Ninninger vs ToQger The Movie: Ninjas in Wonderland

Halloween is over, a statement I find hard to believe not because I'm hanging on to the past but because I'm still elbow deep in the clean-up. When not sorting fake tombstones, working one of the jobs, or entertaining visiting relatives, I've been catching up on sleep. Of course that makes it pretty easy to let this place fall by the wayside but that ends now. What better segway could there be from pumpkins to Christmas trees than a series with space monsters and brightly colored superheroes? Seeing as I detest Kyuranger and we're still months away from its' replacement I figured we'd work our way through films based on the two Sentai series we've reviewed in full. Armed with the knowledge that we've already gone through the Ninninger summer movie we find ourselves catching up with two teams in Ninninger vs. ToQger The Movie: Ninjas in Wonderland.

Going in there was some worry about the ToQger portion of the film as life lead to me breaking off from the show less than a third of the way through its' run. It's not as if I disliked the show. I found it a nice little slice of upbeat entertainment in an otherwise sour year. Still; I never made it to any of the big revelations or even the introduction of the sixth ranger for that matter. Any worry that this would cause confusion during this film was unnecessary as this is very much a Ninninger affair, warts and all.

Fully expect this pic to increase site traffic tenfold.

The movie kicks off with the Ninninger crew riding a train towards a ninja themed amusement park during which they are each slowly sucked into strange fantasy scenarios such as being a crew of gun-toting international spies. These opportunities to let the characters play around with new situations are quickly wasted as the fantasies account for less than ten of the opening minutes. The reason these delusions don't go on further is thanks to the intervention of the ToQger who plan to rescue the ninjas from being captured and turned evil by a villain named Dr. Mavro.

Of course one of them happens to fall into the evil doctors clutches, that being Takaharu whose abilities are combined with the spirits of evil ninja clones to make an evil ranger that will spread darkness via a big cloud. This causes Taka to be ripped from his body and face slowly fading into nothingness. Sadly this is about as complex as the plot gets.

That lacking sense of scale may be the biggest issue here. Most Sentai films I've seen, even particularly lousy ones, make sure to up the threat level or take place in a new environment that makes proper use of the higher budget and run time. Other than some more active camerawork during fight scenes this may as well be another episode of the show, and not a very good one at that.

I don't want it to sound like this is an absolute shitbrick of a film here. Most of the basics of Sentai are on display without many major drawbacks. However, as usual for Ninninger it fails to chose what it wants to be. The opening delusions suggest it will be a wild trip that allows these characters to branch out, only to ditch the concept completely and become an incredibly basic team-up. Even the vs portion of the title makes zero sense as the teams don't even have a customary conflict stemming from some misunderstanding. And while it seems like there may be a slight mixing of team member as ToQger wants to rescue Takaharu without risking further ninja abductions, the notion is tossed aside within minutes in a long dramatic moment that boils down to “you should stay here and be safe.....nevermind, let's go together!”

Then there's the way ToQger is treated within the film. The team has practically zero reason to be involved and beyond that they're vastly underwritten and missing some key elements. First off Conductor, Wagen, and Ticket only make blink and you'll miss it cameos in flashbacks. Sixth Ranger, Akira doesn't appear until the halfway point only to see probably less than three minutes of total screen time, most of which is just the stuntman. Even the team's core gimmick of color swapping is totally ignored which is a massive missed opportunity as they could have confounded their new friends or possibly shared the ability to make color-swapped Ninningers.

Meanwhile the Ninninger front is just weird. Continuity wise this seems to take place after grampa dies in the show, yet nobody seems very torn up. Takaharu as always gets the most screen time but feels watered down compared to his usual antics. And you remember aht I said about, Akira? Well that pretty much applies to Kinji as well. Seriously, this movie has something against sixth rangers.

In the end we're given a straight hour of mostly lazy Sentai. There's nothing notability thrilling or funny here other than perhaps the forced cameo by Zyuohger who display far more personality than everything else going on while defeating one of the villains which our main heroes never question the fate of. Do they think the guy just disappeared? I'd recommend the movie more than an episode of Kyuranger but that's not really saying much, is it?

So my big return to Sentai coverage wasn't so hot but we've still got a handful of flicks to talk about while we wait for the next series. On top of that there are plenty of Star Wars novels, holiday foods, and oddities to discuss in the near future. I'll make an honest attempt to get around to everything as penance for missing my last Halloween article. On that matter, I gotta get back to packing up decorations but before I go, if anybody has a request for some sidelined Sentai coverage, drop a comment and we'll see what we can do.