SH Figuarts GokaiRed

Height: 14cm

Articulation: 37 total points - Triple-jointed neck, mid torso joint, waist joint; 9 points each arm: Universal joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, double hinge elbow, universal wrist joint plus wrist ball joint; 7 points each leg: Double jointed hip, thigh swivel, double hinge knee, ball joint ankle, toe hinge.

Colors: Molded black, red, white; Painted red, gold, silver, black, metallic blue (accessories only), green (accessories only).

Accessories: Gokai Gun, Gokai Saber, Mobirates, Ranger Keys (1 each normal and key modes), "Final Wave" Gokai Cylinder x2, Extra Hands x9 + crossed arms, Gokai Darin (first release only)

Release Data: Released late September 2011 in Japan at a retail price of ¥3500.

Author: ExVee

(more...)



I don't think there's anything I don't love about Gokaiger. The writing, the choreography, production design, the actors, even the costuming. The Ranger suits are brilliantly designed around the pirate theme as much as or even more so than the props. It's everything you could ever want from a super sentai. And it's not just me, Gokaiger has probably been if not the, then certainly high among the most universally well-received super sentai series within and even outside the sentai fandom. Though Shinkenger was the first line of sentai Figuarts, Gokaiger is similar to Kamen Rider Decade in representing the first sentai Figuarts to be released while their series is currently airing. Although, I don't think the entire team will be released before the series ends. Clearly in any case there was motivation for me in getting at least one Gokaiger in Figuarts. Not the least of which included seeing whether the minor issues I had with ShinkenGold may have been addressed with subsequent revision to the body type.


The Gokaiger suit design has what I think are two really important elements in making the appearance. First is the jacket-style. Even the stock transformation sequence follows that, showing the Ranger suits as being layered with a black bodysuit as the base and a colored jacket added over top. That in itself is a departure from most sentai suit designs that are just one piece for the main body. The other is the helmet shaped to look like a pirate hat, which is only really remarkable for looking like a pirate hat. But the figure does a good job at reproducing both. Naturally the torso is only sculpted to look like suit + jacket instead of having distinct layers, but it's also not entirely that simple. The torso is built of multiple pieces even aside from the individual body sections the articulation calls for. The strip of black bodysuit left visible is a separate piece of plastic set in the upper section of the torso. It combines the black suit element with the jacket's high collar, and are altogether a separate part from everything else. To help accommodate range of motion in the shoulders while still disguising as much of the joint as possible, the upper third of the jacket is a soft plastic so it can bend a little bit and give the arms that little extra bit of clearance. At the same time it gives a little authenticity to the appearance by being able to bend like fabric would around the arm movements. The mid-torso is a lot less remarkable in construction, being a standard single piece. The jacket finishes around the waist and pelvis. The belt is used to hide the edges between the mid-torso section and the coat-tails attached around the top of the pelvis. These are made of a soft plastic like the upper panel around the collar, but this is a very thin plastic. The side panels flex and bend easily to make clearance for the legs to pose, but I can't help but see warped tails if extreme poses are left for some length of time. In visual terms though it works excellently to complete the jacket, but I have too much history with soft plastic elements to be entirely comfortable with it.

I'm still very impressed with the sculpt work that goes in to give a sense of fabric. There's wrinkling and bunching around the shoulders and a few places around the waist to account for where the belt is cinching the little bit loose jacket close around the body. The level of detail I was really impressed with was where this occurs at the silver cuffs, which really helps sell the idea that the jacket is attached into or tightly secured by the heavier metal parts and it's twisting around the arm a little bit with movement. Similar molding occurs between the legs and boot cuffs. The boots themselves have even more sculpt work than ShinkenGold's, giving them appearance of being more heavily worn and maybe a little looser fit overall. Sadly the same ankle joint separation happens and with the heavier folds and wrinkles these maybe look even more like legwarmers in practice. Besides all that, there's the same kind of structural details like ShinkenGold, with zippers and seams in appropriate places. And it's even a little better since GokaiRed's hands aren't painted and you get to see all of the glove details very distinctly. One other amazingly tiny and obscure detail represented here is a little Gokaiger crest sculpted under the folded-over corners of the collar. It's in such a place that you can barely see it unless you happen to be looking from a little below and to the side, and I can't believe anyone would even notice if it hadn't been there at all. They even seem to have been painted silver, though it's hard to tell against the gold all around them.

What I was most interested to find out with GokaiRed was if the second try at a sentai body had learned anything from the Shinkenger body type. I knew based on certain extra parts that the bicep swivel had been changed to a state more normal to action figures. Though my speculation from with ShinkenGold was proven wrong, as even with a typical bicep swivel the figure still can't cross its arms. It's close, though! As well, the interesting shoulder covers the Shinkenger body used are left out, since the wide shoulders of the jacket can pretty much do the same job of hiding the joints in what's probably a much simpler construction. Regardless, it makes the shoulders feel a good bit more free to move overall. GokaiRed also sees the mid-torso joint being more functional, which is a solid boost to the poseability. The waist joint might also be a little more easy to move around, but if so it's a pretty close run between ShinkenGold and GokaiRed. Beyond that, it's really just the standard articulation model, and it all works in the same way as on ShinkenGold. GokaiRed can do at least as well to assume a wide range of usually natural looking poses, and aside from crossing arms is mostly restricted only to what you can think up to do with the figure. For instance I have GokaiRed adjusting his collar right now.

Painting is a mixed result here. Let's start with the positive. Once again, everything that should be painted, is; from the gold trim on the helmet, to the previously mentioned tiny silver Gokaiger emblems on the collar. The large Gokaiger insignia on the chest is applied very clean and very sharply. Though from what I've heard of some previous figures with tampographed details like that, you may want to take care not to rub or scratch across there for risk of the paint wearing away. But the deco is really all you could ever hope for in terms of color layout. Even the helmet is painted over in gloss red to get the same kind of finish the costume helmets have. Though the downside to that is the helmet is molded in the same black plastic as used for the legs, leaving the then unpainted visor to be more matte than the rest of the helmet which just looks weird. But no, what strike I have against the paint and deco is the red. As I described the torso build before, there's a lot of separate parts coming together in one area, and these necessarily are not all from the same parts tree or even the same kind of material. And red is one of those colors that's so hard to match across base plastic and paint. If you count the structural red plastic within the shoulder joint, there's at least four distinct shades of red visible within a very small area of the figure. It's not just a problem of plastic-versus-paint. The red on the boots is all paint, and between the leg and foot is two noticeably different colors. I also feel like that some of the red paint is a few steps too bright compared to what I expect for Gokaired, but I've also kind of gotten used to it since getting the figure and don't see that part as much anymore. Mind you, this is the only thing I can raise complaint with here, and how this affects you will depend entirely how sensitive you are to varying shades within red. Most of these manage to be fairly close to each other, so it's possible you may not notice to start with. But you do need to be aware of the possibility in case this is something that will be a problem. Be aware, these distinctions so far don't seem to appear under my photography conditions, so I'm afraid the gallery may not be a good indicator for that particular aspect.



Accessories


-Mobirates

Pretty basic, being a single piece fixed in the fully open position. Far from basic is the quality of sculpt and paint detailing involved, handily bringing shame to Power Rangers Samurai's morpher accessories. The appearance is really perfect for the physical details to begin with, but the paint job completely seals the deal, even catching details like having the Call and End buttons correctly colored in green and red. To casual inspection, the quality of the paint work is also just fantastic, right down to the absolutely tiny keypad being colored accurately with no evident missed edges or color bleed. There's also an opening where the Ranger Key slot should be, the reason for which is about to be explained...

-Ranger Keys

I am seriously scared to death of these things. Not on the usual way of fearing of impalement on a sharp point or breaking. No, I'm afraid I might inhale these. They're among the tiniest accessories I have EVER seen on an action figure. The larger of the two is roughly the size of a single grain of long-grain rice. That's the BIGGER ONE. You get a normal and folded Ranger Key, the latter of which can actually be inserted in to the Mobirates accessory. The unfolded Ranger Key even has some complex paint applications to emulate the deco of the DX Ranger Keys, including a tiny speck of paint to represent the visor on the helmet. The folded key is less well off in that respect, but to be fair there's not a lot prominent besides the primary color when a Ranger Key is in key mode. It's an amazingly detailed reproduction of an already small prop at a minuscule fraction of the original size.

And I want to seal them away forever so I can't sigh even a little heavily and send them sailing off never to be seen again.


-Gokai Saber and Gokai Gun

Both of these are solid plastic pieces and most of the same comments will apply between them, so I'll just get it all in one pass. Much like the Mobirates, the sculpting and paint work for all the various details is just amazing. The GokaiGun has the tiniest molded AND painted Gokaiger emblem anywhere on the toy that I've been able to find. The matching insignia on the Saber is about twice the size, but still very very small to have such a level of accuracy with the paint work. In overall terms, both are molded and colored so accurately it's easy to believe you're looking at miniaturized show props rather than typical grade action figure accessories. Clearly this is the power of Figuarts.

The Gokai Saber's blade has just a bit of flexibility to it over its length, which makes me less worried about breaking. But the tip of the blade comes to a very sharp point just the same. The Gokai Gun fits either trigger finger hand perfectly, and thanks to the wrist construction can easily be pointed just right to have the arm at full straight extension and the barrel of the gun pointing directly forward. The Gokai Saber is a little tougher fit in the gripping hand, requiring the fingers to be pushed apart more than a little bit. The hold once it's in is secure though, and the plastic seems pliable enough to be able to take the strain.

Both pieces have a moving part, as well. The Gokai Cylinder is a separate, hinged piece for both accessories. As packaged they have the Cylinders with no Ranger Key. But you are provided with replacement Cylinders for each weapon that have a tiny Ranger Key molded in for a Final Wave. This is the only place that there's a really notable miscoloring in the entire set, since the Keys are painted silver with the rest of the Cylinder. Don't misunderstand, I don't at all expect to have THAT degree of detailed painting even on this level of toy, so this is more of a compliment to everything else that is accomplished with paint applications rather than nitpicking this one thing left undone. I have to say it's almost sad though that the Ranger Key detailing on the substitution Gokai Cylinders looks a little bit nicer than the standalone folded Ranger Key accessory.

The hinge for the Cylinder is a reasonably snug fit, which is good for not having to worry about the part falling out of its weapon and being easily lost. Switching the Cylinders is a little trickier for it, but when you find the lead-in notch on the Cylinder it'll go a little more smoothly. The Final Wave mode Gokai Cylinders can be folded down flat against their weapons just like the empty Cylinders, and basically have the same degree of movement leaving the accessories fully functional regardless of configuration. ...in theory, at least. While I can swap Gokai Gun's Gokai Cylinder easily enough whenever I want to, through no amount of force I am comfortable applying can I remove the Gokai Saber's regular Gokai Cylinder. One way or another that is just so tight in there I fear breaking before separating, and 100% accurate Final Wave display is not important enough to me to risk it.




-Extra Hands (and arms)

First up, GokaiRed takes after Piccolo and includes a special replacement arms piece to allow the figure to be posed with crossed arms, such as seen in the roll call, among other instances. Taking advantage of the newly added proper bicep swivel, it pops in to place on the arm pegs with a little pushing. The first side always goes on a little easier since you can slowly twist it in place, while the other side has to be a straight up push. This is molded in white plastic, indicating it's from a shared sprue with the other hands. Consequently it has to be painted for a majority of its surface area and finds the same color match issue the figure does between red plastic and red paint. But of course a little more easily noticed since they back right up to each other now and the arms cross several color zones.

GokaiRed comes with quite an array of other hands in a more typical fashion, as well. There's the ordinary sets of grasping hands, trigger finger hands, and relaxed open hands, plus the fists he rode in with. Then you get one hand opened to hold the Mobirates specifically, and a matched hand for the other side to hold the frighteningly tiny Ranger Key of your choice. Thankfully that hold is adequately snug, and you probably won't find it to dislodge under the shock of, like, blinking at it or something. Finally, there's a single pointing right hand, so the figure can point at things. Ah, purpose driven specialty hands, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have to deal with you...


-Gokai Darin

...which is how it's presented on the box in both English and katakana. What is a "darin," then? Well, a Japanese word for steering wheel is "soudarin", and part of the Kanji in that word means "helm" or "rudder" and "wheel", and that's the part read as "darin" in "soudarin". So while "darin" by itself is not a Japanese word that I can find - explaining why it's written in katakana - they probably intend it as a special way to say "ship's wheel".

The Gokai Darin is the bonus item for preordering a GokaiRed from the first run, just like the Kurokos with the Shinkengers. Later editions of the figure and any possible Bluefin Tamashii distribution of it in the US will not include it.

This is a good bit more engaging than the Shinkenger Kuroko figurine. It's packaged in three parts - base, wheel, and stand. The base and wheel clip together very easily. Though once the wheel is on I would suggest not taking it apart again. The clip is squeezed through the peg hole in the wheel and taking it on and off will stress the plastic. Once together, the wheel spins fantastically. The movement is very smooth and it will keep on spinning for quite a while with just a little push. Give it a really good twist and it'll easily keep spinning for ten to twelve seconds.

As you might expect, the Darin is very accurate to the appearance of the set piece from the show, even in terms of how individual elements are proportioned compared to each other. The wheel itself is similarly accurate, even having the Ranger Key slot, in to which the tiny accessory Ranger Key can be plugged. Impressive to me is that the wheel doesn't have a visible hollow side, making sure it looks just as good no matter what angle you're looking at it from.

The Darin comes with a small black stand - really just a short black cylinder with a cut out on one side to be able to back up to the base of the Darin. This is apparently to let GokaiRed stand a little bit higher behind the wheel, but when I use it, the figure looks to be too high up. Comparing against screenshots, the height of the wheel seems to be the most correct when it and the figure are standing on the same level. For further indication of this, until I got GokaiRed myself, I assumed that piece was to fit under the Darin and make it taller.


Closing Remarks FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINAL WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!

I'm happy to see the major gripe I had with ShinkenGold's design has been corrected for the Gokaigers, and GokaiRed feels like a significantly better figure as a result. In terms of build quality, this is probably the most I could ask or hope for from a figure meant to represent a human, a qualifier I add since on occasion Gundams took us beyond the limits of human movement. What I'm left with is issues with color matching, which arose out of necessary construction considerations. Plus red is one of the worst colors to try to match precisely, which makes me hopeful the rest of the team will turn out better. But to the limited degree that this happens here (to the point that I can't even accurately photograph it) this is an exceedingly minor complaint that shouldn't turn you against the figure overall.

Perfecting the articulation model and still putting forth all effort in the deco, plus coming with a great - if sometimes frightening - accessory loadout, GokaiRed is truly an Excellent package. Granted, this isn't being sold in Toys R Us and probably won't be available through Bluefin Tamashii distribution, so it's going to set you back a bit. But be assured that if you do choose to put out that kind of money, you'll be getting a figure that does its best to live up to its price tag. Just be careful that you don't get hooked in and start wanting to collect the whole team...

-ExVee