[Glyos] Phase Wars

Maybe it's the recent Iron Man movie, but I've been going pretty crazy with phase armor builds recently. I've tentatively christened this build the "Phase Crusher." Essentially, it is the 'what if' result when Phanost steals/copies a prototype Phase Armor Mk. II and bulks it up with additional weaponry. Of course, the increased weight of the armor necessitates additional boosters to help the user maneuver in combat. The clear orange bits are supposed to represent prototype/overheated booster units. (I cribbed the design of his jet pack from one that Matt posted on the Glyos blog. Shhhh.)

Rather fortuitously, the Phanost mini-wave came out at around the time that I was considering this build. Not only did it provide more 'Pheyden Blue' parts, but also the design for the modified Morphisar Cannon that comprises Phanost's right arm. In my mind, the story is that Phanost destroyed a Morphisar drone and incorporated its technology into the Phase Crusher. The light blue Callgrim pieces were unexpectedly quite useful in giving added bulk to Phanost's arm and leg joints.

This is not quite a finished product since the chest should actually be the same dark grey as the rest of the armor. I would then substitute the light blue Phanost head for contrast- and because the 'original' Phanost (and Scar Pheyden) are colored in this fashion. Let the Phase Wars begin!

[Battlegrip.com] UMOs

I received this resin figure from my Internet buddy, Phil Reed of Battlegrip.com, in a recent toy trade. Being more of a Transformers-at-Target kind of guy, resin toys are pretty far off my general radar. So let's see what a non-fan of resin thinks.

What is this toy? Battlegrip developed these figures over the earlier part of this year. From what I understand, it is a junkpile monster and the master model (fittingly) was a combination of action figure parts and original sculpting. Series 1 of the Unidentified Monstrous Organisms (UMO) (as they came to be called)- consisting of 12 unique toys- was sold in April 2010 through the Battlegrip.com webstore.

First off, here is the packaged figure. The ever-popular bag-with-header makes an appearance here. (Phil- my baggie was OPEN. It was not MISB. WTH. -RxM) Artwork is courtesy of BubbaShelby- nice and cartoonish as a contrast to the more gritty, encrusted appearance of the toy. My toy matches the header artwork (there were some variations), which is kind of neat.

And here's the toy. I'll start off with some criticism. - The toy is top-heavy. This is of particular concern because resin is not the most durable material. While the weight is fairly well distributed, the small feet and large torso make it easy to topple. - The front is symmetrical, but shapeless; it needs to be more asymmetrical and wonky. When I think 'junkpile monster,' I think of odd ends and bits of machinery jutting out at random points. Zollmen (Japanese vinyl company) actually sculpted a screw thread on to the body of their mini junkpile monster, Dasumoga, which I thought to be a really nice touch. The front of this toy has an odd symmetry to it; I feel like I am looking for a face when there is none. Adding a point of focus on one side of the torso would improve the look (either that or give it a deliberately symmetrical face). - Articulation. Chop them arms off and add a peg. Maybe this delves into design intent and cost concerns, but I feel like it would help the physical balance of the toy, as well as make it easier to display (smaller shelf footprint).

But there are definitely things that I like about the toy: - The paint work is really well done. The layered colors, black wash and gloss coat make it look very nice in photographs. Use of a black wash gives the sculpt a lot of depth, where I could see this being lost on a simple paint-over job. Battlegrip Phil painted each one by hand, so I'm pretty impressed. - There is a lot of texture on the sculpt. Despite my criticism above, the sculpted details on UMO are plentiful, with visible effort to balance it all out. It is hard to achieve a 'random' look, since the natural impulse is to work in patterns when doing something like this. Again, I think he could have gone to even greater extremes with the sculpt details- add a protrusion here and there. - UMO is more or less in scale with Glyos figures. Whether or not this was intentional, UMO fits in rather well with Pheyden, Exellis and their compatriots. There is a decided lack of large alien figures in the Glyos toy universe (maybe we need to build them ourselves) and UMO certainly has a place in that niche.

As seen here, I have no doubt that UMO Series 2 will soon descend upon us (or is that rise up against us?). If you like what you see here, keep watch at Battlegrip.com. Heck, keep watch anyway. I read it every day.

[RealxHead / リアルヘッド] RHND

It is more than a little ironic that Mori Katsura's first toy- the Oni Head- is probably the least discussed RxH character. I was recently reminded of this fact by onwi of Skullbrain BBS, who took the time to craft this incredibly polished interview of Mr. Mori at his Aoto shop:

http://www.sqdblstr.com/interview/rxhinterview

By some divine coincidence, the no.1 OH came up for sale on a Japanese website at around the same time. This must have been fate. So I can now say that I own the very first RxH production toy.

The first thing that struck me upon receiving OH was that it looks just like the Hone-Borg. Well, not exactly. But the slimmer body type and Noh-mask facial features are clearly shared. And the two figures definitely have a historical connection being respectively the first RxH toy and first Shinto Gangu release (well, one of them). Could it be.... HENSHIN??

Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, Part I

So here's a post about something other than RxH. I realize I've been inundating you, good readers, with quite a bit of 真　頭　trivia and musings, so tonight we take a break. I will let you know now that I am running on fumes and only have an hour to crank this out, so this should get pretty wild.



Let me take you back... back to 1993 when Transformers turned into animals and when spandex was cool, as long as there were 5 people in different colors and 2 of them were girls. IT'S TIME TO SAMUUUUUURAAAAAAIZE.

Yes, Tsuburaya Productions, the famous studio behind the Ultraman franchise came up with a series that couldn't miss- a slight riff on Ultraman with a little bit of Transformers and sentai thrown in. They even brought in Takara to make the toys! And thus was born Denkou Choujin Gridman [電光超人グリッドマン]. Tsuburaya kaiju for the monster kids, Takara-made transforming mecha for the robot kids. Of course, since Power Rangers was an enormous hit at the time, Gridman was imported here by DIC Entertainment (you know you giggled at the kid that said "DEEEC" at the end of every show) and Playmates under the obnoxious-long title of "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad."

I don't know about Japan, but Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad (SSSS) tanked over here. It's barely a blip on the cultural radar of most 90s kids. Heck, I bet more of you even remember the Masked Rider abomination that was on TV for a bit... or what about Big Bad Beetleborgs? *twitch* From what I can gather, the plot revolves around the main kid going into his computer and fighting virus monsters as Servo, assisted by the robot and dragon robots and his stoner band friends, Amp, Syd and Tanker. Something like that right? Who cares.

On to the toys. I got most of these in a 3-foot square box that I bought from an Internet friend in a parking lot. I can only imagine what people think when they see grown men exchanging wads of cash for boxes and bags of merchandise brought from the trunk of a car.

So here are the toys that you have probably seen:



Servo. This is the 9" DX version of the main hero from SSSS. Servo is a crucial toy because he combines with his companion robots to form larger... robots. I ended up with 4 separate Servos in various stages of packaging. Not crazy.



The original Japan version of this toy, DX Gridman, was a little more high-end. Servo still retains the battery casing on his back and the translucent plastic panels on his head and chest, although all electronics were removed when the toy was sold here. Servo also comes with a fair number of plastic accessories, which are attached to a plastic sprue in-package.



Zenon. The DX version of Zenon, known as God Zenon in Japan. This is an absolutely enormous toy, if you can get a sense of size based on the Glyos toy next to it (assuming you know how large Glyos figures are). Zenon can both disassemble into 3 vehicles, as well as become armor for Servo, forming "Synchro."



Pictured here is the ST (i.e., Standard) version of Synchro. ST Synchro simply consists of armor that can be clipped on to the 6" Servo toy. I believe they were sold separately, but am not certain how the Zenon parts were packaged.



Drago. DX Drago is gorgeous, gargantuan combination of plastic and metal that puts most toys of the same era to shame. Seen here in a combination of his Jamb and Torb jet components, Drago can also transform into a robotic dragon AND become armor for Servo, forming "Phormo."



And this is the ST Phormo set. Interestingly, Phormo does not use the standard 6" Servo toy that forms the base for ST Synchro, instead packaging the extra parts with a cheaper version of Servo.

More on the DX and ST mecha later.

Now on to the toys that you may have seen.

Amp, Syd and Tanker were the Servo kid's friends in the show. I suppose they were given some sort of pseudo-Servo power-up armor in SSSS, since these 3 are called "Samurizing Battle Uniforms." In reality, this was a clever way for Playmates and DIC to sell the same toy over and over again in different color variations.







The 9" Amp, Syd and Tanker are identical in sculpt to the 9" Servo, except that the head crest has been removed. These characters and toys were only seen in the U.S. TV show and toy line, and have no counterparts in Japan.







The American line also introduced 'mission' armors for 9" Servo, much like how Iron Man has armors for very, very specific situations (i.e., fighting Thor). The silver armor is "Digital Night Servo," gold is "Electro Grid Servo," and the half-assed red is "Neutron Armor Servo." I don't know if these were seen in the TV series. The gold and silver armors are quite nice, if not exceedingly flashy.

You probably have not seen these before. In fact, when my friend contacted me regarding these toys and told me that he had "most of the chrome ones," I had no idea what he was talking about. Taking a dog-eared page from the 90s toy playbook, Playmates apparently resorted to coating everything in chrome shortly before the line ended. This sub-line was known as "Metal Samurai."





Amp, Syd and Tanker were given "Supercharged" versions of their original uniforms. The slightly muted pink and olive chrome colors are really, well, interesting if nothing else. You may notice that they have helmet crests, unlike their non-chrome counterparts. The chrome has also held up extremely well over the years and has not flaked or bubbled (cross my fingers) like so many of Beast Wars toys. Unfortunately, my friend was missing the blue chrome Tanker. So I have something to look forward to.





Similarly, Servo's mission armors were expanded to include a silver chrome Ion Array armor and gold chrome Data Matrix armor. These are the true gems of the 9" line, in my view, as they take the classic hero colors of Servo and add matching chrome colors- these almost feel like they could have been Lucky Draw items in Japan. In any event very, very nice. I want to combine these with Zenon and Drago, but I am afraid of chipping the chrome. The plastic feels a little more brittle than normal on these chrome versions, so I would think twice before moving around stiff joints.



The Metal Samurai series also came with a new accessory, which was a spring-loaded launcher with a couple different missiles.



On the back of the box are listed the co-sells for this lineup. A Syber Sounds series was apparently intended to follow Metal Samurai, but the line was dropped before it could be released. Too bad, as these look to have been clear plastic versions of Amp, Tanker and Servo (and Syd?). Click on the photo to see the full-size version on my flickr page.

Aside from the 6" line and the 9" Metal Samurai Tanker (sob), these are essentially all of the larger toys from Playmates' Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad line. I had absolute no idea that about 75% of these existed until recently, and had never see the chrome versions until they came out of the box. So a big, big thanks to my friend that sold these to me. I hope this sheds a little more light on a fairly obscure- but worthwhile- toy line.

[RealxHead / リアルヘッド] Collaborations

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