Trivia / Power Rangers Samurai

• Acting for Two:
  • Master Xandred and Octoroo are both voiced by Jeff Szusterman.
  • In the Mexican dub, Ricardo Méndez voiced both Antonio/Gold Samurai Ranger and Octoroo.
• Bad Export for You: Only the Red Ranger, Blue Ranger, Gold Ranger, and the Megazord appeared in Malaysia, as a McDonald's Happy Meal toy.
• Blooper: In the Wii game, several cutscenes will have characters who are supposed to have spoken lines be completely silent, with the characters responding as if they did speak.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Emily was almost played by Ciara Hanna, they even had the contract ready, but she backed out before signing. She would return to play Gia in Power Rangers Megaforce.
  • Spike's actor, Felix Ryan actually tried out for the part of Antonio.
  • According to a recent interview, during the audition process, at one point, they moved Hector David, Jr. over to the Gold Ranger.
• The Cast Showoff: Antonio, gets a chance to show off his singing chops in "He Ain't Heavy Metal, He's My Brother". Steven Skyler was first noticed as a background Warbler on Glee.
  • Power Rangers are certainly no strangers to acrobatics, but the show just wants to make it clear that Hector David (who plays Mike) is very good at backflips.
• Christmas Rushed: Production on the show was out rushed in 6 months instead of the usual year due to the timing of Saban buying the franchise back and trying to get it out at the usual premiere time of early the next year. It tends to show in that most of the early episodes are just recycled Shinkenger plots. This also extends to the ways Saban made the deals they did to get the franchise set up for distribution. First was home media, which was given to Lionsgate for every season from 2011 on, while Shout! Factory got the rights to the others (many prefer Shout have the rights because Lionsgate couldn't appear to give less of a crap about the show, especially when it comes to releasing the holiday episodes from their seasons). Then, they got the broadcast deal with Nickelodeon, which only hampered the franchise due to the arbitrary "20 episodes per year" rule so they have to do 2 seasons per adaptation to do 40 episodes. Then there's the toyline, which was of a lesser quality than previous, or even subsequent, seasons in places.
• Development Gag: When Mia says "every girl wants to get married", it's not meant as Values Dissonance in any way. See Freeze-Frame Bonus on the main tropes page.
• Executive Meddling: The main reason why this show was a Shot-for-Shot Remake of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger was due to Jonathan Tzachor believing that Shinkenger was a good show, and didn't want to change much of it, as noted here. The problem, however, was that Shinkenger was very heavily rooted in Japanese culture^note whether this was Toei retaliating in response to Disney wanting more control over the sentai to make it less violent, or due to RPM being the last season at the time Shinkenger began airing and Toei believing that Shinkenger wouldn't be adapted, thus they didn't have to take that into account when writing it, is unknown, to the point that prior to Samurai being announced, some fans believed that if Saban did get the rights back, they would outright skip Shinkenger^note while this would've been problematic considering that if Saban adapted Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, which had Shinkenger used quite frequently, and one of the mech configurations came from Shinkenger, they could've explained it away in a similar way to the Alien rangers from MMPR using footage from the crossover between Shinkenger and Tensou Sentai Goseiger, which would've been the first season Saban had adapted if Shinkenger had been skipped.
  • It's worth noting that had Tzachor gotten his way, the rangers would've been sequestered even more, to the point where a proposal by one of the writers to have one of the rangers play with a Playstation was met with shock from Tzachor.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Steven Skyler, Antonio's actor, is not Latino at all. He's Thai/German and just happens to look kinda Latino.
  • Downplayed with Hector David, Jr. (Mike the Green Ranger), who really is Latino, though not Mexican (different sources claim he's either Puerto Rican or Cuban.)
  • Despite being about Samurai and being the most Japan-centric season Rangers has ever done, Mia Watanabe, ostensibly the only Asian person on the team, is portrayed by Erika Fong, who has a Korean mother and Chinese father.
• Out of Order:
  • The first episode that Nickelodeon showed was the third episode Saban made, so we don't learn anything about how the Rangers got their powers or who the villains are. Though some of this information was shown in promos, including one that recapped some of the backstory that aired right before the premiere. This might have been done in an attempt to skip the boring setup and go right to the action, but unfortunately results in Lost in Medias Res. The "real" premiere episodes were aired as Origins Specials midseason, some of the last before the change to Super Samurai. Netflix also follows the airing order, but the DVDs put "Origins" Pt 1 and 2 at the beginning where they belong.
  • "Clash of the Red Rangers" also was aired between the original batch of episodes and Super Samurai, this one being earlier than its intended place in the story with several power-ups and characters appearing out of nowhere.
• Recursive Import: After Power Rangers S.P.D. and Power Rangers Mystic Force, this is the third PR series to be dubbed in Japanese since Saban got the ownership of the Power Rangers franchise back. And like in the case of the Mystic Force dub, regular voice actors are used instead of the original Japanese actors.
• Role Reprise:
  • After nine years since his last appearance on Wild Force's "Forever Red", Paul Schrier would reprise his role of Bulk for the entire series.
  • On the last episode, Jason Narvy made a guest appearance as Skull.
• Screwed by the Network: Besides being underpromoted, as well as having to comply with Nickelodeon's "20 episodes per season" limit (resulting in the show having to produce a "second season"), the most recent hiatus during the Super Samurai season lasted for five months, during which time Nickelodeon Latin America already broadcast the final episodes.^note As a result, they can't be advertised as "world premiere" episodes. There has been speculation that Nickelodeon may have been deliberately trying to get the show cancelled. This has mostly been disproven with Nick and Saban's latest deal to extend the series to 2016 with Power Rangers Dino Charge.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Many note that Felix Ryan not only has a very strong physical resemblance to Jason Narvy, he can also do a very good impression of his performance.
• Technology Marches On: The Rangers before the present group shown in a flashback are shown using Shinkenger-style Shodophone, complete with brushes, while the current generation uses laser-emitting ones. Highlighted much later, when Lauren appears and Mike specifically notices her morpher, inherited from her father, is different from the current set.
• Troubled Production: A feature on Den of Geek with story editor James W. Bates confirmed that Jonathan Tzachor was responsible for the extensive rewrites of fifteen episodes to make it a carbon copy of Shinkenger.
• Unfinished Episode: One planned episode would have seen Bulk try to become the Brown Samurai Ranger, based on an unadapted episode of Shinkenger where a Funny Foreigner makes himself the "Shinken Brown".
• What Could Have Been: Enough for its own page
• Word of Saint Paul:
  • Hector David Jr. has said that his character's last name is "Jackson" in an interview with The Hashtag Show. However, no in-show evidence or related material states this. Considering the obvious reference, it's very plausible he was just joking.
  • Jason Navry personally believes that Skull got married to Kimberly in the time since Power Rangers in Space and that she is Spike's mother.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Rene Naufahu, who plated Master Ji, was previously seen as Emperor Gruumm, including a single scene in a single episode out-of-costume.
  • Rick Medina, better known as Cole Evans, came back as Deker.
  • Grant McFarland, who played both Kanoi Watanabe and Lothor in Power Rangers Ninja Storm, had a minor role as Daisuke in "The Tengen Gate".

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