Go go Power Rangers! Although my push to get folks interested in Power Rangers toys only recently began in earnest, I've been happy to discuss my love of these figures for almost a year now -- they really are fantastic little toys. That said, if you ever take my advice and pick one up, make sure you're getting the real deal... 'cause there are a lot of Power Rangers imitators out there! One such group of misfit morphers can be found in:
I picked these guys up during my first visit to New York City's Chinatown in 2004. I wasn't especially into Power Rangers at that point, but I wanted a souvenir -- and when you're not especially interested in faux jade animal figurines and tiny wooden Buddhas and don't consider foreign VCDs to be especially souvenir-y (I still came back with tons of them), few things are more evocative of Chinatown than knockoff Rangers. And whereas one can find Strong Tranformable Potency Troopers (misspelling intentional, and that's not really what they're called) in myriad dollar and discount shops, it's only in places with ties to the Orient that you'll find a complete team on a giant card.
At a glance, the Potency Troopers might look horrifying... but if you've seen the Power Rangers: Turbo designs they don't actually look half bad. Sure, the women have the same body as the men and the Pink Ranger looks nearly as dark as the Red Ranger (I'd thought the set just came with two Reds until I took these photos), but they look relatively decent and have fairly impressive articulation for figures that have been making the rounds since 1997 and aren't G.I. Joes. For whatever reason, the Troopers also have chromed holsters/sheaths for stowing either their shock-white guns or swords.
Naturally, where these guys take a dive is quality. They're made of that cheap, dusty plastic so often found on bootlegs and held together by multiple visible screws. The paint is also very odd -- it looks crisp enough for the most part, but it has a slight, chalky texture to it: it almost feels like a fresh drawing with charcoal or one of those graphite pens. And owing to the flimsiness of the weapons and the fact that the Troopers' hands peg into holes in their hilts, the accessories are fairly prone to breakage. It's tempting to draw a lewd comparison involving... no, I'm not even going to say it -- but when you slide a larger peg into a tight hole with minimal reinforcement on either side, it's inevitable that something's going to tear.
The lack of quality of bootleg toys consistently amazes me -- not because one would expect a ripoff product to be better, but because they're seemingly intended for young children who don't know the difference between a knockoff and a legit figure. What responsible parents would buy these things for their kids?! Any tyke who ended up with these for Christmas probably ended up with a belly full of white sword handles and a tongue grey from chalky tampographs. Seriously, when you're doing your holiday shopping, avoid these guys (despite being based on a 1997 show, they're readily available in a CVS box set right now) with prejudice and go for the legitimate Bandai wares.
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Want to see even more bootleg toys? Find past and future editions of Bootleg Tuesday right here.
