On August 28, 1993 a phenomenon appeared on American television: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Shown as part of the the Fox Kids afternoon (and after-school) children’s programming block across the country, Power Rangers was an instant success. Suddenly, kids across the country wanted to learn karate and pilot giant robots. Everyone seemed caught off guard by the show’s huge impact as toys, apparel and all the other ways to cash in on any successful kids shows were not to be found (at least at first).

The show, created by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, took footage from the Japanese action show Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger and combined it with new English language footage starring American actors. Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger was part of the long running Super Sentai series of shows, all of which featuring a team of agents who could transform into super heroes. The sixteenth entry in the series, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger carried on many of the traditions of Super Sentai such as five team members (four male and one female) with color coded identities, martial arts battles over gunfights, monstrous adversaries and robot vehicles, which could often combine into a giant warrior, to face giant sized threats. 

Over thirty seasons, twenty two distinct series and a couple feature films, Power Rangers has continued to be a mainstay of American children’s programming despite having migrated networks from Fox to The CW to Nickelodeon to Netflix and navigating ownership changes (including Disney and finally Hasbro). The planned reboot of the series is now up in the air after the dissolution of a partnership between Hasbro and Netflix but there is little doubt there will be a new Power Rangers show. Even though Power Rangers has arguably been the biggest when it comes to live action Japanese television in the US it is the only live action tokusatsu (special effects) show to hit American airwaves. It is not even the first.

After the premiere of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers there were several attempts to capture the lightning in a bottle a second time with other English language shows borrowing effects footage from live action Japanese programs. Haim Saban and Shuki Levy were, in fact, among the first with VR Troopers (1994-1996) which drew from Toei’s Metal Heroes shows. In Japan there were (and still are to this day) four long running tokusatsu franchises: Super Sentai, Metal Heroes (which tended to feature law enforcement officers with cybernetic bodies), Kamen Rider (motorcycle riding transforming heroes with cybernetic insect themed powers) and Ultraman. The pair would turn to Metal Heroes again in 1996 to create Big Bad Beetleborgs, which ran for two seasons on Fox Kids. They also tried their hand at a Kamen Rider adaptation with Masked Rider (which also ran on Fox Kids for two seasons from 1995 to 1997). DIC turned Japan’s Gridman The Hyper Agent into Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, which ran from 1994 to 1995 in syndication and in a brief run on ABC. CW Kids adapted Kamen Rider Ryuki for the the US in 2009 as Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight. It ran for a year and even won a Daytime Emmy for its stunt work.

Although it was not based on a Japanese show, special mention should probably be made of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. This live action TMNT series was produced by Haim Saban and Shuki Levy and introduced many elements similar to Power Rangers/Super Sentai shows, including expanding the team to five by adding the female turtle Venus de Milo. In fact, this version of the Ninja Turtles even appeared in a crossover with the Power Rangers during the Power Rangers In Space series.

Unlike the Super Sentai, Metal Heroes and Kamen Rider franchises Ultraman did not come to US television after the Power Rangers boom. It had already been on American airwaves for almost 30 years and it was not the only tokusatsu series in the US to predate the Power Rangers! United Artists purchased the broadcast rights to Ultraman in 1966 and syndicated a translated version in the US that same year (using some of the same talent who translated and voiced the animated Speed Racer series for US television). It would continue to run throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. Ultraseven was licensed by Turner Broadcasting in 1985 and translated into English but did not air the show until 1994. The 1990 series Ultraman Great, which had originally been released straight to laserdisc in Japan, also aired in US syndication in 1992 as Ultraman: Towards the Future. In 2002, Fox aired a dubbed version of Ultraman Tiga in the US as part of their FoxBox kids programming block. Unlike Power Rangers and its imitators the Ultraman shows did not shoot new footage for the English versions but instead presented straight translations of the originals.

After the initial release of Ultraman a few other live action tokusatsu programs saw limited release in the United States. Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, a translation of Giant Robo, was syndicated in the US starting with the 1969 television season. It followed the adventures of a young boy who joins a government agency fighting alien terrorists after he is bonded to a giant (flying) robot. Space Giants, adapted from Ambassador Magma, was based on a comic by Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka. It was syndicated sparsely from 1970 onwards by Lakeside Television Company. In the late 1970s picked up by Turner Broadcasting’s WTBS and ran for a few years. The USA alternative music programming block Night Flight also dabbled in Japanese tokusatsu programming in 1987 when they translated Super Sentai series Kagaku Sentai Dynaman as the parody show Dynaman, which also aired on Nickelodeon around the same time.

Thanks to the enduring popularity of Power Rangers, English speaking audiences now have access to a wide range of tokusatsu programming. Several of the original Super Sentai shows used to create Power Rangers seasons are available with subtitles on DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment and on the Shout Factory streaming channels (as well as Tubi). The bulk of the Ultraman and Kamen Rider series can also be found through Shout Factory! and Tubi although newer Ultraman shows are streamed (with multiple subtitle options and English dubbing) on the Tsuburaya Productions official YouTube channel. While various Power Rangers series can be found on Netflix and Pluto, several seasons are also available to stream for free on the Power Rangers Official YouTube channel.