FansProject Ryu-Oh

 

The combined form of the Saurus team, Ryu-Oh (“Dragon King”) is the third party version of Victory combiner Dinoking. Initially announced to some degree of excitement, it seems the enthusiasm for Ryu-Oh cooled over the time of release, which is really unfortunate. Six all-around solid if individually non-distinct figures, and one really tremendous combined mode. Maybe it’s the lack of Western presence for the characters that caused people to tune out during the life of the set; maybe a Monstructor would have been a bigger hit; maybe the individual bots really needed their dinosaur shells. Who can say?

FansProject Saurus: Dinoroku

Here I sit at 5.22AM, the second day back from our European vacation, apparently at the point in jetlag where time means nothing, and I fall asleep at 8PM and awake at 4 AM. Maybe some writing will help me out, or at least, help me get my brains back in working order.

Dinoroku is the FansProject take on Victory’s Dinoforce commander Goryu, and is the final entry in the Saurus team. Dinoroku is a green reworking of the previous figure, Dinogo, but despite its being just a repaint, it is remarkably different in the details.

FansProject Saurus: Dinogo

 It would seem that the final two Ryu-Oh figures are in short supply among etailers. While the first four are regularly spotted on sale, the last two are only rarely found at all. This copy of Dinogo was the last one in stock at TFSource.

Both Dinogo and final team member Dinoroku will share the same mold, but will sport differences significant enough to make them two very separate toys. Dinogo is the third party version of Dinoforce member Doryu, who in the American G1 canon was Skowl.

FansProject Saurus: Dinoshi

Dinoshi is the analog to G1 Pretender Monster Bristleback and Victory Dinoforce member Gairyu, and serves as the other arm of Ryu-Oh, opposite Dinoni. This is another rather slender figure, setting it apart from four of the other five team members. This takes a different approach to combiner limb figures, as most other combiners, official product or otherwise, maintain a generally uniform size among the four limb figures. It will be interesting to see how Ryu-Oh turns out in combined mode with arms that will be smaller than the legs.

This figure also kills a pretty long standing theory here at the Coffin, that of third party companies somehow not being capable of producing sliding parts, as the robot legs slide during transformation. Ok, we were wrong.

 

FansProject Saurus: Dinosan

 

 Dinosan is actually the very first third party figure I purchased. He is the Ryu-Oh version of Rairyu, or Birdbrain, if you prefer the American Pretender Monsters to the Japanese Dinoforce.

While he was a great introduction to the third party world, Dinosan is a less than great individual figure. He serves as the crotch for the combined Ryu-Oh, and as such, both robot and monster modes suffer a bit. Primarily the robot mode.

FansProject Saurus: Dinoni

 Once again, as another semester winds down a young mans’ thoughts turn to writing articles about toys he bought months ago and didn’t have time to write on before. One such figure is the second in the FansProject Saurus set, Dinoni, the 3P rendition of Victory’s Dinoforce member Yokuryu, the Japanese version of G1 Pretender Monster Wildfly.

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”.