So Ninninger did have a couple of Specials and movie appearances. Some of them we will not be talking about will be their spring crossover with Drive and their appearance in Super Hero Taisen GP which I will talk about when I get to Kamen Rider Drive, and the other is a mini special featuring Akaninger and Starninger beating up a bunch of old monsters. So that leaves us with three movies, the summer movie, the crossover with the previous team, in this case Ressha Sentai Toqger, and their return movie epilogue. So here we have their Summer episod... I mean, movie that is not just a slightly bigger budgeted episode, and the vs movie with Toqger. Let us begin with the appetizer film first.
SHURIKEN SENTAI NINNINGER THE MOVIE: THE DINOSAUR LORD'S SPLENDID NINJA SCROLL
Yoshitaka gives the Ninningers summer homework, their assignment, enter a hidden ninja village to rescue the villages lord when the village comes under assault by the Kibaoni' Army Corp general, Juza Yamahiri, which they end up succeeding but find that the lord, Tatsunosuke Hakkaku, has been turned into a human sized dinosaur. Meanwhile Juza reveals his reason for attacking the village, he is looking for an evil dragon which would lay waste to the world and allow the Kibaoni Army Corp to take over the world. Now the ninningers must return to the village in order to protect the lord and to put an end to Juza's Machination.
Don't worry, dino shogun will protect you.
Really that is most of the plot, much of film is just action pieces with some exposition in between each one. Granted trading in the modern city for a ancient village is a nice treat for the eyes, and the action is arguably some of the best that ninninger has, with the opening infiltration being the major highlight but also brings an issue to the movie. So if you have been watching toei toku, primarily Sentai and Kamen Rider , they'll sometimes replace the opening's footage with sneak peeks for the upcoming tie in movie, Ninninger did this and much of the footage was for this opening scene, it would make you think that this was the major climax of the film, instead its happens in the first 10 minutes, last all of two minutes and its done. At that point the movie showed us its best, while the rest of the action is still great, its always on the back of your mind that "Yep, this is still not as good as the opening 10 minutes...wonder what I going to eat dinner." Juza is a cool looking Villain, the dual nature of his suit looks pleasing on the eyes, his weapon mixes both bows and swords (seeing as how bows are often overlook as weapons for samurai this was neat.), and... that's about it, personality wise he contrasts well with the main series Gabi, being more calm and composed bringing to mind samurai with how he fights, but shows the ruthlessness of a villain, notably being much more serious than any of the generals of the main series, but really he could've just been some monster of the week or a rival warlord to Kibaoni and it wouldn't matter. How did he learn about the evil dragon, what does he think of Kyuemon. Sorry, there's not enough time for any of this and this also applies to our titular dino lord. We get a brief history of who he is, his personality some time spent with Takaharu, he vanishes for a bit, but turns up during the last battle having had a character arc off screen, gets turned back into a human then back into the evil dragon, becomes their dino mech, back into a human again and that's the end, you feel almost no sympathy for guy's plight, heck the mecha he turns into feels like an afterthought, shows up, is on the villains side for a few minutes, turns good forms up with shurikenjin, kills Juza in one hit, go rest our heroes. It feels like something their for action scenes sake.
So the charts say that Dino's sell, so here's a Tyrannosaurus who can transform into a ninja with shoulder cannons.
Really, thats the best way to describe Dinosaur Lord, it a bunch of action scenes stringed on the flimsiest of plots to have some kind. It'll probably entertain some kids and while the action is the strongpoint here, I come out of it wanting more just lke with the gokaiger summer movie, we some cool ideas but nothing comes of it because these are not movies, their companion shorts to the Kamen rider movie that warms audience up. Its eye catching but you'll probably not be missing much after a week.
SHURIKEN SENTAI NINNINGER VS. TOQGER THE MOVIE: NINJA IN WONDERLAND
The ninningers find themselves on a train heading for a Ninja land but they can't remember how they got on the train and keep drifting in and out of slumber. One by one they are rescued by the Toqgers as it turns out to be a trap planned by yokai and surviving members of the Dark line, the villains from Toqger. more specifically, the leader Dark Doctor Mavro. While the Toqgers are able to get almost everyone off the train before it reaches its destination, Takaharu ends up stuck and meets with the doctor and learns of his plan, to create an army dark hybrid ninja's to bring darkness into the world, and intended to drain the ninningers of their nintality to do so. While he only got one, he is goes ahead and takes Takaharu's Nintality and fuses it with his clones of famous ninja's from history to create Dark Akaninger, which is what you got if you took all of the design off the sash, gave him black chainmail and boots. Now Takaharu is staring at death's door without his nintality and would soon vanish from the world if he doesn't get it back (oh no, not Takaharu, I can't believe he may die in this vs movie, will he survive.) Anyway, its a race against time to defeat the dark Akaninger and put a stop to Mavro.
Yeah let's get this out of the way. oh look, we have an evil red ranger as an adversary that our heroes have to fight. But it is a novel take on the concept, rather than Takaharu being the one who turns evil it is his essence that is used to create an evil ranger. Sadly, there really is not much of a character with him here, he's essentially a monster of the week in a ranger suit, though I wish the sash had some kind of design pattern on it rather than just being straight black, probably budget reasons, but it just feels empty without anything on it. That being said Doctor Mavro does make up for it in spades, he's so gleefully insane, having the most fun with what he is and fitting that mad scientist trope so well.
Akaninger, now with 100% less Moete Kitā and heroic spirit, also black boots, sash, and chainmail included.
If I could best describe this movie it would be...fun. It doesn't try to advance any character's beyond what we know of them, its a fun romp that makes the most of its cast of heroes. Yeah Red and Right are sort of the main focus, being the only two in ninja land for most of it and they bond a bit over how they feel they need to be their for their teammates. It would be a bit of a nice characterization if it were not for how Takaharu felt like a spotlight stealer in the main show where it felt like no one else matte. But the chemistry between both teams is really strong, as I really haven't watched Toqger at this point I really couldn't offer much of an opinion on them, but their infiltration of ninja land was a highlight for the use of imagination and ninjutsu. Despite that while the core 12 are done justice, it does so at the expense of both shows support casts. Tsumuji and Yoshitaka have about one scene each, almost no one from Toqger has any on screen appearences, heck even Kyuemon or the Kibaoni army corp have much purpose here after delivering Takaharu they just exist to get beaten up by the came- I mean, the next team. It's minor but considering for one show this may have been the last time we would see any of those characters, them appearing would have been nice for a nice final hurrah.
Simplicity or laziness, you decide.
Speaking of the beginning and end, the cameo for the sentai following Ninninger, Doubutsu Sentai Zyouhger, its perfectly fine, it gets the job of a sneak peak of what to expect, we get some of their abilities, their interaction with the yokai are hilarious, but it feels so disconnected from the movie itself, they show up beat them up and its back the main plot, and those suits man, their something about them that just feels... lazy, under designed, this was supposed to be sentai's 40th team and this feels like a b or c team effort rather than pulling out all the stops. Though I may be wrong, when I finally get around to this season in a couple of years heheh, (Sigh) I have a lot to catch up on.
Action wise its surprisingly simplistic, it's primarily the rangers base powers on display, the ninningers don't pull out Chouzetsu (okay they do but its right at the end during the mecha fight), Kinji makes no use of Super Star ninger, heck off the top of my head, the Toqgers don't even do any of the transfer changes that they were known for. Which can be dissapointing for those who want to see both teams making the most of everything they have (since many of these films take place near the climax of a current season and the teams often have much of their upgrades.) But its very clear that the action was not the focus for writer Kento Shimoyama, who probably wanted to focus on the interactions between both teams and it pays off.
Despite that, this does contain one of the best mech fights in the entirety of Ninninger, the night time setting adds to the atmosphere, the combination between both Lion Ha-oh Shurikenjin and Toq-oh, I actually don't hate, in fact it actaully looks okay, and the use of the kuliners as they are called and totally didn't look up added to the fight. It's easily some of the most effort that any ninninger mech fight had, and heck even all of the otomin show up to help, even Dinomaru, see you exist in one more movie besides the one you premeire in.
While it won't change peoples mind about ninninger's. NInninger vs Toqger is actaully pretty good, its not as good as Gokaiger vs Goseiger mind you. But it was a fun enjoyable romp that knew what it wanted to be and set out to do it. It by no means changes anything about the characters, and fans of toqger may be disappointed by how it is only the core 6 teammates and their monkey puppet friend. But as far as the ninninger, it is one of the better things regarding the series, Takaharu is not that annoying, their is some legitimate heart in the family dynamic (Even though the whole dying thing really never was something that got to me.) and it actually got me to care about a mech fight from this show. That's a win in my book at least. Also the ending did get me to laugh a bit, won't spoil it beacuse it involves a toqger twist, but it was worth a chuckle.
When you have zero idea about what happened in Toqger and the film casually drops its big twist on you at the end.
CONCLUSION
Overall, Dino lord is about as average as average could get, their is some solid action, but it is hampered by its short length to make any kind of story that the writer wanted to tell. Meanwhile, the Vs movie was a pleasent suprise, making the best of both its team and offering a rather satisfying crossover. The summer movie can be passed over unless you want to say you have watched everything related to ninninger, but if you haven't already, I would reccomend watching Ninninger vs Toqger, This was an actual suprise.
FINAL GRADE
DINO LORD: D
NINNINGER VS TOQGER: B
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