Bootleg Shinkenoh

Hello! Shinkenger might have ended in 2010, but Samurai only just ended. And to celebrate the end of this okay scene-by-scene adaptation I am going to end my year with my very own Shinkenoh! :D

First off, some sheer brilliance by the bootleggers here. This is not the Joint-Gattai Shinkenoh. Nope! As you can see from the size of the Ranger key down there. It is actually a HUGE copy of the box which they actually put effort in to to make it look different from the official Japanese packaging. And I love it! On the back you can see the Kabuto, Tora, Kajiki and Iga Origami's. They where available on Bhiner, and cheaply at 1.48pp. But sadly I couldn't add them to the collection. I might find them again, or just go for the DX ones because this is such a good knock-off it won't really matter.

The instructions is just a huge cardboard sheet you can find in the box. Its nice they put it in. and again its a 100% copy of the original. :D

Moving on the zords themselves and starting with the lion. Its an almost 100% match with the original DX version from Japan. The knobs on front and the middle of the fire kanji where unpainted, so I decided to do that myself. And it looks great. Also I had to fix some of the black paint next to the emblem and it looks for the better. The chrome is pretty good. at least when I first bought it. It kinda feels rough now. lol

The dragon had lots of problems. Straight out of the box I noticed they placed it on the wrong leg knob and it was stuck. So I had to take a screwdriver and take it apart before I could properly display him. When I did however it was just awesome. So glad I did not pay like €50 for the Samurai version lol. But that's just going to fast on my judgement. No, it had and still has paint problems. The water Kanji symbol has been tainted by some silver paint. and I have yet to find the correct paint to fix this problem. I did however by now fix the black parts up. Speaking of black I also had to paint all of the lower head black as they did not do so. And if I must say so myself I did a pretty decent job.

Now we're getting special in terms of comparison with the Japanese and Samurai versions! Because even though it does not look like it, this bear has diecast on each leg, not chrome but diecast! Non of the other five have that, Sure its missing the emblem on the front leg but its not that much of a problem IMO. And as you can see the legs on the right where unpainted. I had to do this myself. But sadly due to the type of paint and the plastic rubbing against each other its began to chip. I'll just leave it be. It doesn't need to be perfect. I should probably do something about that mouth though.

And then we get this...Chrome turtle! Silver Kami! This is so cool, I always found that the girls got the short end of the stick with the colors in both Shinkenger and PR: Samurai. So yeah improvement, If only they made the chrome a bit thicker. It could be just reflecting to much, but it seems that there's dark patches on some places. And that makes me doubt that its going to last long. But this is just nitpicking, I am still happy with this change :)

GOLD MONKEY!! Sure it got the boot with the Samurai release but apparently this bootleg company really liked the two female Shinkengers (like I still do) So I guess yellow was not good enough. Also its face is actually painted so it doesn't look dull! It still looks evil though lol!

And surprise surprise! They can all do the emblem mode. Which is only natural since they where bootlegged around 2010, and Samurai didn't exist by then. So these all work how they should. The plastic is sturdy enough so I won't be afraid of breakage any time soon. Though some do have problems. Dragon's helmet compartment is just a tad bit to small so Its really scary to storage the thing. I just don't want to scrape that chrome!. The monkey is a bit hard to transform back. Probably due to the chrome being to thick. Or me being incredibly careful not to scrape gold chrome lol. And lastly is that the head of the lion is a bit smaller but yet bigger. Smaller in the way that its a bitch to take it out and bigger as in its a bitch to pop back. The hole that it is placed in, is so annoying that I actually screw the toy open a bit to loosen up the head in order to get it in/out.

Combining it is just perfect! Provided one actually places the limbs in the correct places :P Its good as long as one actually knows the faults of the mech. Like the folding thing of the Dragon being a little bit annoying to work with, never press on the lion's head... Other then that I cannot fault this thing for much. Though I never really liked how it kinda slouched forward. But this is a fault of the original toy. It being a copy means it has to follow the same designs. At least for this toy.

It also comes its normal accessories. Well aside from the ranger key, but I did get it from the same haul lol. Its got the disk that acts as a shield, the katana and a fake Dice-oh card. Proving it was made in 2010. But its from very thick cardboard so keep it away from those morphers.The sword is just awesome. Unlike the original its chromed and much like that one they decided to keep them kanji on there. They could have cheapened out on it like they did with so many other KO Megazords I know. But no, we got this awesome thing. Thanks dudes!

The sword and shield slide comfortably in place like they should and it can wield them. so this is 100% awesome!

I like this thing. Its not as good as the original but better and cheaper then the Samurai version. I am glad that I found this middle ground. And I do hope to one day own a Samurai Ha-oh, So I might just get the rest of the Origami's be it bootlegs or Chinese versions or used ones from Mandarake. And to end the bootleg topic. this second time of buying from Bhiner was a financial disaster and everyone of them will be, All I can hope is that I plan the next ones good enough to get the stuff I really, really, really want with minimal damage to my years budget. One of these things is more of these KO robots. I saw a Gosei Great from the same company on there and I would like to give it a try. If only 2013 wasn't the tidal wave year of awesome shit! :D

Video by TheIchipai ©Toei LTD

Man lots of shit happened this year too, Both horrible and good. any way this is my last toy blog of the year. (and the world didn't end!) Now all I want to do is lay back and enjoy the HOLIDAY CLUSTERFUCK! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year folks!

End Of The World?

NOPE!, But remember how I always claim that I might as well consider my dreams as trips to alternate universes? Well I had another one today.

In this dream I had a cute girlfriend and even though she wasn't allowed to see me, she decided to hang out with me at my grandparents place because, screw all that noise. Any way the tv room was still in my Grandpa's room for some reason and we where watching tv. We watched CNN (why? I dunno maybe BBC ain't airing) And it showed that scientists where opening some tombs on the South-pole, The ones that opened the door apparently died of pressure that was released from the inside of the door. Then suddenly light came from inside the tomb and the stupid scientists entered. After an hour of which we mostly spend snuggling and wrestling on the bed we see that CNN got a report that they lost the scientists and how there are weird bird-like noises that are so loud that its almost deafening coming from the insides of the ruins. And surely enough there's weird mixes of Troodons/Raptors coming from the ruins. Attacking people.... Eating them.... Greaaaaat... I can't even get a break in alternate realities can I? Any way I woke up and I assume that the Dinosaurs who are so technologically advanced pretty much wiped us out and ate us all. Because of course. There's no Doctor to stop them, And they didn't seem Silurian enough to NOT see us as food. So yeah we're boned in that universe. Glad to be not there even though I am single...

Happy holidays to one and all!!

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Rebecca hailing from Álfheimr?                                                                            23-12-2012

Okay guess I wasn't quite done yet, But I refuse to make another blog so I'm just editing this one instead.

My dream starts with my walking in to a tower filled city, the towers where clear white and looked liked rectangle trees with dark brown rooftops, there was water coming out of the towers in forms of waterfalls. The streets where paved which to find the best earthly comparison huge 1000 year gold tiles like the ones they use in the forbidden city's throne room. And at each end of the street that doesn't lead to a tower it leaves to a lake formed from the waterfalls. Those lakes in turn slowly drain down below and you could clearly see that it was built on the side of a huge mountain. I dunno why I was there but I entered one of the towers.  The doors where strangely modern slide doors, The floors where covered with dull grey confetti covered rugs. And right next to the door there was this blond elf lady with glasses sitting behind rack of brochures. And I still don't know why but I started to complain to her. She took it as bored as possible and sighed it away. Then I told her about a young red-headed elf I met before calling her Rebecca an daughter of a hunter and how she never seemed to have an childhood like Rebecca had. She became angry at me and pointed me out of the door. Then I woke up and the first thing I though was that Rebecca wasn't her name. Her name was Laylya. Dunno why I said the wrong thing in my dream but I guess that's her real name. Wish I could go through the tree of life and travel every where except maybe that city I just dreamed of xD

I might update again when I had another dream worth writing down. :)

Ultrabeast Qinlin Warrior & Dragon Force Red

So instead of buying S.H.Figuarts of Akiba Yellow & Blue, I decided to get something from Bhiner instead. I got 7 figures out of this, so I decided to do 2 at a time for 4 of them. Lets get started!

Ultrabeast Force                                

At first I thought it was a sequel to the abysmal GodBeast Megazord. But its luckily not, It actually gives me more Voltron flashbacks then anything else. And I don't mean the awesome original one. I mean the 3d crapfest that aired when I was young. But this is one of those rare Chinese shows where I can see clips off and see that's its not a complete shit pile. I could enjoy this show if subs where provided. The designs are decent, Maybe that's because they stole a few hints from the Gransazer's designs for the suits and henshin devices. But I can forgive that. The villain looks good. Then again he's just there to die. So I can't really say much about him. But the heroes aren't that horrible. My favourite so far is the FenYin Warrior. She's so feisty xD But sadly they did not make figures of all the heroes. Just the main 3 and the Rio knock-off of the show. And the Yellow one got a vehicle release. So no Yin Warrior for me.... Any way instead I went for the Red theme. So here's the red warrior:

Or rather the box which is the 2nd best surviving one in the haul. Its also the one which gives me the feeling that it at least has some quality to it.

The figure itself looks awesome. As I mentioned before it borrows allot from Gransazer. Especially the weird helmet with all the spikes and stuff lol. Sadly one thing it has in common with all the the figures from China. It missing ALLOT of paint. I seriously want to get started with Gundam markers so this can look like it should.

It doesn't come with weapons sadly. As they apparently stick to martial-arts in the show. It does look like and okay selection.... Then again they all boil down to about 8 to 9 martial-arts poses that can be mirrored as you have 2 of each.

Articulation-wise its so damn awesome. Because its from Auldey it follows the same articulation designs as the fake Jochaku henshin figure I just posted. Only its head isn't stuck due to the armor. so that's a +.

Its also because the diecast armor-piece isn't in the way, the chest piece can be turned better, to a point of it being bit to loose. It not a bad thing but it does get annoying when wanting to let him stand straight. Going down he has another way of turning by having a swivel that connects his stomach to its thighs. Sadly for some reasons its some kind of ratchet allow only like 5 positions one 2 of which make it look natural...

Going down even more, I just noticed it got those cool S.H.Figuarts hips that can be used to broaden the leg poses. If only the feet where more articulate. They are on ball joints but the sideways movements are almost non-existent. Though it can do a high kick and keep its balance so its not that bad

Overall a decent figure and better then most non-Japanese figures that can be found here. Its articulations is close to that of S.H.Figuarts and improves on the Diecast Armor Hero Figure. If only it had some weapons. then it would have been a 10/10. And again I cannot stress this enough. I want a figure of her!

Dragon Force                                       

Dragon Force looks good too. But this is one of those trailers where you don't know ANYTHING about what the hell they are supposed to be fighting. As far as the extended trailer could tell is that they are more spies then anything else. I think this show has to much going for it. So they are not only skilled spies. But also a Hikonin Sentai, who can summon vehicles at will, and do a ''Man and Machine, 'Power Extreme'' Routine which those vehicles. And worse yet. They can use those core-thingies they use to transform with to Transform in to full-on Cybertonians who can combine in to an even bigger bot. And I wasn't kidding about the Cybertronians part. The Red bot you can see here doesn't look familiar at first. But with the toy you can turn the antennas up and its Optimus Prime. I am dead serious, They ripped off Optimus lol. Going with the theme of Red's I decided to get the Red leader of this team too:

This box got the blunt of all the damage. I had to fix it with allot of tape. And even then I cannot fix that dent lol

If you look at the box art you can see WHY this need paint. All the impact of this figure is dimmed down by having to much red. And it would look so damn awesome with that little bit of silver its missing

This thing got screwed in the articulation part. He has no should joints, at least his only go up and down. Neither does it have a stomach joint. So from the top he's pretty much as stiff as a twig. But his legs though look to be on par as the last figure. He has outward going leg joints which are a a bit stiff if you want him to kick or sit. His knee joints though. Man they are awesome and annoying as the same time. They are on ball joints on both sides. So you can do some awesome poses but sometimes you can displace its knee when one doesn't notice it. Like I did in the first photo lol. His feet are just brilliant. Unpainted and brilliant.

 He comes with a gun and a weapon that looks nothing like it does on the box and that he cannot hold for some reason. The red thing can go. Worthless.

The gun is just as worthless as some smart ass-hole forgot to make a trigger finger on the hand. So he cannot hold it like he should. Making it you guessed it: pointless to add...

Last I want to note is that he is the smallest Red I got to date! He's even smaller then Sazer Tarious! xD

Man she can kick ass!

 And that's about it. I think I'll do a Rider next :)

The Depressing Dream

 Hello and happy Sinterklaas to you all! The Saint has left Holland to go to spain. His replacement is that nice chubby guy the Americans replaced him with. And what did Nicolas leave me as a gift? diabetes? No he's not that of an ass. But I did receive and horrid dream or rather a nightmare that I had for several time when I was young. I blocked it out, and my o my is it DEPRESSING!! let me count the ways before we move on to a gift less depressing lol

The Dream:
First off all as in some dreams I have, I get an info dump kinda like Neo had in the Matrix. So suddenly it feels like that is the life I lived and that this is how I feel about it. This can happen at any time in my dream, almost always when I actually need to remember something. Any way my dream starts with a kid who's in an apartment. The few memories I still got of it is that he's in America and that the flat is akin in its state of decay as my old house was. Only we don't get sick of killer mold. The kid had some problems I would later have at school. Everybody is picking on him. Except for one girl, of course it being my dream the girl is japanese and her dad barely speaks English. The boy is there because he was invited, to this stay-over of like 7 teen girls who do nothing but blablablabla. But the party is going well, and the girls seem to accept the boy. After they leave he decides to help with dinner and after the dad notices that there's not much good to eat in the fridge and tries to explain it, He leaves for take-out I guess. The girl and boy are alone and decide to watch some telly on a brick of a tv, then someone knocks on the door and the girl says her dad has a key so they should not open the door. As she says that the door gets kicked in, and there's these 2 gang members who are so 80's they make Bebop and Rocksteady look dignified. And the only reason they bust in is... To shoot the girl. Nothing else, they leave the building with these douchebag smiles and let the kid watch her dying on the couch with her blood covering half the floor quickly. Suddenly we pass a few months and it turns out she had indeed died, and the crooks though familiar got away scott-free to party and slaughter, that's where my dream ends.

Emotions: 
The feeling I got from this where so clear with every passing second, of this dream that you might as well call it a dream on itself. First the sadness of being picked on again, Then the mixed feelings of being with a friend but also with people I don't particularly trust. Hunger when wanting to make dinner. Impatience when the dad leaves. Joy and calmness when watching the tv. angst when when there's some one at the door in a shady neighbourhood. Shock when the door gets knocked down and the shots are fired. Sadness and helplessness as the girl slips away and blood covers the floor. And anger and loss when the ones who did it got away.


My Say:
This is my dream and I had it like 3 times now, Ever since I was 6. I always get depressed when I have it. But it doesn't feel like my story, But it the feels are there. And even though this time it was a lucid dream and I got the gun before it fired, I still feel unsatisfied when I woke up. Its just a depressing dream that is the total opposite of the one where I actually meet a cute girl at a congress building. That dream felt good, And I am using the memories of that dream to block out the suck of the dream I just had, With little result really. The loss is the worse, I really can't deal with it at any time of the day, I hope not to have this dream again. Either way the real gift is actually not blocking it out right away but to write about it and get it of my chest. Best Sinterklaas gift ever.

KyoRyuger                         

Yay! They are here!! This cheers me up a little! They look AWESOME!! And no yellow this time. Its been a while... Kaku if I am correct. But even better no White or Orange either. The team looks good, I hope to buy the Figuarts and mini-pla next year. :)

(Not)Shochaku Fire Dragon Hero Figure.

Back to Armor Hero! It took a while for this to get here But it was worth the trouble for sure!! This time is its an actual figure. I took to long ordering one of these. Mainly because the older ones where unpainted pieces of crap.

The box is... alright... It survived the trip but on the way to Delft it got a bit bended. Nothing to worry about. Also nothing to say about it either. Its pretty much the same as all those other boxes from this series.

The First thing you notice is the bare naked Hero. Yep its one of those sets. Much like the Shochaku Henshin and the short lived Ryukendo lines this hero is all armor! Just happy he doesn't have one of those creepy tiny heads like the Shochaku ones had lol

 And boy how much parts he got. Pretty much everything can be taken off. Even the knee pads and the knobs on the side of his belt (which are back in the box. I am not losing them.) Lots of metal parts here. Just to bad the ridges down on the sides of the legs there aren't metal. It distracts from the colour scheme on the arms and feet. The knees should have been metal too IMO.

With the armor on he look great! and his articulation is ALMOST unhindered. His head is stiff and if you move it to the side to much it looks like he's a hunchback. I tried to fix this but the head just keeps falling back in place. He has an extra neck joint but its hard to get to with that dumb collar.

He also slouches a bit forward due to the diecast chest plate and his slender build compared to the Shochaku line. He also has a decent midriff joint, But this is again hindered by the armor. Honestly when I try to pose him I keep thinking he's got some well hidden rubber bands somewhere.

Moving down those we see those awesome diecast feet which even though they got pretty good ankle articulation, I keep getting worried that he's just going to fall over. Not that this matters because for some reason he keeps falling backwards. lol His legs are decent compared to the typical Chinese figures I have come across. I wish he had that SHF hips that freak everyone out. It would have worked fine on this one. Since compared to other toku heroes these guys hunch down more then Kiva. The ball joints work fine though.

Fire Dragon's main weapon out of the 3 he got. Its a bitch for him to hold in the way he uses it in the show. This is due to those damn hands! Instead of a package of multiple hands he got these articulated ones, but they aren't tight at all and it usually takes me 10 minutes to make him hold it like he should.

This feature is directly stolen from... Guess who? :P So yeah its nice to have this. But its SO DAMN easy to lose these parts. I'd rather keep them in the box. Speaking of losing stuff... I kinda find it weird how they didn't include that weird bow weapon thing he uses to shoot fire with. But then again with those hands he'll keep dropping them any way.

With his main weapon out of the way here's his boomerang. Which kinda saddens me because I keep noticing how the chest plate doesn't have those awesome horns near the eyes. Those would be spiky, But could have easily been made of the softer rubber used for the spikes on his shoulder and back. Like his main weapon he does hold on decently but it takes me more then 6 minutes to hold them in place lol

He is a little bit bigger then an S.H.Figuarts, But I find that he looks extremely awesome next to one.

Overall its a decent figure with good articulation which is almost on par with S.H.Figuarts. And even though it does hinder it so much, the Diecast just makes it look SO DAMN GOOD!! And with that I am so getting the other two figures! Soon or later...

So I am getting back on track. I am just behind on photo shoots right now. Hopefully It will be better picking stuff out to blog about when I am actually done doing that. Bye :)

KO Magiking

O goody I get to this on now! This has been a long time coming. And its been a while since my last bootleg Megazord :D

First of all the box was HUGE!! The bootleggers got the bright idea to pack Magi dragon and Magi Phoenix separately instead of forming Magiking.... Fail! Also despite the horrible waste of cardboard this box is still a blisters... So as soon as I opened it I could throw it away. It did protect my keys from disappearing though. So that was a +.

First off Magi Phoenix. Its does look allot like the DX version. Though it has its faults. The plastic is cheaper and the paint is on the verge of flaking off on some parts. Also there's allot of untrimmed edges so when transforming I have to check that I don't get caught on these edges because using to much force with that might easily break it. Also this thing keeps falling down due to the tabs used on in his legs.

 Magidragon is great and so huge. Though it initially fell apart when I took it out of the box, I did piece it together again. Again the plastic is cheap. the grey parts almost have this green glow to them in the right lighting. I just how the thing doesn't literally rot away on it shelf xD. The mouth kept falling open and the tail kept failing off. This is due to the black plastic being allot heavier then the green stuff. Though still as fragile.

It took me allot of tries but I finally got the phoenix to stick to the dragon. But it took so much space I didn't bother with it for longer then 5 minutes. This was an annoyance.

Magi Garuda is my favourite of the 5. It is the most balanced. Well painted and it actually looks cool!

Especially when you stretch out his wings. Man these are so epic. They also look sharp too. And even with these this thing is keeping itself up pretty neatly. 10+

What would seem like the best zord to many is actually quite a disappointment. It can pose sure but the joints are shit. And the parts on the back keep coming loose as they are only held in place with friction. I consider this the brick for now... It is painted well though.

Magi Fairy, Not to much to say about her. She has decent paint that doesn't chip off. But I do want to say that the wings are annoying. they where bend when I took them out and it only got worse with time. I wonder if the actual DX version has better ones?

Magi Mermaid is a bitch to make her keep standing and the fin gimmick doesn't work. Like at all. And it got this ugly split in the middle I tried to fix it but nothing works.

Moving on to the combined mecha... Man this thing is fat! is the DX version also this fat? Its like two Megazords back to back! And the wings aren't helping either! I know I positioned the legs wrong but this is to save space on my shelves.... Its still fat.

In from its decent though. The paint is 90% accurate to the already badly painted DX version. Sure you have the red part breaking up the ''M'' emblem but that will be fixed in due time. The hat is annoying. It just keeps wanting to split apart. Speaking of splitting apart the sword is just as annoying. The parts have nothing to keep them in place. I constantly try to fix this to no avail.

  MV made by TheIchipai  ©Toei LTD

All and all this is a good bootleg. But one I should have know the faults off. It was cheap but it does take allot of space on my shelf. I hope the next DX mecha I buy will be either DaiKaiOh or GorZyuJin. Or an Super Robot Chogokin maybe :)