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Toei usually register their trademarks in September for the Sentai series coming the following February, and sure enough the ever-faithful trademark bot has revealed that today (September 25th) Toei registered not one but TWO trademarks related to Super Sentai!

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The trademarks are for Keisatsu Sentai Patoranger and Kaito Sentai Lupinranger.

'Keisatsu' means police while 'Pato' is derived from patrol (think like Deka Red's individual mecha, the Pat(o) Striker).

On the other hand 'Kaito' means a "phantom thief", which is the Japanese term for what we'd call a gentlemen thief. The word Lupin (coming from the name of the early 20th Century fictional French thief Arsene Lupin) seems to have become something of a shorthand for that kind of criminal in Japan. For examples of these terms being used in toku, see Daiki Kaito a.k.a. Kamen Rider DiEnd or, of course, Kamen Rider Lupin.

So the most obvious guess is that we'll be getting a 'cops and robbers' scenario with one Sentai trying to capture another? Looks like the Sentai shakeup continues!

The trademark bot tweet can be found here: https://twitter.com/trademark_bot/status/912335451981090816
 
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Interesting. Sounds fun. I wonder if this would be two teams within one show, as with the Hurricanegers and Goraigers (could trademarking two full team names be for merchandise purposes, in that case?) or if they'll do something really groundbreaking, like alternate the show. Week one, it's an ep of Patoranger, week two it's an ep of Lupinranger - possibly even telling the same events from alternating points of view....
 
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Dr Kain

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Sounds like they are debating between two different titles, but are unsure which they might use. Sadly, I wouldn't expect very much to come out of this series as they have proven with Kyuranger they are completely inept at utilizing the massive potential they have at their finger tips. If I can just get an average Sentai show for a change, I will probably be happy. It's been too long since there's been a show that isn't mediocre at best.

Although, seriously, Toei is just throwing names in a hat and randomly pulling them out.
 
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One of the things Kyuranger has been fond of is giving the team two different goals requiring them to split into two smaller groups with different missions. Then they spend one episode almost entirely on one team with the other barely appearing, and the next episode switches to the other one. I guess you could take that idea even further into always having two different squads?
 
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Dr Kain

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Not really. I mean, the episode where they split so one could go back in time didn't even last an episode. They rushed through the time traveling plot in the span of 2 minutes of the next episode with Naga and the next had Lucky going back in time to save them because of course it has to be Lucky. He's Mr Invincible with no faults and can do no wrong.
 
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Lupinranger sounds odd to me-- especially considering the "thief" connotation. There was a really popular Japanese comic about a thief named Lupin III, which got turned into at least one animated film that's really famous, as Hayao Miyazaki took part in making it, back when he was still an animation intern. It even got a U.S. release, just for that.
 
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Not really. I mean, the episode where they split so one could go back in time didn't even last an episode. They rushed through the time traveling plot in the span of 2 minutes of the next episode with Naga and the next had Lucky going back in time to save them because of course it has to be Lucky. He's Mr Invincible with no faults and can do no wrong.
Well, yeah. Of course he is - he's a Sentai Red!

I was thinking more of how Stinger and Champ split off to confront Scorpio. Or when half the team went to that forest planet to find one of the three Kyutama required to get the Argo. They keep splintering the team off. If they're doing that with a 12 man team, I imagine they could follow two teams of 5-6 in a similar way.
Lupinranger sounds odd to me-- especially considering the "thief" connotation. There was a really popular Japanese comic about a thief named Lupin III, which got turned into at least one animated film that's really famous, as Hayao Miyazaki took part in making it, back when he was still an animation intern. It even got a U.S. release, just for that.
Lupin III is itself based on a series of French novellas about the master gentleman thief Arsene Lupin. In France they are considered to be their version of Sherlock Holmes. Lupin III can't outright mention Arsene for copyright reasons (and Lupin III has had to be re-named in many countries that consider the name to be infringing on the French series) but it's creator has said that unofficially his character is meant to be the modern-day grandson of the French character.

The fourth anime season is available on Crunchyroll in most countries and I loved it. I can't wait for the upcoming fifth season either! Sadly it seems Crunchyroll didn't get the UK rights to the earlier shows as I can't watch them here, but you can in some other countries.

The French series was really popular in Japan in the 60s and Lupin III has carried that on, and it seems the word 'Lupin' has become something of a shorthand for a gentlemen thief in Japan.

Normally I prefer the full word 'ranger' to be in a Sentai's name, but I do think "Lupinger" rolls off the tongue better.
 
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I did not know all that, but I still think a series based on thievery that's heavily homaging another series by name probably isn't real-- or, potentially, isn't really a Sentai season, but some sort of weird parody thing again.

As to the other one, Patoranger... I guess it's more believable, but that's been done too. It does occur to me that there could be some sort of situation where it's one series with a police team that is taking on a criminal ranger group, but it still seems a bit too coincidental to me. Are we sure this is a real trademark?
 
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My understanding is that there's an official Japanese government website that publishes all new trademark applications. It generally dumps a big list of them onto the site once per week. The trademark bot is an automated system that looks for the new lists and produces a tweet for each entry. The bot has been correct about all the Sentai and Rider entries for the last few years. It seems trustworthy enough.

I wouldn't discount Patoranger purely because police have been done before. I mean, so have dinosaurs, ninjas and animals. I'm not sure Lupinranger is a new Akibaranger though. That series was partially a vehicle for promoting Sentai Figuarts and they are long gone now

It's possible they are separate shows. A couple of the longtime fans were talking on twitter and they couldn't recall a sub-team like the Goraigers or Go-On Wings getting an equal trademark.

A lot of the current rumours suggest that they will initially be treated as two shows that will alternate each week for a few months before merging both the storylines and teams together. But I haven't seen anything to back that up so it's likely that it's just a particularly popular piece of speculation. Either way something unusual is goingg on.
 
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Dr Kain

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Lupinranger sounds odd to me-- especially considering the "thief" connotation. There was a really popular Japanese comic about a thief named Lupin III, which got turned into at least one animated film that's really famous, as Hayao Miyazaki took part in making it, back when he was still an animation intern. It even got a U.S. release, just for that.

At least one film? He's had several TV series and movies. Hell, the latest series is airing on Toonami right now.
 
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