'Power Rangers' And Its Dwindling Output From A 'Pokémon' Perspective
Combined, they have 2,000 episodes, but it was Pokémon that ended up with more, overcoming a major head start. When did that happen?
Happy 1,000 articles, Sandler’s Handlings! While I have many stories I want to cover or catch up on, I got a little curious about something and I figured it would be something special to commemorate the milestone with. Last September saw Netflix release significant endings of two juggernauts of Saturday morning American television that the streamer had become the exclusive home to. One continually adapted a Japanese pop culture icon, the other is a Japanese pop culture icon, as one of the biggest franchises in the world. The latter is the Pokémon anime, which on September 8, the 25th anniversary of the English dub’s premiere, saw the American release of To Be A Pokémon Master, a special final arc that closed out the story of Ash Ketchum, his Pikachu, and his entire supporting cast after 1,234 main series episodes (1,223 of which have been released in English or are in English circulation). Three weeks later, on September 29, the ten-episode 30th season of Power Rangers, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, very likely closed the original 30-year continuity at 973 episodes, a special, and one movie that is far easier to place sequentially than 20 Pokémon movies. It felt right for a 1,000th article to cover a show I love that did hit 1,000 episodes in 2018, and lament that another came so close but didn’t make it. Even with a head start of over three years, Power Rangers ended up with 260 fewer episodes, and that’s just to that point, because Ash’s series was succeeded by Pokémon Horizons, which recently surpassed 50 episodes. We all know why it happened. An unmatched hiatus, an evolving children’s television landscape, gradually dwindled episode counts until the end where it was a little more drastic, but did you ever realize when?
Let’s start at the very beginning of the coexistence. Pokémon debuted in Japan on Tuesday, April 1, 1997 with “Pokémon, I Choose You!”. By sheer coincidence, this was the Tuesday after the opening weekend of the easily-sequenced Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, which was released March 28. It serves as the kickoff film of the Power Rangers Turbo season that would formally with “Shift Into Turbo” part 1, the 206th episode of Power Rangers, on April 19. This means Power Rangers had a 205-episode head start and inverted that into a deficit and added onto it by over 25%. Turbo, being only the fifth season of the series, would have 45 episodes. It’s just under the run of the average length of Power Rangers’s previous 4 seasons being 51. At the time, it kept pace with typical Super Sentai series, which still hit 50 even as of Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, the most recent season. Both the Sun & Moon and Journeys series of Pokémon have 42 and 48-episode seasons in reverse correspondence, and a 50+ episode final season. The one time a Pokémon arc ever went under 40 episodes (the 36-episode Orange Islands), the American broadcast season at Kids WB compensated for it with “season 2” starting with Kanto episodes. These are shenanigans that they repeat and are why The Johto Journeys and Advanced barely break 40 (the final dozen episodes of Master Quest are considered here). Getting back to Turbo, its season finale, “Chase Into Space” part 2 would air November 24, 1997, the 250th episode overall. The ensuing hiatus would end up overlapping with an unintended one for Pokémon that would last for four months.
“Dennō Senshi Porygon”, the 38th episode of Pokémon, infamously aired on December 16, 1997 and utilized flashing lights that sent hundreds of ill and seizing children to the hospital. That triggered the four month hiatus that gave international buyers an awful first impression, while in Japan it punted some episodes, pushed up others, and maybe allowed the creation of the first episode up when it ended on April 16, 1998: “Pikachu’s Goodbye”. By this point, Power Rangers in Space has aired 11 episodes following its February premiere, being the first of many February-November seasons. It was after “The Delta Discovery” but before “The Great Evilyzer”. The week ending November 21, 1998 sees Power Rangers in Space conclude with the two-part “Countdown to Destruction”, and “To Master the Onixpected” airs the Thursday prior, now 293 to 73. Strangely enough, it seems “Pikachu’s Goodbye” first aired in English on November 20, the day of “Countdown to Destruction” part 1. The end of Indigo League and the start of Adventures in the Orange Islands in Japan actually align pretty well with the premiere of Lost Galaxy in the states, with “A Scare in the Air” (which uses the original “Pokémon Theme” as its opening on some prints and the second “Pokémon World” on others) airing on February 4 and “Quasar Quest” part 1 airing February 6. Pokémon reaches episode 100, “A Way Off Day Off” on May 27, 1999, five days after Lost Galaxy enters a four month hiatus only 15 episodes into the season, just a third of the way. The Orange Islands arc ends with episode 118, known in English as “The Rivalry Revival” on October 7, 1999. Lost Galaxy ends in December on the third and final part of “Journey’s End”, episode 338 overall. That’s ten episodes into The Johto Journeys, with “The Chikorita Rescue”, where Ash catches his Chikorita, airing on the same Thursday “Journey’s End” part 1 did in the States. That’s 338-128, meaning the gap has only widened by 4 episodes. However, that would change. They gain 8 episodes, not stopping while Power Rangers breaks between seasons. I could probably go season by season, but in my research, there’s an alignment too big to ignore.
On November 14, 2002, Pokémon airs its 276th and final episode of the original series, what would be known in the English dub as “Hoenn Alone!”, the final episode of Master Quest where Ash and Pikachu travel to Hoenn by boat and run into trouble. Meanwhile, two days later, there would be an even more significant end. Power Rangers Wild Force’s 2-part "The End of the Power Rangers" marks the end of ten seasons and 458 episodes filmed in the United States, and the last of the three seasons to run exactly 40 episodes, to be followed by three 38-episode seasons and 4 32s. Though Ninja Storm was very likely well enough into production by this point in New Zealand, it was still a definitive almost-endpoint. And already, the deficit was shrinking, now at +182 for Power Rangers.
As close as Power Rangers was to 500 episodes, that milestone with those 42 episodes to make it would not be hit for another 15 months. It would be the fourth episode of Power Rangers Dino Thunder, “Legacy of Power” on February 28, 2004. With Tommy Oliver kidnapped, the Dino Thunder Rangers find a video archive that teaches them the history of the Power Rangers. Taking just 10.5 years to hit 500 episodes exactly is quite the accomplishment, but one might have noticed that in the next 19.5 years, they failed to make the next 500, falling short by over 25 episodes. The most recent Pokémon episode to air was the 341st, to be known in the English dub as “Gulpin It Down” when it aired in the United States as part of the Advanced Challenge season 50 weeks after the original February 26, 2004 Japanese airing. It would feature Gulpin and Ash’s Treecko grown to kaiju size. The gap had closed by 23 episodes, now +159 for Power Rangers. By the time Pokémon reaches its 500th episode, it’s early into the Diamond and Pearl fourth generation series in May 2007. In fact it’s the sixthway mark, "An Angry Combeenation!", where Cheryl is traveling with Ash, Brock, and Dawninside a hive of Combee to gather Enchanted Honey. This episode aired well into the point where Power Rangers premieres moved from ABC Kids on Saturday mornings to Monday evenings on Jetix. That means it’s much more a midpoint between Thursday Pokémon premieres. It falls between Operation Overdrive’s ninth and tenth episodes, 613 and 614 overall “Follow the Ranger” and “Lights, Camera, DAX”, closing the gap by 46 episodes to 113.
Power Rangers’s next major milestone is its 700th episode, RPM’s “Danger and Destiny” part 2, the final new episode produced by Disney, with cancellation being reported in March 2009, and the episode airing on December 26. The cancellation would only last about four and a half months, but still. The Pokémon episode “Gotta Get a Gible”, the last episode of Diamond and Pearl: Galactic Battles aired in Japan on December 24, the 625th overall. That’s right, the deficit was now in double digits at just 75 episodes. Haim Saban buys back Power Rangers in May 2010 and quickly gets Power Rangers Samurai on Nickelodeon by February 2011. Each team would get 42-45 episodes, but aired in halves as their own seasons over two calendar years. Here is where the crossing and overtaking occurs. Pokémon’s own 700th episode is Black & White’s "The Club Battle Hearts of Fury: Emolga Versus Sawk!" (yeah there was a creativity drought in episode titles in this era), aired August 4, 2011. Samurai has aired just 16 episodes and is in the midst of a June to October hiatus, still to air its two-part opener (they premiered on episode 3). On February 2, 2012, episode 724 “Battling the Bully” sees Ash capture the recurring Sunglasses Krokorok, and airs 16 days before Power Rangers Super Samurai kicks off with “Super Samurai”. This is the point where the main Pokémon anime overtakes Power Rangers. It would then go on to reach episode 745, "Piplup, Pansage, and a Meeting of the Times!" in June, six months before “Stuck on Christmas”, the final episode of Super Samurai, at which point Pokémon is 20 episodes ahead with “Strong Strategy Steals the Show!”, Ash’s Unova League battle against Stephan.
From here, it’s probably best to watch Power Rangers fall behind at each milestone, as Pokémon’s 800th is the penultimate episode of the Black & White series, “Best Wishes Until We Meet Again!” in September 2013, while Power Rangers doesn’t air its 800th episode for over two years from that point, Dino Charge’s Tyler/Ivan rivalry episode “Sync or Swim” in October 2015 in the States. Pokémon is at 891 episodes, having just aired XY Kalos Quest’s “Tag Team Battle Inspiration!” the Thursday prior. It’s also worth noting that the English dub turnaround was now as little as seven weeks from the Japanese airings. It was crazy, but it makes the “Well how close was Power Rangers to Pokémon’s English dub?” to make it considerably tighter practically irrelevant. Of course, being at 891 means 900 isn’t that far behind, and indeed, “The Legend of the Ninja Hero!" is that 900th episode, aired in December 2015. Of course, doing the math means it takes another near 5 years for Power Rangers to cross another 100 episodes, and 900 is finally reached in Beast Morphers season 2 with “Game On!” on March 7, 2020. Pokémon had just aired its 1102nd episode, well surpassing the 973 or 974 episodes Power Rangers would ultimately end up with. And because of how Bulbapedia keeps “Holiday Hi-Jynx” and “Snow Way Out” out of its count, that’s an even 200 to them (I’ve been including them in the count). I guess to finish it off, it should be acknowledged that in Japan, when Cosmic Fury’s 10 episodes dropped worldwide, Horizons was in the midst of a three week break having already aired 23 episodes, with that episode being “Fiery Galarian Moltres”. That episode is currently the last of part 2 on Netflix in the United States, the most recent available.
If you’re reading this, you’ve clicked this article’s link because it is definitely out of range of the email. July marks 16 months since I started this Substack and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do with it in reaching 1,000 articles. I believe my first non-news piece was essentially a recap of Ash’s final episode “The Rainbow and the Pokémon Master!”, and it’s not an episode one will probably ever forget, so it lingers in the mind and comes back around from time to time and came back to inspire another article. And in a time where writing, both creative and journalistic, is being invaded by AI, I’m grateful to have the freedom this space allows. Writing is a strength of our kind, and everyone has the power to do it. Commemorating 1,000 articles, may the power live on forever.
