Continuing with the Dragonar love, we take a look at Max Factory’s homage to Dragonar 1 under heir “Max Gokin” line! In contrast to the Bandai Tamashii SPEC version, it was interesting to see the differences in a more “High end” take on the character.
Video Segments:
The Box: Beginning
Overview: 3:14
Dragonar 1: 8:15
Accessories: 16:22
Final Thoughts: 27:44
So the video shows the aesthetic of the figure, but I have to say that there’s no way I could have SHOWN just how awesome this thing feels on hand on there. The sleek design, tremendous paint job, smooth plastic, and that “perfect” amount of “Gokin” (diecast) give this item an extremely high-end “feel” to accompany it’s look. I appreciate the more anime-accurate “slender” limbs on this rendition of the character
Now the diecast does need a bit of mentioning on here. Although I personally love the amount, I do have to admit that I was put off by the amount of it diecast in it, in the fact that it’s not nearly as much as I was used to in other Gokin/Chogokin figures, but after having the chance to play with it, it grew on me very fast in that the internal diecast makes for very strong joints and the like, but the outer plastic gives it a more “playable” lightness.
The poseability on this thing is tops. I especially love the ratcheting ab joint. Normally, this would come off as “a bit much” in terms of engineering, but the fact that he has the big wing pack option makes it great in that he can use the ab crunch while having the wing pack on and not worry about any wear in the joints.
The thing that I dislike about this figure’s engineering is the fact that his hip armor does not interact well with his hop skirts, which limits the amount of forward swing in his legs quite a bit.
The accessories are almost identical to the SPEC rendition of this character: Variety of hands, sword handles that holster, beams for the swords, a combined “staff” version of the swords, a shield that holsters his two knives, and his blaster rifle which does have the swinging arm to be held with his left hand as well.
He comes with a variety of hands, but the most impressive is the one meeant for holding the blaster. Instead of fitting the handle through the fingers, the thumb actually comes off in order for you to set the gun in the palm, and then the thumb pegs right back in to secure it in place. The fist made for holding the rist of the weapons simply have the peg holes drilled through for a solid, tight fight. One of the ends of the staff comes off to slide the pole through. It’s impressive to have all of the weapons and hands be engineered to avoid any sort of warping and also maintain the tightest hold on weapons as possible.
I really do enjoy that his flight stand has a spot for pretty much all of his accessories besides the wing pack. And, the indentation for the pieces are done well enough to where I felt comfortable even carrying that stand around loaded up, and nothing would fall off. The attention to detail there is astounding. And, with the stand itself, I like that you have a connector piece that is static, rather than ratcheting. Don’t get me wrong, you can still take the head of it apart, and put it back together at whatever angle you want, but the non-ratcheting gives an extra sense of security when the figure’s attached, because you know it’s never going to strip and become floppy due to the weight of the toy.
The wing pack on this one is just gorgeous looking and has engineering that’s equally as pretty in terms of it’s engineering. It clips into the shoulders and back, and even has spring-loaded tension between the upper and lower half of the backpack so that you can push the lower-half of the back pack towards you while fitting the upper half over his shoulders.
This toy, from top-to-bottom represents “high-end” mecha collectables in both aesthetic and engineering. It’s one that I’d highly recommend to both fans of the series and fans of great toys.
I do have to touch on it’s price, though. I got this just this past week, so years after production. I did, however buy this at secondary market pricing and got it for $150 shipped. When this retailed, it actually sold for double that, and that’s not a price that I can suggest purchasing it at, due to the sincere LACK of diecast throughout the toy.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Enjoy a few more pictures of this figure below! Remember to click the pictures to view larger resolutions:
