I swore I would do the SD thing but the combing ones are tempting.
Weren't they making. SD combining Godmars as well? Any info/release date?
Yes, a combining Godmars, as well as a combining Dancouga. No additional info or dates on either; frankly I'd say if they did provide a date I wouldn't trust it
. Gordian was delayed by a year and a half!
So - I had a chance to properly take Gordian out last night and give him a proper going-over. I do think that my view of him is partly spoiled by the fact that I've got experience with Baikanfu, who I would say is unequivocally a better figure. Gordian is still quite good, for the most part, I feel like he's hamstrung by the way he transforms, unfortunately, and I can see that Fewture probably did the best they could, considering.
(No pics of my own right now to go along with this, unfortunately, as it's at home and I'm at work)
For starters - the
transformation:
The same basic design that they used on Baikanfu is present. Everything that worked well there works well here - the way the joints line up and keep each layered robot flexible despite having another robot (or two) stuffed inside them is still impressive. Everything clips together solidly, and Gordian one-ups Baikanfu by having one extra layer, with literally the
tiniest of tiny painted pilots probably ever made inside the smallest robot's head and torso. The paint detail on this tiny man is amazingly precise considering his miniscule size. He comes with a little display base (he can't stand on his own thanks to his size and proportions) and some accessories, like a tiny bike and weapon(?).
Where it falls apart, unfortunately, is where the transformation differs from Baikanfu out of necessity; while Baikanfu opened up like a flower, his chests splitting in the center and face rising up so he peels apart like a flower petal, Gordian is designed so that his entire front is meant to lift up like the trunk of a car:
vs.
This transformation is proper for Gordian's animation appearance and toy design - unfortunately it means that for the transformation to be accurate, you'd have to have the chest and groin of Gordian to be attached to his chin; removing any waist or neck articulation.
Fewture's solution here was to basically make the above image a lie; you transform Gordian by pulling off the robot's chest and groin sections entirely. There are fold out hinges that can be used to re-create the above image, but they're literally designed just to clip it losely together- you cannot use them to actually transform the figure with; you
have to pull each stage of the robot (with the exception of the smallest one that holds the human pilot) apart to combine them. A bit disappointing.
Second -
Build quality:
I'll say right off, he's not bad. Once you have him together, the combined weight of the four different layered figures is nicely solid and He feels decently chunky. Again, though, he's not as chunky or as nice feeling as Baikanfu was (cursed by his brother's own success, I guess). The blue paint has a nice sparkle to it and is applied very cleanly, and the red robot's got a nice gloss finish. Unfortunately, he's got a lot of bare, ugly white plastic that doesn't look anywhere near as nice, in particular around the shoulders, which look unfinished and cheap when stacked up next to the lovely silver shoulders of Baikanfu (sorry to keep bringing it up, but it's hard not to compare the two!).
Where things aren't so nice is in some of the joints, like the waist joint, which again suffers a bit due to the necessity of the toy's design. It's designed like a "C" shaped clip fitted into a "C" shaped groove. Unfortunately, on my copy of the figure trying to move the waist simply disengages the clip from the groove which is too shallow, wedging the figure into an awkward disjointed shape that can only be corrected by pulling the figure apart entirely by yanking the rim of the joint out of the groove. the waist joint works better on the smaller red robot, but is a similar design that makes me nervous to try using it. Your best bet if you get this figure is to simply ignore that the blue robot's waist joint exists; which is a pity, because if Fewture hadn't tried to put a waist joint in, they could have reduced the number of forced removable parts by making the chest and groin connect together permanently.
There's also a pair of flaps that are on the top of his hips that are just the worst; flopping and getting knocked out of place constantly. I wish these were tighter, but they seem to be barely connected and rotating the thighs even a little bit will knock them loose. I guess they were designed to be able to move out of the way when bending the leg, but honestly I'd have rather the thigh piece had been a solid section even if it reduced poseability.
Last -
AccessoriesHe comes with a host of the usual stuff. Swords, extra handles for swords, a shield - fewture doesn't skimp on accessories, for sure. He's also got the same body-insert thing that Baikanfu had that lets you fill the large robot's body with a blank so you can still have the smaller figures out and on display. You can put batteries in the blank body and swap out Gordian's default face for one with clear eyes for the standard ES Gokin glowing eye look.
There's some nice touches to his design where he has integrated weaponry - flip down missiles in his shins (which are on super thin plastic flaps - be careful with these!), and both of his forearms can split and rotate open to display nicely gunmetal-painted cannons; this is a detail that could easily have been relegated to a swappable forearm, so I'm glad that Fewture did this properly.
His display base has little stand clips at different heights for each robot so you can display each of them on its own little arm, which is a nice touch. I don't remember if Baikanfu had this (his base and accessories are all packed away).
Final Thoughts:
After messing with him for a while, I understand that Fewture really had the cards stacked against them with Gordian. Baikanfu, because of his design, was a much easier figure to "get right", and I appreciate that they went all out in making Gordian fully unique from the ground up (while the basic concept is the same, Gordian is a completely new figure) and tried to replicate his awkward transformation that, while fine on a brick of a figure like the original Gordian, is a nightmare on something that you want to make poseable. While I wish they could have worked out something better than the loose fold-out clips for displaying him "open" for keeping his various removable parts attached, I at least appreciate that they tried.
If Baikanfu were still an easy figure to find at any sort of reasonable price, I would probably recommend that anyone considering Gordian to hunt him down instead; unfortunately as with most of these ES Gokins, Baikanfu has practically doubled in price since his release so that's not a reasonable suggestion. For those of you who already
have Baikanfu, I think Gordian is still a pretty cool companion piece, even if he's not quite as good, and the two of them really do look fantastic on a shelf together. Regardless, I think he's worth getting despite my initial shock at some of the design limitations, and, honestly, where else are you going to find this kind of complex transformation engineering at such a small, adorable scale?
Oh, and since people are probably curious about the diecast content - here's his various metal bits:
- Red robot's removable chest plate
- Blue Robot's chest plate
- Blue Robot's groin plate
- Blue Robot's feet
(oh and I apologize for not knowing each individual component's proper name; i'm a toy fan before a show fan when it comes to a lot of these older figures, and i'm just not familiar with Gordian
)