My Shiny Toy Robots

As the creator of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, Yoshiyuki Tomino is a name that is synonymous with both the mecha genre and anime as a whole. But before Tomino created Gundam, in 1977 he created a 23 episode series named 'Invincible Superman Zambot 3'. While this show may not be anywhere near as famous as his other works, it undeniably had an influence on them and also other shows of the genre that followed. On the face of things the plot seems fairly generic for a 70s super robot show - the space aliens Gaizok are invading the Earth, their leader (the awesomely) named Killer the Butcher. In the past the Gaizok destroyed the planet Beal, with the survivors fleeing to Earth. In the present day, there are three related families that are descendants of the Beals, who defend the Earth using technology passed onto them by their ancestors. In order to battle the Gaizok Mecha Boosts, 12 year old Kappei Jin and his 2 cousins pilot three weapons that can combine into the titula...

Back in 2001 the Super Sentai franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary with the 51-episode series Hyakujuu (Hundred Beast) Sentai Gaoranger, following on from the previous year's Mirai Sentai Timeranger. One thousand years ago, a war raged between the human race and the demonic Org Tribe. With the help of the Power Animals, the ancient Gao Warriors were able to defeat the Orgs and seal them away. Then, in present day (or 2001) the Orgs reawaken and five individuals are chosen by the Power Animals to become Gaorangers. But to do so they must give up their names and ordinary lives, living on an island in the sky and referring to each other by colour rather than name. Midway through the series they encounter Rouki, a wolf Org sealed for a thousand years who is actually possessing the body of Tsukumaro Ohgami, an ancient Gao Warrior who used the evil dark wolf mask to gain strength to defeat the Orgs, but became cursed by it in the process. After breaking the curse, he joins the team...

With all of the mass release Gokaiger figuarts out of the way until Gokai Silver's release at the end of the month, it's time to move onto the two black sheep of the Gokaiger figuarts line - Gokai Yellow and Gokai Pink. Unlike their male team mates, the two girls have been relegated to Bandai Tamashii Web exclusives, meaning not only are they around double the price of the other figures but anyone living outside of Japan would need to buy them via eBay or a middleman service. Unless these two happen to be your favourite characters, I can imagine they'll only really catch the eye of those planning to collect all of the Gokaigers. Being a girl, Gokai Yellow obviously sports a different sculpt to Red, Blue and Green. Aside from the obvious feminine proportions and the addition of a skirt, the figure is noticeably shorter than those that have come before her. The gold trimming is much less striking on top of yellow than any other colour, but as a whole she is on par with ...

The second nendoroid I'm going to review (and funnily enough, also the only other nendo I own) is the second of the Panty and Stocking ones - this time Panty's goth lolita, sword wielding, cake loving sister Stocking. While both small and super deformed, the sculpt of the figure is excellent, nicely capturing all the details in Stocking's gothic black dress. Her long twin coloured hair covers the majority of the figure, the back of the dress completely covered by it with the head attached. However the hanging portion of the hair is made from a soft plastic and separated into semi movable strips, which means it can be moved around for poses using the outstretched arms. I personally found neatly moving the hair out the way like the box shows a little difficult, but the hair moves neatly back into place when straightened - which was initially a worry of mine. Much like Panty, Stocking comes with a pretty wide range of accessories. She is packaged with three alternate ...