Ho Yay / Power Rangers

"SKULL!....you. (Beat) You look great!"

It wouldn't be Power Rangers without the Ho Yay.

Examples

TV Series

• From Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Tommy and Jason, who even had several "breakup" episodes; Kim and Aisha, who were also best friends, briefly lived together, and there's a cute scene where Kim kisses Aisha on the cheek to cheer her up after a local sorority-ish thing rejects her.
  • Plus Jason and Zack before and after Tommy shows up.
  • Zack, Jason, and Billy even had a pillow fight scene, and when they are went to sleep Zack and Jason are shirtless.
  • Billy puts a ring onto the finger of a statue of a man when the rangers have to retrieve a sword from it. The sword comes loose when the ring goes on. Just think about that.
• Carlos with T.J - Cassie and Ashley also got some Les Yay in both Turbo and Space.
• Andros with both Carlos and Zhane.
  • Andros treats the then-comatose Zhane in a manner suspiciously similar to how Victor Fries did his comatose wife.
  • From the same season, Psycho Yellow's One-Winged Angel form is a wasp. Pink's is a giant flower. Sure, you could say it just signifies how Pink, even as her teammate, was just a pawn for Yellow's plans, but it's not hard to get the vibe that they were literal Psycho Lesbians.
  • A case could probably be made for Ashley and Astronema/Karone. In the final scene of the season, Ashley is the first to touch Karone.
• Leo often gets paired with Kai or more disturbingly Mike.
  • Maya/Kendrix is also extremely popular.
• Carter and Ryan, being the Red and Sixth Rangers. Particularly due to Carter staring at Ryan's naked back during the cobra tattoo arc, but lack of screentime between the two poses some drawbacks.
  • Same can be said for Joel and Chad in "The Mighty Mega-Battles".
  • On the Les Yay side, Kelsey/Nancy (from "Riding the Edge") has long been read this way by fans.
  • Kelsey also does this with Dana.
• Wes and Eric acted like they had broken up a while back and were still bitter about it.
  • At first glance, Eric could easily be interpreted as an angry ex of Wes' and it wouldn't require a word of dialogue to be replaced.
  • Their whole dynamic is fueled by Eric being a Tsundere while Wes' desire to cooperate, or at least be friends, makes him something of a Dogged Nice Guy.
• Danny/Max also has its fans.
  • Merrick and Zen-Aku, post-separation. ZA sounded very much like a jilted lover.
• Hunter is shipped with Cam, Dustin, or both.
  • Dustin is also shipped with Shane.
• Power Rangers: Dino Thunder has Ethan/Trent, also known as Trethan.
  • Tommy and Mesogog have a couple of scenes that positively gush Subtext. In his Dr. Mercer identity, he told his son that he and Tommy had had their time and moved on, as if they'd been in a romantic relationship, and when Tommy's held captive and strapped to a table in Mesogog's lab (!) in one episode, Mezzie leans to within an inch of him several times while threatening him. Any closer and he'd be nuzzling Tommy's neck. When Mesogog orders his Mooks to attack once the Rangers show up, Tommy sighs, "I hate when he gets like this."
  • This particular season is also noteworthy because it is the first series known to (nearly) have an intentional example of this, through a combination of What Could Have Been and Word of Gay. Hayley Ziktor, Team Mom and Mission Control to the Rangers, was going to subtly be revealed to be a lesbian in the finale, where she’d go off on her next adventure with a woman implied to be her girlfriend. However, partially due to time constraints and partially due to the politics of the time, this scene never aired. Show-runner Jackie Marchand reveals this at roughly the 30-minute mark of this interview.
• Sky/Bridge, which seems to comprise all of the slash that isn't Wes/Eric or Tommy/Jason.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander Green Ranger Bridge, who falls asleep during an important meeting, is prodded by the Police Chief and responds with a half-asleep "Five more minutes, Sky." (referring to the Blue Ranger). Just one of several Ho Yay moments involving these two.
  • Jack/Sky is another popular pairing.
  • Z/Syd for the Les Yay. The high-five? Adorable.
  • Also Morgana bodily pinning Z against a tree◊.
• Power Rangers Mystic Force has a nice example of Les Yay in the finale. The Rangers see Necrolai as a human, and Vida VERY enthusiastically backs up Xander's assessment that she's hot. Of course, this puts a new spin on the two-parter where Necrolai sired Vida as a vampire.
  • Nick/Xander was also a thing.
• Mack has this with Tyzonn and Dax.
• RJ/Casey has fans.
  • Not without evidence. Casey's greatest fear (revealed during an early two-parter) was something coming out of his closet. He offers to give RJ rub-downs (mistakenly believing that RJ has regressed to his wolf form), and he also mentions being the "catcher" for his little league baseball team. Given RJ's bohemian attitude to life, you could very easily see RJ and Casey getting together. What didn't hurt was that every other character paired up. By the close of the finale, Dom and Fran had run off to Europe together, Theo was dating Lily, and Camille and Jarrod were closer than they'd ever been.
  • As does Casey/Theo and RJ/Dom.
• Power Rangers RPM: Dillon/Ziggy was the most popular, so popular that even one of the actors commented on it. Dan Ewing, who played Dillon the Black Ranger, was being interviewed once and mentioned how supportive the fans had been to the RPM cast. Then it got weird.

  "Even the creepy fan-love things. People, creepy. Like, okay, if anybody listening to this is doing any creepy love stuff between me and any of the other Ranger males ... stop that shit."

  • What was so brilliant about that is Ewing was less annoyed that slash fanfic existed, and more annoyed that everybody was pairing him with the wrong guy. When told of the love for Dillon and Ziggy (Diggy, as it was called), Ewing exclaimed, "How would that be a good match?", and then wondered why people hadn't paired him with Eka Darville, who played Scott the Red Ranger. Brilliant.
  • Milo Cawthorne (the actor who played Ziggy) once posted on Rangerboard that he thought the Diggy pairing was great. Go figure.
  • Ewing could be right about Scott and Dillon. Particularly in "Dome Dolls", notice where their hands are after succumbing to the "XY sleep agent"...then again they did spend an episode chained to each other so it's not that surprising.
  • Scott/Gem was apparently also a thing.
• Power Rangers Samurai: Jayden's childhood friend Antonio returns to become the Sixth Ranger in "Unexpected Arrival", where after a rather, um, flamboyant showing in battle, he announces "Believe it baby! I'm back, and I'm ready for some action!" and struts toward Jayden (to give him a hearty handshake), set to a musical cue that could easily pass for romantic (or the lead-in to a porn scene). In the following episode, "Room for One More", he arrives at Shiba House in a tuxedo, and petitions the Rangers' mentor to join the team in a scene that feels very much like he's asking Mentor Ji's permission to date Jayden. That Jayden coyly waits outside rather than sitting in on the interview with the other rangers adds to the feel. Given the fairly weak acting of the season to this point, it's a bit striking how much more genuine their affection seems than any other emotion any character has conveyed all season.
  • They've replaced Genta's oversized suit and gong from his big arrival at the Shiba house with a suit and shiny tie for Antonio, making it look like he's taking Jayden to the prom.
  • The end of "Broken Dreams" adds a whole new level of Ho Yay when Jayden and Antonio are limping to the bench, panting and catching their breath while saying things like "Every muscle hurts" and "Just like old times."
  • Super Samurai just makes it more blatant. Antonio literally tells Jayden to hit his Zord in the butt. Granted, it's to get it to work, but still.
• Power Rangers Megaforce starts off with very strong Emma/Gia. Gia catches Emma's book when it falls and has her drink order memorized, and the way that the two look at each other screams "girlfriends."
  • Especially in the 'girl power' episode. Before the casting of and after the breaking of the spell that makes them bicker and argue, they're oh so touchy-feely with each other, and in fact, during it, they seem more Like an Old Married Couple than anything like the murderous rage the Monster of the Week had intended to infect them with.
    • In fact, the actors for Emma and Gia are aware of it and jokingly tweeted their pairing name◊ after that episode aired. Then there's this◊.
• Power Rangers Dino Charge:
  • Chase and Riley. There are a lot of scenes where their faces are inches apart or they're grabbing each other's shoulders, and fans have pointed out that when Riley talks to Chase about how people back on the farm made a lot of "wrong assumptions" about him, it seemed like it was a few lines away from a Coming-Out Story. Later episodes have a lot of body language between the two of them, especially wrapping their arms around each other and getting into each other's personal space. The general consensus is that there's camaraderie, and then there's Chiley.
    • To add on to this, in December 2020 Riley's actor would reveal that not only did he interpret and play the character as gay but that he did have a crush on Chase.
  • "Sync or Swim" brings in Ivan and Tyler, who apparently decided the best way to apologize for their rivalry that episode was to (respectively) make them dinner and buy them clothes. And they take selfies together.
  • "True Black" has some general ho yay during the opening sequence. Ivan and Riley are sparring when they come across Tyler doing shirtless yoga, with Riley commenting "Nice!" and Ivan nodding in approval. It's likely meant to look like they're complementing his skill, but the angle makes it look like they're staring at his ass.
  • Phillip/Koda also has some fans. Koda saves Phillip from monsters in the latter's first appearance, and later it's Koda who Phillip goes to when trying to figure out how to work his Energem. Note that he met with Koda over lunch, which many have interpreted as a date between the two.
• Power Rangers Ninja Steel has pretty much all the guys getting paired up with each other, even Calvin who has an in-show girlfriend. It's not helped, or made better depending on how you see it, by the cast releasing videos of themselves hugging each other or being really close. Considering that Peter (who plays Preston) is a fan of the show, he most likely knows about the shipping side of the fandom or was given the heads up from his brother and gets the others to play along to mess with the fans.
  • Calvin/Preston is gaining a bit of traction because their actors (Nico and Peter) keep posting videos of themselves hugging and talking flirtatiously and mentioning their pairing name: Calston.
  • Brody/Levi has some grounds too. In addition to being the traditional Red/Sixth ship, Levi's first episode has him paying Brody to hang out with him and eat lunch with him. So, basically a date.
    • The reveal that Levi is actually Brody's missing brother Aiden caused people to quickly drop the pairing.
• Power Rangers Beast Morphers has a couple of pairings out there... More like all the possible Ho Yay pairings are there.
  • Devon/Blaze has a following, and like RJ and Casey, it helps that Ravi is with Roxy and Nate and Zoey are dating.
  • Despite all that, there are of course people who ship Devon and Ravi.
  • And of course there's the female ranger-female villain ship with Cybervillain Roxy and Zoey. Zoey and the original Roxy is also a thing.
  • Apparently Devon and Ravi are both also shipped with Nate.
• The moment Power Rangers Dino Fury's rangers were revealed in a set of leaked photos, people were jumping on the Ho Yay and Les Yay trains.
  • Javi and Ollie have quite a few shippers thanks to their aesthetics radiating chaotic bi energy.
  • Amelia and Izzy (the latter of whom seems to radiate Bend It Like Beckham vibes) also have some shippers out there.
  • After twenty-eight years of could-have-beens and if-you-squints, we finally have our first canonical LGBTQ couple on the show: Izzy has a sweet romantic subplot with recurring character Fern. Their romance won the show its first-ever GLAAD Media Award in 2022.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always:
  • Billy and Zack are co-parenting Trini's orphaned daughter Minh, and bicker Like an Old Married Couple. Billy is also apparently separated from (though still friendly with) Cestria of Aquitar, his hastily written-in love interest who existed entirely to hide the fact that David Yost had walked off the show due to the incessant gay bashing he endured behind the scenes.
  • For his part, David Yost is aware of queer interpretations of Billy, but doesn't want to see them happen in canon. He's said that letting Billy be straight allows him to put some cognitive distance between himself and the character.
• Power Rangers Cosmic Fury:
  • Ollie is enamored with Billy Cranston as soon as they meet, and acts like a giddy little kid around his cool older crush. Amelia even teases that he's making her jealous.
  • Aiyon and Zayto's close friendship goes several steps further this season, culminating in Aiyon attempting to follow Zayto to the afterlife.

Films

• Power Rangers (2017): Quite a bit of it, primarily between Trini and Kim, most of which doesn't even get into Trini possibly liking girls in this version...
  • The two of them spend a lot of their time together in this version, getting very close and enjoying each other's company. And Trini is very cold to the other rangers at first, except for Kim, who's the only one who can get her to open up and smile.
  • A lot of their scenes can be viewed in a romantic light, like a deleted scene where Kim discovers that her locker has been vandalized. Trini's response? Rip the door off and offer to carry her stuff for her. Looking at the infamous "donut scene" out of context, it's very easy to assume that the two of them are actually on a date, rather than just close friends.
  • At one point, two of Kimberly's ex-friends exit a bathroom stall together for no apparent reason. Uh, okay...
  • Rita really enjoys caressing Trini's face when she attacks her and pins her to a wall. Bonus points for it being in Trini's bedroom. This obviously doubles as No Yay. Another example of this is when Rita literally searches the jewellery store desk clerk's mouth with her fingers. The clerk is clearly surprised by this but notably doesn't ask her to stop.

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