Power Rangers Zeo: Legacy Zeonizer Gallery

"The Power Rangers as you have known them, are gone forever."

It's been a while since we've tackled a Legacy release from Bandai, and with their time with the Power Rangers license coming to end, we thought it appropriate to take a look at one of their last high end releases. Making it's way out to retail currently at Toys R Us (as they go our of business themselves) is the Legacy Zeonizer! Part of a pair of Power Rangers Zeo releases, the other being the Zeo Gold Staff, it's unfortunate that these collector's items herald both the end of a retail chain and a toy license. But here we go!

Packaging
Making a dramatic change at the end of the Legacy toyline, the Zeonizer comes in very slick and collector oriented packaging. The new black box style packaging themes very well with the mainline toys we're seeing right now Ninja Steel/Super. This box is a very quality piece of packaging. Featuring some nice hi-res stock photos as well as a brief overview of Power Rangers Zeo and the toy's features, this box really sells you on the collector nature of the item. But nothing does this more so than the absence of tape. This is a really welcome change. You can easily open and handle this item without breaking a packaging seal. This also means that it's easier to steal in store. Hence why when I purchased mine, it was locked inside of a case, which is honestly a smart idea.

The Zeonizers inside the box, are packed in a loose fitting plastic clamshell. There are no tabs holding the halves together, however the slipcase box fits on there so snugly that you don't have to worry about anything floating about in the box. Overall I'm just happy to get away from slavish MMPR homages and recreations in packaging. This is super sleek and nice.

Zeonizer(s)
Now, the Zeonizers for the unfamiliar are separated into two wrist mounted braces. Simply known as left and right Zeonizers, this pair was the first big departure in the franchise from the classic Power Morpher and coins. Thankfully that also means a big departure for the Legacy toyline.

Let's start with the finer details. The Legacy Zeonizers are intricate recreations of the show prop used in Power Rangers Zeo and the Choriki Sentai Ohranger source footage. The best part of this recreation is pf course the size of the wrist straps. If you were like me and cherished your Zeonizer as a kid, when you grew up you realized that strap was barely appropriate for a child. The nice thing about Legacy as a toyline has been it's gearing towards the adult collector. In this case, the Zeonizer winds up being sized for an adult sized forearm with wrist straps that (albeit just a little too short) match well. The straps also feature engraved "Zeo tribal" emblems in the center that are quite nice. The interior of the straps is a bit cheaply made bu they get the job done.

Beginning with the left Zeonizer, this is where a majority of the chrome detailing, diecast, and all the electronics are present. Like the original toy we get some gorgeous gold chrome through the center. At the bottom end there's another one of those Zeo tribal symbols. HOWEVER this one is actually a moving dial. Before making use of the dial, flip the on switch on the back of the Zeonizer. Doing so activates a powering on sound effect and activates the LED at the end of the Zeonizer. Now, the dial comes into play. In it's standard position, when you turn the dial you'll activate an "It's Morphin' Time!" line as well as the default white light mode of the LED. While in this mode, if you press the red lever on the side to activate a Morph, what instead plays is the entirety of the Power Rangers Zeo Opening Theme, lyrics and all! It will continue to play until you activate another feature of the Zeonizer.

The next turn of the dial after this will officially set it to the Kat/AKA Zeo Ranger I - Pink mode. Each time you turn the dial you change to another ranger color and voice cycling through Pink, Yellow, Blue, Green, & Red. I mean colors literally as well since the LED changes color to match the ranger. Now, the voices in this thing definitely sound like the characters they're meant to be, but I am fairly certain these are just soundalikes. Bandai didn't go the extra distance with this one like they did with Saba. But it's still a pretty cool and fun effect. It doesn't matter which direction you turn the dial as the voices still activate in the same order.

Each time you choose a ranger color and press the transparent red lever on the side, you activate the Morphing sequence for that ranger. You can simply press the red lever to test this out, obviously to accurately recreate it you need to use the other Zeonizer. Again, each ranger selection changes the color of the Zeonizer's LED to match as well. For now though, you can run through each rangers Morph by just pressing it to get these sound effects

Dial turn: "Pink" Morph: "Zeo Ranger I - Pink!" followed by sound effects.
Dial turn: "Yellow" Morph: "Zeo Ranger II - Yellow!" followed by sound effects.
Dial turn: "Blue" Morph: "Zeo Ranger III - Blue!" followed by sound effects.
Dial turn: "Green" Morph: "Zeo Ranger IV - Green!" followed by sound effects.
Dial turn: "Red" Morph: "Zeo Ranger V - Red!" followed by sound effects.

The Zeonizer also has this cool "Air Slash" sound effect that's built into every mode. Regardless of whether it's in default mode or in any of the 5 ranger colors, when you abruptly move the Zeonizer or wave it around, you activate this sort of battle sound effect that often sounds like a generic karate chop. Like everything else, these chops are color coded for each ranger mode as well. I should mention that the Zeonizer LED is so bright that it shines through the silver plastic on the side. I turned off my photo lamps and had only the tiniest bit of natural light in my studio when I took the photos of the two Zeonizers combined. These things produce a ton of light. If you leave the Zeonizer laying around for a few minutes it will eventually play the ringing/communication noise that my vintage toy was often plagued by as a child. Mine would get stuck making that sound constantly, but it's a cool additional feature here.

The right Zeonizer doesn't bring as much to the table but accessorize the main event quite well. Basically all it's ever been is a glorified holster for the Zeonizer Crystal. The two Zeonizers interact by lining up the red levers on each and pressing them together, thereby flipping the crystal down and opening the gold enclosure on the left Zeonizer. There's a small groove on each lever that fits the other but lining them up while wearing them is imperfect. The Zeonizer Crystal features an open window through the center that allows light from the electronics in the other zeonizer to shine through. It's not perfect, but it actually works quite well overall. The Zeonizer Crystal's entire silver chrome casing is actually diecast as well so it has a nice heft to it. Oh, and there's a release trigger which let's you remove the Crystal as you like. The silver chrome lining it's holster is also diecast. The effect when the two Zeonizers are together is pretty nice overall and is a great recreation of the show props.

Final Thoughts
I loved my Zeonizer as a kid, so seeing the design fully realized as an adult, for me, is really something. I'm hoping at some point that Bandai Japan may release this mold as an Ohranger Power Brace in the same way they improved on the Legacy Morpher and released it as the Dino Buckler. The Legacy Zeonizer clearly had a lot of love put into it, and it's a shame that it's one of the last nice high end pieces to come from Bandai America. Perhaps if they'd put forth this kind of quality and care earlier on, then fans wouldn't have become massively dissatisfied with their other largely mediocre releases over the last several years. As is, this piece along with the Gold Ranger's staff are a good send off.

Wait a second this isn't the newest Kamen Rider... Glad for the fans at the very least

I know, it's a pretty weird thing for me to review of all people

But it was 30% off at Toys R Us, so I figured, why not? Site views and all that. Now I need to sell it to someone for what I paid.

I can't imagine how long it must've taken the actor to learn the poses to transform with this

I really wish this had gotten better distribution.

These look amazing

I got mine last week and while I kinda disappointed how little it does I'm glad that I finally own one since I lost the one I had as a kid.

I do like the polish these legacy toys have even if they don't exactly hit the right value proposition for me

wow, I had not even realized these had come out, never saw them in stores

I'm glad Bandai went out with a bang, but I agree that it would have been nice if they'd been doing things like this sooner