I wonder if this thing will end up getting any original music.
It's hard to say. One of the advantages that Dragon Knight had when being tied to the Kamen Rider productions in Japan was that they already had major connections or affiliations to popular bands (or their own "associated" ones) as "mainstream" music CDs for the show are lucrative commodity in the last few years. Not to mention with defSpiral recently working as "Wilma-Sidr" before in Double it likely wasn't hard to ask for one more gig and attach it with their debut album.
Super Sentai is a little bit different with the use of Project R. in recent years and fewer "mainstream" band releases and such. While it would be neat for Psychic Lover (or Project R., or both) to appear in some form, it ultimately depends on how they're marketing it. On one hand they might go all out in further referencing Dekaranger in some form or another, for the purpose of nostalgia. Or they might just stick with Ron Wasserman's theme tune, and other than possibly some remastering/re-ordering/remixing of the available music tracks (depending on whether they're provided with the original soundtrack, which is likely) keep things generally the same.
At any rate, if they follow a similar pattern with Dragon Knight's early showings on Toei Channel, such "new" releases would be dealt with later, as the first run was pretty much "vanilla" for the most part (excluding slight rearrangement of the original soundtrack and the newly dubbed audio, of course) with later things, like "DIVE INTO THE MIRROR" and "ANOTHER WORLD," introduced or announced in preparation for the TV Asahi debut and the DVD sets.
No one really knows for sure, but there might be a few possible explanations:
-The majority of the Dekaranger cast is still eager to work with Toei, as seen by some of the cameos in Goseiger (Yousuke Ito), Kamen Rider Double (Ayumi Kinoshita), and of course Gokaiger (Ryuji Sainei, Ayumi Kinoshita, Tetsu Inada, Mika Kikuchi confirmed so far). Also they are fairly young enough to "reprise familiar roles" and have aged enough/had more acting experience to give a different vibe in their performances and help differentiate them as unique characters than just forced re-treads (akin to Satoshi Matsuda playing "Len" in Dragon Knight after playing "Ren" in Ryuki some years prior).
-Dekaranger was pretty popular when it was airing, and with five or so years having passed, SPD can still pull "fresh" nostalgia from somewhat older viewers able to appreciate a "new take" on "older concepts".
-Alot of the members of the cast had a fanbase before and after Dekaranger, not to mention any other large names in anime and video game voice acting, such as Rie Tanaka, that Toei may use to supplement the cast for the dub. So even more opportunities for support for the show.
-SPD is a fairly recent Power Rangers series thus being still fit for "modern television", plus the setting of 2025 keeps it from seeming too outdated.
-There are frequent prop re-uses that might double as Sentai references or easter eggs, in keeping with "Anniversary" theme (the Megaranger helmets and the Drill Saber (of A-Squad and Cruger respectively), the various re-purposed monster suits, "Signalman" appearing in a video game, TimeRed's suit (from Sky's dad), as well as the brief easter egg of Goranger in the related picture frame in a few shots, etc.).
-RPM might be a bit of a leap, for now, at least, as I'm unsure if Toei is planning to market these directly to older audiences or not. The "grim/gritty American Super Sentai, derived from a very light-hearted and silly one" might seem a bit odd to the uninformed audience, especially the younger demographic, without easing them into the very concept of "American Super Sentai" first with something a little more neutral. Hopefully they'll get to around it as I'm sure it will likely have an audience if marketed correctly.
As said, hopefully this will get the ball rolling and other Ranger seasons will get adapted, as time goes on, but it all depends on how well this one does first.
One other thing of note, I ran across blog posts by
Rie Tanaka (Kat) and
Yousuke Ito (Bridge/Sen from Dekaranger), and both seem pretty excited to work on the project, Yousuke even referring to it as "Dekaranger Revived!".
