Soul of Chogokin Gx-63 General Franky
The box set has an outer sleeve. There is a plastic wrap-around sheet to fasten the sleeve in place.
The main box is a throwback to the old vintage Popy-era style box.
Box is big! Dimensions are 13 x 11 x 7 inches.
Furosai (Black Rhino) FR-U-IV cycle
Brachio Tank V
You can place Tony Tony Chopper along with his base onto the tank’s hatch. Like so.
You can’t close the hatch with him on it though. But there is a driver’s seat inside the tank (requires swapping out the entire hatch from robot mode).
Unfortunately, when combining the two vehicles together, we don’t get a “perfect” transformation, parts removing is required when it comes to the Furosai cycle.
Remember to slide out the front plate to give General Franky’s head some clearance
When Transforming into tank mode, remember to align the groin sections together (lol, hentai transformation) .
“Let’s get perverted!”
General Franky!!
Gotta love the ultra-poseable hands
Various poses.
C0ckpit
Opening mouth (with teeth).
General Franky Sword.
The sword is equipped via this peg here into a hole in the palm of the hands.
Background prop. Based on the background image for when General Franky appears when he’s fully transformed.
Display stand
I’m impressed with the simplicity of the “lock” for the adjustable arm of the display stand. Moving a simple piece of plastic from left to right (or was it right to left? Sorry). will lock the arm of the display stand in place.
With the Chogokin Franky
The Good
-General Franky is roughly 9.5” tall (10.5” if you count the tip of his sword handle when sheathed).
-The figure weighs and impressive 1159 Grams!!!
Quick rundown of the weight of various combing SOCs
—God Sigma – 1086 Grams
—Daitarn 3 – 927 Grams
—Ideon – 1382 Grams
—God Mars – 1135 Grams
—Daltanious – 874 Grams
……. So yeah, I think this makes General Franky the second heaviest toy in the line?
-Ratchet joints! Lots and lots and lots of ratchet joints!!
-Diecast parts include:
–Entire Legs
–Feet
–Crotch (insert running gag here. Chogokin Franky also had a diecast crotch)
–Shoulder, groin, knee and ankle joints
-Rocker ankles. Thank goodness.
-Love the tank treads! I’m kind of worried about the various rubber treads in my collection oxidizing and become brittle over time, but that won’t be a problem with this toy. Nicely done Bandai.
-A fully colored character booklet, apart from the instruction manual, explaining the character’s background. Why can’t we get this with every SOC release????
-Interestingly, the trays have been trimmed down, the tray covers no longer go over the corners but just the top of the trays. Is Bandai cost cutting or just being environmentally friendly? 🙂
-Given the weight, size and girth of the figure, I’m very impressed that it is very stable. The legs, tightness of the joints and the center of mass are very well done so it supports the figure without any flaws.
-Stable (the important word here) multi-jointed fingers! When we get something this articulated, the tendency is for the fingers to fall apart at the joints on some level (Igear’s Faith Leader/Optimus Prime comes to mind). No such problems here. Highly impressive!
The Bad
-While the “tires” of the Furosai Cycle do spin when you flick them individually, the studs get in the way when you try to actually roll the vehicle. As a result, the bike isn’t mobile. I don’t know, I tried it only on a glass surface and got nothing, maybe your mileage may vary.
-Minor quibble. The size of the Franky for the Furosai Cycle isn’t the same as the one inside the c0ckpit of the General Franky.
The Ugly
The price? Seriously, this toy is great in itself but somehow, for a Soul of Chogokin that isn’t high on most folks’ “I hope it gets made” list, well, the steep price isn’t helping.
Admittedly, I’m not a One Piece fan, I gave it a shot a while back, but I really didn’t like the visual style of the series and that was that. So I just got this toy for completing my SOC collection.
Personally, this toy is so impressive, no QC issues, no problems with stability (thank goodness!). It’s almost faithful to the cartoon look (transformation accuracy being the only snag). It’s big, it’s super heavy, it’s ultra poseable, it’s got a colored character manual, it’s got 2 (almost) boxes!
Sadly, it is almost everything we could ever ask for in an SOC, except for one tiny detail….
….nobody requested it.
That is to say, based on previous “wishlist” polls, I don’t think I’ve ever seen General Franky make the list, let alone the top 10. That plus the roughly $200 price tag might be more than enough reason for selective folks to just drop this in favor of something else, particularly when there’s so much other stuff coming down the pipeline. I guess time will tell if Bandai did the right thing moving this thing up from the Chogokin series to the Soul of Chogokin line or if this one will follow the previous Chogokin Franky figure and hit clearance prices.
Gold
