Toku Toy Box: Power Rangers Lightning Collection Zeo Ranger V Red Gallery

"We're back guys!"

Tommy Oliver has been a Power Ranger before. First as the corrupted Green Ranger before turning to the side of good, and again as he was given another chance and a new set of powers as the White Ranger. But with his powers destroyed and the Command Center in ruins, what's left for this once Mighty Morphin hero? In secret, Alpha 5 & Zordon have spent years preparing for this time, a day when the Power Rangers as we know them, would be gone forever, and a new fighting force would have to take their place. With the Machine Empire and it's fearsome new monsters invading Earth, the only team that can stand up to them is the Power Rangers Zeo! Imbued with the energy of the Zeo Crystals, each ranger is stronger than before! Tommy once again heeds the call to defend Earth, but this time as Zeo Ranger V, RED!

Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro.

Main Figure
If you haven't realized it by now, you've handled this figure a few times before. That is if you picked up last year's SDCC Jason 2-pack featuring the Zeo Gold Ranger, or if you picked up the Blue Zeo Ranger released earlier this year. The Red Ranger version of this mold is physically and functionally identical the Blue Ranger aside from the color difference and new helmet. Full rotating rocker ankles with solid ratchet back & forth joints provide the tried and true base of support. We get the 360 shin swivel again as well. It's still refreshing to see gold paint used on these rangers. This applies to the whole body, even if the absence of a paint wash on the blue and red zeo rangers does bother me somewhat. Thick paint apps on both these rangers have reduced definition of the finer details for sure. The double jointed knee is back as well and we also have the same 360 thigh swivel and that signature sculpted butt plate. As always these articulation cuts give the figure all the range it needs to be an excellent display piece and functional toy.

As I said, this is literally the same base mold as Zeo Blue, and that applies to the torso as well. Whether you noticed it or not, underneath the Gold Ranger's chest shield, are the same joints, and in fact sculpted techy details that are present on Zeo Red & Blue's chest and even the inner area of the shoulder joints. Now that they're on full display for a second time with this release, they do still appear a bit softly sculpted, but that could also be the thick paint applications I mentioned. Now I know I could have been expecting a little too much but I was really hoping these parts would have the same black paint wash as Gold Ranger's shield. As is, on the parts that have a bit deeper sculpt, they really look fine. But the more shallow bits near the shoulders really needed that wash for some definition. And as for articulation the upper body still functions marvelously with ratcheting abs and a nice free moving ball jointed chest section.

Minor details aside, the upper body is still exceptionally well designed and I really appreciate how the gold and white of the upper chest carries over both in sculpt and paint, onto the butterfly shoulder joints. Another standard cut, these always get the job done. The arms still feature the trusty bicep swivel joint, double jointed elbow, and free moving peg style wrists. While the peg system means we miss out on some side to side movement with the hands, it still works very well. The Red Ranger's helmet rounds out the figure as the only new addition with it's striking silver trim and sharply defined star shape. This is a pretty solid figure with more than a satisfactory set of articulation cuts, as per usual with this line.

Accessories
We get quite a bit, but it comes with some major caveats:

2 - Alternate hands. Standard, the Zeo Red Ranger comes with open weapon holding hands attached. A left hand for his sword, and a right for his pistol. The extra included hands are closed fists. Not a bad mix of hands honestly, though I do find it odd that the wrist joints turn on different axes depending on the pair you're using. I'd prefer either they all work one way or the other.

1 - Zeo Laser Pistol. The right hip holstered sidearm of the core 5 Zeo Rangers, the Laser Pistol isn't seen to be used terribly often in Power Rangers Zeo, but it's a must have accessory for a figure like this. While the ability to combine it with the other included weapon wasn't replicated with these toys (for reasons that are clear below), it's still a well detailed and produced weapon to accessorize your Zeo Rangers with. It is a bit of a snug fit in the holster, but I must say I prefer that to the Bandai Legacy days of things falling out left and right.

1 - Zeo Power Pod Sword. The Pod Sword or as it's occasionally known as the "Zeo Laser Blade" is a standard weapon of the 5 core Zeo Rangers which compliments their Zeo Laser Pistols and in series can combine with them. Sadly, that's not the case here. This is one of the few cases in this toyline where I'm pretty disappointed with Hasbro. Even Bandai America got this one right and that's saying a lot. The Pod Sword should have a collapsible or at least removable blade, primarily because it's supposed to be stored on the left hip holster, blade end up. The blue grip portion goes down into the holster, and the blade extends when needed for battle. Instead Hasbro has given us one solid weapon which can neither separate nor collapse, and has to be inserted upside down in order to make functional sense in the holster, making it wholly inaccurate. I don't give Bandai America much credit for their utter failures with the Legacy 6.5" line of figures, but even they got the collapsed Pod Sword right.Even if we didn't get the full sword I'd have preferred a permanently collapsed version of the weapon to this inaccuracy. You'll find that a lot of avid collector designers have set about 3D printing the correct accessories for this figure, like forum regular Designincase. I'd like to think Hasbro would set about correcting errors like this in the future, time will tell.

1 - Pistol Effect Part. This piece, is a pleasant change. Rather than include the repetitive sword effect part we saw with Zeo Blue, the Red Ranger comes with an effect specifically to use with his Power Pistol. A snug fitting dark blue energy blast that's really lovely. It'st just a shame that all of the Zeo Rangers apparently won't have this, given the fact that Blue did not.

1 - Unmasked Tommy head. As with nearly any Lightning Collection figure, we get an additional civilian/unmasked head for Tommy based on his actor Jason David Frank. This is not JDF's first lifelike sculpt in the line, in fact taking into account the second Green Ranger release it's his 5th. And I believe this sculpt is by far the best. Having long hair that isn't nearly the same nuisance as it was with Drakkon, and features a better face sculpt overall, this head will work well on any Tommy ranger body. If you want, the head very well on the Mighty Morphin White Ranger as can be seen in my gallery.

1 - Zeo V Power Sword. Occasionally known as the "Zeo V Battle Sword". Unlike the Blue Ranger, the Red Ranger includes his signature Zeo power weapon. Which begs the question, why on Earth didn't Rocky come with his Tonfas?? Furthering this confusion, the Power Sword has a small port on the bottom of the hilt suggesting it's ability to combine with other Zeo weapons, but the Blue Ranger doesn't have his. This oddity aside, the Power Sword is a well defined and detailed weapon that looks right at home in Tommy's hands.


Final Thoughts
Overall, the Red Zeo Ranger is a fine release, certainly an improvement over Blue just by virtue of including his signature weapon and the much improved unmasked headsculpt. It's a good refresher after how disappointed I was with the Blue Ranger. Let's hope that moving forward to the next 3 Zeo Rangers, Hasbro continues an upward trend of improving them. Who knows, maybe one of them could even have Rocky's long lost Tonfas included.

Part 2

Really like that it comes with the weapons, the figure looks great and it'll look even better with a dino thunder black next to it.

Its an absolute shame that Zeo Blue didn't come with his signature tonfas, but at least Red came with his sword. As you said, the sword still has a connection port at the hilt, so who knows, maybe we will actually get the tonfas in a later release or as a part of a package deal, like the psychos. Great pics as always and love the use of the tamashii aura effect and siege airwave!

On a sidenote, what type of light did you use to make the effect light up in red?

Looks like a pretty decent figure. Nice that they've included all the weapons at least.

The Zeo rangers are one of those designs that I can't decide if I really like (Those gold bands! The symbols for faces!), or don't (see before). This figure does a great job of capturing that Zeo-ness, I'll give it that, and of course Tommy comes with his weapon - weird it has the connector slots, but hopefully that shows some promise of the Tonfas getting released eventually. Wouldn't want that CAD design time to go to waste.

Unfortunately neither Zeo Blue nor Red have been part of the limited selection of toys we've seen in Australia so far, which is a real shame as I like Zeo V's design particularly. Hopefully we see a better selection next year so I can check this toy out!

Used to like the design of the red zeo as a kid but after really looking at it as a figure, the plain star symbol on the head just looks silly.

This was my first Lightning Collection figure, and I'm quite impressed. Lots of good toy for $20!
I've always loved this design, and I can't wait to see what else is coming down the pipe