GREAT MAZINGER - Bandai SD Cross Silhouette model kit action figure review

 

I just took a look at Bandai's Mazinger Z action figure model kit from their SD Cross Silhouette line, and now it's time to check out Great Mazinger, as well! This kit features the same quality of colored parts, detailed instructions and ease of assembly as the Z did. One thing I forgot to mention in that review is that these figures feature a gimmick where their proportions can be changed. There's a regular SD (Super Deformed) mode, where the connector pieces are shortened or removed, creating a squatter, more comical proportion to the figure. I personally don't care for the look, so I opt for the CS (Cross Silhouette) mode, which provides more elongated appendages, and a more proportional look. Neither is mutually exclusive, and the figures can be changed back and forth.

This is another nifty and fun kit! Great Mazinger can be posed to strike his Thunder Strike pose, some close approximations of Scramble Dash flight mode (with a non-included stand), and his Mazinger Blade is included, as well as a removable Brain Condor.

That's about it. I used the rocket punch effect from the Mazinger Z kit to get a sort of Drill Pressure Punch look (without the drill fins, of course), and you can take the breast fin off to simulate the Great Boomerang. In short, this little guy can manage a nice bit of posing, and can come close to duplicating most of his signature attack moves. It's a fun package, and at under $20 provides some excellent bang for the buck.

There's a Great Mazinger SD Cross Silhouette kit out there that I may still pick up, as well as a Getter Robo...

Thunder Break!!!

Great Boomerang!!!

Fire on!

Mazinger Blade!!!

Drill Pressure Punch!!!

My best approximation of the famous handshake...

MAZINGER Z - Bandai SD Cross Silhouette model kit action figure review

Bandai's SD Cross Silhouette line are "super-deformed" robot kits with snap-together pre-colored parts, stickers, interchangeable "gimmick" pieces and are nicely articulated. The build is simple, the final product looks good, and is a lot of fun to pose and re-pose. I've gotten a couple of Mazinger-universe figures, but most of Bandai's SD line seems to be Gundam-related. The kits sell for less than $20 each and would be a great way for youngsters to experiment with figure model building.

Mazinger Z comes with alternate hands, a rocket-punch effect piece, a detachable scrander and pilder with foldable wings. I think the finished model looks great, and I had a ton of fun putting it into different poses! I need to get a base for flying poses, and I need to color in the face mask grill with a black sharpie to add a little more detail. The sword is from the Great Mazinger model, but looks cool in Z's hand as well...

MAZINKAISER - Bandai Infinitism HG 1/144 scale Plastic Model Kit Figure

 

Mazinkaiser is the 4th action figure model I have built in the Infinitism line of plastic model kits. For those who don't know, these kits are similar to Gundam Gunpla kits. They include pre-colored plastic snap-together parts that result in a fully articulated figure, complete with accessories and a display stand. They tend to run in the $60 range upon release. The line began with two figures (Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger) whose design was based on the movie Mazinger Z: Infinity (hence the "Infinitism" moniker for the line). The figures must have done well-enough to warrant an expansion into giant robot characters who were never included in the film. Grendizer was the third release, followed by Mazinkaiser, Getter Dragon and the upcoming Steel Jeeg. All of the figures have a similar internal structure, and follow the heavily-panelled look of the Infinity designs. In terms of construction, they go together fairly easily, most of the sprue snips are pretty well-hidden, and the articulation even features some of the gimmicks you'd find in a real, quality action figure. For instance, the hips can pull down to allow for a greater forward kick, and the elbows feature hidden panels within the forearms allowing for a huge range of flex motion. The finished kits are sturdy enough to make messing around with them and reposing them fun, but they are very light and feel more fragile to me than a 1/100 scale Gundam kit. I wouldn't suggest these would hold up to play - just very careful posing.

One of the absolute highlights to the entire line is the incredible artwork featured on the box fronts. These are so beautifully done that I'm planning to cut them out and frame them at some point. There's also a neat ongoing "story" told on the outside of the box, as well as within the excellent instruction booklet (they are referring to the models as "Infinitism novels" and it looks like their storyline will somehow expand to incorporate the robots from various properties into one cohesive tale).

Mazinkaiser ends up standing around 8 to 9 inches tall when complete. He features a truly enormous Kaiser Scrander, which measures almost 18 inches from tip-to-tip once expanded. The Kaiser Scrander has wings that can be articulated, and the entire thing can be easily removed via a peg that fits into Mazinkaiser's back. The downside to this enormous accessory is that it adds a good bit of weight to a figure that's already pretty light. So, having the stand certainly helps to keep him...well, standing.

The jewel in the center of his chest features a sticker underneath, giving the builder 3 different possibilities of symbols (I chose the boring "Z", but it looks really cool). The jewels in the giant Final Kaiser Blade have matching Z stickers. There are two additional, slightly smaller Kaiser blades, as well as 2 alternate hands to allow for the figure to hold them. You get two different versions of the Kaiser Pilder - one in docking mode and one in flight mode. There's an additional arm stand for mounting a Turbo Smasher Punch, along with 2 flame effects. I do wish we had 2 of the thinner armature stands to do a dual Turbo Smasher Punch, but I was able to use the main stand to kind of get one going (though the main stand is so big and obtrusive, it kind of ruins the look).

I love these Infinitism model kit figures! They are fun to build, they are pretty fun to pose and re-pose, they come with lots of cool stuff, and they look incredible on the shelf. I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking to get into the figure-building hobby, or for anyone looking to save money on a cheaper substitute for high-end Chogokin or Metal Build figures. I'm hoping the line continues on past the next announced figure, Jeeg, who I knew absolutely nothing about, but decided to get just because these are such great fun! I'd love to see Infinitism versions of Shin Getter and Devolution Getter...

The final pose for Mazinkaiser on my shelf...

Escaflowne - Good Smile Company Moderoid figure model review

I remember watching a couple of episodes of Escaflowne a long while ago (maybe 20 years?) on something like Cartoon Network, but never really got into it. At the time, I was really into Gundam Wing, and was looking for giant space battles. Escaflowne came across as more of a knights-in-armor kind of thing, so it didn't grab me at the time. That said, I did always think the main mech was cool looking and very unique (though now it sort of reminds me of Tallgeese).

Spending more time at home for the majority of 2020 reignited my old hobby of model kit building. I built quite a few during the year, and even took a couple of forays into areas I hadn't been brave enough to try out before. As a result, I've been looking at some snap-together, pre-colored figure kits. When I spotted the Moderoid version of Escaflowne, I was interested enough to add it to my wish list. A generous relative caused it to show up on my doorstep.

I just recently completed the build, and wanted to preserve my thoughts here. As with just about anything, the Moderoid Escaflowne has some strengths and some weaknesses. The box art is beautiful, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. The kit is a relatively simple and quick build, and you end up with an articulated Escaflowne at the end of it. There aren't many figures of Escaflowne that have been produced, and the ones I can find tend to be on the more expensive side. I figured this would be an acceptable substitute. 

On the down side, the finished mech is pretty small, standing about 5 &1/4" tall minus the helmet spike. The detail is soft and sparse - even if I were to try to panel line this fellow, there just isn't much to line. There are some noticeable gaps at the seams of some parts that won't go together any tighter, and other places where parts fall off easily. The articulation is hindered in many places because of the suit's design, but the model doesn't really try to incorporate any engineering to overcome that. What I mean is that with the Infinitism models, as well as with 1/100 Gundam models I have built, there is some really creative engineering within the design of the arms at the elbows, or at the legs in the knees, where panels slide out of the way and allow for additional movement. Not so here.

Most frustrating to me is the paint work, or lack thereof. Significant paint apps shown on the package and prototype pics are absent: the plastic cape is red on both sides though it's shown as red/blue in the package, while the cloth version is red/dark blue (or black- can't really tell). The cloth is pretty vinyl-feeling, and I don't think it will drape the way I want, though I honestly haven't tried it attached yet. There are no gold highlights anywhere on the model, so any spots you see gold on the package or prototype pics were customized (the majority of the sword hilt, for instance, is supposed to be gold, but is actually just grey plastic, and the bottom tips of the cape, and the ribbons on the back have gold highlights in the box pics, but none in reality). 

In short, the model feels really cheap. In no way does this compare to a MG Gunpla or to Bandai's Infinitism series, despite a price tag hovering north of $60. If I had it to do over again, I would have passed on this and picked up an Infinitism Getter Dragon instead. I may opt to add some paint details over time, as well as some additional spots of glue, but overall this is a disappointing figure that I would not recommend to anyone who is not completely enamored by the anime it is based on. However, for those who love the source material, you may be very happy with this figure, and I'm sure that with a little work and patience, it could be customized into a much better looking replica.

Mazinger Z - Soul of Chogokin Dynamic Classics action figure review

 I've had the GX-70 Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z D.C. (Dynamic Classics) figure in my display case for over a year now, but I've never really spent time checking out all of its "bells and whistles." In fact, I've discovered that my collecting habit often goes this way: a new figure arrives, I excitedly crack it open, I take it out, look at the accessories, fine tune the vanilla pose, put it onto a shelf, and promptly forget about it. This year, I'm planning and hoping to spend a bit more time enjoying each figure, posing it, testing out the accessories, and generally getting more of my money's worth. In that vein, I decided to spend some time with my GX-70.

I have a few Soul of Chogokin pieces, but most of them are actually space ships, rather than figures. In fact, I only own 2 other SOC robots besides this guy, and one of them is a brand new purchase. The first thing that strikes me about an SOC figure is its heft and solidity. With lots of die-cast metal content, this is a figure that absolutely does NOT feel cheap. The paint is glossy and expertly applied (check out the level of paint detail around the eyes of this guy in the pictures below), and features some beautiful shades of blue and red throughout the piece. Bandai takes the opposite tack of a company like threezero with these figures - there is no weathering, washes, dry or airbrushing to highlight fine details. Mazinger Z is largely smooth and featureless. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you want a Mazinger that is true to the animation, this is pretty good!

SOC Mazinger Z stands about 6.5" tall and is a significant jump up in terms of quality and amount of accessories from the smaller Super Robot Chogokin version I reviewed previously (this version also cost me about $120 18 months ago, and the price is currently slightly higher than that).

Mazinger Z comes with a pilder that can go wings out for flight mode, or wings up for docking. There's a magnet embedded in the underside, and it sits flush and snugly  in the landing platform of the head. There's also an alternate faceplate with eyes dim, to simulate "off" mode when the pilder is not docked:

We get six hands (2 fists, 2 karate chop, and 2 splayed), alternate elbow joints to simulate elbow missiles, or for rocket punch (but there are no effect parts or stands to support the rocketing arm), a pair of iron cutter forearms, an alternate diaper front to allow for deeper crouches, a scrander with a launching pad or with a docking belt (the wings can detach and flip as needed), a display stand with a couple of different locking mechanisms for supporting the figure as well as a flip top to allow for much of the smaller parts to be stored inside. It's a lot for one figure, and just about everything you could possibly hope for, with the exception of a "launched navel missile" or some rocket punch effect parts and support rod. The figure has some decent articulation, but I didn't expect it to move like a SH Figuarts Street Fighter. The torso is fairly restricted, and the legs weren't easy for me to work with. That said, it's a lovely figure and I really enjoyed playing around with the accessories and seeing how they all went together!

I will be displaying Mazinger Z with fists, pilder on, and his scrander on the launch pad (I feel like Z doesn't spend much time in flight, so he's more anime-accurate to me without the scrander attached).