Engine Toripter

In one of the eleven dimensions, Machine World is a planet populated by Engines- giant sentient living machines with individual personalities and capabilities. They succeed in driving the destructive Ban KiZoku Gaiarc clan off their world during one of their largest planet-wide races. Unfortunately, the Gaiarc decide to move on into the dimension where Earth is since it seems to be an easier target for them to conquer in order to turn it into the ideal world of unchecked pollution and waste which they favor. Several Engines cross the dimensional barrier to pursue them, but they will begin to suffer fatal rusting if they exist in the atmosphere of the Human World for more than ten minutes at a time! To protect against this, they separate themselves into two halves- inanimate Engine Casts which are smaller versions of their physical bodies, and Engine Souls which contain their life energy and personality. Therefore, they and their smaller rust-resistant assistant Bomper chose a team of young humans to fight the Gaiarc in their place, and restore them to their larger forms whenever they are needed. Together with the arrogant & expertly-trained Go-On Wings, they form the Engine Sentai Go-Onger! So far, the Go-Onger have had it rather easy in their fight to prevent the Gaiarc from taking over Earth. But now, the mighty Engines are all cowering before the evil genius of the Land-Pollution Vice-Minister & Gaiarc’s tactician Hirame– ummm… Hiramesusukidesu- Hirakimekimedesu– (Hang on- I’ll get it…) Hiramekideathme- Hiramekiss- Hira-Hi– rrrrgh! Wait- it’s Hiramekimedes! (Yeah- that’s it.) He is the only Gaiarc whom the Engines have never been able to defeat, and they fear him greatly for all the devastation he caused on Machine World. Unfortunately, Hiramekimedes suddenly disappeared just before the three Gaiarc ministers were defeated on Machine World, and no one’s heard from him since… until now. So his sudden arrival on Earth has shaken the Engines badly and sent them running for cover, leaving the Go-Onger near-powerless! And even when they manage to outwit him just one time, Hiramekimedes is still able to keep the upper hand! But then, suddenly, two new Engines appear from out of the clouds…

. . .

Toripter and Jettoras are members of the previously-unknown Wing Clan, and it was they who chased Hiramekimedes off of Machine World and allowed the Engines to finally drive the Gaiarc off of their planet. Unfortunately, both were injured, and they crashed on Earth during their pursuit. Laying weakened, their psychic calls for help were heard by a pair of wealthy siblings- Hiroto and Mia Suto. They picked up and cared for damaged Engine Casts & their Souls, which helped them to recover. Being told of the Gaiarc, the two flying Engines transported the Suto siblings to Machine World, and there they received top-level training from the leader of the Wing Clan- the grand and wise Jumbwhale. Returning to Earth, the four have watched for some time at the amateurish efforts of the foolishly-optimistic Go-Onger. When the Go-Onger finally appeared to falter before the might of Hiramekimedes’ return, the Go-On Wings and their Engines finally intervened. But their superior training made them look down their noses at the Go-Onger as pathetic, and they shrugged them off as never able to stand up to the might of the Ban KiZoku Gaiarc. Engine Number 7 – Toripter (back) Her partner is Hiroto Suto (Go-On Gold). She is represented as a combination of a helicopter and a rooster. High-spirited and confident, she often acts like another younger sister to Hiroto- gently nudging him with a more compassionate view towards the Go-Onger when he is inflexible & demeaning of them. As a member of the Wing Clan, she is both an agile & powerful Engine in the air- able to hide in amongst the skyscrapers to avoid detection, and then pop-out to fire her multi-barrel Toripter Battery cannon array. As a life form from Machine World, she ends most of her sentences with [the Japanese] onomatopoeia for the sound of a helicopter’s rotors spinning- a rapidly-spoken “Bata-bata-bata-bata!” Toripter serves as a right arm component for any combination, but usually is seen as part of the Engine Gattai Seiku-Oh. I’ve been told that having a chicken for a hero mecha might be more dignified that it would seem in most Western cultures. In some cases, chickens- more likely, roosters- are honorable and respected for their boisterousness & courage. If this were not the case, then why would a rooster be honored as part of the Chinese calendar? (Me? I’m still ignorant to this even as I type & post. Only thing I see that domesticated chickens are good for are for eating. Someone wanna try and explain this to me, please…?) While Toripter retains a stylized red comb on her head just in front of the green cockpit windscreens, the lower two wattles are not. Along the rest of the top of the Engine is a wide red stripe, with a small silver printed Go-On Wings logo just behind the cockpit. Just behind her eyes are the two white cannon arrays for her Toripter Battery weapon(s); each marked with the chicken-styled golden “7” which is her Engine identification number. Beneath the main rotor are two molded-in jet engines which give her forward movement. And then on the back are two smaller widely-spaced counter-rotation vents with steering fins. The lower half of her body is white with black highlights, and features three small wheels that she can roll around on a flat surface with. Like the front wheels from the previous Engines are on the Go-Onger’s helmets, Toripter’s comb is represented on top of Go-On Gold’s helmet, as well as a pair of turbofans. (Hens don’t have wattles, but do still have combs. This, coupled with the higher-pitched & sharp-tongued voice- which is performed by a woman- still makes me think that Toripter is female… A female creature and/or mecha teamed with a male human partner would seem odd, but I thought that that was the case until I read otherwise online while researching for this review! Oddly, the kawaii holographic version of her seen in the series has the wattles under her beak, which then confirms him as a rooster! Very conflicting information… But for now, I shall refer to Toripter as female so that I don’t confuse myself, let alone you!)

. . .

Aside from putting the provided Engine Soul into her (see below), you can only really just roll her around. The big gimmick when she’s alone like this is that you can freely spin her main rotor. And for laughs, the rotor can also be removed, but I’m not sure why this is yet.

In addition to future accessory DX Engine sets, the common ‘collecting’ gimmick is the battery-powered Engine Soul cartridge. These serve as a replacement in all of the toys for a dedicated light-and-sound effect. Each Engine Soul shares an identical shape (2½” x 1¾” x 9/16”, or 2.57cm x 4.5cm x 1.5cm), has a single bright red LED light (which can project over 6ft / 2m in a dark room!), a large decal which identifies it, and they all have some generic sounds. Because of this, any Engine Soul (or Change Soul, which I won’t get into here) can be fitted into any properly-fitted toy that can accept one. But, the gimmick is that each Engine Soul has a unique set of sound effects…

. . .

The Engine Gattai Series #7 set comes with Toripter’s Engine Soul. It is uniquely identified by its gold ABS casing, the stylized “7”, and the phrases “ES” & “07” on the front decal. While each of the Engines in the “Go-Onger” line can accept an Engine Soul, only Toripter’s is provided; however, it will work equally in all of them since, again, all Engine Soul cartridges are the same size. The storage compartment is located in back of Toripter’s chassis, under the counter-rotation beams. This time, however, two black buttons on the sides must be depressed to open the compartment. The bright red LED light from the Engine Soul shines through just in front of Toripter’s main rotor. When the Engine Soul is activated, the LED shines through, making it glow! Toripter’s Engine Soul- unlike all previous Engine Souls- now has five unique effects- all performed by the same seiyu from the series, Shizuka Ishikawa. (She makes her Super Sentai debut here, but is best known for more-numerous anime and video game performances.) She says, in Japanese:

• Toripter!
• Bata-bata-bata-bata!
• Iku ze, Aniki! (Let’s go, Aniki! [“Aniki” is Miu’s nickname for her older brother, Hiroto; which Toripter has also adapted.])
• Kekkou kekkou! (???)
• Iku sa! (Let’s go!)

The phrases will always play in that order, each preceded by the same sound of a helicopter’s rotor spinning. Now, if you place Toripter’s Engine Soul into any other DX Engine set, it’ll say the same things, but it’ll obviously be inaccurate since that’s not the right Engine for it to go with. Like Birca, Gunpherd and Carrigator before her, access to Toripter’s alternate/generic sound effects can be accessed in both her regular mode and transformed mode:

• Go On!
• Bata-bata-bata-bata!

This time, however, instead of a helicopter rotor spinning, you hear the sound of the Toripter Battery cannons firing. But it is still Toripter speaking. As with all other earlier Engine Souls, if you press both of Toripter’s sound-activating buttons at the same time, most of these phrases will be repeated (though now preceded by the crackle of a radio), but now two new phrases will also sound which can only be found in this way:

• Kekkou kekkou ???-kekkou!
• ??? (Too bad I had to hide…!)

One final addition is made here, which Engine Gattai Series #8- Jettoras also shares. And that is that when you hold down either of the buttons for any length of extra time, you will hear the respective sound effect (rotors spinning or cannons firing), and then regardless of which sound effect you stopped on earlier, you will hear Toripter proclaim in Japanese:

• Mission Kandyo! (Mission Complete!)

So, that makes three new effects piled into this new Engine Soul which are each triggered in different ways from each other! The activation buttons for Toripter are the white cannon arrays on either side of her head directly below her eyes.

The Power Rangers’ version of Engine Toripter has not appeared yet, so comparisons are impossible. If I were to take a shot in the dark, I’d say the black paint along the lower white plastic was removed, and all of the gold paint was removed as well. (While the plastic is still ABS, it is more of a light tan coloring when not painted.) I’d also venture that all Engine Soul cartridges (whatever those will be called) will be either modified to have fewer-or-no electronics, or completely eliminated from the line. There’s no PVC or die-cast metal, so that’s not a problem. (No metal in a flying vehicle? Who’d‘ve thunk it?) I doubt any plastic coloring will be changed, but there may be very minor paint changes.

Unlike the Engine Gattai Series #4- Birca and #5- Gunpherd, Toripter is not meant to attach alone the DX Engine Gattai Engine-Oh, even though the toy is fully capable of doing that if you wish. Instead, she is meant to be teamed up with her companion set, Engine Gattai Series #8- Jettoras in order to form the Engine-Oh Jetripter combination (which will be covered in the latter’s review). This Engine seems to have more of a gender-identity crisis; rather than whether-or-not it is a chicken, similar to earlier Engines like Buson and Birca. (The split tail appearance- though obviously meant to be used later on for more that flight stabilization- and general coloring strikes me as more reminiscent of the chicken’s evolutionary ancestor, the Red Junglefowl which is found in the southern reaches of China, Malaysia, and Indonesia… where- as mentioned above- chickens are used for more than just consumption. But I leave that up to you.) Like all Engines, this one has at least one feature available when separated in addition to the use of its Engine Soul and small wheels beneath, and that is the spinning rotor. In that regard, it performs as expected. But, looking ahead at its partnering-up with Jettoras into Engine-Oh Jetripter, it has a far simpler transformation- you move only one thing, and that’s it. I mean, hell- even Bear RV has more than one step when combining! So in that regard, it gets a “Fail”; I mean, I know it’s supposed to be a simple mecha line, but Birca and Gunpherd were a little more engaging than this, so it let down in that way! I will say, though, that the detail remains up to par. So, basically, the reason you want to pick up Engine Gattai Series #7- Engine Toripter is because it is used in later combinations rather than on its own merit. So, it’s not bad, but like the rest of the series thus far, it doesn’t raise the bar any higher.