#gingaioh

This randomly popped into my head so I made it-

SHOKUGAN MODELING PROJECT BullTaurus

Right after I built this one, I found the DX, mint, for $80. How could I not? This thing, apart from being good in its own right, really reminded me of why the original, despite being simple, was so fun. BoonBoomger Robo tried to have that wow factor with its Gate Mode, but I feel like Jyuoh King was the last Megazord to pull it off. Gimmicks don't always have to be complex, like MagiLegend or GokaiOh. Sometimes a simple trick is all you need to make a toy feel magical.

The Good: Like I was saying, it recreates the gimmick from the original: by spinning the wrists and ankles, it extends the limbs and reveals the hands. Actually getting to assemble those parts and see how they work was super cool, too.

And while the posability isn't as good as GingaiOh, it's still very good. I'd even say the ankles are better, and how it's done is very clever. BullBlack also has fairly good posability, though its smaller stature makes its a bit harder to pose and balance.

And it comes with a very handy display stand. It's capable of housing all the additional weapon parts for BullTaurus, all the Super Armor parts for both GingaiOh and Victory Mars, as well as a round handle for the Silver-Armor Sword so BullTaurus or Victory Mars can wield it.

The Bad: Because they had to add a waist joint, BullBlack has to fold up into a ball to fit into GoTaurus. I mean, you don't even need to put him in to transform anything, so it doesn't really matter, but it would have been cool if they'd have found a way to put it in without doing so.

The sword also could be better? The new handle is kinda meant for Victory Mars, but it would have been nice if it also fit BullTaurus, because it's quite loose. Not just in the hand, but also in the sword, itself. The new hilt for the Super Silver-Armor Sword also has the Gingaman logo on one side, and the GoGoV logo on the other, which is a little strange. I'm not saying they needed to make 2 hilts, but it forces you to flip the blade around so the right side is facing forward when displaying it.

The Details: A added a bunch of extra colors not present on the original. There are a bunch of thick grooves all over the place which I was driven to fill in. There's quite a bit of panel lining on the non-black parts, and I replaced all the stickers with paint.

For new colors, and BullBlack, I added gold to the black of the hands, red to the chest, hips, and thighs, and gold to the toes to mimic BullTaurus' hooves to some degree. For BullTaurus, I added red to the forearms, skirt, and calves, silver to the knees and legs and the GoTaurus's teeth, and gold to both GoTaurus and BullTaurus' faces and the back of the hands. I also added some gold and silver to the different weapons.

SHOKUGAN MODELING PROJECT Gingaioh

Even though I was pretty meh on the GaoRanger SMP kits, I do have a few reasons for picking up the Gingaman kits. The first is that while it wouldn't be very hard to get the DX versions of Gingaioh or BullTauros (in fact, having this kit made me really want to track the DX down; such a fun design), GingaRhinos and GingaPhoenix are a different story. Because those two have a lot of small part and breakage issues, getting a good DX is ludicrous. And while I handled Gingaioh and BullTauros as a child, I've never had the other two in-hand, and would love a chance to experience them. The second reason is, oddly, scale. There are actually two Zords that have never been produced at full size; Bakuryu Brachiosaurus and GingaBitus. If you're unfamiliar with the latter, you may know it better as the Zenith Carrierzord, the big shark robot that deployed GingaRhinos and GingaPhoenix. It was never produced at a comparative scale, and I'm hoping that if they do produce it in this line that they'll fix it.

The Good: I've mentioned before that I enjoy builds like this, where it's several smaller builds that you then combine, and this one was no exception. While there are a few tiny changes, like how the legs lock, the combination is accurate to the original, while also adding a lot of posability. They even recreated Gingalcon's gimmick where you pull its tail and its wings fond simultaneously. While the posability is very simple, it achieves basically everything you'd need, and Gingaioh is capable of a lot of action poses. It's been a desk toy for a while.

Also, the original stored its fists inside Gaorilla's heels, and this one does so too. However, because of the proportion changes, if can actually fit both sets of hands in there, making it self-contained apart from the sword.

The Bad: It mostly comes down to changes to the proportions. Gingaverick and Gingat's back legs are skinnier, so they don't look as nice as the back of the arms, they both also have a small bit at the elbow bend to hide the split, but it would have looked nicer if it was thicker, and Gingarilla, while it would have been difficult to integrate, could have used that same type of bit inside its knees to improve the appearance of certain poses.

The Details: Apart from basic panel lining and fill, I replaced all but two of the stickers with paint. There were also a few areas on the legs where I added a bit of extra silver to match the existing details. I also used the blue stickers specifically on the skirt because I didn't want to bother fighting blue and silver paint there.

I should add, the plastic they used for these kits is very absorbent, and panel liner stains it if you don't wipe it off the excess almost immediately. So be quick, be careful, and maybe have a scraping tool on hand if you use ink at all on this one.