Friday 7 December 2012

Toybox REVIEW: Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters Minipla LT-06 Tategami LiOh (Part 2)

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This second part of the minipla Tategami LiOh review looks at his various combinations with the other Buster machines.

Go-Buster LiOh
This is LiOh's combination with GT-02 Gorilla and RH-03 Rabbit, so its essentially a version of Go-BusterOh that uses LiOh rather than Ace as the core component. While the transformation is quite similar to that of Go-BusterOh (Gorilla becomes the feet, the Rabbit the arms etc.), there are a few minor differences. The rabbit and gorilla headpieces attach to the back of LiOh, whose arms need to be rotated up for the new arms to fit into place. The lion head attaches to the centre of the robot, and the front of the heads need to be switched (with the basic LiOh head being housed in one of the legs). Despite Ace not actually being part of this combination, his sword is Go-Buster LiOh's primary weapon.

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Truth be told, the Go-BusterOh minipla combination was an unstable mess and (for me personally) the weakest part of this year's line. However thankfully Go-Buster LiOh fixes all the problems I had with that and proves to be a very stable combination with tons of play value. The added gorilla feet give LiOh much needed proper feet articulation and its sleek build is much more imposing than the short bulky mess of Go-BusterOh. Colourscheme wise it even blends much better. The only real flaws are the fact you need Ace's sword when it could have easily been included in the LiOh kit (see Kanzen GokaiOh's Gojyujin arms) and  how far the chest sticks out in comparison to where the shoulders are, but that's more a by-product of the design itself rather than the toy.

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As far as the big Go-Busters combinations go (so Buster Hercules doesn't really count), Go-Buster LiOh is definitely the stand out one. Its a bit of a bummer that you need Ace's sword for the weapon, but Ace comes so highly recommended anyway that you should already own him if you're considering LiOh. Finally a combination worth raving about.


Go-Buster King
Moving up into the 5-piece formations, Go-Buster King is the combination of LiOh, GT-02, RH-03, BC-04 and SJ-05 - making it the equivalent of Great Go-Buster. While Great Go-Buster was fairly underwhelming on the show, the minipla turned out to be a surprise hit with me. Can Go-Buster King repeat it success? The answer is sadly....no.

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Once again many of the transformation components are similar to Great Go-Buster, with the lower half of BC-04 once again forming feet and SJ-05 becoming the arms. Its when you get the the backside of the King that the problems really start to become obvious. Everything that hasn't been used in the combination so far just sort of hangs there, with parts joining together with no real rhyme or reason. If the giant helicopter blades strapped to the back weren't bad enough, a complicated backpack of BC-04, GT-02 and RH-03 parts stuck near the top of the robot makes things even worse. Not only does it look ridiculous, but it has some real trouble pegging in securely properly so if you as little as breathe on the thing it completely falls apart. Not great when one of the selling points of this line is that they have articulation.

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On a personal standpoint, the SJ-05 just don't have the same bulk that the RH-03 ones do on Go-Buster LiOh. Its undeniable that King is an absolute beast of a combination in terms of mass, but the weedy little arms look stupid no matter how much huge weaponry its carrying.

After Go-Buster LiOh turned out to be such a roaring success I was excited for the Go-Buster King combo, especially since Great Go-Buster had turned out so well. But in reality this formation is just as underwhelming as Go-BusterOh was. Its a complete mess of parts, much of which many feel like an afterthought, and often struggles to stay together unless you leave it completely static. If you want a hulking brute of a robot, stick with Great Go-Buster.

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