swivel, and hinged hips. The knees feel a bit loose much as they did on my Pink Ranger, making it a little awkward at times to get Trini standing or posed properly. Loose knees with tight hips is an odd combo for stability. I do feel like I've noticed something more this time around with the mold though, the boots are just a bit too big. Visually they seem too wide for the legs they're attached too. That's admittedly a cosmetic gripe rather than a functional one though.

The Yellow Ranger's belt is a little unsightly, upon closer inspection you can see that the paint application is actually off to the left from the sculpted details, making it a bit wonky. But the paint is a bit spotty as well contributing to the issue. So it's hard to make out the Sabertooth Tiger coin. The belt features a holster on the left hip for the included Blade Blaster as well. The holster looks kind of over sized on this figure to me, but I could be wrong. Since there's no skirt attached to the belt we can see the identical waist parts that Yellow Ranger shares with Pink. The torso itself features the same basic design as Pink Ranger, but these are actually different parts.The female MMPR mold has a sort of floating lower torso behind the belt and a ball jointed upper body. While not quite as dynamic as the male mold, it certainly gets the job done. Yellow Ranger appears to have a slightly more slender sculpt with a longer ab section resulting in the two actually looking quite different.

The arms are actually in a similar situation. The shoulders are the same butterfly style joint we've seen pretty much across the line. In Yellow Ranger's case the joint has a bit different shape and takes up a little bit less real estate on the torso. The actual shoulders are also a bit different than typical. They sit just a bit out further from the body but ratchet up and out in the same manner. The elbows are of the same new variety as Pink Ranger as well. Rather than the normal double joint hinge we've seen with the boys, Yellow & Pink have a fully rotating elbow on a peg. It's pegged into bicep with a single hinge joint to move it up. This means the elbow isn't double jointed or nearly as dynamic in a forward/back sense, but that it can rotate fully giving it some weird extra range. This is largely to make up for the lack of a bicep swivel. The wrists operate as normal though but I've found the hinges on each hand's peg is very tight.

Like a handful of other rangers in the line thus far, I do feel the sculpt is a bit soft on the Yellow Ranger's helmet, but moreover the QC is a bit iffy. On the mouth plate of mine are some strange sculpted lines, the black on the visor isn't fully applied around the edges, and even the silver on the tiger nose is missing a big chunk. The girls are so far not my favorite figures in the Lightning Collection, but I feel the shortcomings of the mold at this point are largely owed to growing pains of the line more than anything else.

Accessories

1 - Trini unmasked head. By far one of the better likenesses in the line, Hasbro really nailed Thuy Trang's face with this sculpt. The long hair also manages to be less cumbersome than some others like say, Lord Drakkon. The neck joint goes pretty high up in there, but it's still viable despite all the hair which is a plus. The expression is a tiny bit dull, but it's a pretty solid neutral as well. In most cases I'd like something a little bit more expressive, but all of wave 4 has ad least had a pretty solid neutral face included with each ranger.

1 - Blade Blaster (Blaster Mode). Continuing this confusing pattern, Hasbro has opted to include the Blade Blaster only in it's Blaster form. Meaning that when holstered in a Ranger's belt, it's entirely inaccurate. In all Zyuranger footage, and even in American produced MMPR suit footage, the Blade Blaster is always closed and usually fully collapsed when holstered. You can hide the butt of the gun at certain angles but it just isn't the right accessory. If we were going to get the blaster, then they should have also included the holstered form too, which is something that even this far along in the line, only the SDCC Red Ranger included.

2 - Power Daggers. These are straight repacks of the weapons as they came with the SDCC Red Ranger for the Power Blaster. Nothing new to speak of here, they compliment Yellow Ranger well and are sized in proportion to the figure.

2 - effect parts. Doing something few figures in the line have done, Trini gets two identical effects, one for each of her Power Daggers. These are yellow recolors of the effect part included with the Mighty Morphin White Ranger & Lord Drakkon as well. They look good in yellow, and they're made of a soft flexible material as always, but the peg hole to use them with the daggers is a bit shallow and really the right width. Owing to the fact that this part wasn't originally designed for them.

2 - additional hands. Yellow Ranger comes standard with Dagger holding hands attached, a bit of a relaxed open look. The extra hands give Trini a flat karate chop style left hand, and a trigger right hand for the included Blade Blaster. This is one of those cases where I'd really like to have some closed fists as well, the extra hand for the Blaster feels redundant given that the Dagger holding hands would work just as well.

That's actually a pretty solid line up of accessories, I'm still just really baffled that none of the rangers outside SDCC Red are coming with the correct Blade Blasters for their holsters.

Final Thoughts
While there are certainly some changes with the Yellow Ranger's outing in the line, the vestiges of the Pink Rangers' design flaws are still there. Both still feel like less than stellar releases overall, despite the things they each do that I do like, they seem to falter equally. Given that these are so far the only 2 female figures in the Lightning Collection (aside from upcoming Ranger Slayer & Rita Repulsa) I'm chalking the inconsistencies up to Hasbro still trying to figure out how to make these figures well. At least we aren't seeing ridiculously out of proportion female rangers like the one's Bandai America pushed out. But Hasbro could certainly stand to take a bit more time in the future with these releases as well. Here's hoping that further new rangers hit the mark a bit a more.