Toybox REVIEW: Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger Minipla Tobaspino

It's been another year so yet another Super Sentai summer movie has passed, and 2013 has also once again provided fans with toys of this year's exclusive movie mecha (admittedly it is the norm, however I remain bitter about the lack of GorenGokaiOh). Since the movie won't be out for a while on DVD yet and thus is a long way off having English subs, there isn't a whole lot I can say about Tobaspino, who appears in the Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger movie "Gaburincho of Music". What I can say however is that this special Zyudenryu is a remould of Gabutyra as a Spinosaurus, and is the subject of attention from evil ranger Deathryuger.

Like Gabutyra, Tobaspino is split between two boxes - one containing  the main body, head and tail, the other the legs and arms. In addition to the remoulded/recoloured pieces there is also the additional spine section, which has been thrown in with the legs.

As usual, if you would like to see how Tobaspino looks with only the stickers applied please also visit THIS gallery.

As a larger figure than most of the Zyudenryu that have appeared in the Kyoryuger line, Tobaspino naturally receives a fair bit more articulation. This is mostly in the legs and feet, but it also has moving arms and a snapping jaw. The connector ports are just as unsightly as they were on the Gabutyra release, but to their credit they do blend a lot better with Tobaspino's navy blue plastic than they ever did with bright red.
The remoulded head and arms are much longer than Gabutyra's, with the head lacking the crest piece at the back (although the piece itself is in fact included with the kit). In it's place is a nicely sculpted beast battery, which while lacking any stickers has a little bit of detail and makes the mouth that little bit more accurate to the show model.

The stickers do a pretty good job of covering the main details, but once again if you're looking to add that extra bit of accuracy to the kit you have fun times of yellow painting ahead of you. There's also the issue of the feet being completely black when the top half is actually blue, but again this is masked much better due to the replacement of red for blue plastic. The silver piping detail looks much better done with a paint marker than the stickers could ever hope to achieve, and its not all that hard to do even if you don't have a steady enough hand for painting. Finally, adding a lick of black paint to the battery really makes it stand out inside the mouth.

SPINODAIOH

Of course as a straight remould Tobaspino is also able to transform into a robot mode (is robot really the right word? The Zyudenryu aren't really robots) - combining with Ankydon and Bunpachy to form the powerful SpinoDaiOh. In addition to the new Spinosaurus head on the right shoulder, SpinoDaiOh also has a brand new visored headsculpt as well as two weapons that can be formed from the dinosaur's spine section.

Articulation-wise you're looking at exactly the same thing as Kyoryuzin, so decent shoulders and elbows are already out. Thankfully, the default configuration of Ankydon and Bunpachy already allows for some more interesting posing without the need of improved articulation. I mean how can you refuse a hammer/flail combo? The colours gel rather nicely too, despite the clashing cyan and navy blues. The longer dinosaur arms also come down quite far (to the knee level), so can get in the way and/or pop off quite easily if you aren't paying attention to them while posing.

The new weapons consist of a foldout boomerang blade and a giant axe, both of which fit comfortably in SpinoDaiOh's hands. When not in use the blade is stored inside of the axe (it can also fold out of the top when in dinosaur mode), while the axe handle folds down in order to be gripped. While the blade is pretty small and the axe chunky and cumbersome, they are nicely implemented between both modes and considerably more interesting than the Goren Zyudenken. The downside is if you don't plan to use these weapons for display then there's absolutely no place on the robot's body for them to be stored.

And while I haven't taken any pictures here, Tobaspino is certainly able to combine with Pteragordon and PlezuOh to form "Raiden SpinoDaiOh" and "Bakuretsu SpinoDaiOh". Of course you'll have the make do with the supplied Kyoryuzin heads, but it's a nicely little alternative to have.

While I certainly prefer the SpinoDaiOh design and configuration over the bog-standard Kyoryuzin, I can't really proclaim one triumphant over the other. Despite the cooler headsclupt(s) and nice additional weapons, both Tobaspino and his combined form suffer from exactly the same problems as Kyoryuzin. As the only movie-exclusive Zyudenryu, Tobaspino is also probably pretty low priority for anyone looking for an entry point into the line unless they have a special like for blue evil ranger Spinosaurus mecha (and who wouldn't?). For regular buyers its nice to have somewhere to hang Ankydon and Bunpachy, but other than that it's very much of the same.