Intro:
I
have to admit that I’m not really a Super Sentai/ Power Rangers collector. So
far, the only SS/ PR figures that I have are the Legacy Megazord and Legacy
Dragonzord figures, and subsequently after purchasing those, I have had no
intention to expand on that. However, once in a blue moon, we would actually
come across a figure (or figures), that is sold at a bargained price, and it just
screams at you.
Well, this is indeed such a case.
Some
of you Transformers fans out there might be familiar with Kabaya Candy Toy
figures – some of which I have already reviewed here in NPC. Not to be outdone,
Bandai too jumped onto the bandwagon, and established their own
similarly-concept candy toys, which focuses on their hugely popular Super
Sentai/ Power Rangers franchise.
One
such figure is the super robot/ mecha ToQ-Oh, from the series Ressha Sentai
ToQger. They are sold in five separate boxes, each representing a sentai’s mecha,
i.e. red, yellow, blue, green and pink sentai.
When
I first saw this set, I was kind of intrigued – having been quite familiar with
the Kabaya Candy Toys and never have I seen a Bandai version of them before. Since
the price was right, and I am a sucker for simple assembly kits such as this, I
thought I might just as well give this series a try. So was it worth it? Let us
see…
The Ressha:
Ressha,
or 烈车 (literally meaning strong
car, which I guess is a substitute for locomotive), as they are called in the
series, means train in this context. Thus, there are 5 Ressha, i.e. Red Ressha,
Yellow Ressha, Blue Ressha, Pink Ressha and Green Ressha.
Each of these trains there is based
on actual trains. The Red Ressha is based on the traditional steam locomotive. The
Blue and Green Ressha are based on bullet trains, or to be more precise – the Shinkansen-type
trains commonly used in Japan. The Yellow and Pink Ressha, on the other hand
are based on the E65-type trains.
Assembling
these trains is quite simple, and just in case if you are wondering, no
scissors, knives and glues are required – everything is tight fit. Building each
of these figures are quite easy, largely because the end product do not
transform individually like most Kabaya figures are – only being able to
transform/ merge to form the super robot.
Naturally,
the Red Ressha is the largest set – being the longest train of the five. The
Blue and Green Ressha are the second longest; while the Yellow and Pink Ressha
are the shortest. ToQ-Oh’s super weapon – a crossing-gate themed sword called
the Fumikiriken – is packed together with the Yellow Ressha.
Individually,
surprisingly there is still some play value to these trains. Each of them actually
has working wheels underneath, and as such, they can roll quite well on flat
surfaces. There are also pegs, on the back of each train, which can be used to
hook up all trains together to form a super-train of sorts.
However,
when the threat of Shadow Line and Emperor Z become too overwhelming, the
ToQgers have no choice but to combine their might, to summon the mightiest
machine to have ever graced the railroads – ToQ-Oh.
ToQ-Oh:
The transformation
is actually quite fun. I seldom fiddle with train-themed transformable figures
before, and I am actually pleasantly surprised. Having never actually seen the
actual show before, or even the actual combined super robot before (only having
heard about them prior to this), I was kind of worried that the resulting robot
might look crappy.
Whatever fear I had
with this figure was eventually proven wrong – the super robot mode actually
rocks! ToQ-Oh actually looks darn good, and very, very screen accurate. At some
point, even more show-accurate compared to the actual official ToQ-Oh figure!
For those
familiar with Kabaya figures, you probably realized that some of those Kabaya
figures are actually better than the original figures in terms of
articulations, and that is definitely the case here.
One of the main
reasons that I never came to collecting Super Sentai figures are because of their
articulation, or rather their lacking of it.
Sorry SS/ PR
fans…
Surprisingly
after more than 3 decades, Super Sentai figures never really evolved
articulation-wise. They are still bricks at best, with very, very limited
articulation joints. This is a far cry from Transformers, in which their
articulations have evolved by leaps and bounds over the past 3 decades.
The major drawing
factor for the Super Sentai figures, however, is their elaborate looks. I do
admit, some of them do look really, really good, but brick nonetheless.
Anyways, back to
matters at hand, as far as this version of ToQ-Oh, I rather say, it is way,
way, way, way better than the official Super Sentai figure, as far as
articulation is concerned. You can actually put him in various poses that you
wished that they were possible with the bigger version!
ToQ-Oh
articulations are as follow: the head rotates 360°; the shoulders rotate
vertically and swing outward; the elbows bend almost 135° and rotate; the
wrists rotate; the hips rotate on a vertical axis and swings ourward; the knees
rotate and bends as if they are double-jointed; and finally the ankles move
down and up.
Despite the
supposed bulk of this figure, the articulation points are working wonders!
Simply wonderful!
Overall:
This figure is
that damn good, simply put. How I wish that their bigger counterparts were just
as good. I had a lot of fun with this figure, and thanks to these guys, I am
actually itching for more.
I highly
recommend this figure if you are a fan of mini assembly kits like me, and even
more so if you’re an actual Super Sentai fan.
Now, onto the
next station…
Highly recommended.
Final
verdict: 10/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment