The Dancing Dino Warriors and Their Surprising Afterlife
Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger arrived in February 2013 as the 37th entry in Toei's long-running Super Sentai franchise, the Japanese tokusatsu series running since 1975 and the original source material for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the West. Kyoryuger was not an adaptation of anything outside the franchise: it was an original production, built in-house by Toei, and the third dinosaur-themed Sentai series after Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (1992) and Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger (2003).
What made Kyoryuger distinctive within that lineage was tone. Where Zyuranger leaned mythological and Abaranger played with parallel worlds, Kyoryuger was loud, confident, and anchored by music: the main characters literally sing and dance when they transform, and the show's central motif is that bravery generates a power called "Brave." The series ran 48 episodes, closed in February 2014, and then did something unusual for Super Sentai: it kept coming back.
Over the following decade the Kyoryuger brand generated a theatrical film during its original run, a V-Cinema epilogue, two crossover VS films with adjacent Sentai teams, a full American adaptation split across two Power Rangers seasons, a Korean-original sequel season subsequently dubbed back into Japanese, a promotional mini-episode tied to a mobile game, and a second crossover theatrical film released in 2024 for the franchise's tenth anniversary. No single preceding Super Sentai series had been revisited quite so persistently.
Every Version of Kyoryuger
The original series, every film, sequel, and adaptation in order
Kyoryuger Across the Years
- 2013Main series premieres on TV Asahi (48 episodes) Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger
- 2013Theatrical summer film, double-billed with Kamen Rider Wizard Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger the Movie: Gaburincho of Music
- 2013Multi-franchise crossover theatrical film featuring Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Space Sheriff Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Wars Z
- 2014VS crossover film with Go-Busters, tributing Zyuranger and Abaranger
- 2014V-Cinema epilogue set 100 years after the series Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: 100 Years After
- 2015VS crossover film with successor series ToQger Ressha Sentai ToQger vs. Kyoryuger: The Movie
- 2015US adaptation premieres on Nickelodeon (first half of Kyoryuger footage) Power Rangers
- 2016US continuation using second half of Kyoryuger footage
- 2017Korean-original sequel season, later dubbed in Japan as Kyoryuger Brave
- 2018Promotional short episode tied to the Brave Frontier 2 mobile game
- 202410th anniversary crossover film with Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger vs. Kyoryuger
If you love the dinosaur warrior lineage
The other Super Sentai series that share Kyoryuger's prehistoric DNA
If you love the music and energy of Kyoryuger
Tokusatsu and action shows with a similarly exuberant, high-spirit personality
The definitive version: the original 48-episode run
The original Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger series is the version to start and end with. Forty-eight episodes is a generous canvas, and the show earns nearly all of it: the core cast has genuine chemistry, the weekly villain Candelilla and Luckyuro become some of the most beloved support characters in recent Super Sentai history, and the final stretch lands its emotional beats without the shortcuts that plague VS films. The theatrical and V-Cinema offshoots are worthwhile extensions, but they work because you already love these people from the main series.