King Arts Hyper Combat Unit Dangaioh
Each unit comes with its own outer shipper box
The main box comes with an outer baggie.
Heh, I never thought we’d get a silica gel packet here. Nice touch, King Arts.
Dangaioh comes practically ready to go out of the box, just simply plug in the backpack and the wrist blades and you’re good to go.
STORY
In deep space, four powerful psychics from different planets are mysteriously gathered by an alien scientist name Dr. Tarsan to fight the dreaded space pirate Captain Garimoth and his pirates called the “Bunker”. Each possessing a unique psychic ability, the four heroes can combine their fighter ships to form the super robot, Dangaioh, the most powerful super robot in the universe!
Dan-Mechanic 1
Piloted by the team leader, Mia Alice. Mia is an immensely powerful psychic taken from Tokyo, Earth. She is gifted with flight, telekinesis, and barrier generation capabilities as well as the ability to generate powerful shockwaves to disable enemies.
I gotta say, I really love the panel detailing on this unit a lot!
Dan-Mechanic 2
Unit 2 is piloted by the team’s only male character, Rol Kran. A native of the planet Latecia and former leader of the anti-Bunker resistance, Rol was betrayed by his own kinsmen. The shock of the betrayal caused Rol to develop a timid personality subverting his original mature and aggressive behavior. His true nature returns once Dangaioh is formed. After being given new life by Dr. Tarsan, Rol gains the ability to generate and accumulate massive amounts of destructive kinetic energy the faster and further he runs.
Dan-Mechanic 3
Piloted by Lamba Nom, a former princess of the Planet Lilith. Planet Lilith fell prior to the start of the series when the Bunker invaded. Lamba is given to Dr. Tarsan to be experimented on by the Bunker and she gains the psychic ability to fire lethal laser blasts from her fingertips.
Dan-Mechanic 4
Piloted by the team’s physically strongest member, Pai Thunder. Like the rest of her teammates, Pai originally suffers from amnesia and could not recall her past. It is eventually revealed she is Darius, the daughter of the Bunker leader, Garimoth. She was given by Garimoth to Dr. Tarsan to be experimented on to create the ultimate weapon for his use. Pai eventually renounces her father and permanently joins with the rest of the Dangaioh team to take his evil empire down.
The Dangaioh Team!
According to the manual, you can opt to combine the Rol and Pai Dai-Mechanic units to form a super fighter. I totally forgot to attempt this and had already packed up the figure when I realized it. Ah well.. something to retrace later on when I have the time.
CROSSFIGHT! DANGAIOH!!
Transforming the Dan-Mechanics requires a lot of parts swapping. AS IN A LOT! It’s practically taking everything apart and then reassembling it.
DANGAIOH! KENZAN!
Dangaioh
Combining all four Dan-Mechanics, the most powerful super robot in the universe comes forth! Originally created by Dr. Tarsan for Garimoth to be the latter’s greatest weapon, the good doctor eventually rebels and takes his creations with him to fight against his master.
When fully combined, the ship’s parts gain a more humanoid appearance in shape and form. Supposedly, this is the result of the Dan-Mechanics’ armor being made from Biometal and shape memory metal, which allow for it to change form.
When Dangaioh is formed, the main pilot is Rol Kran (voiced by legendary super robot voice actor Akira Kamiya of Getter Robo and Raideen fame) instead of the team’s leader, Mia Alice. Rol’s personality also changes from his timid state to his true hot-blooded and aggressive nature once he is in control of the Dangaioh.
Once formed, the combination is heavily dependent on the emotional state of each pilot. If their hearts and minds are not united, the power output of the mecha drops substantially. Inversely, the mecha gains a huge boost of power when the pilots’ hearts are united as one.
I love the metallic red finish they used on this figure, hopefully it won’t fade over time.
Thanks to all the ball joints, the figure is extremely poseable.
DANGAIOH’S ATTACKS
Boost Knuckle – Dangaioh launches its forearms at its opponent. Similar to Mazinger Z’s Rocket Punch attack. This attack is a huge pain for Lamba Nom, as her c0ckpit is located in one of the forearms and she’s usually launched along with the attack at break-neck speeds.
Spiral Knuckle – A more destructive version of the Boost Knuckle. Dangaioh Clasps both hands together and launches both forearms together at its target. The blowback from the power of the launch is so strong, it pushes Dangaioh back several meters (how Lamba survives this riding along with this attack without her internal organs becoming liquefied is beyond me. lol).
Shoulder Cutter – Small cutter blades launched from the disc sections of Dangaioh’s shoulders.
Dangai Beam – A powerful beam fired from the emitter on Dangaioh’s forehead.
Dangai Zan! – A large sword generated from thin air when Dangaioh presses his fists together, similar to Voltron’s Blazing Sword.
Psychic Wave!! – Dangaioh’s finishing move, a powerful telekinetic force emanating from the palms of Dangaioh’s hands. Originally used to lift or restrain large opponents before Dangaioh cleaves it in half with the Dangai Zan, the Psychic Wave is later used to directly crush Dangaioh’s enemies.
The Good
-The weigh in:
— Dan-Mechanic 1 – Grams
— Dan-Mechanic 2 – Grams
— Dan-Mechanic 3 – Grams
— Dan-Mechanic 4 – Grams
Dangaioh stands roughly 10.5 inches and weighs 465 Grams.
-Diecast parts include:
–Entire mid-torso section
–Thighs
–Sections of the feet
-The toy comes fully combined and almost ready to go right out of the box.
-Beautiful paint finish.
-The use of clear parts for Dangaioh makes the figure really pop.
-The figure is extremely poseable!
-Mid-torso ball joint!
-Ratchet joints in the hips and knees!
The Bad
-It’s a parts former… no two ways about it.
-Transformation requires popping off a lot of pieces. I think repeated transformations will result in some sections becoming loose over time. It’s a good thing the toy comes packaged ready to go in robot form, so you don’t have to go through the transformation every time to get to robot mode.
-Very limited in terms of accessories. Granted, King Arts didn’t really have much to work with as Dangaioh didn’t have much in terms of weapons, but King Arts could’ve added some effects parts for the Dangaioh Beam and Boost Knuckles.
-No display base. Too bad. Having this figure in cool poses is basically its strongest selling point and a proper display base to help hold it up for long periods of time on a shelf would’ve been a nice addition.
-Lack of sculpting detail in some areas. While the figure does generally look good, it could’ve been done way better with added sculpt details (such as the lower face). It falls behind a bit by today’s standards.
The Ugly
Some of the connections aren’t as tight as I would’ve preferred. Some areas, like the hip skirts, tend to fall off very, very easily when posing the figure.
Likewise, Dangaioh’s “gripping hand” can’t really grip his sword well. It tends to wobble often. Sigh.
Overall, pretty good. It looks good thanks to the clear parts and metallic red paint apps. It can also pull off iconic poses well enough. Transformation wise, it’s a parts-former, no doubt, but given how overly-complex engineering would’ve cost way too much and possibly still ruin both modes’ final look (the Studio Half-Eye Dangaioh perfect transformation figure is chubby), I think I’m OK with this being a parts-former.
A missed opportunity here is the lack of detailed sculpting for the figure, especially when compared to new toy companies nowadays like CCS and Pose+ do their wares. This figure could’ve been received better if they did. Especially given the fact that it’s a parts-former, finer details are generally all that matter if the engineering isn’t present.
My biggest personal issue would be some of the joints lack a certain tightness to them. It’s also a shame it didn’t come with more accessories for Dangaioh (or even a display stand to make good use of all those poseable joints!!), but it is what it is. At the end of the day, this is still the “best” diecast Dangaioh figure around (mostly to it being the only diecast Dangaioh figure around, lol).
Funfact: If you’ve watched both the Haja Taisei Dangaioh OVA series and Uchuu Keiji (Space Sheriff) Shaider series, you’ll notice they share some of the same soundtracks, particularly the battle sequence background music. This is because both series had the same composer, Michiaki Watanabe (the man behind most of Go Nagai’s mecha Anime’s music). He notably tended to recycle his earlier musical scores throughout various projects in his career.
Funfact 2: The Dangaioh 3-part OVA series ends on a dour note, with the Dangaioh completely obliterated by Gil Berg’s surprise attack on an already exhausted Dangaioh. This resulted in our heroes’ escape pods being lost in space and the bad guys, for all intents and purposes, winning the final battle.
Funfact 3: More than a decade after the OVA ended, the story continued in essence with Great Dangaioh TV series. Unfortunately, the series would meet a similar fate as its predecessor and would not be able to finish its story as well. It would also end on a cliffhanger after 13 episodes.
Funfact 4: In the Dangaioh – Iczer 1 crossover CD collection, we get pre-taped audio clips of episode teasers for what would have been a sequel series called Dangaioh II. The clips indicate how events would have unfolded after the original OVA in an all-new 12-part mini-series. Sadly, the project died in its infancy and all we have to go on are the audio clips for a glimpse into how our heroes would have survived the finale of the OVA.
You can view/ listen the sub-titled clips here (credits to Riverpudding):
The team would survive after being rescued by Dr. Tarsan’s friend, named Dr. Dankan, who has set up a new base on Earth. Here, they would get a new Dangaioh, as well as a 5th team member (Roll’s former girlfriend?). The new combination would be called Shin Dangaioh and the battles would mostly take place on Earth with the Bunker finally invading Mia’s home planet. Ah… what could have been…
Gold
