#jet icarus

I really dig how Bandai’s Super Mini-Pla line is coming out with affordable, fully-functioned versions of more and more classic Sentai Mecha (as well as others, hey Voltron and Gridman!). Case in point: I really never thought I’d get a good toy of the regular robot from my long-standing fave Choujin Sentai Jetman, but here I am now, having assembled Jet Icarus in sweet tiny plastic-model form. Barely took me an afternoon, and it was definitely worth it.

The individual jets of the Jetmans aren’t exactly the most thrilling designs on their own. Sentai was just moving away from boxy vehicles bashing together at this point (with Zyuranger’s mecha a year later really revolutionizing things), so what you get is five chunky planes doing their best to look distinctive and evocative of their namesake birds. Jet Hawk being the center Red of the bunch is the most individualistic, but also kind of the most unintentionally hilarious? Like it has to form the center torso of the robot, so it’s curiously cuboid in a very noticeable way, even as you assemble and fiddle with it and realize how much moving bits it has going on to facilitate all that. Honestly, putting it together and seeing how it works makes me appreciate it more in spite of its, shall we say, charming proportions.

Conversely, Jet Swan and Jet ‘Condol’ make for probably the most coherent jets, and they’re barely distinct as a result. The design of Jet Icarus as a whole is really committed to a homogenized combined robot form, and that means these bits forming the legs get to be as similar as possible. It’s actually nice assembling them, once again, to really become aware of the bits they have that do differentiate them, like the wing shapes and accompanying decals, and how Jet Swan tries to work in more whites and pinks while the Condor just commits to the overall black scheme with some red accents.

And then there’s the arms, Jet Owl and Jet Swallow (go ahead and laugh). These are definitely the most clearly-compromised, being as they are Just Arms with wing-packs stapled on. Jet Owl in particular with its underslung surfboard and adorable bug-eyes at least rocks its particular flavor of goofy. Meanwhile, I may be biased since Ako is my favorite Birdman ranger by a country mile, but I think Jet Swallow works pretty well for what it is, mounting that sleek shield-to-be set of moving wing-blades on top and wearing that swish blue color scheme and narrowed eyes like a boss.

As is often the case with these types of Sentai bots, there’s an intermediary big-combined-vehicle thing mode for these, and it’s actually really cool. I’ve always loved how impressively-solid the Jet Harken looks, bits and corners folding out to streamline the thing into a singular wedge shape. It’d make for an impressive combined display on its own if you had a flight stand for it. Anyway, the transformation and combination to this or the proper Jet Icarus mode can be surprisingly involved. Well, the legs and chest anyway, the arms just kinda pop on. There is some slight partsforming here, having to swap some panels on the feet and attach the fists, but it’s surprisingly unobtrusive given what I’ve seen other Mini-Pla get up to.

And the combined Jet Icarus is pretty impressive in this format. I’ve always dug the heck out of what an unabashedly basic design this thing goes for, you can practically *see* the cardboard boxes they built the suit out of. It’s honestly more impressive that they figured out a working transformation to this simply-shaped mecha from the variously-angular jets, and the model kit shows how it works quite nicely. This is also where the details of the Super Mini-Pla get to shine, with the pre-painted gold chest bits and head details adding that extra touch of quality you would want with being the only working toy of this thing available in the past twenty years. He’s super-posable too, with fairly complex hip jointing and Gundam-skirt-style armor to accommodate it, elbows and knees with tons of range, even some pretty broad ankle posability. It’s pulled off via some pseudo-sliders that I’m not crazy about, it kinda feels like you’re about the disassemble the feet if you pull them out too far. But my misgivings aside, they do work just fine. It’s also got an absolute buttload of weapons. I think I naturally favor the ol’ sword and shield, but if you want you can kit the robot out with any combination of the absurd amount of pointy things it includes, particularly the friggin’ giant morning star.

Even apart from the association with one of my favorite toku series ever, this is just a cool little set of model kits that combine into one bigger, cooler model. Like a lot of the Super Mini-Pla sets, it properly captures the old-school appeal of a design like this, while updating its functionality to the standards we would want. It’s a fun build, with a fun toy resulting once you’re done. I’m real glad I picked it up, and that I didn’t wait too long to put it together. *looks forlornly at lingering unbuilt model kits*