Robo Racer is what a Transformer would look like if they’d cross over with Power Rangers

Coming from space, the Blue Centurion arrived on earth with a message about an alliance of all evil in the universe. However, before he could give this message to the rangers, he was caught by the bad guys and the message was erased. But the Blue Centurion didn’t come to Earth alone… He brought his mighty zord, Robo Racer with him! For more information about Power Rangers: Turbo, click here.

Robo Racer is what a Transformer would look like if they’d cross over with Power Rangers. In vehicle mode, the patrol car just looks like one, with no trace of the robot inside. It’s actually a pretty nice car and rather show accurate. The light and sounds are activated by pressing the Centurion’s symbol on the roof.

Once transformed, Robo Racer is a nice little bot, standing approximately 8 inches tall. The lights and sounds are still there, activated by pressing the same button. He features the usual points of articulation for a DX power ranger Toy (the arms move up and down), waist joint and also has “elbows” joints, so to speak. Also, the helmet can be put back to show the eyes. The arsenal coming with that little guy is pretty impressive: a gun, two blades, a shield and handcuffs!

If you’re wondering the differences between the Robo Racer and his original Japanese counterpart Sirender, prepare for a pretty shocking one: all the die cast parts were replace by dull grey plastic parts! Also, Sirender came with Signalman (Blue Centurion’s counterpart) Signal Whistle. The good news is that every sticker has been kept.

Honestly, I think that this little guy deserves more attention than he got. I mean, many people will go crazy over a Turbo or Rescue Megazord, but won’t even give him a look. Sad mistake, cause this is one pretty good toy!

The official whipping boy of Jumbo Machinder collectors, this toy is probably better than you've heard. Video inside!

Although there were previous Jumbos that were from Sentai shows, the Jumbo Astro Megazord is the first one to be released in the United States and bear the name of the Power Rangers. It was released in 1998 in support of the "Power Rangers In Space" series. It's an interesting piece because unlike the subsequent Jumbos released in the US, this toy actually has a transformation gimmick like the DX version. The method is different here though and requires a small amount of parts swapping, but the end result actually looks pretty cool. It's certainly better than many of the vintage "transforming" Jumbos, which often just lay down to transform. My only real gripe with the vehicle mode is that the feet don't connect in anyway. As a result, the nose of the ship doesn't line up quite right.

This toy was not very popular among Jumbo collectors. There are probably a few reasons for that. First, it isn't a full sized Jumbo. It measures only 18" tall. Secondly, many people didn't like the design of the robot itself, particularly in comparison to the old school super robot aesthetic that most Jumbo collectors know and love, although I think they'd prefer this to the later designs with all the animal parts.

Another problem with this toy is the feet. To allow for the transformation to vehicle mode, the feet need to rotate down. Where the toy fails is that there is nothing really holding the feet on the toy. They just slide sideways onto a peg, and more often than not, slide right back off again. This also causes the toy to lean just a tiny bit forward, too. Lastly, I can't help but think there is just a little bit of Power Ranger hating going on, too. As popular as the show was with kids when this came out, I seem to remember just as much hate for it from adults. I know I couldn't even stand to hear the name back then. I just can't help but think that if toys like this were on the shelves at about $20 a pop now, they would get more respect than this did at the time of it's release. Many collectors disrespect it by spelling "Astro" with an extra "s" and I think they are giving it a bum rap.

In addition to transforming, the Jumbo Astro Megazord comes with a sword and shield that can be placed in the hands. The head turns and the arms move up and down. Simple like all Jumbos.

Although this toy was released initially in the United States, the overstock was later shipped back to Japan and sold there. Everything was exactly the same, except that the box had a gold foil sticker slapped onto the lower right corner with Japanese writing on it.

US box

Japanese box

Additionally, it seems that this toy was released in Korea, too. I've only seen the box for that release, but judging by that, it looks like the exact same toy. However this time a whole new box design was created and the show was called "Mega Rangers".

While I can't say I love this toy, I do think it's better than it's generally given credit for. And it really makes me wish that Bandai had gone ahead and followed through on their plans to release a second toy in the line. The Jumbo Mega Voyager sadly never made it past the prototype stage. It's a shame too since it looks like it might have been an even better toy.

Although the transformation is simple, I've recently been given a video camera so I figured I'd join the fray and do a quick video to show you how it's done. In the process, I actually managed to break the knob on one of the arms. And here I was thinking that polyethylene was practically indestructible.

Interesting character and kit design, but not a great toy.

I'm not a particularly skilled model builder nor even a huge fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I picked up this kit a few months back in a lot of toys that I bought from a friend. It's an interesting piece both in terms of the character itself and the method of construction of the kit. Unlike your typical model kits, this one has a regular skeleton, but a rubber outer covering over it. Then additional peices are added to the outside for more detail.

When I got the kit, the skeleton had already been assembled (my friend started the project, but never finished). But it appeared to be fairly simple to put together. Then you connect the face, ribcage and the core (the red piece in the stomach). This is done by pushing some tabs through the front of the suit and then attaching them to another piece on the interior. The problems begin with actually getting the skeleton inside the suit. Have you ever seen one of those cartoons (like Itchy and Scratchy) where one character reaches down anothers throat and pulls out his skeleton? Well, imagine then trying to put the skeleton back in the same fashion. Not an easy task. The opening in the suit is rather small. Once constructed, it is obscured by a 1" x 1.5" covering.

Once you've gotten the skeleton in, you push the arms and legs to the outer openings and then attach the claws and feet. But be careful, the feet are thin and the connector on the left leg of mine broke and broke easily. I've never been so shocked to have a toy break on me. I wasn't applying hardly any pressure at all.

The shoulder parts connect pretty easily onto a ball joint protruding from the skeleton and allow for a small degree of movement, but they also pop off very easily. The other boney pieces on the front just pop into the suit but the pieces on the legs need to be glued to a base on the outside of the legs. Finally, a plate goes inside the back covering and the final outside piece connected to that.

Normally, I wouldn't bother painting any of my kits, but since this one has simple one-piece parts that don't require much talent to paint, and since I had a tube of white glow in the dark paint lying around unused, I figured it would look cool if I slapped it all on this thing. Though the claws are supposed to be black in the anime, I thought it would look better if they also glowed.

In addition to looking cool glowing, the glow paint also gives the parts you paint a very bony, organic look. It wouldn't look good in the light on a more typical robot kit, but on this one, I really like it.

Sachiel also comes with little unpainted figures of Hikari Horaki and Kensuke Aida. I'll not be painting those, for lack of the ability to do so. The kit is interesting, but it's design (big body and small thin legs) makes it very top heavy and prone to falling over. Furthermore, while movement is possible, maintaining a pose really isn't. The rubber suit will always pull at the limbs and force them back to their original position. It likes to bend forward at the waist. And honestly, it's not as fun to put this together as a Gundam kit. So unless you are just a huge Evangelion fan, you can probably do without this one.

Not totally sure why I bought this one...

M1 versus Marmit.

These two companies seemed to get compared to one another quite often for some reason. Strange that these two should be singled out, since there is about a million companies producing Japanese kaiju these days. And Marmit almost always ends up on the short end of the debate. While Marmit has made a great many excellent contributions to the kaiju scene (I've already made clear my love of their Gallery Rodan Parababy), they just can't hang with M1 for pure CONSISTENCY of excellence.

Enter the Vinyl Paradise Sanda (サンダ). This might be the worst, ugliest toy in my entire collection. (And if you've been reading all my reviews, you know just what that means!) I've never seen a toy that looks more like it was defecated into existence than this sorry specimen. I feel certain that M1 would never allow such a thing to bear their name.

Molded in hideous brown vinyl with sloppy gold spray, Sanda also has one of the worst sculpts I've seen. The arms are actually longer than the legs and the torso is overly huge. He looks like he's wearing enormous shoulder pads. The right arm juts out at a 90 degree angle and then up as if he were throwing a spear. But he isn't and this throws off the symmetry of the toy. The overall effect is strikingly ugly.

He stands just shy of 9" tall and is articulated at the shoulders, hips and waist. He was sold in a bag with a very plain looking header card. This is truly an example of the worst that Marmit had to offer. Fortunately, this was an earlier release and many of their later efforts were MUCH improved. I suspect that if that were not the case, they wouldn't still be around today.

Sanda comes from the 1966 Toho film "Frankenstein's Monsters: Sanda versus Gaira" (aka "War of the Gargantuas"), which was a sequel to the previous years "Frankenstein versus Baragon". I don't currently own a Gaira vinyl, but when I get one, I suspect I'll also get another, better Sanda to go with it.

"War of the Gargantuas" trivia time! My parents were watching a double-bill of this and Rodan at the drive-in when my mother went into labor with my oldest brother. Strangely, he did not grow up to love Japanese kaiju. I know, it would have been a better story if it was me!

Ishirô Honda's "Matango" is one of the most popular Toho monster movies and this M1 vinyl is a great tribute to it.

Matango (マタンゴ) is from the Ishirô Honda-directed Toho film of the same name ("Attack of the Mushroom People" in the US) and is one of my favorite vinyls. I first saw it on eBay at a very fair price and thought it was ok, but not worth my money. But as is often that case, I found myself being drawn to it more and more as the weeks went on, until finally another appeared and I decided I had to have it. Naturally, I ended up paying about twice what the previous auction ended at. Sigh...

Still, no complaints from me. The sculpt of this toy, while not accurate to the movie(there were no visible eyes in the movie), is very appealing and the shiny, metallic blue paint really stands out. A solid yellow spray covers the shoulders and upper torso, with red eyes and black pupils rounding out the color scheme. Naturally, like all vinyls these days, Matango was released in a varitey of different colors. Though I shamefully admit to not yet having seen the movie, I've been informed that there were in fact lots of different "mushroom people" in the movie, like a horde of zombies, so these variations actually make some sense this time. This is also the reason I didn't mind picking up a couple extras when I had the opportunity to at the December, 2006 World Character Convention.

Matango is 8" tall with five points of articulation (hips, shoulders and neck). The regular version reviewed here comes with an M1 tag on an elastic around the neck, as well as a a piece of paper with a drawing included in the bag. It looks like this was meant to be colored in. Neither of the other two I bought have either of these features.

I want to briefly make note of one version of Matango that I found particularly striking. It appeared on Yahoo!Japan auctions last summer and I think it was a sample given to one of the famous Mandarake stores in Japan. I tried hard to get it, but came in second in the bidding. I'm pretty sure it's a one of a kind paint scheme so I doubt I'll ever get the chance again.

The first of a new line of Chogokin had been released, and it was in America, right under our noses. Who knew?

In 1996, Bandai Japan released a toy called the Kabuterios Chogokin DX (超合金ＤＸ 大甲神カブテリオス), from the series B-Fighter Kabuto. This was the first toy released in the new Chogokin line, and it was dubbed GD-01.

B-Fighter Kabuto was brought to the USA as Beetleborgs Metallix. Bandai America imported the Kabuterios Chogokin DX and renamed it the Deluxe Transforming Roboborg.

This toy is pure gokin. It's heavy as hell, weighing in at 1lb, 4oz, and it's 9" tall. The shoulders and lower body are solid diecast. It even comes in a styrofoam tray!

Roboborg transforms from beetle to robot. In beetle form, it features moving claws, and barely articulated legs. The legs are prone to falling off. Also, due to the weight of the toy, the legs don't actually support it. Roboborg looks like a squashed bug with its legs spread out.

In robot mode, Roboborg features a giant sword that unfortunately droops due to the soft plastic used. Articulation is great in the arms, but non-existant in the legs. The head does not move.

Although Roboborg looks cool, he has some serious quality control issues with the paint. Mine has paint bubbles anywhere paint is applied over metal. Big, 1cm bubbles. Attaching the stickers helps, but some cannot be covered. Combined with the floppy sword and weak legs, Roboborg just has too many flaws.

Roboborg could have been a great toy. The design is beautiful, but the paint issue really kills it for me. Maybe there are some that have not bubbled. These things are inexpensive for being DX chogokin. It's worth gambling on one; maybe you'll luck out and get one with good paint.

Bandai America took this mold and bade another toy called Boron. This toy was not released in Japan.
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Back in the day, most sentai figures had some metal in them, but they eventually switched to all plastic. The Megaranger Chogokin figures were some of the last of a dying breed.

The Mega Silver Chogokin was released as part of the Chogokin line, earning it the designation of GD-09. The toy has a lot of metal in it, and is still fully poseable.

Megaranger aired in 1997, the 21st Super Sentai Television series. It was later imported to the united states as Power Rangers in Space. Unfortunately, this toy did not make it over in its original format. While toys with this mold did appear in stores, they only came packaged with cycles or vehicles, and had no metal content.

The toy is pretty heavy, with the whole body being diecast metal as well as the upper legs. The rest of the figure is plastic.

Mega Silver comes with a few weapons that you have to remove from a sprue. Each gun can fit in either hand.

There were 6 figures released in this line. I'm not sure what the original retail of these figures were, but I found mine in a discount bin at Mandarake for ¥420.

Back in the day, most sentai figures had some metal in them, but they eventually switched to all plastic. The Megaranger Chogokin figures were some of the last of a dying breed.

The DX Kabutack Super Change Set comes from the show B-Robo Kabutack. (ビーロボ カブタック). B-Robo Kabutack was originally intended to be the third B-Fighter series after B-Fighter and B-Fighter Kabuto, but the tone was changed and it became more of a kids show with B-Fighter making guest appearances.

As part of the Chogokin line, you can bet it contains metal. Unfortunately, it’s not a lot of metal. Metal content is limited to the feet and a portion of the body. What makes this toy cool is the endless combinations and variations.

First you have the main robot, Kabutack. Kabutack has 2 modes, a cute looking “Civilian” mode, and a more aggressive “Fighting” mode. In each mode he can hold a weapon in his hands.

Kabutack Fighting Mode

Kabutack Civilian Mode

You also get two sets of armor; Drillut and Zabut. Kabutack can wear each set of armor in each of his modes, and then the armor itself can make a small vehicle when not in use. There is even a mode with the armor and Kabutack in vehicle mode. So, in total you have 10 modes!

• Kabutack “Civilian”
• Kabutack “Fighting”
• Kabutack “Civilian” Drillut
• Kabutack “Fighting” Drillut
• Drillut
• Kabutack Drillut
• Kabutack “civilian” Zabut
• Kabutack “Fighting” Zabut
• Zabut
• Kabutack Zabut

Drillut mode features rolling wheels and the tip of the drill spins. Zabut mode features a firing grey missile from the tip of the submarine.

Kabutack “Fighting” Zabut

Kabutack “Fighting” Drillut

Some assembly is required, and stickers need to be applied. Unfortunately, these are the crappy mid-90s foil stickers, and they tend to peel off over time.

Otherwise, this is a very cool toy. Yes, it is goofy looking, but it is a lot of fun and will definitely keep you entertained.

The toy was really exellent, but I would love to see what they could do with this toy today. Perhaps if it was wireless, and a little quieter...

I got this Remote Control Micro Machines AT-AT from a former roommate for Christmas one year. At the time, I was really into Star Wars, so I absolutely loved this toy.

I kept it in storage for many years. When I recently brought it out for display, I noticed that I forgot to take the batteries out before storing it. A rusty liquid was oozing out of the battery compartment. I quickly removed the junky batteries, cleaned the compartment, and replaced them.

The AT-AT only has 2 movements - forward and reverse. The forward motion still worked, but reverse was dead. It was at that point that I knew that this toy and I had to part ways, and off to ebay it went.

At one time, years ago, this toy was considered quite rare, being a store excusive for KayBee Toys. Unfortunately, that time had past, and I got next to nothing for it on ebay.

The Remote Control AT-AT came with 2 figures: AT-AT Driver and Snowtrooper. One figure could fit in the cockpit while another could fit into the body. The head of the AT-AT is articulated, and the side guns move.

A white plastic base was included that could hold the AT-AT, both figures, and the remote control.

The toy came packaged in 2 variations, one with a window showing the AT-AT, and one just showing the controller (shown here).

The toy was really exellent, but I would love to see what they could do with this toy today. Perhaps if it was wireless, and a little quieter...

Artillatron, the Turbo Transport, is a mobile base for the Rescue Megazords from Power Rangers Turbo.

The toy is made entirely of plastic, and requires decals. Lots of decals. Unfortunately, the decals were of poor quality, and many have begun to peel or have been lost over time. To find a perfect version with good stickers is rare.

Each part of Artillatron has a door that opens up to reveal a space for a Rescue Zord. Each compartment is numbered for the appropriate Zord.

Transformation to the Robot Mode is easy. Simply disconnect the cannons from the rear trailer, separate each trailer, then stack them, largest at the bottom to smallest at the top. Re-attach the arms and pull up the visor on the face. The completed robot can roll across the floor. The Rescue Megazords can be stored inside Artillatron in either mode.

The right arm cannon features opening claws. The arm cannons can be attached and used with the Rescue Megazord to become the Artillery Power barrage.