Today sees the return of a Power Rangers Magazine to the stands in the UK and I've managed to pick up a copy for a quick review. This magazine is published by Panini Magazines and is aimed at boys between the ages of 4 and 7. I am a boy of 27 so I'm not exactly the target audience but who cares?
Issue One has two free gifts! A tribal disc shooter with 5 coloured discs representing the original five Samurai Rangers and a sheet of stickers. The disc shooter is far too much fun for a chap of my age but I've enjoyed firing discs all over the room. Unfortunately I've now lost all but one of the discs so if I'm attacked by any Moogers I'll be unable to defend myself. The sheet of stickers contains 24 stickers which are all square. There are stickers of the Rangers, the Zords, the symbols and even one of Master Xandred. They aren't exactly Earth shattering stickers but they are still pretty cool and I look forward to sticking them all over the place.
Now on to the magazine itself. There are 34 full colour pages of Power Rangers goodness. The magazine is clearly aimed at kids so there's nothing substantial here. There's plenty of adverts for toys including the range of action figures and zords (I really need a swordfish zord so my Megazord can have a jaunty fish hat) as well as the Power Rangers Samurai Mega Bloks which I'm currently collecting. We kick off with a 2 page spread dedicated to meeting the team. We are currently approaching the half way point of the second season of Samurai on TV and it seems surprising that they've waited so long to start publishing a magazine dedicated to it. What's even stranger is just how far behind this magazine is. There's no sign of Gold Ranger Antonio here.
The centre piece of the magazine is it's brand new comic strip featuring our favourite spandex clad heroes. The artwork is... interesting. The characters don't really resemble their television counterparts. At all. Mike's a bit white. Ji's very Japanese looking and Xandred looks a bit like a gay devil. The story is basically a rehash of an episode of the TV series. Even reusing a villain. But if you're a boy between the ages of 4 and 7 it's probably an incredible read but for me it wasn't all that. But I did like the pretty, slightly racist pictures. I can't wait to see where the series goes next month.
The rest of the magazine is dedicated to the usual junk you find in this type of magazine (not that I read many of them just that Doctor Who one they do but that's mainly for the free stuff I tend not to read the actual magazine as it's rubbish). There's a double sided poster featuring a Mooger on one side and a group poster of the Rangers on the other. There's a pretty sweet competition where you can win all sorts of cool action figures I'd try and enter but I think I'm too old. There's also a quiz that let's you know which Power Ranger you are. I'm Mike apparently. I'm not sure how reliable the test is though as you can say you answer that you do like video games and still end up being Kevin. There's a maze puzzle which I managed to complete on only my second attempt. I'm looking forward to colouring in my own Megazord although I may not follow their colour guide I like to be myself and use the colours that represent me. There's even a target for me to cut out and shoot with my disc shooter. It's that pesky Nighlok Rofer who appears in the comic strip. There's a spot the difference puzzle I'll attempt to solve later (seven differences? Are they crazy?) and a door hanger that will help me keep out Nighloks when I'm trying to write these reviews.
The Samurai Megazord gets a double page spread as well. It takes an in depth look (well a sentence each) at all of the folding zords. There's another colouring page as well. It's a Ranger but there's no colour guide to tell me which one it is. This could end very badly. It hasn't got boobs so that rules out the girls at least. There's a word search. It's piss easy. God kids must be so stupid. I managed to find 5 out of the 6 words without looking at the answers. There's one of those puzzles where you're given a character then have to find an identical one out of a series of others. It's too hard for me. There's a data file on the Red Ranger and the answers page. I knew B was the answer! It wasn't too hard really I was just messing with you guys. The magazine ends with Mega Mail a section where we can send in our own drawings. I'll be sending mine in next week! Next month's issue comes with a free Power Sword and I'll be definitely buying it.
Power Rangers Samurai Magazine is printed by Panini Comics, costs £2.99 and is available in all good newsagents and super markets or you can visit the Panini Website.
