This article is about a/an series entry (the 19th) in the Super Sentai series.
WARNING:This series contains scenes of blood, bloodshed, gun violence and sexual themes. Viewer discretion is advised!
Chouriki Sentai Ohranger (超力戦隊オーレンジャー,Chōriki Sentai Ōrenjā), translated in English as Super-Powered Squadron King Ranger, is Toei Company Limited's 19th production of the Super Sentai television series. It was during its run that Himitsu Sentai Gorenger and J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai were officially recognized once again as part of the Super Sentai series, a designation they had previously been stripped of during Choujuu Sentai Liveman.
On May 21, 2016, Shout! Factory announced that the series would be released on Region 1 DVD. Ohranger was released in the USA on November 1, 2016, making it the fourth Sentai series to get such a release. [1]
With 1995 marking the 20th anniversary of Himitsu Sentai Goranger, Toei had decided to make a serious anniversary series that harkened back to Sentai's beginning while taking advantage of the developments since then. For its development, many writers from older series came back to work on the show with the plan for a dark theme. The five Ohranger themselves were to be similar to the Gorenger in personality and former Gorenger Hiroshi Miyauchi (who played AoRenger) was brought in as the mentor for the series. While initially keeping to this concept, the events that occurred in Japan during the show's production, such as the Subway Sarin Incident and the Kobe earthquake, forced the writers of Ohranger to constantly rewrite the scripts. The Ohrangers began to alternate between serious and lighter personalities, these shifts causing a downturn in viewership. However, merchandising sales remained unusually high, so many new weapons and toys were created to continue to boost sales as had been done with Kakuranger the Prior Year when it likewise was under-performing. While Ohranger ultimately had the lowest ratings of any Sentai series up to that time, the resulting toy sales were record-breaking, and the show was not in danger of cancellation at any point during its run.
Plot
"Only those who have learned the power of the Super-Civilization will be able to save humanity from its greatest crisis: Baranoia, the Machine Empire, which plans to invade the Earth...!"
600 million years ago, Pangaea created a robot named Bacchus Wrath, who ultimately turned on his creators. The KingRanger defeated Bacchus Wrath and banished him from Earth. In the year 1999 (later in the year 1995 in both Super Sentai and Toei Multiverse timelines), Bacchus returned to Earth as the ruler of the Machine Empire Baranoia with the intention of wiping out all human life and bring about machine rule. Chief Counsellor Miura revived super energies that had been born of the lost civilization of Pangaea with the intention of creating weapons to fight against Baranoia. The reassembling of a stone plate uncovered three years previously, the secrets of "Super Power" were revealed. Miura built a pyramid to generate Tetrahedron power in order to allow five U.A.O.H. officers to transform into Ohrangers.
Ohranger is the first Sentai that mentions a special "count" of the episodes, usually within the preview for the next episode; it does so using the simple counter of "Dai (number) Wa", where "wa" is the Japanese counter for "stories" which is also used for television episodes. This will become a common Sentai occurance from Gingaman, but only four other series follow Ohranger's simple example in counting: GoGoFive, Abaranger, Gokaiger and Zyuohger.
"Oh" (オー,Ō) is a pun on "olé" (オーレ,ōre), "aura" (オーラ,ōra), and the Japanese word for "king" (王,ō). "O.H." was also given as the acronym for "Overtech Hardware", the organization the team is part of, adding to the pun.
This season, like its successor season Carranger, would be notable for being anniversary series for the Super Sentai franchise and would pave the way for future anniversaries to come. For Ohranger in particular, it would be considered the 20th anniversary of the very first Sentai series, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger which, alongside its followup J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, had become fully acknowledged as part of the Super Sentai franchise. Yet while it would attempt to depict itself as the 20th anniversary series, Ohranger's position as the 19th series would ultimately make the next true Sentai anniversary held off until 2001's Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger, which would be the 25th Sentai (though 26 years after Gorenger) and make every subsequent anniversary follow from every five series post-Gorenger, not every five years.
Interestingly, GoGoV is set in 1999, just like Ohranger
This is also the first season to have a "Vs. series movie", where the current Sentai encounters the previous year's sentai, starting with Chouriki Sentai Ohranger: Ole vs. Kakuranger.
Ohranger is considered to be the 5th lowest rated Sentai show with a rating of 4.5% after Go-Busters with 4.1%, Kyoryuger with 3.9%, Toqger with 3.8%, and Ninningerwith 3.6%.
The explanation is the fact that it was meant to be a darker show (depicting open war with the Baranoia) but the intended storyline was thrown out because of the Tokyo Subway sarin gas attacks and the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The resultant executive mandates from Toei made Ohranger a mix-up between dark and comical episodes, the latter considered to be insulting due to the farcial takes of serious situations the nation suffered at that time in reality. This caused the ratings to drastically decreased. However, awareness of these facts and because of Ohranger's extremely high toy sales (and subsequent merchandising additions due to Toei's various deals with Bandai) more than recouping its losses, means Super Sentai was not actually considered for cancellation during Ohranger's run. It was Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman that almost cancelled Super Sentai before Choujin Sentai Jetman's strong performance saved it. [3][4][5]
In the Indonesian Dub, Ohranger was spelled as "O-Ranger".
