Voltron Legendary Defenders

When the first season of Voltron came on Netflix, I knew my subscription rate was worth it. The show took me back to the days of eating bowls of cereal with Saturday morning cartoons. There was just something so special about the Japanese cartoons that made it over to the US. At the time, I was too young to know of Anime and Manga. There was not the culture in the US that there is today.

After the first few episodes, I was thinking that someone HAD to make some toys for this show. And then they did. Playmates was tasked with making the most anticipated toy of 2016. Unfortunately, Playmates was not in on the excitement of how much fans wanted the toys. Now there were two sets of lions that came out. A basic and a Legendary. The basic figures were just that. Basic. They had some gimmick that moved legs or shot a missile. But that was not what the fans wanted. What they wanted were the Legendary Lions. Five lions that combined into the 16 inch tall Voltron.

I initially found the Black, Yellow and Blue Lions. That was not enough to build Voltron, so I hung in there waiting for the rest They were under produced, so of course the secondary market exploded with price increases. Each lion going for double or triple the original price. Now I know Playmates. They are the makers of some popular brands like TMNT. They do listen to what is going on. So I was sure they were going to step up and release more lions. And they did. Phew!

The lions are fantastic. They look like they were pulled from the show. Black Lion is of course the biggest. It has articulated wings, opening mouth, and jointed legs. This is also the brains of the operation. The electronics and lights are in the body to allow all of the phrases and sound effects. It is amazing tech. It knows which Lion is being plugged in.

There is a hatch on the bottom that allows the driver (in a little ship), to come out. Each lion has a little ship that hides in the belly. All 5 are differently designed.

The rest of the lions have an attachable weapon system that is seen in the show. Green, Blue, and Red fire a missile, while Yellow fires a trio of discs.

Green and Red each came with a part of Voltron’s sword, which makes sense since they are the two arms, thus would be able to wield said sword. Both lions have spring mouths, with gaps in the sides of the mouth for them to hold the sword in both Lion and Voltron modes.

Voltron stands an impressive 16 inches tall, That is a very big robot, especially for being built from 5 figures. We do know of some other mechas that are multi-member teams too. We will look at them in a little bit. The Lions were so well engineered that they transform much the same way as they do in the show. In fact, I did not need to look at the directions, since after watching two seasons of the show, I pretty much have their transformations memorized.

The paint work on Voltron is amazing. His face is right on. He wears a great scowl, and looks ready for battle.

There is a lot of good articulation in Voltron. Now he is a combiner, and does have some limitations. When they get to be this big, we cannot pull off the same poses as we can with smaller figures. He does a good job holding his own.

Compared to some of the other brands multi-member teams, he is standing tall. Next to Devastator, Voltron is not that much smaller. And of course he has taken on entire armadas of enemies, so that would probably be an easy battle for Voltron to win. And next to the Legacy Megazord, he is WAY bigger. It is fun to have Voltron next to Megazord, since it was said that Megazord’s design was taken from Voltron.

 

I am so happy with this guy. It has been years in waiting for me to get this guy, from the initial hope that one will get made, to the Playmates mistake of under producing them. He looks great, and Voltron is a welcome addition to my ever growing robot collection.

Dragonzord – Legacy Collection 2017 Reissue

I went to a Toys R Us a little ways away today. Out and about and looking for some Hot Wheels, or maybe some new 6.5 inch Legacy Power Rangers. And then I came upon this guy, the Dragonzord from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. The Green Ranger’s angry Godzilla inspired Zord in all of his plastic and mostly diecast glory.

“Where are you Dragonzord?”

I am really excited to be finally getting my hands on this guy. It was issued initially back in 2014, but I could not find one. I was definitely not going to pay scalper prices, and I figured I would be missing out. Not great, since I have the rest of the Legacy Collection (save for Titanus), and Dragonzord would really round out that part of my collection.

“I shall set you free!”

The box art is really well done and fits in with the rest of the Zords we have seen so far.

Inside we see the nice packaging usually reserved for the Japanese Super Sentai Zords with the nice tight packaging and each part wrapped in plastic. We do not need window boxes with these figures. The quality control is really up there and nicely done.

Dragonzord comes with two sets of hands, one straight and one with curved fingers. Generally we saw the curved hands in the show when Dragonzord was fighting hand-to-hand combat, and the flat hands when it was shooting or when transforming.

This is a great looking Zord. It has Godzilla written all over it. The color scheme is so nicely done. Decades later, and it is still a great overall design. The standouts are the gold and green paint apps. So bright and shiny.

There are a lot of details all over the zord. His head is fantastic. The red eyes are great, and the top head spike is so long.

And then there is the 11 inch tail. It is huge!!! And it is articulated. Now, it is not as articulated as the show makes the tail seem, but I am guessing the tail on the show’s Dragonzord was not quite that articulated either.

Dragonzord and Megazord had a few good battles. Usually the MMPR team trying to get Tommy to not beat them up.

They were no match for Dragonzord, and thankfully they were able to help Tommy to kick the bad guy chip on his shoulder and use the Dragonzord for good, not evil.

I was surprised by how much taller Megazord is over Dragonzord. It is nearly half a head.

Finally, once the team was a group of six, Zordon taught Tommy how to use the Dragon Dagger to summon Dragonzord to join with Megazord to form Dragonzord Battle Mode. The transformation is pretty much like it was in the show, using the Mastodon, Sabertooth Tiger and Triceratops to form a bigger, badder Zord. That left the tail and center of Dragonzord’s body to form a really big staff. It is about half again as tall as Dragonzord. Interestingly, the Power Staff on this figure is more accurate than the staff in the show. That staff had only three tail parts and then the drill, as opposed to 5, which Dragonzord’s tail actually had.

When the spike on top of his head is pressed up to full height, it releases the bottom jaw, and allows the face to show. It is a cool face, with a really big red eye mask.

Then there is the secondary transformation. The even more powerful Mega Dragonzord. This uses all of Megazord, except for Mastodon’s head. This mode does not use the parts to form the Power Staff, so Mega Dragonzord could foreseeably use the Power Staff in this mode, though I don’t know if the team would need to since the finishing move is very powerful.

Since Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers ran longer than Zyuranger and went into the footage of Dairanger, they wanted to continue to use the Dragonzord for a bit while Tommy made the transition from Green Ranger to White Ranger. The evil clone of Tommy as the Green Ranger took over the Dragonzord, while Tommy took control of the White TigerZord. Now these two Zords were from different shows, so they were not ever in scenes together. The editing team had to edit a fight together using footage of each Zord. They fought against one another, but never were on screen together.

Seasons 1-3 in Zords. This Dragonzord is really fun to play around with. It is a bit finicky at times, where the parts don’t want to stay together. I guess there really is too much diecast in these guys. Dragonzord is the only Zord of the three to not be destroyed. Maybe we will see it again someday.

Swindle – Transformers Generations – Combiner Wars – Bruticus

The return to the Generation 1 designs continues. Currently we are seeing the Combaticons trickle into the stores. It has been pretty quiet out there on the Trasformers aisle since the holidays. Bruticus and Sky Reign are on their way, and the showing so far is good.

The first figure I found was Swindle. He has been around for a good long time, and as any good scoundrel, he comes out of the woodwork when needed and disappears again. We have seen a lot of him over the years in the different continuities, and we see him again in the Combiner Wars line.

If you know anything about this guy, this is usually what we get. Big purple eyes on a black head, with a yellowish body. He is some kind of light military vehicle, similar to his G1 version, but this time he is bigger and has better articulation.

I am not really digging this backpack.  We have had some big backpacks in the past, but this one is crazy.  It sticks out and up.  If it rains, Swindle is going to have his pants full of water.

His articulation is fantastic.  He has all of the good movement we see in the current run of Deluxe figures.   In addition, he also has hinged feet so he can keep both feet planted firmly on the ground, no matter the pose.

He comes with two guns.  His primary gun is a three barreled rifle.  It has good details, and fits well in his hand.   He also comes with the requisite foot/hand gun that all of the Deluxe figures come with. It is a bit too large, as most of these are.

Swindle turns into a light armored, open air vehicle. It is a highly detailed vehicle, but unknown as to what it is. Definitely setup for running in the desert.

The guns can be mounted on the top with a post in the middle and holes on both of the back portions. The black gun actually mounts sideways on the center post. It is a bit weird to have the gun mounted sideways like that, but they needed a post to be able to mount the big gun there too.

A very nice robot, and a good vehicle.  It is hard to imagine that this is a retool of Rook, looking at the vehicle.   The color makes him stand out from the other figures we have seen so far, and we have seen a lot of figures.  There are just minor nit-picks with this figure, and he is done very well overall.  I am looking forward to finding the rest of the Combaticons, and really getting the Combiner War started.

Diesel Ressha and Diesel-Oh – Ressha Sentai ToQger

I was all ready to look at the last Ressha to form Diesel-Oh, but got caught up in the new green T-Rex Zord, and couldn’t wait to post about it.  Today we are headed back to Japan to look at the old man, Diesel Ressha.

Diesel Ressha is the biggest of the single Ressha to this point. It will be eclipsed by the Build Ressha later on, but this old man is enough for now. He is the needed piece to connect with Car Carrier and Tank Ressha in order to build the great Diesel-Oh.

Even though Diesel Ressha comes in 5 main parts, it really consists of the Ressha at the front, a giant long middle section, and a small section at the back. They come apart as we have seen with the other Ressha to allow for turns in the track. This time, not so much. The middle section is WAY too big, and would have benefited from at least one break in the middle.

The three auxiliary Ressha needed to combine to form Diesel-Oh.

Diesel-Oh is a big boy when all put together. His head is about a half a head taller than ToQ-Oh, but ToQ-Oh makes up the height in the tall shoulders, leaving Diesel-Oh just slightly taller.

He looks great with the three main colors, dark red, orange, and blue. When we first see Diesel Ressha, he just has a spot of blue and a spot of orange at the back end. This really helps bring the mecha together when the legs are added, and then the legs match the shoulders.

The center part of the body opens up to reveal a beautiful gold chrome chest. There are a few other openings that allow for the gold theme to carry through the figure.

ToQ-Oh and Diesel-Oh make a formidable team.  They each have their own strengths, and they look different from one another to not feel like you are just getting a copy of the first mecha.

Cho Ressha Gattai Cho ToQ-Oh – Okay, now that is a long name.  Basically this is the forming of ToQ-Oh and Diesel-Oh.   This is pretty much ToQ-Oh with the arms separated off to allow Diesel-Oh to make the shoulders wider and create Cho ToQ Cannons.   Now this is some fire power.

Of course this would be very top heavy, so Diesel-Oh’s legs attach to ToQ-Oh’s legs for a more robust platform.

Okay, now that is a long name. Basically this is the forming of ToQ-Oh and Diesel-Oh. This is pretty much ToQ-Oh with the arms separated off to allow Diesel-Oh to make the shoulders wider and create Cho ToQ Cannons. Now this is some fire power. Of course this would be very top heavy, so Diesel-Oh’s legs attach to ToQ-Oh’s legs for a more robust platform.

 

Tank Ressha and Car Carrier Ressha – Ressha Sentai ToQger

The boxes on these Japanese toys continue to amaze me. They squish so much information onto the smallest of packages. The Tank Ressha and the Car Carrier Ressha come in the same size packaging, since they are the same size. On the front, they show the ToQ-Oh Tank and the ToQ-Oh Car Carrier. Not the most original names for the combinations, but it tells what they are.

Tank Ressha:

The Tank Ressha was the second of the support Ressha to be found, after the Car Carrier Ressha.   It carries fuel that can super charge the Ressha.  When used as the ToQ-Oh Tank Ressha combination, it gives ToQ-Oh a lot of extra speed for punching E. Honda style. The two parts of the train separate, and can connect with a flexible middle.  They also have some movement that is not at first apparent in the show, since they do not change when being used by ToQ-Oh, but fear not, the changes will be coming.

The Tank Ressha was the second of the support Ressha to be found, after the Car Carrier Ressha.   It carries fuel that can super charge the Ressha.  When used as the ToQ-Oh Tank Ressha combination, it gives ToQ-Oh a lot of extra speed for punching E. Honda style.

Car Carrier Ressha:

The Car Carrier Ressha was the first of the Support Ressha to be found, though it is number 7 to Tank Ressha’s number 6.

The ToQgers originally used the Car Carrier to launch them into battle using the small cars, and again as a bridge to get across a broken bridge.

When they formed the ToQ-Oh Car Carrier combination, the Car Carrier Ressha gave ToQ-Oh extra arm length to fight, as well as being able to fire the small cars like bullets.

In the movie that this combination appeared in did not show the Tank Ressha giving any extra speed to ToQ-Oh.  It did however create a firing combination of the Tank Ressha launching the Tank Ressha like a missile to destroy the enemy.

Both of these are fantastic Ressha.  They have lots of moving parts that show they are more than just plug-in support Ressha.  Wait until Diesel Ressha shows up. Then the party will really get started.