Dave's Cute Little Robot Rant

     Web Diver Heroes Collection
     Web Diver Flash Docking Gradion
     Web Diver PVCs Vol 1 and Vol 2
     GaoGaiGar Kubrick
     GaoFighGar Kubrick
     Choro-Q Optimus Prime

     This is the result of a buying spree on eBay and a present from a friend
(Hi, Thandra!).  A bunch of little versions of bigger toys from various
Takara lines.  I got the Web Diver stuff for $20 including shipping on eBay,
the Kubricks for about $40 total after shipping, and the Choro-Q from Thandra.

CAPSULES

     WD Heroes: Hollow soft plastic figures with minimal poseability, quite
cruddy.  Avoid.
     WD Flash Docking Gradion: Some nifty gimmicks, but pretty unposeable and
of limited fun value.  Very mildly recommended.
     WD PVCs: Nice little guys, semiposeable.  Worthwhile if you can get them
for less than $12 per set.
     GGG Kubricks (both): Rather involved little toys, lots of fiddly bits to
play around with, and enough differences between the sets to make it worth
buying both.  Some parts don't stay on well, sadly, and others are hard to
get fit together.  Still, recommended.  
     Choro-Q Optimus Prime: A cute little Prime, actually has a convincing
transformation and a good pull-back motor.  Recommended.  

RANTS

     Web Diver Heroes: About a five inch tall (12cm) Gradion and slightly
shorter Jaguaon and Garyuun figures.  These are made from hollow
injection-molded plastic parts, like doggy chew toys without the squeakers.
Very minimal poseability and mediocre paint jobs.  If I'd bought these
separately at any price, I'd have felt ripped off.

     Flash Docking Gradion: Roughly six inches tall (15cm), Gradion has a
decent paint job including good use of chrome and a good mold job.  He's made
of rigid plastic, and isn't very poseable.  Oddly, while the hips are fixed
in position, the knees bend.  He comes with Granblade (non-transforming) and
shield.  The Granblade can be stored in the shield and the shield can connect
to Gradion's back, both as per the larger toy.  If you press a button on the
back, the eyes light up.  The figure is non-transforming.
     Appropriately scaled Griffion, Jaguaon and Sharkion vehicles are
included, and they transform into weapon modes (but not into robot modes).
The "flash docking" comes in when you plug the weapon mode into Gradion's
chest and push the button.  Clever use of mirrors and lightpipes let various
parts of the weapon modes light up, while also suppressing the lighting of
Gradion's eyes (a mirrored panel that sends light up into the head is pushed
away when you flash dock).  Sharkion's weapon mode is particularly cleverly
designed.  
     Overall, while a bit overpriced at its original shelf price, this is a
neat little toy, and worth checking eBay for at reduced prices.

     Web Diver PVCs: Each of these sets has three small figures, one of which
is Gradion (two different poses for the two sets).  The Gradions are 2.5"
(6cm) tall, and have moveable joints at waist and shoulders.  Each figure is
also accompanied by a hexagonal base showing their insignia in shimmering
holofoil.  The bases do not have pegs for linking to the figures, but they do
have jigsaw-like links to connect to each other.  The bases are a little
under 2" (4cm) across.
     Vol 1 has Sharkion, Jaguaon and Jag's weapon mode for plugging into
Gradion.  Sharkion is 1.5" (4cm) tall with shoulder and waist joints and a
decent paint job.  Jaguaon is just as tall (but looks taller because a good
chunk of Sharkion's height is the fin) with shoulders, neck and left hip
joints.  I think the left hip is just an artifact of molding, as it doesn't
really help with posing.  Jaguaon is likewise decently painted.  The Jaguaon
weapon mode is a simple slug of plastic in only two colors, somewhat
disappointing.  It plugs into Gradion's chest.  The Gradion with Vol 1 has
his visor down and is in a slightly more dynamic pose.  His paint job is
decent, but is certainly open to touching up.
     Vol 2 comes with Garyuun, Griffion and Gradion's own Granblade and
shield.  The shield has a peg to hold onto Gradion's back and a slot for his
fist to plug in and hold it, but it cannot act as sheath for the Granblade.
Both the shield and Granblade are two color, blue and slightly metallic
bluish grey.  This Gradion has his visor up and is in a more "at ease"
stance.  Garyuun has poseable shoulders and neck, plus his boat shield
plugged onto his left forearm.  Oddly, the boat is blue, probably made on the
same mold as the Granblade and shield, and not given any paint.  It looks
dumb without the brown paintjob, though.  Also oddly, Garyuun's sword is held
at a defensive-only pose, almost as if he'd rather stab himself.  However,
aside from the blue boat, the paint job is good.  Griffion has poseable
shoulders and neck, and is a darker blue (the same blue as the boat, etc)
than he should be.
     Overall, these are decent little PVC figure sets, worthwhile if you can
get them for $12 each or less.

     Kubricks: Okay, for those who don't know, Kubricks are Lego-like figures
2.5" (6cm) tall or so, that are pretty much only figure sets rather than
building sets.  There's a basic Kubrick figure and then lots of accessories
in most sets, some of them very small and fiddly.  There isn't the same sort
of high precision seen in Lego sets, so parts often fall off easily or
require extra force to attach.  There's not much in the way of
standardization between sets, so there's only so much mix and match possible
(for instance, I could put my Evangelion's helmet on GGG, but if I wanted to
attach Stealth Gao to Eva Unit 01 I'd need to put the whole GaiGar or GaoFar
chest unit on the base Kubrick figure of the Eva).
     Each of the two sets reviewed here has some common elements.  Each has
the DrillGao (drill tank) boots, the standard GGG helmet and forearms, and
the Goldion Hammer setup including Goldymarg in fist mode.  Both also have
Stealth Gao (stealth bomber), but they're not interchangeable, they have
different plug-in shapes.  Continuing what I find to be an annoying trend
(it's true of my Eva Kubrick as well), the helmets of GaoGaiGar and
GaoFighGar are very loose.  However, the GaiGar and GaoFar helmets hold on
very well (so well I needed to use pliers to get one off!)
     GaoGaiGar has GaiGar as the base figure, the transformed mode of Galion
the space lion.  The high shoulderpads of GaiGar just sit loosely on the
figure, however, and fall off very easily.  A bit annoying.  The GGG set
comes with LinerGao (train) as a little single unit.  The shoulderpads for
GGG detach from a small central unit to dismantle LinerGao, although it
requires excessive force.  The completed GaoGaiGar looks pretty good,
although the lion's mane on its chest is a bit wobbly.  Spare hands are
included for the Defense Barrier ability (interposed palm) and the Hell and
Heaven finishing move (although it's hard to get the arms to come together
properly for this clasped-hand pose).  And, of course, the Broken Magnum is a
no-brainer, as the forearms are already detachable.  The Goldion Hammer and
Goldymarg fist really make this toy look SuperDeformed, as they're huge.  In
fact, the figure can't stand very well with the hammer in hand.  A base is
included to display the hammer separately.  
     GaoFighGar is the version used in GaoGaiGar Final, which I haven't seen
yet.  I'm guessing they built a new central unit that turns into a sort of
jet eagle.  The main figure's armor is made up of many little bits that hold
together pretty well, and reconfigure into GFG mode cleverly.  Although you
do end up with a lot more little tiny pieces that can get lost in the carpet,
so be very careful.  The instructions aren't quite as clear on this one, if
only because the flanking bits on the Stealth Gao (corresponding to the lion
mane parts on GGG) are black and it's not immediately clear where they go.
There is no LinerGao for this set, the GFG shoulderpads are just seperate
pieces with no connector.  Stealth Gao comes with some extra wing leading
edges and is generally shaped differently than the original Stealth Gao
(i.e. totally different mold), but these wing bits fall off too easily.  I
get the impression they're supposed to come off as weapons or something, but
the little bit about them in the instructionsis unclear.
     Overall, they're both fairly nifty toys for those who like playing with
lots of tiny fiddly bits.  I'd rank GaoFighGar a little higher than
GaoGaiGar, mainly because GaoFar is a better core figure and holds together
more solidly than GaiGar.  But they're different enough that it's not a total
waste of money to get both.

     Choro-Q Prime: This is Q-01, the non-metallic version of the toy.  And
it's just terribly, frighteningly cuuuuuuute.  At 2.5" (6cm) tall, it's a
squatty little SuperDeformed Optimus Prime with a good paint job and shoulder
swivel poseability.  It comes with a small rifle that's on a sprue.
Unfortunately, the sprue is red plastic, so you end up with little red bits
where the rifle was connected (a black marker takes care if this
effectively).  There's a lot of grey panels as a backpack, this is basically
the trailer folded up.
     Transformation is simple, but elegant, and results in a pretty good-
looking truck mode, a cute little six-wheeler with no real kibble (although,
it looks bad from below, as might be expected.  The truck mode is just under
3" (8cm) long, and the gun stores in a peg hole at the back of the trailer.
     The front wheels are connected to a strong pull-back motor with a high
gear ratio (one inch pulling back gives it more than six inches of powered
movement, plus free rolling).
     Surprise, alternate modes are possible.  "Angel Prime" uses the trailer
panels as wings, held out by having the arms spread wide.  "Cloaked Prime"
wraps the trailer panels around Prime as a BMac Megatron-ish cloak.  In both
of these alternate modes, it's best to store the gun on the trailer peg.
     Is it worth the $15-20 most places are asking?  Maybe.  It's cute and
nifty, but I think much of the price comes from it being a "Limited Edition"
from Takara, fan-hosing pricing.  Maybe the price will drop a bit on the
later ones, like Megatron and Rodimus Prime (which seems to use the same
basic transformation tricks as Optimus).

     Dave Van Domelen, got these a week ago, but had net troubles and stuff
for a while, delaying reviews....