On a random find in cyberspace I came across a collection of all 53 aired episodes of the
Power Rangers alternative show – Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad.
On and off since I got it, I have been watching an episode here and there of this badly produced show (which is a western adaptation of
Denkou Choujin Gridman).
For those who don’t know: The show is about a high school band called Team Samurai and to cut a story short their ring leader Sam gets sucked into the digital world and somehow by accident he becomes a superhero named Servo.
On the flipside an emo-kid named Malcolm Frink also gets mixed up with the digital world and befriends an evil entity on his bedroom computer known as Kilokahn (voiced by Tim Curry). Malcolm is a downer on everyone, but is an excellent artist. It is through Malcolm’s artwork that virus monsters are drawn and scanned into the digital world and brought to life by Kilokahn. Servo/Sam does battle with these monsters Toku style.
Sam’s bandmates Syd (a techie girl), Tanker (a jock) and Amp (an oddball) also join in getting sucked into the digital world via attack vehicles to help do battle against the Virus monsters. Servo and the attack vehicles can combine together.
What I think:
This show by no means is a masterpiece. It is mainly set indoors and the digital world scenes are also equally claustrophobic. However, it has its cheesy 90’s charm about it that warrants a rainy day viewing. Shows a lot worse than this have churned out of the 1990s and SSSS is miles more watchable than any of them.
So far Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad has never seen the light of day on a DVD release and rumour has it 5 more episodes are yet to be seen (racking up the count to 58). However, somebody out there with patience, a VCR, and a capture card had recorded the show from start to finish making torrents and youtube streams do the rounds.
This show is worth a laugh, but I don’t recommend marathon viewing despite being likeable tat. Maybe one day that DVD release will happen after all.
