#wolkaiser

Maagi Magi Magika~ Maagi Magi Giruma Jinga~ Tenku Gattai! SaintKaiser!

Another movie machine, a remold of one of my favorite toys, and a chance to re-review a mold with long-term knowledge of its tolerances. I’m pretty excited about this one.

The Good: The WolKaiser/FireKaiser mold is a good one as I’ve said before. It’s got a fun and intricate transformation, does some interesting new things with its paintwork in a few places, and looks great next to FireKaiser. Seriously, if I had a fireplace, these guys would be mantle pieces. These guys contrast together really well color-wise, with just enough differences in sculpt to distinguish them from each other.

SaintMagiPhoenix is also pretty nice, replacing all of MagiPhoenix’s silver for gold and adding a bit of extra color to the head.

The best part of this toy for me is that it heavily addresses one of my biggest concerns I have with most movie toys: interplay. The biggest thing about Barikion was that it was supposed to combine with Wolzard, but also be able to combine with MagiPhoenix if you had MagiKing. Unigolon is the same, meant to combine with Saint/MagiPhoenix, but even though it never happened in the movie it is capable of combining with Wolzard, which is a huge bonus in my book. It also helps that they went all out on this head:

The Bad: It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. It has a lot less paint than WolKaiser, which really stands out on a white toy. The fact that it’s white also means that some of the strangeness in Unigolon’s sculpt is much more apparent than on the black Barikion. The tail, which becomes SaintKaiser’s head, is also more curved than WolKaiser. It’s a softer plastic, but it still drags across and directly touches SaintKaiser’s back, which has me worried.

Also, SaintMagiKaiser looks exactly the same as a chest piece. I know why they did it, in case you didn’t already have MagiKing, but I wish there was some other distinction, though I don’t know what I’d do with it personally.

The Ugly: I mentioned it before in one of my MagiRanger toy reviews, but these toys have some weird connections to them. They forgo the usual C-Clips in favor of, well...

This is how the horse neck connects. My Barikion is noticeably easier to pop on and off than my newer Unigolon, but it’s nowhere near close to loose or anything. The one that concerns me more is this one:

There’s this weird psudo-C-clip, pole-tipped connection. And the one on my Barikion is really loose. Like, it stays in place, but if you tap it or move it too fast it’s going to move around. It’s actually a big problem with this mold, and you should be able to fix it by wedging something thin and hard into the gaps, but it’s still a very big concern for this toy. If you get either of these molds it’s something to be very aware of.

Uuza Douza Uru Zanga! MaJin Gattai! WolKaiser!

I seriously got Dexter’s Lab, Star Check Unconventional, NRFB flashbacks from opening that box. Like, I was expecting Torpol wielding nerds to smash through my door at 9:00 at night. I mean, I know people open old toys all the time, but this is the first time in recent memory that I’ve done it, so it kinda struck home how much of a blasphemy I was committing. Or maybe I’m just overreacting, it’s only 12 years old after all; it’s not like a boxed DaiJyuJin or anything.

This was a surprise Christmas gift. Something I had asked for but not expected seeing as nobody ever buys me toys. And I asked for him because, in my opinion, MajiKing and WolKaiser together are probably one of, if not the, best Megazord experiences you can have. Now, I know that’s a tall order, but I have my reasons, and I’ll talk about them once I get both so I can actually have some pictures to show them off.

The Good: Starting with Wolzard, he is very posable, especially for a Sentai toy, with ratcheted forward and outward arms and legs, as well as ratcheted knees. Heck, if this guy had elbows I’d say he’d be a standout Sentai toy in his own right. Barikion doesn’t have any posability of its own as a horse, but has great play with Wolzard and MagiPhoenix, able to have either of them ride it or combing into a Centaur form.

And then you get to WolKaiser, who is one of the most complex transformations in Sentai history, using universally jointed bars, rail sliders, and a bunch of other tricks to go through its entire transformation with as little parts-forming as possible. And anything that does have to come off becomes a weapon or a head. Now, I call it complex, but it’s just complex for a Sentai toy. I figured out most of the transformation without having to look at the instructions fairly quickly. It’s just a fun toy to transform.

This is also, I think, the only mass-retailed villainous Megazord to date. And I know GaoHunter has an evil mode, but it was only evil for a few episodes before becoming good, and MagiFire never combined with Barikion after becoming a good guy, so I’ll stand by my that claim.

The Bad: My only real issues are nitpicks with Wolzard. I understand why he has no elbows, as its to accommodate for the fact that he has to hold his shield at a certain angle as a chest plate, but I kinda wish he has at least one ratchet there so he could hold his arms out straight. Also, I really can’t see a reason why he doesn’t have a neck swivel, as its a separate piece from the neck, and there’s room for a mushroom peg in the plastic there. Barikion is an excellent Sentai toy and I have no qualms with it.

The Ugly... is that this is an old toy, so if you want one you’ll have to track it down and pay mark-ups on it, which is increased upon by the fact that this toy by itself, while really cool, needs MagiKing to complete the package, so you’re not going in for one old and expensive toy, but two.

Overall, this is a great toy, but needs MagiKing to complete it. If you stumble upon either of them at a yard sale or trade show for a good price (the English release is the same mold with worse paint, to my knowledge) then I suggest picking them up. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.