DX Engine Gattai Gunbir-Oh
Review by EVA_Unit_4A
Sets required for this combination:
Engine Gattai Series #1- Engine Birca
Engine Gattai Series #2- Engine Gunpherd
Engine Gattai Series #3- Engine Carrigator
In Grand Prix 07- “Partner Amigo”, Bombe Banki has grown to giant size, and just shot Engine-Oh with a powerful beam which is rapidly rusting the Engines! As he closes on the three helpless Go-Onger and their decaying Engine Casts, the newly-arrived Gian race Engine Carrigator arrives after making friends with Go-On Green and Black, with their own Engines Birca and Gunpherd riding atop his back. The three split up and engage a swarm of Bandou Moth fighters. Quickly defeating the massed grasshopper-like mecha, Go-On Black is impressed at what a powerful ally Carrigator is turning out to be. [Carrigator]- “It is time to become one!” [Birca]- “It can’t be… we can be like Speedor-tachi?” [Gunpherd]- “Can we combine?” [Carrigator]- “We can!” [Birca]- “Speaking of which, I learned this in school, al dente... Long ago, it was said the Gian race had the ability to combine with all Engines.” [Go-On Green]- “Let’s try it!” [Go-On Black]- “Carrigator, show me your soul!”
Engine Gattai!
Though Gunbir-Oh displays no particularly abilities greater than those of Engine-Oh, its weapons are more aggressive, and it allows a second Engine gattai to take the battlefield at the same time. It now uses two Engines on its arms, allowing it access to both the Gunpherd Gun and Bircutter Slash attacks, in addition to the new Bircutter Storm typhoon-like attack. The only downside may be that it cannot grip anything, but using its left arm allows it to deflect bladed weapons and then dish out its own cuts. And for its finisher, it has the energized Gunbir Grand Prix- the left and right arms slash, followed by the chest lifting up and then all three Engine’s energetic souls shoot out at the same time to demolish the target.
Gunbir-Oh: Tune Up!
Engine Gattai Gunbir-Oh (back) has unusual features, though not nearly as wacky as the DX Engine Gattai Engine-Oh first presented. The head is similar in that it has gold[-painted] exhaust pipes for its crown, but then has red eyes with a more traditional blank silver mouth plate. However, Carrigator’s front set of six wheels rest on either side of his head; even though it cannot turn. His torso is a rectangular block, and is accented by having Carrigator’s head cover the whole front side; a small gold-painted “V” sitting on top of the chest. (I don’t know why that “V” is there, but it reminds me a bit of the one on Engine-Oh’s V Shield for some reason...) Surprisingly for a combo mecha this big, the shoulders are rather plain small orange-and-black rectangular blocks. Engines Gunpherd and Birca- the right and left arms, respectively- are in their Engine Busou forms identical to when they form Engine-Oh Gunpherd and Engine-Oh Birca. The legs are where things get interesting. As opposed to more mecha-like boots, a different approach was made, and they have something of a three-point high heel foot, taking up more than half of the lower legs! Very different. (I don’t know why it has those painted green stripes along the front of each foot.) This time, also unlike Engine-Oh, you can look at it from different angles without groaning about the Gunbir-Oh only looking good from one angle.
. . .
As far as weapons go, you don’t have any hand-held weapons to deal with. Instead, you have Gunpherd and Birca which you can use the same as you always do with Engine-Oh; which means that you get to keep those great elbow-twisting joints. As to Gunbir-Oh’s range of motion, it brings a few nice changes to the table. During the process of changing it, you suddenly realize that this toy has very versatile shoulder joints. Not only do you get the standard 45°-increments forward & backwards, but you can actually make the arms snap out 45°- and 90°-increments as well! Adding in the two rotating elbow joints and you can get those arms into some very dynamic poses [for a DX Super Sentai mecha]! Now, unfortunately, if you want to recreate the Gunbir Grand Prix finisher, you’re kinda on your own for this- while Carrigator’s head can pivot up freely, it doesn’t snap to the 90° position that it does in the series, so you have to hold it up. The legs do not move, and snap into those slightly-angled positions while changing Gunbir-Oh. All three Engines Souls are still fully accessible in this form as far as their activation buttons go. However, inserting or removing them while it is transformed like this is in no way easy. Since Carrigator’s is in his mouth, and that is pointed downwards here, if you open him up the cartridge just dumps onto the floor. And with Gunpherd and Birca, you have to disconnect them since their access doors also are also their elbow connection joints. Ironically, Carrigator’s is the only one of the three where you can still see its bright red LED light when it activates in this form; it shines out through Gunbir-Oh’s chest/Carrigator’s head.
I’ve already given my recommendations and opinions on the three individual Engines, so I’ll not rehash that here. Though the lower legs have those three-point feet which seem rather out-of-place on a Super Sentai mecha, it does give the mecha an interesting if misplaced appearance. The combination of the colors & decorations used across the three Engines is sufficient, though I kinda disagree with Gunpherd being all black which kinda makes you not notice him as easily in the gattai. If I sung praises about the elbow joints on Birca and Gunpherd, I am absolutely thrilled with the shoulders on this guy! You heard it here first: “I couldn’t have asked for anything better” regarding their simple design and yet amazing functionality. Could the head have been able to turn side-to-side? I don’t see why not. I actually find fewer problems with this combination than I do the Engine-Oh as far as overall shape, functionality, and transformation. It’s not quite as simple as its predecessor either, so that was a bonus point there. And it looks a bit more coherent than a totem pole-arrangement of the Engines’ faces too. If only Gunpherd had had a little more functionality to his transformation, or an additional feature of some kind… But, separate from my opinions of its separate components, the Engine Gattai Gunbir-Oh is definitely worth shooting for!
. . .
…but hold on a moment-! Carrigator has one last role to fulfill before I’m done with him. In Grand Prix 09, just moments before he expires, the teleporting camera-themed Lens Banki transmits photos of his battle between Gunbir-Oh and the revitalized Engine-Oh to the Gaiarc ministers, revealing all of the techniques used against him before his destruction. With this insight, the ministers cooperate in Grand Prix 10 to create a special monster that is a hybrid of all three of their specialties- polluted earth, water, and air- a mirror monster called Kagami Banki which can replicate and counter any attack used by the Go-Onger. Knowing since they were joined by Carrigator that more-powerful enemies would come soon, Ren begins to work with Bomper to modify the Engines…
Engine Gattai Series #3- Engine Carrigator is the final component required to make a new combination which also utilizes all four DX sets released thus far. And so, go on to the final page to read the review on the Engine Gattai Engine-Oh G6!
Posted 21 July, 2008 - 11:28 by EVA_Unit_4A |
Comments
13 comments postedThis stuff looks great. If I ever buy anything remotely Sentai-related that's bigger and more expensive than the miniature, $7.94 Megazords at my local Wal-Mart, these might be the first things I go after.
By the way, I'd write up reviews for those awesome little things (mostly so I could share them with you guys...they're quite neat!), but I'm a bit of a slacker and fairly shy, ha.
What- the candy toy mecha? Oh, do share them! Only reason I don't get them is because I have to paint them up myself, and I've never really gotten the hang of that. I just wish that PLEX would make the DX versions more flexible like that.
I had a chance to think about it, and the last time we had a Super Sentai combo with both flexible elbows and extra-flexible shoulders (like here) at the same time (not in just one of its smaller components, either) was the DX OhRanger Robo from "Chouriki Sentai OhRanger" (1995). That's a long time!
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CollectionDX Staff
Not being entirely sure that we're talking about the same thing, I would love to take some pictures. Unfortunately my brother has run off with the camera again...
They're from Jungle Fury, and from the four that I have they average about 5.5" tall. There are six in stores at the moment, and five of them are composed of three different Zords, while one of them only has two. In sets A, B, and C, the individual Zords all look a lot more vehicular in form than like real animals, and can combine with each other into a single vehicle as well as a Megazord. The Zords in D, E, and F all look a lot more like real animals. I know very little about this stuff because I've always been more about Transformers than anything.
I've been reading a lot of the reviews on here and more and more of it is slowly starting to look interesting. Maybe someday I'll have a shelf or two full of the stuff, but that's a ways off.
Oh, right- sounds like one of those many accessory sets that never appears on-screen...
(*rolls eyes*)
It's things like that which dumb-down the franchise as a whole, IMHO- wasteful sh*t like that.
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CollectionDX Staff
You're the knowledgeable one here, so you're most likely right.
But I still like them. Heh.
Well its turned out that this is the year that I've actually imported Sentai toys. Previously I haven't just because I've been a few years too late for the ones I actually want.
Anyway the shocking thing for me is that even with postage its cheaper than buying Power Rangers toys in the stores. Either exchange rates are really good right now or Bandai UK are seriously overcharging - probably both.
Well, don't forget that the UK and other countries that get PR often get the higher-quality & original Super Sentai materials. So the price-cutting measures (removing paint apps, etc.) and less-stringent toy regulations that BA deals with for US-release doesn't apply to the rest of y'all. So that means your prices will probably be higher. (It could also be the plummeting USDollar makes those rates look worse than they are...)
But why they'd be higher than the original materials, I have no idea!
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CollectionDX Staff
Hmm, I'm not sure.
The typical price for a UK DX Megazord is £39.99 (and has been since the first season so taking inflation into account they have gotten cheaper). We're still on Operation Overdrive and this year they've just followed the US releases pretty much identically so my £40 will buy me a Drive Max Megazord right now. Compared to that Engine-Oh comes to about £31 plus shipping which still comes to less than the cost of a Drive Max.
Out of curiosity which European releases are you aware of that have been identical to their Sentai counterparts or at least better quality than the US versions? I've not collected much over the years, my original collection consisted of all the zords from seasons one to three plus the DX Zeo Megazord (it got reduced to just the original Megazord somewhere in my teens when I lost interest in Power Rangers) and since then I've only picked up a DX Titan Megazord when it was on sale. To my knowledge none of the zords I have owned fared any better than their US counterparts and the only superior release I'm aware of was the fact that we actually got the Centaurus Wolf Megazord as a store exclusive last year. I'd be very interested to know which older releases would actually be worth looking out for.
Ooh- can't really help you there. I just concern myself with Super Sentai-to-US "PR", and not US "PR"-to-UK "PR"; I only know that there are sometimes differences. I think you get most of the Dlx Zords intact, but sometimes it can be more subtle things like different decal sheets or materials used.
For example, the DX Chouriki Gattai OhRanger Robo had gold-colored metal chains, but the Deluxe Zeo Megazord used bronze-colored strings; whether that change also occurred in UK releases, I have no idea.
Another example: I saw box art online for the Deluxe Isis Megazord (PRWF, 2002), but I don't ever remember seeing it in any of my local stores when other Megazords from that year were sold; supposedly, it never made it over to the USA in any recognizable amount. However, I read somewhere that it was released with regular frequency in the UK, albeit with the same modifications (aka lack of some paint details, added Light-&-Sound to the Falcon Zord) as the USA ver.
Beyond this, I can't help you much. I'm sure others online will have covered it far more extensively than I can.
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CollectionDX Staff
i was one of the lucky few to get the us release of the deluxe isis megazord and it was very rare i got mine i think from etoy.com back when that show was in full swing. but seriously i hope that we get a g12 box set that would be nice for those that didnt keep up this year like me tformers has had me at wits end with new stuff along with all the new games its been a tuff year.
While intentionally-blurred official artwork of Engine-Oh G12 has been recently spotted online, I doubt the DX combo would appear as one boxed set! Whatever the newest 3-part combo is called, I think it may push the limit. While there was a 10-component boxed-set of the Ultimate DaiBouken from "Boukenger" (2006), the Gougou Vehicles were small enough that they could fit into an oversized box, and from what I've read, even that was pushing it.
Also consider that we have at least the Engine Attache Case (sold separately) which can hold the first six Engines- Speedor, Buson, Bear-RV, Birca, Gunpherd, and Carrigator- just like it does in the series. (Whether there will be an equivalent Attache Case sold for the Go-On Wings' Engines I haven't heard of yet.) With this new three-part combo- based on a red train locomotive (mammoth) and two white train cars (tyrannosaurus rex & triceratops)- there may be another Attache Case in the series for them.
I'd say, at the most, Engine-Oh G6 could be released as a boxed set, but no more than that. Besides, Gunbir-Oh and Seiku-Oh need to be released as bopxed sets on their own first, because you have to buy the three components for each separately right now!
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CollectionDX Staff
A few minutes into the video i realized the similarities between Gunbir-oh and Gao Hunter. Almost as soon as i came to that conclusion you did the"accidental" segment with the Gao Hunter and the Charlie Brown style voice. I thought the timing between my realization and that part was hilarious!
We aim to please at CollectionDX.com. ^^