Toy Review: CCSToys Shin Mazinger Zero

CCSToys comes out swinging with one of the meanest homages of one of the meanest mecha with their Mazinger Zero!

Producer: CCSTOYS

Price: Approx. $240 USD

Release Date: August 2021

Item Height: Approx. H25cm / When Including ZERO Scrander Approx. H31.6cm

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: 4x LR41 Cell Batteries

WHERE TO BUY: The Toy Source

CCSToys has released another licensed, diecast Super Robot product in the form of the ever-popular Mazinger Zero. While this one didn’t give me the thrill of their previously reviewed Gurren Lagann, it’s still a solid product in its own right albeit with some drawbacks. Let’s break it down below;

Presentation: Both the box and shipper on Mazinger Zero have a great styling to them and the line art on the shipper in particular is really, really cool. The box itself is a really nice and thick cardboard with incredibly cool artwork on the front. The item itself and its accessories are well packaged and protected in their plastic clamshells. Overall you get a very premium feel to it even before touching it.

Build: CCSToys Mazinger Zero consists of a diecast frame with a plastic outer “shell” making up the aesthetic. The materials look and feel quality, however I wish the joints had better friction/tolerance as they feel quite loose in comparison to CCSToys Gurren Lagann. Please don’t take that last sentence as Mazinger Zero being “poor” in that regard as it’s more comparing something that’s good to what was great in Gurren Lagann. One are that this really stands out in is the upper abdominal crunch which seems to give a bit when the large Scrander accessory is attached to the back.

One thing that Mazinger Zero includes that Gurren Lagann actually didn’t is an electronic gimmick. He has LEDs that light up his eyes, mouth, and chest which are activated through a touch sensor on its upper back and has multiple levels of controllable brightness. It’s a great gimmick however on seemingly everyone’s copy the batteries are drained even when the gimmick is not being used. This is a very unfortunate oversight and honestly really deters me from utilizing it because I don’t like having to insert and remove batteries every time I handle a figure. It’s especially damning when I have other high end figures that have had one set of batteries in them for years that work every time I use them. The only upside to this is that the eyes are actually painted so it doesn’t have that “dead” look to them when the LED gimmick isn’t being used.

Accessories: Here’s a list of the accessories taken from the product listing;

[Set Contents]
-Main figure
-ZERO Scrander
-Alternative hand armor x2
-Alternative forearm x2
-Iron cutter (normal) x2
-Iron cutter (open) x2
-Iron cutter flame effect x3 pairs
-Iron cutter display Base (small) x2
-Main figure display Base (large) x1
-Joint parts etc.

I love the accessories that come with CCSToys’ Mazinger Zero. It’s a very complete package in terms of the amount of stuff in the box on top of the accessories plain making sense. CCSToys in general seems to do a very good job of leaving you wondering what you’d even include IN an add-on set if there was one. The only, extremely minor nitpick that I have is that I wish the wires for the forearm stands were shorter. Even though they can bend and hold so that you can set the forearms lower during rocket punch displays, they’re still a literal good amount of wire that’s wound and bound visibly in view of the figure detracting from said display.

Articulation: The articulation on the CCSTOYs Massinger Zero is absolutely tops. There’s really not much in terms of posing that it can’t do minus the proportions of it plain getting in the way. Definitely check out the video review to see that portion in motion.

Overall Score: 7.0/10 – CCSToys continues to really nail it in terms of design but the quality on this one leaves a bit to be desired in my opinion. The upper abdominal tolerance, more loose joints in general, and battery drain really bring it a notch down for me and make the $400 MSRP a lot harder to recommend.