Power Rangers Ninja Steel finally has its release date, and will air its first episode on Nickelodeon this January. It continues the partnership between Saban and Nickelodeon after the last two series of Mega Force and Dino Charge. Also confirmed this week by Saban, Ninja Steel will feature a crossover with two Super Sentai monsters (Japanese Power Rangers) in Ninninger and Toqger.
Ninja Steel is actually going to be a TV show about a TV show. The main villain, Galvanax (above), is the champion of an intergalactic TV gladiator show. Monsters fight to show who is the strongest, and Galvanax wants to rule the world after defeating all oncomers in the show. He needs to take possession of the spirit crystal and its six super powered ninja stars. These, of course, are possessed by the rangers. Galvanax sends monster after monsters after the rangers in an attempt to steal the crystal and dominate the universe, all the while broadcasting every fight across the galaxy.
The interesting part is that the crystal contains six ninja stars, but only five rangers have been cast and revealed for the series so far. There will be Ninja Steel Red, White, Yellow, Pink and Blue Rangers with the sixth one surely to be that proverbial Ranger that shows up while the others are in a bind to help save the day. By comparison, Ninja Steel keeps the same base colors as the most recently ended Dino Charge with only swapping green for white. Of course, Dino Charge ended up having ten rangers in total, the first time in history it went over six (including graphite and aqua rangers).
Those familiar with the Ninninger Super Sentai series will notice some resemblance to the plot line as well. In Ninninger, ninjas battled to see who could be the last one left in a school, while in Ninja Steel the monsters will battle to see who wil lbe the last one left to fight the rangers. The Ninja Steel shuriken logo itself is representative of Ninninger, begging the question what other series crossovers will we see in Ninja Steel. In Ninninger, the 6th ranger was Kinji Takigawa who was all gold with the exception of blue sleeves. Since the five rangers in Ninja Steel are the same as in Ninninger, a safe bet would be the 6th Ninja Steel Ranger would have the same gold/blue color scheme as well.
The cast of Ninja Steel is as follows
- Will Shewfelt is the Red Ranger Brody,
- Chrysti Ane Lopes is the Pink Ranger Sarah
- Nico Greetham is the Yellow Ranger Calvin
- Zoe Robins is the White Ranger Hayley,
- Peter Sudarso is the Blue Ranger Preston
You'll also notice that the Yellow Ranger is a male, which will be only the third time in series history this has occurred. The other two, of course, were in Ninja Storm (Dustin) and Mystic Force (Chip) although there have been 19 Yellow Rangers in its history. Hayley the White Ranger, by comparison, will be the 4th female in the color of only eight total White Rangers. Ninninger also had the same male/female rangers as the upcoming Ninja Steel.
The whole "ninjas in space" thing isn't new, as Power Rangers Ninja Storm did the same thing. The intergalactic battle to the death, however, is new. There is no exact air date, but the first episode will premiere on Nickelodeon in January. It will be the 24th season of Power Rangers, and the current agreement between Saban and the network lasts through the 25th season in 2018. No word if Ninja Steel will continue the trend of Mega Force and Dino Charge and add a second "Super" season like Super Megaforce and Dino Supercharge did.
We'll update you as we hear more, and let us know what you think of this new series below.
