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Series / Power Rangers Ninja Storm

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The storm will grow! Waters flow! Power Ranger ninjas go!

"Ninja Storm,"
"Thunder Storm,"
"Samurai Storm,"
"Ranger Form—HAH!"
—Morphing calls, Power Rangers Ninja Storm

Power Rangers Ninja Storm is the 11th season of Power Rangers, adapted from Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger. First season produced after Disney moved production from MMPR Productions to Australian-based Village Roadshow. By a funny coincidence, former MMPR-Turbo producers and writers Doug Sloan and Ann Austen worked for Disney at the time, and asked if they could helm this season. Disney agreed, the pair brought in writers, including series veteran Jackie Marchand, and the result was an Affectionate Parody that loved its lampshades.

Evil ninja Lothor wants to conquer the Earth, and his first step is to eliminate all of the secret ninja academies that would rise up to stop him. Unfortunately for him, three of the students at the Wind Ninja Academy decided to be Good Samaritans that day and were fixing some old couple's car instead of going to class. Shane, Tori and Dustin are widely recognized as the worst students in the school, despite potential and good intentions, but now they're our only hope. Assisted by their Sensei, who has been turned into a guinea pig by Lothor, and his snarky son Cam, they have a long way to go.

Lothor soon decides to fight fire with fire, and convinces a pair of adoptive brothers from a rival academy that Sensei was responsible for the deaths of their parents. Eventually, things are sorted out and they become the Navy and Crimson Thunder Rangers. And even after that, Cam, fed up with his father's refusal to train him as a ninja and the others underestimating him because of it, travels back into the past, obtains a mysterious artifact from his mother, and becomes a more traditional Sixth Ranger, the Green Samurai Ranger. Things come to a head as Lothor continues to sacrifice minion after minion, general after general, and the Wind Rangers begin to understand that their presence in this fight isn't as much of an accident as they might have thought.

As stated above, Ninja Storm was an Affectionate Parody, and lampshaded every trope and gimmick Power Rangers had invented. Regardless on whether or not you found the jokes funny, it still had a few standout elements here and there. Particular note goes to Cam, who, despite being in a less popular series, rose to be in almost as many (if not as many) Power Ranger fan theories as Andros and Tommy.

First series of Power Rangers to: 1) have only one girl, 2) switch the Blue and Yellow Rangers' genders, 3) begin with three Rangers, then add two, then add one more, and 4) be filmed in Auckland, New Zealand (where it was frustratingly banned from being broadcast due to the standards of violence), which of course meant the hiring of local actors thus leading to 5), the first season to deal with Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping.

This season unfortunately broke the chain of the last season team up episode started in Lost Galaxy, possibly due to the move to New Zealand as well as budget and union issues. Next season would continue the trend, however.

Succeeded by Power Rangers: Dino Thunder.

Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:

This subseries contains examples of:

  • Adapted Out:
    • Shurikenger had a mild baseball theme; his morpher was a ball and his sheathed sword was like a bat. This motif was taken out of Ninja Storm because the makers presumably didn't want kids imitating the show to smack each other with baseball bats.
    • Hurricanger had two other methods to Make My Monster Grow, depending on which general had sent the monster: either a giant "Copy Giant" robot would scan the monster's remains and, well, turn into a giant copy (rather similar to the method used in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman), or throw a size-changing mask to the monster. Both of these were edited out and the Scroll of Empowerment was used for all enlargements.
    • Zurgane in the sentai was actually a robotic suit piloted by a small alien bug thing inside his head; this was never shown here (outside of the action figure, anyway).
    • The Lothorzord from the finale? That's the Big Bad of Hurricanger.
  • Affectionate Parody: There are plenty of jokes about Power Rangers tropes and the general absurdity of the world the Rangers live in, but none of it's particularly cynical or mean-spirited.
    Shane: Not another clone story! Didn't we already do this?
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: After becoming a Ranger, Cam creates a virtual copy of himself to take over as Mission Control. Cyber-Cam ties Real-Cam up before his programming gets fixed.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Tori's infamous line in the first episode, implying that Power Rangers are merely comic book characters. The line was meant to play the trope straight, but some fans thought it indicated that continuity was being rebooted. References to Ninja Storm next season were meant to correct this misconception.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Marah introduces Beevil:
    Beevil: I'm wanted on 12 planets for theft, forgery, conspiracy, destruction of property-
    Marah: Don't forget littering!
    Lothor: Littering? The most underrated of intergalactic crimes! I'm impressed!
  • Artificial Gravity: Lothor's spaceship has this.
  • Artistic License – Biology: Tori's dolphin Zord is constant referred to as a fish, despite the well-known fact that dolphins are mammals.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Skyla the Karmanian in "Shane's Karma"
  • Ascended Fanboy: Dustin, somewhat. He was a big Power Rangers fan and the only one to believe in them before becoming one
  • BBC Quarry: One of the bigger offenders in the franchise. Lampshaded, of course:
    Cam: A quarry again? What is it, like a monster-con over there?
    Shane: (in the episode "Pork Chopped") Not another rock quarry!
  • Beach Episode: Many episodes had scenes at the beach due to Tori being a surfer, but the "Shane's Karma" two-parter had a sub-plot devoted to the Rangers trying to get some R&R at the beach.
  • Better than a Bare Bulb: One of this installments's strongest points.
  • Big "NO!": Choobo does this after he's been shrunk into being Marah's new pet, and she leans in to kiss him.
  • Big Red Button: Cam has one in the center of his keyboard.
  • Bland-Name Product: Tori has a blue van that is obviously a VW bus, but with the VW emblem on the front removed. Likewise, the mobile command center is a semi truck, with a very recognizable blue oval outlined in silver, but the word "FORD" is not there.
  • Book Ends: The finale introduces three new characters so the season can end as it began, with three ninjas late for class.
    • Extending into next season, the Dino Thunder crossover introduces the Wind Ninjas with them soundly defeating their students, contrasting their original introduction where they were on the receiving end of the asskicking.
  • Bowdlerise: See Family-Friendly Firearms.
  • Boxing Kangaroo: The Monster of the Week Boxing Bop-a-roo
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Happens to Hunter and Blake because they trusted Choobo who claimed to have turned traitor on Lothor. It was a trap so they would be brainwashed into fighting the Wind Rangers again.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Marah and Kapri are Bratty Teenage Nieces.
  • Breaking Old Trends: Up until this season, all Yellow Rangers were female while all Blue Rangers were male. This is the first Ranger lineup to switch them around with Dustin as a male Yellow Ranger and Tori as a female Blue Ranger. It's also the first season to begin with just only three rangers as a team in constrast with their predecessors starting the Three Plus Two (or its variants) formula.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: on occasion.
    • Lothor outright does this in one episode after a monster grows:
      (looks at the audience) "What did you expect? He wasn't going to get smaller."
    • Not to mention when he's in a zord of his own and kicking the Rangers around:
      Lothor: This is the most fun I've had all season!
  • Brick Break: The Rangers try this in "The Samurai's Journey Part 1" - they all fail, and when Cam the non-Ranger does it and succeeds, they think it's a trick.
  • Brick Joke: Part one of the season finale has Cam, Hunter, and Blake fight off monsters and get assistance from 3 strangers who are similar in looks and personalities to Tori, Dustin, and Shane. It seems like a throwaway thing until the end of part two when it turns out the 3 strangers are new students at the ninja academy just like Shane, Dustin, and Tori were at the start of the season. The only reason is so Cam can turn to his dad and joke, "I don't think I can survive going through all of this again."
  • Broken Aesop: When Sensei told Dustin not to use his abilities for trivial matters. Said trivial matter involved protecting a business that was basically being vandalized. In other words, "Don't use your abilities to stop crime." Admittedly, it was more the fact that he was starting to care more about the attention and fame he was getting for it rather than actually helping people, but he was still helping people anyway.
  • Cain and Abel: Kanoi and Kiya Watanabe, otherwise known as the team's Sensei and The Smart Guy Sixth Ranger's father, and Lothor. Doubled as a Luke, I Am Your Father for Cam, as he was unaware of the relation. It ends up saving Marah & Kapri in the end, because Cam is a hell of a lot more merciful than Uncle Lothor!
  • Cave Behind the Falls: Ninja Ops (though the falls are just a ninja-trick illusion)
  • Casting Gag: Maybe unintentional, but certainly amusing to note, Grant McFarland and Daniel Sing played father and son in the Xena: Warrior Princess two-parter "The Debt." A few years later, they end up playing older and younger (respectively) versions of the same character(s), Sensei and Lothor, here.
  • The Chosen Zeroes:
    Shane: So, what exactly does [the morpher] do?
    Tori: Where's the switch?
    Dustin: Does it have any games or what?
    Cam: Ladies and Gentlemen, the defenders of the galaxy.
    • Done almost immediately afterward where Shane and Tori become the only power rangers who can't figure out how to morph on their first try even though Cam already told them what to do. It thus fell to Dustin to teach them...
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Specifically called out by Sensei as a way to break Lothor's ranks; the dissension within the ranks means that they can be played off each other, their personal interests used to weaken their troops, etc.
  • Climactic Battle Resurrection: the finale. Lothor's resurrected army versus the Rangers and the rescued Wind Academy students.
  • Closest Thing We Got: Tori, Shane, and Dustin. They're at the bottom of their class, but they're also the only ninjas not captured by Lothor.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: The final battle features multiple former monsters of the week, plus a few new guys, getting whooped by five rangers in less than a minute.
  • Continuity Nod: About every third or fourth episode has an offhand reference to something that happened earlier in the season.
  • Continuity Snarl: The start of the series implies that this is an alternate universe in which Power Rangers are fictional. Later rectified with the Dino Thunder team-up, though it still leaves questions.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The more comical the villain seems, the more this applies - Lothor; Marah and Kapri; even Choobo demonstrated some serious skills when he fought the Rangers.
  • Dark Magical Girl: Marah & Kapri. It's strongly implied that they're not evil so much as desperate to win Uncle Lothor's approval. When Lothor leaves them in his self-destructing base, Cam grudgingly saves them because, hey, they're not the only ones stuck with him as an uncle. They immediately pull a Heel–Face Turn and spend all their energy trying to impress their cousin instead—which definitely paid off in the Reunion Show.
  • Dating Catwoman: Dustin and Marah in "All About Beevil".
  • Deadpan Snarker: Cam, especially at first. He speaks almost entirely in sarcasm after finding out that Sensei chose Tori, Dustin, and Shane to be the rangers until they learn to work together better.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: Shane with Skyla in "Shane's Karma".
  • Embarrassing First Name: Dustin's given name is Waldo.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: A rather infamous case; in the first episode, when the morphers are given to the main three rangers, Dustin exclaims, "I knew it! The Power Rangers ARE real!"
  • Enemy Civil War: One breaks out towards the end (when Lothor comments he's got "too many generals and not enough soldiers!"); it amounts to Vexacus maneuvering to take everyone else out and mostly succeeding.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: The Thunder Rangers, pre-Heel–Face Turn.
  • Extreme Sports Plot: Sort of. The Rangers, save Cam, were extreme athletes when not doing ninja stuff; and the sports got highlighted often but were rarely involved in the battles with Lothor.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death:
    • Motodrone is graphically melted on-screen by Vexacus to keep him quiet about the latter's treachery. His half-slagged body is seen in a rare exception to PR's Everything Fades tendency. His executioner quips that he was "having a little meltdown".
    • One that wasn't the death itself, but... General Tray was a pig-themed monster who the Rangers beat, he goes giant, they beat him again, he explodes... and then we see Lothor eating his barbecued remains; the other villains were as disgusted as should be expected.
  • Fastball Special: Shane and Dustin in "Thunder Strangers pt. 3"
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: The inverse is used in "I Love Lothor"; Cam attends a sports cooking class with Tori and the guys poke fun at him for such a girly activity - until they see all the girls in the class.
  • "Freaky Friday" Flip: Sensei and Shane, then Sensei and Dustin in "Sensei Switcheroo"
  • Flung Clothing: Almost every time the Rangers fight, they fling off their normal clothing to reveal their training gear... even if it should have been clearly visible due to short sleeves and belly shirts.
  • Girl Watching: "Thunder Strangers, Part 1" uses the common subversion that Shane and Dustin only look like they're ogling women (they're really ogling Cam's motorcycle designs).
  • Graceful Landing, Clumsy Landing: In "Sensei Switcheroo", Sensei Watanabe switches bodies with Shane and later Dustin. He shows himself to be a far more skilled and agile fighter than either Ranger in both their bodies. In the second battle with Footzilla, he uses an anti-gravity weapon to make all the Rangers float in the air. Shane is able to neutralize him, allowing the other Rangers to drop to the ground; while Watanabe lands expertly on his feet, the others drop to the ground on their backs or stomachs.
  • Groupie Brigade: The Rangers nearly get trampled by a Lothor-obsessed one in "I Love Lothor".
  • Hard Light: The Ninja Rangers get a lot of mileage out of holographic constructs, especially with the Zords: they're used to disguise the Zord summoning points, "split" the Megazord for its standard Finishing Move, and even summon a tidal wave for the dolphin zord. Cyber-Cam is another prominent example. Never mind their Holodeck-like training setup.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Thunder Rangers early on.
  • Heir to the Dojo: Played with, as Sensei's son Cam was specifically denied ninja training. Hence the handwave of him being a samurai while Shurikenger was explicitly "Ninja of Ninja".
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: The team are ninjas that were extremely bright colors and fight in broad daylight.
  • Horrible Camping Trip: In "General Deception". To quote Hunter, "I feel like the cast of Survivor."
  • Hour of Power: the Ninja Megazord's Lightning Mode, limited to one minute (at least the first time)
  • Hurricane of Puns: The Rangers make them all the time in battle. (Um, "Hurricane" pun not intended.)
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Zurgane does most of the work in finding aliens for Lothor to sic on the Rangers, and is the most tactically-minded of the villains. Given his boss, though, this isn't always appreciated.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: When a monster in "Looming Thunder" calls Dustin an airhead, Shane and Tori immediately respond that they're the only ones allowed to do that.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Cam spends the first half of the series resentful that he isn't a Ranger.
  • I Knew It!:invoked Dustin's reaction to being given a morpher is to stress that he called Power Rangers being real.
  • Idiot Ball: The fact that Hunter and Blake trusted Lothor who was clearly trying to take over the world counts. The fact they were tricked into trusting Choobo into attacking Lothor just to be brainwashed counts, too.
  • Inside Joke: See the Monster of the Week description. That's about the fact that part of Disney picking up the rights to Power Rangers was they demanded a smaller budget - including only one monster at a time in Megazord battles.
  • Insufferable Genius: Cam. However, before he becomes a Ranger, he has legitimate complaints as to why he's held back and after he becomes one he's much more of an equal in the group.
  • It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Used in the premiere as the Rangers approach the academy.
  • Keep Away: Wind Rangers vs. Thunder Rangers over Sensei in a hamster ball, uh, I mean force field; in "Thunder Strangers, Part 3".
  • Lampshade Hanging: All over the place.
    • Shane and Tori's Arbitrary Skepticism of Power Rangers being real comes off as this.
    • In "Beauty and the Beach", Kapri's Ma'am Shock is followed by this quip:
    "I'm only supposed to be a few years older than you."
    • Or the response to Blake asking if alien attacks are frequent in Blue Bay:
    Shane: "You never wondered why housing was so cheap?"
  • Laser-Guided Karma: A positive variant- in the pilot, Shane, Tori, and Dustin stop to help a stranded couple, despite having been warned that if they're late to the Academy again they'll get kicked out. This directly results in their missing Lothor's attack and becoming Power Rangers.
  • Late to the Tragedy: Tori, Shane, and Dustin in the premiere, leading to them being the Closest Thing We Got.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Lothor starts attacking in a giant robot in the season finale, he exclaims, "This is the most fun I've had all season!"
  • Leotard of Power: Tori's Ranger suit is one of these with the usual Minidress of Power attached, giving the appearance of the occasional Panty Shot.
  • Lighter and Softer: In comparison to not just Wild Force, but all 5 post-Turbo seriesnote , being the first time the franchise was this outrightnote . Notably, it's a more comedic series, the villain is a silly one (a direct contrast to Bansheera and Master Org), and the green ranger is Spared by the Adaptation. The only way it could've been even more lighthearted would've been if Lothor had pulled a Heel–Face Turn at the end of the season, like Ransik.
    • It's also this to its Sentai counterpart. Hurricaneger was far from the most serious Sentai, but it had occasional dramatic moments and plot that steadily got darker, in contrast to Ninja Storm's comedy and buffoonish villains.
  • Lightning/Wind Juxtaposition: The schools of wind and thunder are supposed to be working together, but the Big Bad Lothor has turned the Thunder Brothers against the Wind Trio. There is also an episode focusing on the rivalry between Shane, who controls wind, and Hunter, who controls lightning.
  • Local Hangout: Storm Chargers, the sporting goods store where Dustin, Hunter, and Blake work.
  • Lost Aesop: "All About Beevil". So is the lesson to trust people sometimes or not trust anyone?
  • Love Potion: Used in "I Love Lothor". While MOTW Mr. Ratwell gets a number of civilians to love Lothor, Marah and Kapri try to get some attention from the Rangers but only make Cam and Blake fall in love with Tori.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Lothor is Sensei's brother and Cam's uncle. Lucky for Lothor's nieces, Marah & Kapri, as Cam uses their relationship to justify saving their lives.
  • Ma'am Shock: In "Beauty and the Beach", Kapri is offended when the Tori doppelganger addresses her as "ma'am".
  • Magical Security Cam: Given a handwave about surveillance drones.
  • Magic Music: the Lightning Riff Blaster, a guitar that can summon a Mammoth zord.
  • Masked Villains, Unmasked Heroes: The Rangers spend a significant amount of time in human form per episode and their helmets can open up to reveal their faces. Lothor never takes off his mask and the only time we see him without it is when Cam travels back to the past and meets Lothor's younger self.
  • McNinja: The only person on the team who's supposed to be Japanese is not a ninja, but a samurai.
  • Meaningful Name: Dustin, whose elemental affinity is Earth.
    • Also Skyla the Karmanian, who gave her power to Shane, (whose power is air) which included a flying Battlizer.
    • And the techie named Cam.
    • Tori, whose element is water, is a surfer of torrential waves.
    • Hunter is almost an anagram for thunder.
  • Men of Sherwood: The ninjas in the Final Battle help to hold off the Kelzaks and defeat Choobo.
  • The Millstone: The Rangers have the Monster of the Week nearly handled, but Cyber Cam distracts them by doing something random and results in Dustin and Tori getting turned into perfume by said monster.
  • Mirror Match: Sensei sets one up as a test in one episode; only Tori realizes that the proper response is not to fight herself.
  • Mirror Universe: in "The Wild Wipeout"; somewhat subverted in that It Was All Just A Dream... maybe.
  • Model Scam: G-rated version in "Beauty and the Beach", when Marah and Kapri invite Tori to a fake photo shoot in order to trap her.
  • Monster of the Week: Parodied in "The Samurai's Journey, Part 3". Lothor tries to send six giant monsters at once against the heroes, only for the device that handles it to fail citing a "memory error". Zurgane informs him that they did not pay for the memory upgrade, so they can only enlarge one monster at a time. Lothor curses at this complaining that as future ruler of the world "I need big monsters!'" and settles for enlarging one and making the rest fight while small.
  • Motive Decay: Inverted. See Xanatos Gambit below.
  • Musical Spoiler: The theme song repeatedly mentions both wind and thunder, implying that both Blake and Hunter were always meant to fight on the side of good.
  • Mythology Gag
    • In "Thunder Strangers, Part 2", Tori's morpher is damaged and a monster tells her, "Guess it's not morphin' time after all, is it?"
    • In "Tongue and Cheek," Marah refers to the guys from Triforia as being three times as cute than those from other worlds.
    • With the source material already being something of a homage to Choujuu Sentai Liveman, Ninja Storm (perhaps unintentionally) took it further by having the villains based out of an orbiting spaceship, akin to Volt's space station Zuno Base.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: Early commercials made it seem like the whole season would be devoted to good vs. evil Rangers. That was done before the halfway point of the season.
  • Ninja: The theme of the series.
  • Ninja Log: Done with spare costumes most of the time, but at least once with actual logs (in "Nowhere To Grow").
  • Ninja School: The Wind Ninja Academy, which gets captured by Lothor in the first episode. Sensei mentions they were the last one, all others already being captured by Lothor. Like the Thunder Academy where Blake and Hunter trained.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Lothor seems like a general bumbler with some Medium Awareness. But then he reveals his master plan, which he was working on BEFORE he got banished into space in the backstory.
  • Only Sane Man: Zurgane is this for the villains, though every so often he'll lean into the goofiness around him.
  • Opening Narration:
    "Deep in the mountains, secret ninja academies train our future protectors. Ancient scrolls told of three who would be chosen above the others, three who would become..." [cue theme music] Go! Power Rangers! Go! Ninja Storm!
  • Polar Opposite Twins: Cam and Cyber-Cam, by design: Cam wanted his copy to excel in fields he wished he himself was good at.
  • Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: "Beauty And The Beach" and "Good Will Hunter".
  • The Power of Rock: The Lightning Riff Blaster, a weapon used to summon the Mighty Mammoth Zord. It's a Guitar/Blaster, and the Mammoth Zord is summoned with one awesome chord.
  • Power Limiter: Cam's weighted vest in Samurai Ranger form, which he removes when in Super Samurai Mode.
  • Precrime Arrest: In "The Samurai's Journey", Cam goes to the past to seek a power that'll make him the Sixth Ranger. Upon finding out his soon-to-be-exiled Evil Uncle is Lothor's past self, he tries to persuade the other ninjas to kill him instead. Unfortunately, they refuse to deliver punishment for future actions.
  • Projected Man: Cyber-Cam is projected from the Ninja Ops holoprojector.
  • Red Shirt Army: The Ninjas. The serve as fodder in the first episode before being captured by Lothor's men.
  • Retool: Arguably the biggest in PR history to that point.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Copybot from "Beauty and the Beach"
  • Rival Dojos: the Wind and Thunder Academies. Lothor uses this to convince the Thunder Rangers that Sensei killed their parents.
  • Samurai Shinobi: Cam, the Sixth Ranger of this season, is identified as the Green Samurai despite the team being ninjas. He has a Super Mode that increases his speed by discarding his armor and giving him an appearance more in line with the other Rangers' suits. It should be noted that Cam's Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger counterpart is called a ninja not a samurai.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can:
    • The "Abyss of Evil" that acts as one. Unusually, the Big Bad, Lothor, didn't bust out of there at the beginning of the season; instead it factored into his Evil Plan: if his monsters couldn't defeat the Rangers, they'd be sent to the Abyss; cramming it full until it burst open and gave him an army to work with.
    • Double subverted, as Lothor is sealed in the Abyss at the end of the series, and then breaks out in the next season, during the team-up episode.
  • Serendipitous Survival: In the first episode, Lothor's forces invade the ninja school and abduct all the students. Shane, Tori, and Dustin are spared because they were late. This is what lead to them becoming the Ninja Storm Rangers. As revealed in the last episode, it was actually destiny rather than just coincidence.
  • Serkis Folk: Sensei is a CGI guinea pig animated with motion capture.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Boxing Bop-a-roo, and eventually he's Got Other Villains Doing It, too. Lothor gets so fed up at the "made-up words" that he starts a Made-up Word Jar.
  • Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Sensei is stuck as a guinea pig for most of the series.
  • Shed Armor, Gain Speed:
    • Cam's Super Samurai Mode has him discard his heavy armored vest in order to move faster.
    • The Storm Megazord's Lightning Mode has it temporarily displace the majority of its bulk to become slimmer and more agile.
  • Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: A toss-up. It's not entirely clear whether the Rangers had to fit Ninja School around regular high school, or were already there the whole time.
  • Shout-Out: Amazingly, it took the show eleven seasons to make a reference of some kind to Godzilla: The monster Footzilla.
    • Hmm, the team has a wise mentor who offers advice and was a famed ninja master before an unexpected accident turned him into a rodent. Now, where have I heard of that before?
    • Right after blasting the using the Storm Striker for the first time in the premiere ep, Shane goes "Later days!"
    • "Looming Thunder" has a mole monster taunt "Can you guess who the mole is now?", likely referencing the then-current reality show, The Mole (which also aired on ABC at the time). Speaking of reality shows, there's Hunter comparing a Horrible Camping Trip to Survivor in "General Deception".
    • In what feels like being a bit of Take That! in "I Love Lothor":
      Lothor: I fail to see what lip gloss and face powder have to do with world domination.
      Marah: Well, it worked for Britney and Christina.
  • Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The show featured this memorable exchange:
    Lothor: "...there's something rotten in the state of Denmark..."
    Kapri: I thought they were in California?
    Lothor: ...it's Shakespeare. Read a book.
    Marah: Technically it's a play...
  • Similar Squad: Three new ninja students in the finale who act suspiciously like the Wind Rangers did.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Enforced for the first time since Power Rangers started, as in previous seasons they always gender swapped a male yellow to avoid invoking this trope. Despite the decision to swap Navy Thunder Blue to match the Blue Ninja Storm Ranger being female, the Ranger ratio is one girl to five guys, just like in Sentai as this was Disney's first Power Rangers production.
    First time in a regular season. Delphine in the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers mini-series also falls under this, as her team's Yellow Ranger is male (Tideus) and she's the only female of her team and the first female White Ranger, something we wouldn't see repeated until Power Rangers Wild Force and Power Rangers Mystic Force. Every other White Ranger we've seen through the Disney Era has been male.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Quite a bit, especially with the Wind Morphers and things involving the Lion and Samurai Star zords.
  • The Starscream: First Vexacus, then Marah and Kapri. Ultimately played with in every way when it's all revealed to be part of Lothar's Evil Plan.
  • Super-Empowering: Skyla the Karmanian, the source of the Battlizer for this season.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: Apparently, ninja training can teach you to run on water and air, move at blinding speed, control water, earth, fire, and lightning, open portals to distant places, shapeshift, and whatever else will get the Rangers out of their current pickle.
  • That Man Is Dead: By law, when a ninja is banished, they cease to exist. It is for this reason that Sensei never told anyone about his relation to Lothor; As far as he was concerned, the man he knew as his brother was no more.
  • Threatening Shark: Vexacus, the shark-themed bounty hunter turned general.
  • Tomboy with a Girly Streak: When Tori's unmorphed, she's fairly tomboyish. But once she morphs, her mannerisms and gestures are far more girly. Much of this can be attributed to the Sentai stock footage. Also a mentioned in "Beauty and the Beach". Dustin and Shane say she's not a "girl girl", but she insists she's more than just a tomboy.
  • Two-Timer Date: Tori, splitting between attending Shane's competition and going to a movie with Blake and Hunter in "Pork Chopped".
  • Villainous Breakdown: Zurgane has one of these after the Rangers defeat him in "General Deception, Part 2".
    "Will there never be a day that is marked for victory? Will I always have to suffer at the hands of the Power Rangers? TELL ME, WHEN WILL IT END?!"note 
  • Voice of the Legion: The Minizord speaks with two voices in unison, courtesy of Greg Johnson.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Shane feels inadequate compared to his own brother.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In Part 1 of "The Samurai's Journey", the main cast are stunned to hear that the primary reason Cam hasn't had a chance to be a Ranger yet is because Sensei has forbidden it. Sensei points out that it's because of a promise he made to Cam's mother before she died, but the others think it hypocritical of him to deny Cam the opportunity when it flies in the face of the advice he regularly gives them about being in charge of their own destinies.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Blake and Tori.
  • Xanatos Gambit: the entire season is revealed to be this in the finale, in which Lothor reveals that he was intentionally sending Monsters of the Week (and later his own generals) to their doom, so that their evil spirits would fill the nearby Abyss of Evil to overflowing, resurrecting his own forces along with the other ancient evils imprisoned there.
  • You Fight Like a Cow: ALL the Rangers, seriously, it's like Spider-Man times six.
  • Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: At the end of "All About Beevil", Lothor congratulates Marah for gaining Dustin's trust and then betraying him. However Marah, despite wanting her uncle's approval isn't too happy for it.
  • You're Insane!: Hunter tells this to Motodrone.
    Hunter: You're crazy!
    Motodrone: Yes, but that's the fun of it!

 
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Ninja Storm Rangers

The Wind and Thunder Rangers are ninja themed, and are more pronounced than the Mighty Morphin and Alien Rangers team ten years ago. Cam subverts this as he is known as the Green Samurai Ranger.

Example of:
Super Team

Scroll of Empow...

Ninja Storm Ran...

Green Samurai R...

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Ninja Storm Rangers

The Wind and Thunder Rangers are ninja themed, and are more pronounced than the Mighty Morphin and Alien Rangers team ten years ago. Cam subverts this as he is known as the Green Samurai Ranger.

How well does it match the trope?

4.71 (7 votes)

Example of:

Main / SuperTeam

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Ninja Storm Ran...

Scroll of Empow...

Ninja Storm Ran...

Green Samurai R...