Mandy Kaplan:
Hello and welcome to Make Me a Nerd. I’m Mandy Kaplan, a mainstream mom whose mission it is to explore the world of nerd culture that I’ve been missing out on and afraid of my whole life. I am beyond excited to welcome my guest, who is a dream of a human being, a dream of an actor, singer, performer. I love him so much. I found him on stage maybe five years ago and I’ve been stalking him ever since. I will not let him go. He does Miscast with me. He performs all over Los Angeles and the country all the time. The incredible Omari Miller.

Omari Miller:
Yay! Hello, hello, hello.

Mandy Kaplan:
Hi.

Omari Miller:
Oh my gosh, I love you too. This is so exciting.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay, good. You’ve had caffeine, I can tell.

Omari Miller:
Yes! Oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. Did chug my little Red Bull in the morning.

Mandy Kaplan:
I am taking a swig from my giant mason jar of straight iced coffee. Just black. Nothing in it.

Omari Miller:
As it should be. Pure black coffee.

Mandy Kaplan:
Hey, let’s do this whole thing on double time now that we have some caffeine. Here we go. So I thought of you. I know you, and I took a chance that you might be a nerd, and I think I was on to something.

Omari Miller:
Very, very.

Mandy Kaplan:
And when I said, what do you want to talk about? You had a very clear idea. Can you tell the people what this is? Because I think I might say it wrong.

Omari Miller:
Yes. Okay, so I’m a huge, what they call, tokusatsu nerd, which is Japanese for, like, special filming. And they’re basically live action shows that are known for using a lot of crazy special effects. And so I’m a huge Power Rangers nerd, but what most Americans, I should say, don’t know is that Power Rangers isn’t an original concept. They actually got their idea from Super Sentai, which is the Japanese name for these kinds of team things. Sentai itself means team. So I’m a huge nerd. I was literally just watching with my friend downstairs because I was like, I need somebody else to nerd out about this with.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, cool. Oh, great.

Omari Miller:
And she’s like, this is amazing. And kind of the history of Super Sentai and how it transitioned into Power Rangers is like a long, I guess not convoluted, but there were many eras as well. In Japanese TV, there are the different eras for the different empires. And I always joke that America had the same thing with Power Rangers as well.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. So you had me watch The History of Super Sentai. You know, they didn’t jazz it up with much cool narration or anything. It was just like, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. But it gave me a sense of how many years and how many versions and how many hundreds and hundreds of actors have put on skin-tight colored suits and battled mythical bad guys. I had no idea this went back so far, to 1975.

Omari Miller:
1975, which is almost two decades before Power Rangers even touched American TV. It’s so funny, too, because even watching some of them, there are a lot of cultural differences and nuances that, especially in the earlier Super Sentai, you’ve seen a lot in Japanese culture. Even the first Sentai, which was Himitsu Sentai Gorenger, which is like five ranger, because there were five of them, was based off an anime. I forget his name, but the anime was actually created by the gentleman who also made another TV series that I’m a huge fan of, which is Kamen Rider, which is kind of a similar idea, where it’s masked people fighting crime, whatever, whatever. But they tend to be more standalone heroes, versus these are team based. But yeah, there were 15, 20 years before Power Rangers even became a thought here in the States or anything like that. It’s crazy.

Mandy Kaplan:
How did you find this? Were you introduced from Power Rangers and then went back to the history, or did you somehow have access to Japanese television as a child?

Omari Miller:
Yeah, so I remember how I stumbled upon it was through Kamen Rider. So Masked Rider, which we got here in the States, was not very good. And that was based off of the Japanese equivalent, Kamen Rider Ryuki, which they use these things called Advent Cards, transforming into all these different animals. And I kind of did a deep dive going through. I’ve always been a big Power Rangers fan. I think I’ve watched basically every iteration, with the exception of this newer Nickelodeon generation, now that Hasbro owns them, which I’m sure we’ll talk about, the weird generations of who owns this and whatever’s going on.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, I mean, I just don’t know.

Omari Miller:
Because I even was doing my research and I was like, I didn’t even know it was this convoluted. And so I stumbled upon that, and then I had watched Power Rangers before, and I was so interested finding out that they were based off of these Japanese Super Sentai, what some of these were like. And the differences between them are pretty huge. But yeah, I was kind of just weirdly, on a whim, stumbling upon them, and now I’m hooked.

Mandy Kaplan:
And so you answered one of my first questions, which was how many of these iterations have you seen? And you said pretty much all of them.

Omari Miller:
Pretty much all of them. There are some that I haven’t watched all the way through because I kind of go, okay. And then there are some, especially this newer generation, where I’ve watched the Japanese version and then tried to watch the American version and it’s not the same. For example, I think I sent you the first episode of one of my favorite series, because it’s just so campy, which is Kyoryuger, which is the equivalent to, I think, Dino Charge or something in the States. And I think Kyoryuger is just so perfect. It’s so camp, it’s so over the top. I just think the dino version that we have in the States is a little bit lackluster in some ways. Even though it’s great, fantastic, but yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
So here’s something I’ve always been confused by, because Casey went through a big Mighty Morphin Power Rangers phase when he was very young. I believe he was one for Halloween. He would have the toys. He would run around the house being a Power Ranger. It was adorable. But I would watch it with him, and I was suspect, or I had a theory, that they were using the same footage from some other version, and that’s why everyone is masked so much of the time. Can you talk about that? That is a brilliant fucking business model, right? Let’s just use this footage, save all that money, and only film the kids in school here in the American version.

Omari Miller:
Exactly. And I will say, it’s so funny, too, because another thing most people don’t know, getting into the history of how it came, is Power Rangers almost got brought to the States by Marvel, by Stan Lee. Because Stan Lee had partnered with the Toei Company, who’s this big entertainment conglomerate in Japan that does a lot of these tokusatsus and these other things. He had partnered with them to make a live action Spider-Man adaptation over there, which, if you like the ’70s, super camp, over the top, very much like Adam West Batman feel, but you want it with Spider-Man, I totally suggest.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right, they said something about that, yeah.

Omari Miller:
He had a huge Zord, or a mecha, called Marveller, which was so crazy, which actually inspired a lot of the mechs that you see in Power Rangers now. But yeah, so Stan Lee did that back in, I want to say, the early ’80s, ’70s. Never got picked up. People were like, this kind of idea is not gonna really work with American audiences. The production costs are gonna be so expensive.

And then Saban, forget his first name, Saban, on a business trip in Japan, had watched, I think it was either Denziman or Battle Fever J or something like that. I forget which exact one he saw on TV, and he’s like, I think I could do this and make it cost effective. So what he did was he partnered with Toei. And the footage that you see of them masked up, fighting, all that stuff where faces aren’t shown, he just reused that footage. Of course, he added American dubbings with the “hi-yah,” all those noises. And then all he did was he just filmed the little scenes in between, cutting production cost way, way, way, way, way, way down.

Mandy Kaplan:
So smart.

Omari Miller:
Way down. Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
It’s like Shark Tank, here we come. I wish I had thought of it. So smart.

Omari Miller:
And he made a first pilot for one of them. It didn’t really get much traction or anything like that, just because some of the earlier ones, like I said, are so rooted in Japanese culture. A lot of these production networks were like, I don’t think that’s really gonna relate to American audiences. There are a lot of nuances and stuff like that. But then he landed perfectly on Mighty Morphin, which the Japanese name is Zyuranger. And it’s so funny, because Ms. Loesch was a partner of Stan Lee when he presented it to a bunch of these networks. Later on, she was in charge of Fox Kids and she was looking for this new show, and Saban came with the same idea, and she’s like, I failed on this pitch years ago, I’m gonna take a chance on you. And then we got Mighty Morphin.

Mandy Kaplan:
I love it. And also, I don’t know if it’s xenophobia or just dumbassery, but we want to learn about other cultures. We want to travel the world in our living rooms. And Casey, from a very, very young age, with this and a couple of anime, he wasn’t a big anime kid, but he still to this day says, my dream is to go to Japan. Because he saw so much of Japanese culture in his TV when he was little, or in his comic books or whatever. So change some language, change some references for us to understand, but then let us experience another culture through these kick-ass stories. Why not?

Omari Miller:
Right. And I think because their idea of kids’ TV at that time, cartoons and that kind of animation stuff, was really, really big, I think for them it was that weird mental transition of being like, well, I don’t know how much these young audiences are gonna want to watch a live action thing. I’d be like, it’s a kids’ show, but it’s live action. People have this conception, like if it’s a cartoon, it’s for children. If it’s live action, it’s weird, like, oh, because it’s real life, it’s for adults. I think that was really, really prevalent at the time.

Mandy Kaplan:
I think we’ve evolved.

Omari Miller:
Oh, 100%.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, the worlds have just blended, and adults unabashedly love their animated product. There’s no delineation.

Omari Miller:
Right. We’ve had a huge culture shift. Now I feel like there are more adult cartoon television shows than there are children’s ones. And now there are a lot more children’s live action shows. And so yeah, I think they were just not willing to take the risk at the time, which I think is good. I do think the ones that he pitched at the time would have been interesting, just because they’re so rooted in, I mean, we did have a big spy culture boom, but the way that espionage was a little bit romanticized at the time in Japanese culture, especially in animes, and how that transitioned, that might have been a bit difficult for Americans. I don’t want to say digest, because that makes it sound like, oh, we just don’t have the mental capacity for that, but it just might have been a different conversation.

Mandy Kaplan:
We ain’t so bright sometimes.

Omari Miller:
Right, right, right. So I think they were like, we’re just looking for something that might be a little bit easier to latch on. And of course, dinosaurs. Kids love dinosaurs. That’s such an easy thing to market.

Mandy Kaplan:
So I was overwhelmed with the amount of different shows, and basically it’s like a paint by numbers. They just take a different team and they’re like, this one was a little different because they had cars. This one was a little different because they had planes. And I’m like, really? You switched out one little detail, but you hired all new actors and it became a different show. Obviously the appetite was huge or this wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did.

But they did one in 1977 called J.A.K.Q., which was based on the Jack, Ace, King, and Queen on their helmets. And I just want to brag and shout out, I did an episode on Batman Beyond. And they also had a bad guy team of the Jack, Ace, King, and Queen. I don’t know if you are a Batman Beyond person, but the more I consume, the more crossovers I’m seeing. Not that they were the same characters, to be clear, but the more themes are recurring and the more cool things I’m noticing, like, oh, that’s a legitimate thing that happens in this world of fantasy. So Batman Beyond was a fun episode. And then they said J.A.K.Q. was a failure and canceled after only 35 episodes. And I thought, by today’s standards, that would have been the biggest hit. 35 episodes, right? In our cancel culture today, you get maybe a pilot, and then you’re canceled if it didn’t…

Omari Miller:
Right. And I think that was also something that came, because I even talk about it with the moderns. We’re now in the, I think it’s the Reiwa era for entertainment, technically, because they’re all based off the Japanese empire. So right now I think we’re in Reiwa. I’ll fact check myself in a second. But even now, with modern ones, they’re still long length, these seasons, that you would just not find in a lot of American TV shows. I mean, we love a limited series. I love a limited series. I love to watch my eight to twelve, fourteen episodes, get the full arc, great, can move on with my life. But some of these seasons were 50, 60, 70, 80 episodes, and then you got a movie, and then you got a crossover, and then you got a special, and they still do this now. I was just showing my friend one of the newer Kamen Riders, and I had just finished the last one. This last season was 50-something episodes, and now we have a crossover special episode, they’re already making a movie. And this is just how they retain their audiences.

Mandy Kaplan:
Wow.

Omari Miller:
So I think that was also a difficult part. These seasons were so long. And then I remember watching this video, because I’m not too familiar with some of the earlier, earlier ones, because I just haven’t. I mean, of course, Gorenger I know, and Battle Fever.

Mandy Kaplan:
You were not born yet.

Omari Miller:
Right, right. And they do have a lovely charm to them. I will say, I love Bioman. GoGoV is one of my favorites, too. Sun Vulcan was almost the first Power Rangers to come here. And we actually get a cameo of them in one of the American spinoffs. But it was just this idea that we cannot fathom, from a production TV show, you can only have a TV show running on air for so long, and you’re like, okay, we have to move on to the next one. We’re gonna lose people. So having a show that’s dedicated 50, 60 episodes, that’s almost a year and some change of this TV show holding the slot on television, which I guess for American studios and TV networks is a really, really big ask. Meanwhile, Toei’s been pushing these out every year on the year. They’re whole-year products. And people are just, I mean, like me, I’m addicted to them. I kind of love them. I get to dedicate a whole year to this thing, get through the process.

Mandy Kaplan:
And there’s no burnout for you?

Omari Miller:
You know what? Sometimes there is, where I’m like, okay, I’m a little over it. But the beautiful thing is I can take a break, come back to it, and I’ll have a couple episodes, watch them, which is really, really nice. It’s a consistent thing. And then I just know, if I’m not really resonating with this, I can come back later. And there will be another season where I can go back, watch another one, where there are crossovers that sometimes add a new lens to them, which I really love as well.

Mandy Kaplan:
Wow. Okay, I have a burning deep question that I’m gonna ask you when we come back.

Omari Miller:
Yes!

Mandy Kaplan:
Welcome back, everybody. Before I ask my deep burning question of Omari, I want to let you all know that Make Me a Nerd is a production of TruStory FM, engineering by the peerless Pete Wright. My theme song is “Wonderstruck” by Jane and the Boy. You can get me on Instagram at Mandy_Kaplan_Klavens, both with K’s, or on TikTok at MandyMiscast. And I would be so, so grateful if you would take a moment and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. That helps more people find the show. So hit the five-star button, write a review, I’ll give you a shout-out. And if you’re feeling really supportive, go to makemeanerd.com/join. Hitting that button will get you your episodes ad-free and early, and my eternal gratitude.

So, the colors. I noticed that in this hour-long documentary that I watched, they would often mention, this was the first time there was a yellow ranger. This was the first time they introduced the white. What do the colors mean? Why was that so meaningful?

Omari Miller:
And you know, I tried to look into this, too. And I couldn’t tell if the documentary was saying these colors were significant. I was trying to find, oh, maybe there’s a meaning and whatnot. But I think they just kind of went through a rotation of colors, and after a while they’re like, we have to introduce a new color. Because there’s even one in Kyoryuger. When you watch throughout it, Kyoryuger is interesting because they started this joke where you get really, really large teams.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh.

Omari Miller:
So for example, Kyoryuger, you have a silver ranger, but then you also have a gray ranger. You have a violet ranger, but then you also have gold and all these other adjacent, like, you have a blue and a cyan for some reason. I don’t know why. The distinction is so funny to me. And it’s even funnier, too, because they’ve also introduced some of these tropes where there’s always one English-speaking character, and they’re always, like, the Cyan Ranger in this one. He speaks English. He’s a well-fed man, we’ll say, round, and when he morphs, his body gets snatched and he fits into this leather suit. Which is not the first time they’ve done that. In Turbo, in the States, I think the Blue Ranger is a child, and then when he morphs, his body stretches out and he becomes adult sized.

So yeah, I was trying to find if there was significance. I know one thing that has been significant, particularly with the season that came to the States, Mighty Morphin, is some of the colors were just normally associated with men and women. Obviously here in the States, pink tends to be the color for women. Because of Mighty Morphin, I also know that yellow and pink are normally the colors reserved for the female rangers. In Japan, it used to be for a long time that yellow was a boy color. It was a color for the male rangers. A lot of the teams were male dominated, and then as they got later, you start seeing the two-female teams. Even later on, you get female red rangers and stuff like that. And then even in, for example, Ninja Storm and Mystic Force, you now get a blue ranger that’s a woman. And then you don’t have a pink in Ninja Storm, but then you have a pink ranger.

Mandy Kaplan:
I’m just in awe that it was more like the costumer was like, oh crap, we ran out of colors, now we’ll make an orange one. I thought you were gonna say yes, in the culture or in the lore of the show, the orange was… but no, you’re saying it was just, we need a new color.

Omari Miller:
Yeah. So for a lot of them there were, and I’m sure there is, especially for the older versions, reasoning behind that. For example, with the first one that was in 1975, which was Gorenger, those are based off the five primary colors, because of the five primary rangers. There were also the colors that were in the manga that they were based off of. Totally forget the name, because I haven’t read it. So it was almost not a carbon copy, but it’s highly inspired. For some of them there are inspirations and why we have those colors. For example, when you get into the ones that are elemental based, so the American equivalent of Samurai, they all refer to the color associated with that element. Or you also have some, it’s funny because the rangers have their roll call and then their Power Ranger poses, which is very, very inspired by kabuki artworks and all those kinds of things with classical Japanese plays and stuff like that. So I’m sure there’s even more that I, of course, have to do more deep diving on. I fear I’m not a culture expert on Japan, sadly.

Mandy Kaplan:
But no, no expertise is not required. Passion is what I want, and you have that in spades. So were women always a part of it, or when it started, was it all male samurais or ninjas or whatever? What do we call them? Are they rangers? Samurais?

Omari Miller:
We call them rangers here. They’re part of the Sentai. Sentai just means team. And Rangers is just the idea that Saban came up with because he needed a word that had a little bit more than just, ooh, Power Team. That sounds, I guess for the time, a little blasé, but you’re like, Power Rangers. Ooh, Rangers, yes, yes, yes.

I think from its conception, there’s always at least been one female-identifying or female-presenting character, and that’s been the through line as the seasons go on. Especially as you get later and later in the seasons, they add more women in. Like I said, there was a time that it was a Red Ranger that was a woman at one point in time, which was a big culture shock, because normally the leader of the team is a man. What are you talking about? Whatever culture, societal norms. But there’s always been at least some women on the team, with the exception of, which I just learned this today, Alien Rangers, which was a weird American-only offshoot, in between Mighty Morphin and In Space, somewhere in that time period, where it was an all-male team, but they’re all teenage boys, which was technically not an official Ranger series. But yeah, they’ve always at least had that female presentation, representation on the team, which I don’t know, had Power Rangers just started as its own thing in the States, if that would have been true or not. But yeah, there’s always at least been one female ranger.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yay.

Omari Miller:
Yeah, I know. Thank God. Because I think their big thing was, as much as Power Rangers has, I feel like we associate with little boys because it’s fighting or whatever, they always wanted to maintain that boys aren’t the only ones that can do good or be pivotal people on this team. So they’ve always maintained that, and I think they even really emphasize that more by being like, well, now the girls are not only always going to be pink or yellow. They can be blue, they can be red, they can be whatever, whatever, whatever.

Mandy Kaplan:
Love that. Yeah, I love that message. Did these actors ever go on to stardom? It’s almost like the studio system of Hollywood in the ’20s and ’30s and ’40s. It felt like, we own you, you’re gonna be the blue one, and then we’re gonna spit you back out into the world. And I’m talking about the Japanese version, not the American version. Do you know if it was like, you were one of the Sentai, we don’t really want to cast you in our blockbuster here? Or was it respected and they got cast? Do you know?

Omari Miller:
It happened mainly respecting that cast, but there were a lot of seasons, especially in the newer, later eras, where you were getting big stars for the Japanese market. They had either been in other TV shows, dramas, transferring over there, or you find, for example, in Kyoryuger, the Blue Ranger, I forget his name, apologies, he actually goes on to star in a bunch of other Toei Company things. For example, he also ends up starring as one of the main characters, or I guess one of the side, he’s a big plot point in the show, I should say, as one of the characters in one of their newer Kamen Rider series, Kamen Rider Geats. And he has other little cameos all over the place.

So I find because they have such a big following that most of the time they will find other work. They’ll have cameos throughout, because it’s such an ecosystem around there. There are specials, there are crossovers. I mean, they have ones where it’s a Sentai team 50 years after the fact, and they’ll have a cameo, very à la Tommy from Mighty Morphin, how he kind of had those repeat cameos and he comes back for a little bit. Very that. So I feel it’s different than the American market, because I feel like here you do Power Rangers, and that’s kind of it for you. It seems to be the peak of a lot of people’s careers. But there, they get work all the time. There was even one Sentai series where it was a team of stars from different Japanese culture, whether it was TV personalities, radio, music.

Mandy Kaplan:
That’s great. Oh, cool. All-star. There was one show, Ohranger, that had very low ratings, but then broke records in toy sales. This is something that I don’t know could happen in the United States. So this show, no one likes the show, no one watches it, and then somehow the toys are a massive success. What’s behind that, do you think?

Omari Miller:
Yeah, and you know, I was even talking to my friend about this, too, earlier. And I was like, there are some of these shows where I’m like, okay, the plots are interesting, the team dynamics, you don’t really fall in love with any of the characters, but the toys are just really good. I feel like it was similar.

Mandy Kaplan:
Do you have toys? Do you collect the toys?

Omari Miller:
I used to. I’m getting back into collecting them now. The other thing that I love is that the American versions were great, fine, but the Japanese versions were built of die-cast metal. They have light, sounds, and actions with them a lot of the time, which are great, and they tend to be not ridiculously expensive a lot of the time. Now, the collector’s editions, of course, collector’s editions are gonna pay money. But Ohranger specifically, Chouriki Sentai Ohranger, corresponds to Zeo here in the States. And I feel like I remember Zeo also being one of those seasons where it kind of did okay. But I remember in my elementary school, people went crazy for the, it was something about the little geometric shapes that turn into robots, that people were like, oh my God, that’s the coolest thing ever.

So I wonder, I know a lot of, culturally, Ohranger, the team was, I mean, all the shows deal with mature themes, and we can talk about that later, how culturally Super Sentai and the themes that they talk about are a little bit more adult by American standards. I think there was something about this team in particular where there wasn’t as much whimsy to some of the characters. They were very much like, we are focused and locked in, which I think is really special, because then you get this juxtaposition of these serious adult characters, because a lot of times they’re teenagers in the States, now having to fight crime in these multicolored spandex suits with these huge geometrical shapes on their faces. That, I feel, made the toys really, really popular for kids. Because, oh, there’s still that aspect of whimsy. But other than that, Ohranger is one of those series where I was like, it’s not my favorite.

Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Well, apparently it wasn’t anyone’s favorite.

Omari Miller:
Right, yeah, but there you go.

Mandy Kaplan:
So what about these adult themes? I didn’t get a sense of that. And I like adult stuff. Is it sexy time? Has there been a sexy Power Rangers episode?

Omari Miller:
Not unless, I’m so sure there has. But what I mean mostly, I feel like in the American, especially in children’s media, we tend to shy away from things like death. Or in some of the later seasons, there’s one of my favorite scenes, and I’ll have to send it to you at a later date so you can watch it. It’s so funny. From, oh, I can’t remember the name, but they’re basically based off gemstones. There’s a clip where one of the side characters in an episode runs up and is like, oh my gosh, I finally am so in love with you. And it looks like she’s running towards the male character, and she ends up running towards the girl. And then you’re like, oh. So it’s even these little queer under-things that are not even undertones, very queer things that are happening in the show that people don’t bat an eye at, because they’re like, okay, they’re queer.

Mandy Kaplan:
Well, I picked up on that. In 2020 there was the gemstone magic themed season.

Omari Miller:
Yes. Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
And that reminds me of Sailor Moon. I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but I did an episode of Make Me a Nerd about Sailor Moon, where I felt like there was so much, not even coded. There seemed to be characters who you couldn’t tell which gender they were, and everybody just loved everybody. It feels really progressive. But I think the gemstone aspect, of course, Sailor Moon already existed and was wildly successful when the Sentai thought, hmm, maybe we should give them all gemstones. But there is something very exciting and eye-catching and soul-catching about that.

Omari Miller:
Right, 100%. And I even think that one’s the perfect season, because it’s all based off imagination and the power of the human mind to jump over these hurdles and things that we have going on. When it comes down to it, we all have an imagination. We all have this power to make change. And it starts with this little thing we have up here that sometimes we neglect or take for granted. And so things like that shouldn’t really be gendered. Imagination is not boy imagination, girl imagination, non-boy. We all have this power kind of thing.

Even the one that we were watching today, there’s a little funny scene in it where they’re not afraid to talk about these things in a way that’s very light and lighthearted. It’s not like, this person is queer, which means they like to do things to the body of the person. Nothing like that. It’s just very lighthearted. But I think American audiences are like, well, I don’t want to have this conversation with my kid. And there really isn’t much of a conversation to have. They just exist. Where the bad guy in the show, he basically is kidnapping couples. And so the main character and this other side character, who are two men, run into each other and they’re having an argument and they have a meet-cute moment. And so the bad guy swoops down, he looks at them both, and he kidnaps them because he thinks they’re a couple. And so it’s a funny, ha ha, how funny kind of thing, where it’s not even like we’re making fun of it in creepy ways. It’s just like, oh, that’s such a funny, cute little whatever moment. But they do that, yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
But wouldn’t that feel like… that to me rings of, on Friends, there were so many jokes between Joey and Chandler, like, whoa, we’re not gay. Ha ha. We might hug, but we’re not gay. And I didn’t notice it when it first aired 25 years ago, but now it makes my skin crawl, because it’s so homophobic. Didn’t that come across that way to you?

Omari Miller:
And watching it, I know. And it’s so funny, because there are moments like this in the show, because I think with how the shows have worked and the culture behind it, the butt of the joke isn’t that they’re gay. The butt of the joke is that they’re in the situation that has now caused them to be in trouble. And it just happens the situation is, it’s not even like they’re a gay couple. It’s just that this guy is looking for couples and they happen to look like they’re a couple. And that’s it. So it’s funny. It just happens to be that they’re two boys, versus a lot of the gay jokes being like, oh, gay is the butt of the joke, kind of thing.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. I like that you’re saying gay is the butt. Anyway.

Omari Miller:
Yeah, gay is the butt.

Mandy Kaplan:
We have to move on, because I want to get to the episode that we watched right after this break.

Omari Miller:
Yes, yes, yay!

Mandy Kaplan:
Kakuranger’s middle-aged struggles. There was a whole season devoted to middle-aged rangers, apparently. I just wanted to point that out. That’s amazing. I would star in that. Look out, Hollywood, me in a spandex suit, fighting crime, trying not to upset my plantar fasciitis.

Omari Miller:
I think, yeah, that’s what I mean, too, when they tackle these subjects. I feel like you would never make a kids’ show about middle-age struggles and the quarter-life, midlife crisis or anything like that. And they totally did, which can be so funny.

Mandy Kaplan:
They did. Voltasaur Team. I’m not gonna try to say it. Thank you. So you really narrowed down thousands of episodes of TV and said, Mandy, watch this one episode. Why’d you choose it?

Omari Miller:
So I mean, I love a lot of them, and there are a lot of really great shows. I think Kyoryuger in the first pilot episode does a great way of summing up all these characters’ personalities right off the jump. Even though they do this where the characters are very secretive at first, like, well, we don’t want to all introduce ourselves. But King, the main Red Ranger, there’s just something about him that’s just so camp, over the top. And he has such little-brother, I’m-in-charge energy, which I don’t know why that’s so, I don’t know, it’s endearing in a weird way. So I was like, I really like it. It’s just over the camp.

I love the serious ones, don’t get me wrong. I love me a good dark. I love the juxtaposition of serious, dark, but then super over the top. Like, I’m now a pink ranger, but I’m talking about my parents’ divorce, kind of thing. And they just do this in such a way. That’s another thing that’s really special about Super Sentai. These characters really get, a lot of the time, full arcs and stories about them within the first couple, like ten, episodes, where you really get to learn who they are. And then as the story progresses, you watch them overcome these hurdles. And of course, there are physical markers, like, ooh, you get a power-up now because you’ve overcome your anxiety of people’s perception about you, or you have dad trauma and you’ve worked through this and had a breakthrough with your father, and now you’re gonna get this cool new weapon. Stuff like that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Sure. Do they ever die, the Sentai? Do they ever die? Like a main character?

Omari Miller:
Sometimes, yes, yes, yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah? People who listen to my podcast know I really like it when main characters die, because it just keeps you on your toes.

Omari Miller:
Yes, which is why the equivalent of it in Japanese is Timeranger, which is Time Force. Time Force is one of my favorite American Power Rangers series, because right off the bat you get this huge death. You get the Red Ranger dying. And the whole plot point is they now have to go back in time to stop this death. And his wife is one of the rangers, and she ends up falling in love with his relative, or like, da-da-da-da-da. And it’s this whole crazy thing, but the storyline is so dark and so complex. I’m like, this is not a kids’ TV show. Of course they’re in robots and fighting crime and da-da-da, but I’m like, this is a crazy storyline, which I like. Kyoryuger, for that, does it in a whimsical way. I mean, you even have big emotions as the main evil characters, which I’m like, how very Inside Out of them.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yep. While you’re there, I have a picture to show you. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it very well. But Pete, if you could put this picture up. Pete’s gonna put this up so that everybody listening can see it on their phone.

Omari Miller:
Oh, love him. Yes.

Mandy Kaplan:
So somebody starts to cry, and actual gallons of water spray out of their eyes in such a comical arc. And it felt very anime to me. And tonally, you chose right for me. Because I will always go for camp or comedy over pure action. So thank you. You chose well.

Omari Miller:
I try. I fear I know you to an extent.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, you did. You did great. There is a lot of fighting, but some of it is Three Stooges-esque. These teens get in a fight at the diner and a kicked sausage in the face? Was this the most comedic of them all? I mean, it was really wacky.

Omari Miller:
There are a lot of other comedic moments. It’s so funny, because that’s also why I said right off the bat you get them. Because even their roles in this very Three Stooges-like event that happens, you can tell who they are. You have the cocky Black Ranger who’s like, oh yeah, hey girl. You have the green, golden retriever boy in the back, ready to fight. It’s just all so funny. And it’s funny, the character that falls off the ladder, the Blue Ranger, who’s had multi-cameos and a bunch of other stuff, his whole shtick is being the dad of the group. So he makes dad jokes all the time. He’s on the ladder. He’s the repairman. So right from that moment you get a sense of who they’re going to be. But yeah, this season in particular has so many funny little campy moments. Even from the morphing sequence, them doing their little hip-hop b-boy dance to samba music, is so incredibly funny to me.

Mandy Kaplan:
This one, yeah, I don’t want to be culturally insensitive, but it felt like BTS or K-pop, because they kept bursting into different routines, and the opening credits were the longest opening credits I’ve ever seen. But it was very music video. It didn’t feel like the beginning of a special effects action show.

Omari Miller:
Yeah.

Mandy Kaplan:
I noticed, back to the history of Sentai, special CGI started to come into play. And that hurt my feelings. I didn’t need it. I think there’s a real charm in watching something practical, and they built these things, and then when you know it’s CGI’d, it kills it for me. How did you feel when CGI entered the picture?

Omari Miller:
Very much the same way. I talk about the charm of some of these older seasons, where I haven’t watched them, but I’ll watch clips of them, and I’ve watched some of the seasons where I’m like, there’s just something so charming and special about knowing that’s a practical effect. And then also, working in entertainment, I’m sure you feel similarly. I hate to be like, that’s somebody’s job that got to do that. And now that we’ve transitioned, that job is no longer a thing. So a part of your heart is like, ow.

And I do find that, weirdly enough, even though special effects are what they’re known for, I feel like it almost cheapens the product and makes the quality seem worse, even though it’s a modern team. We have modern camera things and the quality is really great. But when you get these weird CGI moments, which, granted, it’s a suspend-your-disbelief show anyway, it kind of gets you taken out of it. I think that’s also why Kyoryuger is so enjoyable for me, because I think they acknowledge that and they take it to the nth level and they’re so camp about it. We’re being so over the top, ridiculous, and that’s kind of the point. But then even the things that I’d be like, oh, you’ll use CGI for this dinosaur Zord or whatever, they still use practical effects. They have somebody in a suit stomping around with explosions and stuff.

Mandy Kaplan:
That’s what I wanted to ask about, the dinosaurs. Do they use models, or do they build large dinosaurs? They’re plastic looking. They’re not actual dinosaurs, but…

Omari Miller:
So from what I understand, it’s a combination of both. Later in the season they get different, I call them Zords. I forget their name in the Japanese version. But they have some that are CGI’d. You’ll meet Pteragordon, which is Gold Ranger’s, later in the season. That’s more of a CG, just because you can’t really have a man in a suit flying around. But some of the more perambulatory, walk-it-around ones, they built these costumes, used forced perspective to make them look super huge. And that’s what they did. Even with the Megazord fights, or the super mecha fights, they had people in costumes, forced perspective, they’re fighting and doing all that, which I just think is so freaking cool.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, that’s part of the charm.

Omari Miller:
It 100% is.

Mandy Kaplan:
You can keep your CGI, people. I like knowing that there was a real thing and they were shooting it. I enjoy that so much more.

Omari Miller:
Right. 100%.

Mandy Kaplan:
We are nearing the end of our time, and I have two important questions for you. Do you have crushes on anybody on these shows?

Omari Miller:
Yes. So, funny, for Sentai, I didn’t have many. But I was showing, like I said, Kamen Rider is another one that’s made by the same company, Toei, and it falls in the same tokusatsu, super special effects, special filming category. And we were watching the newest one, Kamen Rider My-Th, which is based off of the Chinese zodiac, but they pronounce it “mice,” because the main character is the mouse of the zodiac. And there’s a character on it, I forget his name, but he’s the dog zodiac character, and he comes in very Sherlock Holmes. He’s a little beefy, and I was like, I want him.

Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, I wanted like a hundred and eighty of them.

Omari Miller:
Oh yeah, I was like, I want him. And some of them, 100%. I will say, when I watch this, I forget her name, but the Pink Ranger in Kyoryuger, I had the fattest little crush on. Same thing with the Blue Ranger. There’s something about him being a dad that I’m just like, take care of me. But the Pink, there’s just something about the Pink Ranger in this one, too. That scene at the beginning where she grabs him and fully tries to flip him over. And I was like, she hurt me. I want her. It’s a joke I tell my friends, it’s such a bisexual joke to be like, I want a soft man but a hard woman. I want the woman to bully me a little bit, but I want the man to just kind of be there. That’s not the actual truth, but that’s the joke I tell.

Mandy Kaplan:
Right. I’ve never heard that.

Omari Miller:
My men love a mean woman, apparently. And I’m just like, oh, I just love it. But I feel like, if I really sat and thought about it, I definitely did. I definitely did. Oh, 100%. I don’t think I would have watched as long if I didn’t.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, every time they were like, and then this next series, and they would show a new crop of gorgeous young people in spandex. How could you not have crushes? And lastly, Omari, as it relates to you and me, have they done a musical episode? Or has this become a musical? And if not, can we create it?

Omari Miller:
Yes, I think we need to make one for the American peeps. Take it on tour, because I would be so down. They’ve had musical episodes. I think very akin to, I don’t know if you’re a Doctor Who person…

Mandy Kaplan:
I’ve done two episodes on Doctor Who.

Omari Miller:
There we go. How the latest one had Jinkx Monsoon.

Mandy Kaplan:
Make Me a Nerd. That’s one of the episodes I watched.

Omari Miller:
There you go. Jinkx Monsoon, and she was the musical villain. Even if you continue to watch Kyoryuger, it’s just like that. I always forget, I think Candelilla, the love kind of character, they have this whole musical episode where they have their theme song and she’s singing as a rock band. And they do have these musical episodes. It kind of feels like the same format for a lot of Sentai. We have this, and we have the one musical episode. And unlike, the end credits for a lot of these shows have dances that they want kids to do, because fitness and moving your body is a big culture thing in Japan. So even in the TV series, you’ll find they have announcements that are like, please sit far enough away from the TV and sit in a well-lit room, every single time, in hidden Japanese text on the bottom. At the end they want you to get up and dance and move, because you’ve been sitting in front of the TV. So there’s kind of that musicality associated with the shows and stuff like that.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. Oh, I love that.

Omari Miller:
So I’m sure there’s a full musical done. There was a spin-off series, and I cannot remember what it was called. It was an unofficial Super Sentai series. I think it was Akibaranger or something like that, where it’s three teenagers, and their whole thing is they’re Power Rangers, but their guns are like Vocaloids, which are the Japanese, almost like idol singer, J-pop groups, but they’re digital characters. And their whole thing is they’re like Power Rangers, but they’re the failed kind of Power Rangers. And that series wasn’t really a musical, but it was based off Vocaloids, like Hatsune Miku, all that stuff. So they have those. I’m gonna have to send you that one, because that’s also just short, it’s fun, it’s cute. But no, I think we can make it happen.

Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, this feels like it needs that.

Omari Miller:
And I think we should.

Mandy Kaplan:
These battles could be, you know, Jerome Robbins, “Dance at the Gym” kind of stuff.

Omari Miller:
Yes, yes, yes, 100%.

Mandy Kaplan:
All right. Okay. So we’ve got a lot of work to do, Omari. Once we disconnect, let’s rent an office somewhere and make this happen.

Omari Miller:
We’ll make it happen. We’ll make it happen. Already got somebody who can do the composition.

Mandy Kaplan:
I freaking adore you. You know that.

Omari Miller:
Oh, I love you. Thank you.

Mandy Kaplan:
And thank you for doing this. Thank you for sharing all of your love and knowledge and nerdy passion for Super Sentai. Thank you for pronouncing all the Japanese and sparing me, because I would have been an asshole. Okay. Thank you for doing this, Omari. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Until next time.