Power Rangers Jungle Fury was the 16th season of Power Rangers and is considered part of the Disney era. It is based on Juken Sentai Gekiranger and stars Jason Smith as Casey Rhodes, Anna Hutchison as Lily Chilman, Aljin Abella as Theo Martin, David de Lautour as Robert James (RJ), Nikolai Nikolaeff as Dominic, Bede Skinner as Jarrod, and Holly Shanahan as Camille. I recently finished it in my quest to watch all of the various seasons of Power Rangers and you can find my thoughts below.
For Jungle Fury, we start off with a similar idea as Ninja Storm. We have three students at a martial arts school who become the Power Rangers. Heck, even the theme songs are in a similar vein in terms of tone. However, a few differences are worth noting. First, instead of being connected to elements, the different students and styles are tied to animal spirits with our core Rangers being based on large cats. Second, Casey is a lower rank than Lily and Theo when we start. In fact, Jarrod is a fellow student who is chosen alongside Lily and Theo to become guardians that keep the evil spirit Dai Shi sealed away, but after some bullying, Jarrod is replaced with Casey, Jarrod is angered and through a series of events ends up accidentally unleashing Dai Shi which pretty easily defeats Master Mao and then eventually possesses Jarrod. We now have our 3 core Rangers: Casey, Lily, and Theo going up against the possessed Jarrod who we’ll mostly call Dai Shi from here on out. While the start does have some similar vibes to those in Ninja Storm, Jungle Fury does a good job of being distinct enough to be its own thing.
After being defeated, but before he seemingly dies, Master Mao tells the Rangers to find their new master in the city of Ocean Bluff. Here, they find RJ, the owner of the pizzeria Jungle Karma Pizza. RJ also ends up being their new Pai Zhuq master and their Ranger mentor who provides them with their Morphers, weapons, Zords, etc. Eventually, RJ even joins them as a Power Ranger. More episodes occur and the team is more or less rounded out with the addition of Dominic as the 5th Ranger.
As a quick rundown of animal spirits, we start with Casey as Red with the spirit of the Tiger, Lily is Yellow with the spirit of the Cheetah, and Theo is Blue with the spirit of the Jaguar. RJ then joins as Purple with the spirit of the Wolf and finally Dominic is White with the spirit of the Rhino. Meanwhile, Dai Shi has possessed Jarrod who has the spirit of the Lion and his main general is Camille who is a Chameleon. A bunch of villains rotate in with additional animals, so there’s a lot of animal representation in this season.
I think that’s enough general setup to move on to various aspects. Overall, Jungle Fury is a very fun season to watch. It feels very upbeat and light in a good way. There aren’t really any goofy characters outside of maybe Flit who is utilized sparingly, especially in later episodes when they start to ramp up the seriousness. Flit is a fly who provides commentary to Camille during the big monster fight of the episode. This is a fun splash of goofiness to keep things light and it’s never very long, so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Yes, there are other jokes and funny moments, but anytime we have something like that it’s typically done in moderation, so it doesn’t feel ridiculous.
The Ranger gear is interesting in this season. I’m not a fan of the core suits. Overall, the design isn’t horrible, but I don’t like having a break somewhere like a belt. RJ and Dominic both have this and it helps me like their suits a lot more. Lily kind of has something since her top has a weird skirt-like approach to it, but it honestly feels too different from the Red and Blue Rangers which docks it some points, plus it’s not super apparent. Each Ranger does have a unique weapon which is something I like and they brought very unique weapons to the table. Casey uses nunchucks, Lily uses a bo, and Theo has tonfa. Then, each of them also acquires a second unique weapon although the Spirit Rangers also use them: a mace, a pair of fans, and a pair of sabers. Once again, very interesting choices. RJ doesn’t really have a weapon although he can fire beams from his Morpher. Meanwhile, Dominic’s Morpher has a few different modes that serve as weapons. Interesting enough, there’s no universal blaster or sidearm until the core Rangers unlock Master Mode and get the Claw Boosters. While I appreciate the unique weapons of the season, I do think that they look a little off, and the Jungle Bo in particular looks weird with what appear to be designated grips. It doesn’t help that the Junglechucks look more themed for the Red Ranger than the Tonfa or Bo are for the Blue and Yellow Rangers respectfully. Based on what I’ve read on the Power Rangers Wiki, it looks like some of the lack of cohesion I’m feeling could be because the Tonfa and Bo counterparts in Gekiranger are a universal sidearm with various configurations while the Junglechucks is not one of those configurations.
I already mentioned Jungle Master Mode which is a boost they get around episode 14. The suits for Master Mode actually look a little better although the jets were a little weird in my opinion. They were mostly weird because they didn’t seem to do much. It was implied that they added maneuverability and/or speed when activated, but it didn’t feel like any of that was provided. It felt like they just added a jetpack flame visual effect. It would’ve been nice if it felt like the jets did anything.
The Zords for Jungle Fury are okay with nothing really sticking out with one exception. When they unlock Jungle Master Mode, Lily is able to harness the spirit of the Penguin courtesy of Master Guin (Michelle Langstone). The Penguin Zord freaking rides a hover snowboard and wears headphones! Best Zord!
As far as villains go, Dai Shi and Camille are really the only ones tha you care about. There are additional villains that rotate like the Overlords and then the Phantom Beasts and it’s just kind of hard to care about them. It is interesting though that the typical monsters actually come from the footsoldiers called Rinshi. I quite like that idea and the implementation of it.
Now the question that few are probably asking, how’s the story? Well, it’s okay. I already shared how the season starts and then for most of the season its one-off monster of the week storylines with some slightly bigger arcs like the Five Fingers of Poison. Many of these are fun like “Bad to the Bone” where Lily gets affected by a monster’s ability and goes from being overly nice to hardcore rude biker chick. Once you hit the last few episodes though, things really start to ramp up. Jarrod starts breaking more and more free of Dai Shi, Camille starts realizing that she actually likes Jarrod and not Dai Shi, Casey fails his test to become a Master and must then still grow and prove himself, and more. I loved the last few episodes a lot! The problem for me was the finale. In all honesty, the final battle felt anticlimactic and there were a lot of moments in the epilogue that felt tacked on because some story thread was started, but not fully developed, but the writers wanted to make sure there were no loose ends. I can appreciate that to a point, but I wish that some of these things had been better handled over the course of the season. For instance, early on, we figure out that Theo has a crush on Lily, but then it’s not really ever shown, touched on, developed, etc. until the last couple of episodes. It makes the pay off feel very cheap in my opinion.
The clip show episode is a fun one because the premise is that the Rangers get sucked into a game show run by Camille and monsters, but it feels so disjointed. They’re on the game show, the monsters cheat to get them off, and after Casey (the last Ranger to not get “canceled”) steals away the monster’s remote and cancels the monster and Camille, the Rangers are all back in the normal world and a fade to black (presumably to a commercial). When we come back, the group puts on a very small luau style party in the loft for Lily as the first nod in what feels like forever that Theo has a thing for her. That’s it. The clip show episode feels very rushed and not thought out. I was excited because of the game show aspect, but in the end, it just didn’t have a good flow and felt jarring to watch.
There are some more characters I’d like to talk about. First, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Fran (Sarah Thomson) who also works at Jungle Karma Pizza and eventually finds out the identity of the Rangers. She’s a great character. She helps serve as an Ernie-like character while RJ has more of a Zordon-esque role in the season. When people have problems, she helps them talk through it or even fights Lily (kind of) in the aforementioned episode. There’s a group of Rangers that show up towards the end called the Spirit Rangers which are like the animal spirits of the core Ranger’s masters personified as Rangers, kind of. It’s a little confusing to me if I’m honest.
I really like RJ as the mentor most of the time. The persona of young, odd hippie guy can be a little weird at first, but he’s definitely a good mentor. As a Red Ranger, I actually really like Casey. He’s always growing in some respect up until the very end and in my opinion he’s the one who grows the most. I’m not a huge fan of Theo though. He just felt annoying throughout. Finally, I felt like all the actors did a great job in their roles. Skinner was especially good as the Dai Shi-possessed Jarrod although I felt like his performance was a little worse after Dai Shi is exorcised from Jarrod.
At the end of the day, I enjoyed watching Jungle Fury. It’s not perfect, but definitely a winner for the Disney era of Power Rangers. As always, remember that this is all merely my opinion and I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions about Jungle Fury in the comments below.
Current Power Rangers Ranking:
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Power Rangers Zeo
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Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 1
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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 3
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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 2
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Power Rangers Ninja Storm
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Power Rangers Jungle Fury
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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1
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Power Rangers Wild Force
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Power Rangers S.P.D.
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Power Rangers Turbo
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Power Rangers Beast Morphers Season 2
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Power Rangers Mystic Force
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