I was just thinking about this when we watching Jungle Fury, and when I got to the whole rhino nexus stuff I realised that… I’m pretty sure the rhino steel sword is a physical robot, it’s not like a manifested spirit like the other zords. Dominic never… summons it out of himself. It’s always just walking into frame from the distance and it was sealed underground, and it has noticeable rivets compared to the other animal spirits. So I do wonder whether or not it is actually a manifestation of the rhino spirit or if it’s just a spirit powered robot.
Jungle Fury is one of my favorite seasons, but it always kinda bugged me that their animal spirits manifest as robots. I actually like the idea that the rhino zord is a physical robot that's powered by an animal spirit. It would make more sense if the other zords were the same instead of literal spirit robots that come out of their chests lol
I believe that it is manifestation.
Yes, it seems to be the case that the first four rangers have the ability to use their ranger powers to take their animal spirits and manifest them into zords, while Dom uses his animal spirit to power the Rhino Steel zord which always physically exists.