Fansproject Saurus: Dinoichi

 

Well, here it is. The first ever third party figure review from Child Sized Coffin. 

The Fansproject Saurus team is a set of modern takes on the Japan-only Dinoforce, featured in the animated series Victory. The Dinoforce themselves are Pretenders, whose outer shells are dinosaurs, and whose inner robots all transform vaguely into monsters. Dinoichi is the 3P version of Kakuryu, or as he was known in the US as part of the Monstructor team, Slog, and forms the upper torso and head of Dinoking, or as the Fansproject version will be called, Ryu-oh, which translates as “Dragon King”.


3P toys don’t necessarily fall in line with the Hasbro size class nomenclature, so the best size comparison I can offer is that Dinoichi is too large to be a Deluxe: he may be just a smidge over Deluxe height, but he is too massive to fit in that category. He’s more massive even than the olden days of Armada or Energon Deluxes. The closest thing size-wise I can come up with is whatever the size denomination of Classics Optimus Prime was, Ultra or Mega or something. Honestly, that’s not a bad size comparison, and Dinoichi is even thick and stocky the way Classics Prime is. Classics Prime, it turns out, is a Voyager, despite not being size comparable with Voyager figures at all; but that size Voyager, that’s the closest thing to a size class I can put Dinoichi into. 

 

There’s a lot to talk about, seeing as this is the first of the 3P reviews here, but I do want to keep this focused on the figure itself. In some ways this review will serve as an overview of all the Saurus figures, so let’s take a minute and talk about the plastic quality of this figure.

In short, it’s great. Sturdy and solid, there are no thin or hollow parts on the toy, excluding, obviously, places like the cavity the robot head folds in to or the combiner head comes out of, places that obviously are functionally empty. There are no hollow places on this the way Hasbro releases have become a bunch of gaps that a robot unfolds from, so there is a decent weight to the toy. I think that this may be a byproduct of some limitations in the engineering the company is capable of, as in they can’t yet manufacture a figure that has thinner, hollow plastic sections or sliding parts, but that is sort of a different matter. The construction is good and solid, and everything feels strong. The plastic looks, dry is the word that springs to mind, but dull, drab, like it wasn’t hit with a clear coat or something, and this is most apparent on the white and darker paints. In monster mode, Dinoichi sports a lot of gold, and that looks vibrant and shiny. But the darker or plain white areas look unglossy. This is a condition that all the Saurus figures share. All of the joints are firm, and the combiner ports look to be similar to those of the Energon combiners, in that they are round(ed) ports and pegs. I have not combined the figures that I have, as I’m waiting to get the entire set, but a quick plug in of one of the smaller arm figures shows a solid connection.

 

Getting down to this figure specifically, Dinoichi is a big, powerful looking robot, the largest of the four members that I currently own. He’s broad shouldered and imposing looking in both modes, and robot mode has large forearms that imply strength. He is a little stumpy, but there are two general explanations for this: one is an effort to maintain a uniform size in terms of height across the six member of the team. Dinoichi could have been taller, and it would have worked with his general appearance, but an effort was being made by the designers to make all the figures the same in terms of height. The two arm figures are more slender, the two torso figures more stocky, and pictures of the two leg figures show them to be stockier than the arms. The second factor is the two figure design of the Ryo-oh torso. Dinoking/Monstructor was a six piece combiner, employing two figures to merge into the super robot torso. Dinoichi forms the upper half, and so needs to be basically the same size as Dinosan, who forms the lower half of the torso. Dinoichi can be wider up top, as he serves as the combined shoulders, but can’t be so much larger that it would make the unified form unstable or throw off the total look of the combined mode.

This uniform size among individual figures has been done before, despite the standard size class distribution among combiner team members being one large member and four smaller but equal to each other ones. Unfortunately, the last example of this that I know of was Fall of Cybertron Bruticus, an effort that was more failure than anything. But the two toys of equal size torso is not a new idea, having been utilized a number of times in the G1 toyline and it can be executed successfully, as Devastator and Monstructor and Liokaiser can all attest to. Regardless, Dinoichi is the largest member of the team, and he puts the size to good use.

The figure is poseable overall, making use of a lot of double joints, as in the elbows of the robot, and other moving parts present to facilitate combined mode poseability. For instance, the robot has shoulder hinges that are obviously present to allow the combined mode to lift its arms out to the sides, but offer some extra movement in both individual robot and monster modes. The legs are likewise very jointed and possess ball jointed ankles.

 

The Pretender Monsters as they were known in the US were never developed as characters, making only recent comic appearances and then mainly for their Monstructor ability. In Japan, the Dinoforce got screen time, but at present I am not able to comment on anything character specific for this guy. His head gives me a real Soundwave vibe, and research I’ve done on the character indicates that he, along with the rest of his team mates, is pretty dumb. I find this at odds with the headsculpt though, which can be seen as generic faceplated robot, but the Soundwave cues make me think he may be more than meets the eye. Although I probably shouldn’t say that, as this figure is not licensed by Hasbro, and my owning it directly stole food from the mouths of the children of Hasbro. I am a monster.

Speaking of monsters, let’s look at monster mode. Transformation is pretty simple, with the legs contracting and the feet turning around for claws. Dinoichi essentially just turns around to become a vague monster, as the monster head is jutting out of the robot back. The coolest part of the transformation happens with the robot hands, which flip up towards the forearm at the wrist, and the wrist turns 180 degrees to fit the hands into a cavity on the underside of the forearm, which them allows the monster claws to fold out forward into position. It is such a cool step, and I think is a great demonstration of the interesting designs 3P figures have. Personally, I love it when after 30 years of playing with converting robot toys, I pick one up and find a point in the transformation that makes me audibly exclaim “Wow,” and this was that step on Dinoichi for me.

Grrr, rraarrr! I'm a monster!

But I digress. Dinoichi’s monster mode is a monster of some kind, nondescript to the point of being a giant head and some claws. It’s a cool monster, something like whatever G1 Terrorcon Blot is supposed to be, and it has a great range of motion in the arms. The monster head pivots up and down, and the mouth opens to reveal a lower jaw full of teeth. Some tusks and a horn fill in the rest of the face/head details, and in total while it may not be a recognizable monster (read: a dragon or a dinosaur or a yeti) it is recognizable as a monster, like a DOOM enemy or something. Monster mode is leaps and bounds better than the original toy this is based on, without a doubt. None of the Pretender Monsters had discernable alt modes, so there was little pressure put on this updated version in that regard. Regardless, Dinoichi succeeds in having a solid, good looking and fun monster form.

Dinoichi comes packaged with all the combiner pieces needed for Ryo-oh. The box is a fantastic one with a window flap and some great art, worth holding on to for future storage or whatnot. The figure has an individual weapon, a large rectangle that houses a retractable quad barreled blaster, but it is not a very good weapon. The other figures have better ones. Dinoichi also comes with these enoromous pods that attach to the back or –with some difficulty—into the shoulder combiner ports. The pods have double barreled blasters at one end of them, and an opening panel on the other that houses four missile tubes, although there are no missiles or projectiles. These pods are in reality the combiner feet, and the combiner hands are stored in the front ends; each hand has knuckle mounted dual cannons. This is going to be a statement made without any actual knowledge of how large the finished combined mode is going to be, but the feet are huge, and the fists are small. In my head, this makes for a strangely proportioned giant. But, we’ll see later on, I suppose. I think it’s good the hands and feet come with one figure, rather than a hand coming with each arm and a foot with each leg member. The fact that the parts also serve as weapons to some degree is pretty cool as well, as one of the eternal issues with combiner parts is what to do with them when the figure is not combined. While attaching the pods to Dinoichi does add weight to his back and cause him to lean a bit, they are better accessories than the hand-foot weapon parts Combiner Wars brought us, and the leg joints on the figure are sturdy enough that it doesn’t seem like the extra weight is too much of an issue.

Overall, Dinoichi is sort of everything a combiner team member ever is: a toy that is eventually going to have to do one more thing than a regular transforming robot. As I said, I haven’t combined the four figures I currently have, so I don’t have any comments on the torso mode or that just yet. Holding off on that until I finish the set. As a stand-alone figure, Dinoichi is a good one, because the robot mode is strong and the monster mode is fun. I may not be objective about this in the least, because I am super enthusiastic about the 3P world I’ve only recently discovered, but I think this is a terrific figure on all counts.