Rebooted (Season)

Season 3, huh? Alongside season 13, it has the second shortest runtime of all seasons, beaten only by season 10, which is more of a movie than a season. Still, as we'll come to see, Master of the Mountain managed to tell a solid story in the time it was given, so surely Rebooted must have fared similarly, no?

Well, that's ... debatable. When you ask people for their least favorite season of Ninjago, they'd usually answer with Hands of Time, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitzu, or Crystalized. Some would also offer Skybound as a candidate, but that season has just as many defenders as detractors, making it more divisive than the other seasons, which are generally agreed to suck.

In my own humble opinion, however, Rebooted is the season that most earned the spot of "Worst Pre-Movie Season". I'll have to rewatch season 11 to see if it is worse, so I can't say it's the worst season of all just yet.

Now, you might ask yourself what this season has done to earn such heavy criticism. After all, it has Sensei Garmadon, who is more or less universally beloved, and Zane's death is deservedly considered to be one of the best sequences in the shows's history.

Tragically, I have to say that most of the characters feel out-of-character to the extreme, which is of course understandable, as it had been a year since the Hageman brothers last wrote for the show, but it is still very noticeable.

Jay, who was a dorky inventor that hid his pessimism and insecurities behind bad jokes was turned into a toxic and possessive jerk that's obsessed with Nya. While he already argued with Cole in the previous seasons, he has now come to genuinely hate the guy, even though they considered themselves brothers before. Any other aspects of Jay's personality have fallen to the wayside as soon as the love triangle plot began, and only the obsessive macho jerk remained, like a twisted parody of the boy we have come to love.

Cole, for his part, is less obessive and controlling than Jay when it comes to Nya, but still lost his caring and grounded personality, as he now engages in a childish feud with Jay, even when their lives are at stake. I'm more sympathetic to him, as Jay was the one who suddenly lashed out at Cole, but the old Cole would have attempted to settle the conflict, rather than escalating it.

Kai suddenly hates modern technology, which is very odd, but other than that he remained in character, which was actually very surprising to me. This had the side effect of making him into the most reasonable member of the group most of time, which was a very odd experience. By the time of the Project Arcturus, he's basically fully returned to his original personality, which was very welcome to me.

Zane is ... well, he's odd. And not in the sense he's intended to be. He is very close to his original personality, yes, but he's also more focused on his status as a robot. He is first fascinated by PIXAL because she is like him, and he frequently talks about probabilities or his mechanical body parts. This feels off to me, because the point of his True Potential was that it does not matter what his body is like, as he's still the same person. This makes it kind of strange that he initially falls in love with PIXAL due to her status as an android, when he should not care about such things. It is like Cole said in "Tick Tock", Zane is the same as his brothers, he just has more gears. Sadly, this season is the start of Zane being written ever more robotically, a trend which not only goes against his character arc, but also actively makes him less interesting.

I don't actually have a problem with Lloyd's characterization. He has little screentime compared to the other ninja, but the scenes we do get are consistent with what we have seen in the previous season.

Nya's character was mishandled particularly badly in this season, as she is reduced to a mere prize for Jay to win. Before, she was smart and confident, frequently being more effective at what she's doing than the ninja themselves, and her stubborness was both a strength and a flaw. Now, however, she constantly agonizes over whether she loves Jay or Cole and struggles to fight Nindroids even when she has her mech. Furthermore, Cryptor constantly talks down to her and belittles her ability as a fighter, but she never gets to prove him wrong and kick his ass. It feels almost like the Hageman brothers agree with Cryptor's gross comments? I know they probably don't, but that's why you need to pay attention to what you're writing!

Wu hardly appears due to spending most of the season in captivity or as an evil cyborg. When he is on the side of the ninja, he appears just as useless as before, however, so I suppose nothing really changed.

Pythor has also changed as a character, but that is a direct consequence of what happened to him, so I don't have a problem with him now prioritizing vengeance over conquering Ninjago himself. Yes, his season 1 version would have betrayed the Overlord, but he naturally progressed as a character, so I have no problem with it.

The Overlord is ... mostly the same. Hard to get a being of pure evil wrong, really. He seems weirdly obsessed with becoming the Golden Master, rather than just getting a body in general, but I suppose it makes sense he'd want to be strong enough to win against the ninja.

Now, there are some characters that stand out, those being Cyrus Borg, Sensei Garmadon, and PIXAL. All three of these characters are newly introduced, so there was no previous personality to contradict, which made them much more compelling than even the ninja.

Borg is perfect in the role of the haunted genius, having accidentally given the Overlord the perfect opportunity to return by building his tower at the site of the Final Battle. Throughout the season, he is determined to make up for his mistakes and help the ninja, despite the fact he is clearly terrified of the Overlord. After "The Surge", his body is permanently altered by the Overlord, which must surely be incredibly traumatic. His dream of technology solving all problems was twisted before his very eyes, and he was trapped in Borg Tower, a monument of his own foolishness, for years. Lee Tockar did a splendid job at portraying him.

Garmadon, aside from his odd characterization during the first half of Project Arcturus, deals with similar struggles as Borg. Just like the inventor, he too had lost sight of the balance in the past, leading to the Overlord being unleashed. Whenever he and Lloyd talk during their journey, his wisdom and love for his son become apparent immediately, but so does his stubborness. He fails to trust anyone but Lloyd, worried that they might seek to take the power of Creation for themselves. This distrust and stubborness are a natural result of his time as Lord Garmadon, who was the embodiment of all of Sensei Garmadon's fears.

Lastly, there is PIXAL. First, she was the Overlord's assistant, a role later claimed by Pythor. When Zane hacked her with his Techno Blade, she lost nearly all her personality and acted far more robotic than before. Despite this, her original personality occasionally came to the forefront, and by the time of Project Arcturus, she was back to her delightful polite yet sassy personality, making her more compelling. I cannot tell you what the actual reason behind these shifts is, but I have already discussed my theory in the individual reviews. I must say, however, that I consider her romance with Zane to be rushed and unneccessary. Perhaps cutting it out would have given us more scenes of her sassing the ninja. I would have loved that.

Lastly, there are the Nindroids ...

Now, I have never made it a secret that I consider them to be horribly disappointing. Due to the wak action scenes, they never seem like an actual threat, unlike the Stone Army the ninja faced one season earlier. Just think of how cool they could have been. They could have combined Zane's intelligence, Cole's strength, Jay's speed, Kai's agression and Lloyd's resillience Instead, we got Cryptor, the sexist and ableist arsehole that I wish Nadakhan would make disappear, and his band of disposable mooks. I will say, Min-droid was fun, simply because that guy got consistently beaten up and destroyed. 

With all major characters having been discussed, I think it's time I look at the plot. Or rather, at the plots. Because, honestly, it feels like this a five-episode season and a special, not one cohesive story.

Surprisingly, the quality of these stories is drastically different as well, to the point where I legitimately have to wonder if the first five episodes were even written by the Hageman brothers at all. The first arc can't even remember whether or not the ninja have elemental powers, and has two icky romance subplots, as PIXAL's consent is highly dubious and Jay, like Jacob from Twilight, suddenly turned into a possessive bastard during the third installment. At least there's no sexual assualt ...?

The third and fourth episode of this season are basically filler outside of Lloyd being captured, which makes things worse. You could jump from the power plant being destroyed to "Into the Digiverse", and not really miss anything.

Project Arcturus, meanwhile, is a tightly plotted story with a clear beginning and endpoint, and episodes that directly lead into each other. Only Nya, Jay and Cole are still majorly out of character, the action scenes are actually fun to look at, the music is gorgeous, Zane's death is tragically beautiful, the Golden Weapons, Temple of Light and Tornado of Creation provide continuity, etc ... 

Strangely enough, it is only in Project Arcturus that Zane actually feels like the main character of the season, as the first five episodes put more focus on both Jay and Lloyd than on Zane, despite him being the focus ninja according to the boxes. 

Speaking of boxes, let's talk Lego sets! Most of the sets are either ninja or Nindroid vehicles, with the only exception being the Battle for Ninjago City:

Now, this wouldn't be a problem under normal circumstances, however the ninja's vehicles only really appear in "The Surge", or "Codename: Arcturus" in the case of Kai's car, as, while they make brief appearances two other episodes, they are immediately destroyed both times. The Nindroid's three vehicles fare better, but still. If five out of nine sits only appear in on out of eight episodes, there's something wrong. The moon rovers really feel like they should have been featured in a set, as does Garmadon's monastary, Borg Tower and possibly the power plant.

Furthermore, a lot of the Nindroid's vehicles are physically unavalaible, as only the hacked version is sold. This especially sucks with the mechs, which are shown quite frequently in the first five episodes.

Now, considering everything I've watched, I'd say the first five episodes would have earned a two out of ten, but with the addition of Project Arcturus, I'd actually double that score to a nice 4/10 points! Yeah, that's still not a lot ...

Legacy of the Green Ninja

 

 Retrospective:

After the beloved first season, this season of Ninjago is oftentimes seen as the weaker of the original two, mostly owing to the Mega Weapon arc of the first six episodes, which follows a very episodic structure, rather than being part of a progressing narrative.

Now, much like the last season, this one can be easily split into two parts. The first half is the aforementioned Meg Weapon arc, beginning with its creation in "Darkness Shall Rise", and ending with its destruction in "Wrong Place, Wrong Time", while the latter half of the season, the Final Battle arc, is the story of the ninja attempting to avert the Final Battle, while Garmadon and the Overlord want to bring it about.

Unlike the last season, there are no episodes focusing on specific ninja, with the exception of "The Last Voyage", which is clearly a Zane-centric episode. This is because this season is the first to focus on a specific ninja, rather than the entire team. In this case, it is Lloyd who is the main character, and the entire season is something of a coming of age story as he has to accept his role as the green ninja and fight his father. Lloyd's larger arc of growing into the team's leader also begins here, but first he has to make peace with his mother, accept that he can never be a normal child again, and find the resolve to fight his father. Ultimately, Lloyd's arc is about growing into adulthood, and becoming a true hero.

The season also has two overarching themes that run through many of the episodes, those being destiny and family. Lloyd has to face his destiny and fight his father, no matter how much he wishes to avoid it. In the end, Lloyd fights his father and the Overlord not because it is destiny, but because he has found the resolve to fight for what is good and right. This is mirrored in Garmadon, who spends half of the season trying to make the prophecy impossible to fulfill by keeping Lloyd from becoming the destined hero. Once the Overlord steps onto the scene, however, he manipulates Garmadon into seeing destiny as something he cannot avoid, leading him to fight Lloyd and the other ninja for the sake of destiny, rather than his own convictions.

In other words, the first half of the season is about Lloyd following his destined role and Garmadon trying to prevent it, while in the second half it is Garmadon who follows destiny blindly, and Lloyd who seeks to change it. Of course, it would be nice if we as the viewers had any idea about how much destiny can be changed, but at the same time the ambiguity allows either position to seem reasonable.

The second overarching theme is family, as both Lloyd and Garmadon seek to have a family again. Even though he was abandoned by both his parents, Lloyd had already found a new family in Wu and the ninja by the time this season begins, and Misako and Dr. Julien join this family as well, come their introductory episodes.Whenever things seem darkest in the Final Battle arc, the ninja reassure each other as brothers, a culmination of their bonding in the past two seasons. Garmadon, on the other hand, has no family anymore, as he had been turned evil by the Great Devourer's venom long ago. The reason he listens to the Overlord when the latter deminds he fires dark matter missiles at Ninjago is because he believes that only those who have been corrupted like him could ever understand him, completely missing how much his son still loves him.

Now, I know some people may not like the Mega Weapon arc, and I do agree that it's silly how much Garmadon seems to suck at using it, but I think the more lighthearted first half of the season is a neccessary counter balance for the second half, which continously punches the ninja down and goes to darker places than just about any other kids' show I ever watched. Could that have been done without giving Garmadon a semi-omnipotent artifact? Of course! The Mega Weapon is far too overpowered, no doubt about it.

Like in the last season, the Serpentine characters seem to get sidelined in the first half of the season, which is rather odd, given that they are the Garmadon's main army by this point. Skales only regains his original personality in "Darkness Shall Rise" and the first two episodes of the Final Battle arc, and is otherwise reduced to just being Garmadon's general. Skalidor is also treated rather weirdly, as he turns into the archetype of the dumb muscle, which seems like an odd trait for the leader of the most religious Serpentine tribe.

Cole, the other earth-related character, also gets weirdly out-of-character in this season, as he seems obsessed with fighting during the Final Battle arc, at times feeling more like Kai than Kai himself, who has since matured.

As for other characters, Misako keeps way too much information to herself, even when it makes no sense for her to do so. Why didn't she tell Jay that he could control the Stone Army when he had the Helmet of Shadows? And why didn't she mention the Overlord earlier? She could have told Garmadon how he was manipulating him!

Nya, while staying in-character, got way less badass this season. She only contributed in "Pirates vs. Ninja" and "The Last Hope", all her fighting prowess seemingly forgotten. This is particularly disappointing if, like me, you have Nya as one of your favorite ninja.

Speaking of the Overlord, I'm sorry to say this, but he doesn't work as a villain. I get that he can't have depth as he's literally evil personified, but there's no reason for him to also be bloody annoying! Whenever he shows up, it is to demand something from Garmadon, without any real attempts at manipulation. It's like the Overlord is constantly throwing a tantrum, and that doesn't make for an intimidating villain! It doesn't get any better when he takes over Garmadon, because he just repeats "You can't defeat me!" about twice every minute. The one time I found him to be interesting was when he sassed Garmadon about his tendency to monologue, and that's one sentence in seven episodes! 

Luckily, Dr. Julien and the ninja aside from Cole were written delightfully. You can really tell how much they changed since the days of the pilots.

As for the toy sets associated with this season, it's a rather odd selection. It may be because there was only one wave of sets, rather than two like in the last season, but it seems strange to not have the Mega Weapon or most of the Stone Army's vehicles. Instead, we get Zane's weird ice spider ...

I think Legacy should have expanded on the selection of sets for this season. The fact that the ninja are missing their shoulder pads in the sets is also rather strange to me. It's not like with the mech suits in Dragons Rising, where the shoulder pads get in the way of the mechs, so what's going on here?

All in all, it think the second season of Ninjago has honestly earned a rating of 8/10, making it the highest.ranked season so far. Really, if the Overlord, Misako and Nya were written better, I'd be willing to ignore the sillyiness of the Meda Weapon and give it a perfect score, but as things stand, that's just not the case.

Suits:

This time, we havle only one set of suits to analyze. Namely, the elemental robes/kimonos.

Now, in my opinion these are some of the best outfits the ninja ever wore, and certainly the best pre-Skybound outfits. Instant 10/10! Sure, Cole looks quite honestly awful in his grey and black robes, but the other ninja look so good that this is instantly balanced out. Still, I think if orange had been decided on as his secondary color already, it should have been used here.

 

Adding everything together, we get a score of 8,5/10 for the season as a whole. A more than respectable score, to be sure.

Rise of the Snakes (Season)

So! Season 1, Rise of the Snakes, is generally considered to be one of the best seasons the show ever had, even rivaling the beloved Oni Trilogy of seasons 8 through 10. Of course, nostalgia would play a big part in this. After all, just how many people who grew up with this show can honestly say they don't particularly care for this season? That is not to say that it's reputation is unwarranted, however. While Rise of the Snakes has a much higher bar to clear than the pilots, due to being about seven times as long and having several plot threads it wants to follow, I would argue that it did a splendid job. The structure of the season is presumably responsible for this success in some way, as the first six episodes properly introduce Nya, Jay and Zane after the pilots failed to do so, and also devote a good amount of time of setting up each Serpentine tribe and the mystery of the green ninja, and the following seven episodes deal with Pythor's attempt to awaken the Great Devourer and resolves all the pther plot threads fromt he first half, such as Zane's past or Nya being the mysterious samurai.

The Great Devourer is also incredibly intimidating, and has been implemented in an impeccable way, if you were to ask me. Given that it being set free is the main goal of the season's villain, it falling short of expectations would have been a huge detriment to the show.

It also helps, that the inner struggles the ninja have to resolve are things that have easy paralells in the real world. Zane is literally just a metaphor for autism, I refuse to believe that all that subtext was unintentional, Jay has to learn not to be ashamed of himself, Cole has to confront his father, rather than running, and Kai has to accept that he is perhaps less important than he would like to believe. All of these are relatable, and the writers clearly put a good amount of care into resolving these conflicts, which is good, as they form the emotional core of the season's latter half.

While Cole suffers from not having his own focus episode in the vain of "Home" or "Snakebit" to build up his relationship with his father before "The Royal Blacksmiths" attempts to resolve an arc that was never properly built up, he does get some good characterization as the main voice of reason. Sure, Zane is technically more logical than Cole, but at the same time he also has issues with a number of social norms, leading Cole to be the straight man to most jokes. Tragically, that is just about all he does get, however, until the love triangle in season 3. Perhaps "All of Nothing" could have been cut to instead seperate the Venomari and Constrictai being freed into two seperate episodes, with one of them being focused on Cole, and the other being an expanded version of "Can of Worms".

"But what about Kai?", you may ask, "He also only got one episode to be the main character!" True, technically he was only the main character in "The Green Ninja", but his arc had already been built up throughout the entire season by that point, and he was the main character in the pilots. No, if anyone needed focus even more than Cole, it would undoubtedly be Nya. 

Despite not being a ninja, Nya contributed just as much to the team as the main four. And yet, the narrative still treats as her as somehow being less important than the ninja, and she is basically considered to be unit with Wu, rather than a competent fighter on her own. Her running theme of wanting to make her own choices should have been built up this season. Heck, that could've even been why she became a mysterious samurai, rather than a mysterious ninja; she didn't want to do things the way Kai already did! There are two very different ways I could see to improve her role in this season, one being to basically keep things the same, but replace "All of Nothing" with an episode where the ninja try to take the already stolen Fangblades back like in canon, but Nya, preferably joined by Garmadon, heads out to beat Pythor to the last Fangblade. The ninja can do their thing off-screen and either suceed or fail, it's not really important. Either way, the episode focuses on Nya's and Garmadon's relationship with their respective brothers, and contrasted by the theme of choice, as Nya wants to be different from her brother and became a samurai because of it, while Garmadon wants to be better, like Wu, but doesn't have a choice. As long as either the ninja or Nya and Garmadon succeed, the next episode can proceed like in canon.

The other way Nya's arc could have been better is by not revealing her secret identity. She would seem like the token girl that just makes a couple of sassy comments, but is otherwise reduced to being the love interest for one of the leads, while the mysterious samurai consistently does a much better job than the ninja, frustrating them. Then, while fighting the Devourer, have it's tail hit the samurai, not Zane, shattering the armor and revealing them to be a Nya. While I would prefer the first of the listed approaches, the second approach would mean that the samurai would actually get to be relevant after "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", which, you know, would be kind of neat.

Now, the next character I have a lot to say about is Skales, given that he guy is built up as a major antagonist for the first couple of episodes. Granted, he is just your classic scheming underling that betrays his boss (Slithraa) and becomes the true enemy, but it worked nice enough. Starting from "Can of Worms", however, he is reduced to being Pythor's willing sidekick, which goes against all previous characterization. If he had been scheming against Pythor all along, that would be one thing, but he is legit just a sidekick, only regaining his ambition in the second to last scene of the season! Maybe it would have been interesting to have the Serpentine opposing each other? The Hypnobrai and Fangpyre on one side, with Pythor and the two tribes he freed on the other? That could have been neat, particularly if the ninja would team up with the anti-Pythor groups later in the season. As is, Skales sadly failed to even come close to his true potential, pun intended.

Now, Fangtom, Acidicus and Skalidor basically don't have a purpose as far as I can tell. They're just there so that every tribe has a leader, which is a pity. There's a lot that could have been done with them too.

Speaking of the Serpentine, I mentioned this in multiple episodes, but they kind of seem like an allegory for oppressed minorities. And, in true lovecraftian fashion, they lash out at their oppressors by unleashing an eldritch being unto the world, only for it to be even more devastating than realized. Truth be told, most of the Serpentine, discounting Skales, Pythor and maybe Fangtom, actually seem sympathetic because of this. They were always hated and discriminated against, so they attempt to get back at those who hurt them, something which Pythor uses to manipulate them into going along with his plan to rule Ninjago by controlling the Great Devourer. When the skeletons or the people at the Take Back Ninjago rally recite Serpentine-phobic paroles, it's not they who seem sympathetic, it's the Serpentine, aka the villains. And this is all just baffling to me, because either the Hageman brothers were horribly blind to the fact that they wrote an oppressed to be their main villains, or the allegory was intentional, and they instead failed to realize just how bad this made some of the good characters look! Ed and Edna are now canonically racist! And Wu's whole "Never trust a snake" motto just brings to mind the antisemitic stereotype of the swindling jew!

 

Another weak point of the show is it's value as an advertisement which is - not that great, in all honesty, although I would more inclined to blame the set designers, because there's like a billion Serpentine vehicles, despite them only really appearing "Snakebit" and "The Rise of the Great Devourer"!

If about half your product range only ever appears in two episodes of a show designed to advertise them, you're probably doing something wrong. Why not release the guardian robot Zane fought in "Tick Tock" or the Hypnobrai's Slither Pit from "Home", rather than releasing a bunch of sets depicting the same two episodes? The Spinner sets once again also depict far more characters doing Spinjitzu that what is actually shown, but those gimmick sets aren't exactly canon anyways, since we've never had Wrayth using Airjitzu or Kai using the Spinjitzu Burst either.

Lastly, the mystery of the green ninja is built up a lot in the first couple of episodes, but once things get serious, Kai is the only one who really cares about it anymore. I really like that they didn't make the "main character" the chosen one, and Lloyd being chosen comes completely out of left-field, subverting everyone's expectations in a good way, as all the seeming foreshadowing beforehand turned out to just be a bunch of clever red herrings, but none of them feel like they were tricking the viewer. It's hard to turn foreshadowing around like that without it feeling like you just lied to the viewers for the sake of a surprise twist, but the Hageman brothers pulled it off spectacularly.

All in all, the season is great, no doubt about it, but it does clearly have some major flaws. Still, aside from "All of Nothing", every episode is just fun while you watch it. Sure, there are some hiccups, but in the moment you are watching it, none of that matters. I know I can't give this full points, but it's flaws aren't enough to make it any less enjoyable while you're watching it. I guess ... maybe 6/10 points would be fair? I really don't want to put it lower than the pilots, but you do have to measure a full season by different standards than a short special. It just has too much missed potential, I'm afraid. When watching the show itself, it would probably feel more like an 8 out of 10, but the flaws do become more apparent once you think about it a bit more. Maybe it can earn some points back with it's suits, though!

Masters of Spinjitzu

Retrospective:

The two (or four, depending on how you count them) pilot episodes were initially intended to promote the sets and start the theme off with a bang, but soon bloomed into the beginning of what was intended to be a two season TV show. When it comes to making the sets look cool, it certainly did it's job, even if it's a touch odd that the skeletons are never seen using Spinjitzu, when the Spinner sets regularly depicted them doing so. Lore wise, it makes sense that they wouldn't be capable of Spinjitzu, as Garmadon would have no reason to train random footsoldiers like Krazi or Chopov, but it seems a bit strange from a marketing standpoint.

When it comes to setting up a show, the pilot leaves a bit to be desired, however. Sure, you have the ninja come together, and Garmadon's escape creates a conflict to be resolved in the first season, but Zane and Cole are seriously lacking in characterization. Jay, at least, has quite a bit of focus in the second half of the pilot. Still, that leaves two ninja whose characterization boils down to "otherworldly" and "responsible, but afraid of dragons". Luckily, season 1 largely fixes this.

Another problem, however, is that the skeletons just don't seem menacing at all. Even when the ninja are outnumbered ten to one, it's only the spiders that make them worry. Sure, Samukai is intimidating, but he's the big bad boss. His army is just a bunch of comically inept buffoons.

Something I do like, however, is that the setting of Ninjago itself is established pretty well, without someone having to turn to the camera and hold us by the hand. We are shown that the rice farmers are open and welcoming, not even suspecting the literal army of skeletons of being up to no-good, and that their culture seems to be similar to Edo Japan, as ninja and samurai exist, but are nowhere near as common as in the time of the previous generation. Despite this, the attire of the side characters, and the city seen in Jay's flashback, suggest that the level of technology and some bits of Ninjago's culture, are up to modern standards.

The plot of the pilot follows a pretty barebones "collect the macguffins before the evil lord does so" story, just with ninja instead of knights, but the friendly dragons, as well as the bad guy winning are pretty neat twists on the formula.

As a final rating, it would give the pilots a 7/10. There are some issues with the characters, but by and large it is perfectly serviceable, and is still really pretty. Go and give it a watch, or maybe rewatch it, if you've already watched it at some point.

Suits:

For the majority of the special, the ninja wear their training robes.

As you can see, these suits are a simple gi in each ninja's color, with a golden emblem of their element attached via a set of ropes. There's nothing special about these suits, as they are just ninja robes in bright colors ... and I love it! These suits are the basic outfit they got after finishing their training, there shouldn't be anything special about them. Unlike most other suits, these ones could actually be used to blend into backgrounds of the same color. An easy 10/10 from me.

 

After coming to an understanding with the dragons guarding the Golden Weapons, the ninja switch to their DX (Dragon eXtreme) robes.

These weapons are dyed in each ninja's primary color, and feature a golden depiction of the respective dragon using their elemental power. On each ninja's back, the insignia from their training suit as well as their name can be found. They work great as an upgrade to the training robes, but I do miss the detailing that shows these are robes and not just Lego bricks with arms attacked. Aside from the belt, the DX robes are sadly just a solid color. Furthermore, it was never explained why the ninja switched robes before heading to the underworld. As such, I can't give this more than a 7/10, like the season. Great concept, but lacking execution.

All in all, the Pilots get a pretty good overall score of 8/10. That's nothing to be ashamed of, if you ask me.