Goshogun Brave 08 (and review by Gold)

Goshogun Brave 08

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UPDATE:

The following review was originally prepared by Gold on 5/9/07 on the Robot-Japan Forum:

Hi all, here's CM's Corp.'s latest offering the Brave Gokin 08 Sengoku Majin Goshogun(translates into "Warring Demon God Goshogun"), also known as Macron-1 in the US.


Box: It's really small. I was surprised how compact the package was.




Goshogun is packed into the box sideways with the accessory tray stacked underneath the styro tray.








The TriThree ships
(L-R) Jack Knight, King Arrow and Queen Rose.











King Arrow is piloted by Shingo Hojo(Jason Templar in Macron-1)
Queen Rose is piloted by Remy Shimada(Kathy Jamison in Macron-1)
Jack Knight is piloted by Killy Gagly(Scott Cutter in Marcon-1)




The Ships are actually quite small, made of plastic and the paint detail on them is very good.







Combining all three ships(requires removing some parts and adding fists) forms the TriThree robot. The TriThree is piloted by Remy(the female pilot of the team)








The TriThree sports some articulation at the head, shoulders, knees and fists. Pretty neat.









Launch the Goshogun!








Docking


There's also really excellent detailing in the "compartments" for each of the TriThree jets.



















Goshogun Go!








The main pilot for Goshogun is Shingo Hojo.








Goshogun's weapons include:
-Cosmo Beam- blue beams shoot out of his eyes
-Bolster Beam-bullets shoot out of the black circles below his belt
-Light Impulse-the big "X" on his chest fires beams a la Mazinger Z's Breast Fire.







His other weapons teleport into his hands. These include:

The Space Bazooka






Here's a look from the right side








The Go Saber







The Go Stake(short)






Go Stake (long)











I'm not exactly sure if the handles have a break somewhere for you to insert the fists into, since the manual didn't say anything. So I just simply jammed the handles into the fist.









Goshogun's Ultimate attack, the "Go Flasher"






A warning about the Go Flasher, while it is cool that you can actually fire it(it plugs into spring loaded sockets in Goshogun's backpack), it's got a hair-trigger release. Even the slightest tap will send the flasher accessory flying into someone's eye. I don't recommend leaving it plugged in when going into your display shelf.








Comparison with Gx31 Voltes and the Gx01R Mazinger Z







With Ideon in the pic(hehe looking at this really brings back memories of Super Robot Wars.)















The Good:
-Beautifully detailed toy

-practically the toy is 80-90% diecast

-diecast parts almost everywhere except for the blue parts of the shoulders, the chestplate cover, the covers for the TriThree compartments and the "backpack" and the hip skirtplates

-weighs in at 520 Grams

-ratchet joints in the shoulders, knees. None in the elbows though.

-Lots of poseability. It captures the poses from the Anime accurately.

-There's a hidden joint in the upper torso, it helps the toy to lean back a bit to do some of the poses.

-As with the other newer Brave Gokin releases, this one also comes with optional screw hole covers that you have to plug in yourself.












The Bad:
- I had a minor paint bleed in mine, I'm not sure if it's paint or if it's a paint chip. I guess it's isolated to just my unit though.


- That hair trigger Go Flasher gimmick

-It would've been nice if they made the toy a bit taller, however, currently it stands at 7 Inches tall. I guess it's not that bad.

-It's missing the blue colored "Go Flasher" accessory. The blue colored version is the "powered-up" version of the Go Flasher.

-The leg compartments for the TriThree are somewhat difficult to open. To open them, try to open the hatches on the outer sides of the leg first.







The Ugly:
-Chromed as the weapons are, they've got a lot of scratches right out of the box. But not as bad as Takara's chromed parts on the MPC Exkaiser.


-Very rubbery hands. It feels like soft rubber. I'm not sure if these will become sticky or degrade quickly over time. But the good news is they're not sticky when you open them for the first time out of the box.






In conclusion, I'd rank this as CM's best release to date. The toy is very solid, no breakable parts. Great to look at and can do several Anime Accurate poses. The colors are very eye catching, it turns heads even on a crowded display shelf.



If they can keep up this amount of proportionate diecast in their future releases. CM's can easily give Aoshima a run for its money. I'm already loving this toy more than my recent Aoshima purchases(including the black Ryoma Getter1).









Funfact: in the Anime there was a "clone" of Goshogun used by the enemy. It looked almost exactly like Goshogun except for the parts that are blue are now colored green and it sports a slightly different horn on his head. Here's hoping they release that as a repaint to this awesome toy.







Funfact 2: Apart from the series, there was a one shot movie "The Time Etranger", set 40 years after the Goshogun series. Strangely enough, the Goshogun robot did not appear in the movie and the story and action focused mainly on the pilots themselves.





Gold