My Shiny Toy Robots

The third mecha in Engine Sentai Go-Onger's hefty mecha line-up, Seiku-Oh is the combination of the engines Jum-bowhale, Toriptor and Jetras, and is piloted by the Go-On Wings (Go-On Gold and Silver, who were also my favourite characters in the series). Toriptor is Gold's engine, Jetras is Silver's, and Jum-bowhale does not have a pilot. This candy toy comes in 3 boxes - one for each engine. However it should be noted that because of Jum-bowhale's size, his wings are included with Toriptor and Jetras rather than his own box. While the candy toys require a varying amount of paint to look semi show accurate, out of the ones I've come across so far Toriptor is by far the one that needs the most paint to look even remotely good. The red wraparound stickers are poorly cut and don't cover half as much as they need to, and the helicopter rotor blades look plain stupid in gold plastic with single silver stickers stuck on. I'm not entirely happy with my fin...

Dinosaurs are awesome. And trains are pretty damn awesome too. So by that logic, dinosaur trains must be something pretty damn special. The final mecha in the Go-Onger line up - Kyoretsu-Oh, the "Powerful King of Trains is made up of the three ancient engines Kishamoth, T-Line and K-Line and primarily piloted by Go-On Red. This candy toy assortment comes in 4 boxes - 2 for Kishamoth, and one each for T-Line and K-Line. This review is of the Hong Kong release of the figure (much like my earlier Engine-Oh review) and so any quality issues I stress may not affect the Japanese release - but in this instance they will affect my overall rating at the end of the review. Being made of 2 different boxes, Kishamoth is obviously the largest and most complex of the 3 ancient engines. At twice the length and about 3 times the mass of the other 2, Kishamoth has an impressive level of detail for a candy toy - complete with moveable tusks and a retractable trunk. While smaller and far more...

Along with the new Power Rangers Samurai toyline came a return of another old Power Rangers favourite - the retrofire line. First appearing in 2009 under the 'Super Legends' banner, the retrofires are smaller, stylized and articulated zords from previous PR series'. Originally returning with the SPD Delta Squad Megazord and Jungle Fury Jungle Pride Megazord, the second batch in the Samurai line includes both a reissue (the Mystic Force Titan Megazord) and a brand new (well, it was originally slated for release before the line's earlier cancellation) figure - the Zeo Megazord from 1996's Power Rangers Zeo. News of this release was extremely exciting to me, as Power Rangers Zeo is my all time favourite Power Rangers series, and the Zeo Megazord is among my favourite Megazord designs. While all of the Retrofire figures thus far have received some sort of anime=esque stylization I think perhaps its most apparent with the Zeo Megazord, and it is also the figure th...

Following on from the first set of Gokai machines, the next mecha from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger to receive the candy toy mini-pla treatment is Gojyujin - the personal mecha of the latest Gokaiger, Gokai Silver. Armed with the great powers of TimeRanger, ZyuRanger and Abaranger, Gojyujin is able to transform into three distinct modes - the GozyuDrill spaceship (TimeRanger), the dinosaur GozyuRex (ZyuRanger) and then the robot mode, Gojyujin (Abaranger). Armed with a giant drill that opens up to reveal a spear, its finishing attack is the Gojyu Triple Drill Dream. This candy toy is made up of three boxes - one containing the legs, another the torso and head, and then the final the arms. Overall, Gojyujin doesn't particularly need any painting as the stickers bring out a lot of the details in the model, but then there are a few areas to pay attention if you want that extra bit of accuracy. The drill especially, as it sorely lacks the gold detailing on the drill's spiral. The ...