Author: Con

So after a year and 4 months, many robots, and 245 posts later, we finally made it to 10,000 page views! Still trying to make it to 10,000 visitors.

So lately I have just been writing about anime I have been watching on Netflix. I really meant to concentrate on robot anime. But I let my binge watching take me in different directions after finishing Gurren Lagann, like Kill la Kill, Sword Art Online and Death Note. I will start digging for more robot anime and putting out some robot posts, soon. I think I was just tired of editing photos. So now that I have had a break back to robots!

 

More Netflix anime binge watching brought me to Kill la Kill. I have no idea why it is named that after watching the whole darn series. I honestly thought this was going to be a pretty lame series. I am not sure how I made it that deep into the series without giving up on it because it was pretty bad.

It is about a 17 year old girl on a quest to find her dad’s killer that leads her Honnouji Academy and conflict with the president of the student council. Sounds lame right? Well actually, it was until episode 17, but actually now that I think about it episode 4 was the hook. I laughed my ass off on that one. I definitely have to watch that one again. The comedy relief in Mako Mankanshoku and her family was probably my favorite part of the series. The silliness and insanity probably was its saving grace as I was not a fan of Ryuko or Satsuki the two main characters.

I didn’t see much of a need for the revealing odd costumes/living clothing during the fighting transformations. It seemed like a fighting anime with a crappy storyline with a little too much fan service. Then bottom drops out on episode 17 and the story flips you for a doozy. All of a sudden the story goes scifi and I really found myself enjoying the plot twist. It changed my mind about the whole series. So if you like fighting anime with a little bit of skin and whole lot of silliness, Kill la Kill is not a bad way to kill time…

Rating 7/10 pretty good, go watch it!

I have been on an anime watching binge due to Space Battleship Yamato 2199. I have been meaning to watch this for a few months and I just watched them all in December. Earth is on the verge of destruction in 2199 due to meteor bombs dropped by the Gamilas. The Space Battleship Yamato rushes off to Iscandar in hope of restoring the earth.

While several changes have been made to the series, the remake is very faithful to the original anime. I was surprised how they used the original score and sound effects, which really brought it all back for me. The original Star Blazers is probably my favorite anime to this day, but this remake with a few changes to modernize the plot and bring more depth was a lot of fun. The battles were much more fun to watch and the action was better.

I really enjoyed the new and original characters and their rich back stories. Nova and Princess Starsha were the only female characters in the original series(and they both looked the same) which made no sense, but the new version fixes this and creates a better balance in the male/female ratio. The animation is beautiful, it really brings the series into this century.  The background stories about rebellion on Gamilas and how the conquered non blue people were treated was interesting and unexpected. Even with more characters and relationships, each character had much more fleshed out than in the original series. Akira Yamamoto and Melda Dietz were new characters that made this a much richer experience. Even older characters like  Erich Domel and Shiro Sanada were much more empathetic. The episode with the psychic really threw me for a loop! That was pretty awesome. I can’t say more without giving anything away. There was an episode with an artificial intelligence that I really enjoyed as well. This is likely the best remake I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

While the original series was a classic, this remake takes it to greater heights. I read a review on Kotaku where there are definitely some story flaws, but I may be blinded by my love for this cartoon. Be that as it may, it only detracts a little bit for me and I still rate this anime a 10 out of 10 for me. If you love space opera, this is better than Gundam for me and I love Gundam too! Here is to hoping that there is a remake of the second season in the works out there.

Honestly, I really should be putting up the rest of my robots, but I have been busy making changes so I can change the template on the site. Once I finish, changing the template it’s back to posting robots for me! In the meantime, I have been watching some anime and been pleasantly surprised.

So I was looking for new anime that would be cool to watch. One of the highly rated ones on Netflix peaked my interest as it was about a big super robot.  Your average monster of the week versus Gurren Lagann. I watched through the first story arc and thought it was over(and kind of lame). Super robots kicking ass is usually decent entertainment. For the most part it was pretty shallow, nothing to write home about. Lots of silliness, action and fun. I actually kicked it to the side for a month or two after watching the first episode. I thought the robot was just a big head. Not quite what I was looking for, after a few more episodes a few months later now I have a super robot. Which was just alright for me.

But the first episode of the second story arc the storyline just went nuts. The story got serious and SO much darker and deeper.  There are a few twists that just take this series way over the top. Watching the first part of this series, you never would have suspected it would get this good or that it would even go in this direction. The first 16 episodes are just a prelude to the real story of Simon the Digger. Initially, I thought the storyline would be about Kamina. The ending is a little bittersweet, but watching till the end is worth the payoff. That 2nd part goes a bit Sci-Fi  and I loved where it took me. Go Team Gurren!

I rate this a  8/10.  Definitely and surprisingly worth your time if you don’t mind waiting 16 episodes for it to get good.

Tornado Number is from Polyfect Toys. It is another dollar store find. It appears to be a knockoff of a series that never made it over to the US. Granbird  from the anime  Brave Fighter Sun of Great Fighbird back in 1991-1992 came right after Transformers Generation 1 ended. I am not a fan of the Brave Series robots design wise. Takara made some robots for this in DX deluxe or STD standard versions. A lot of the robots from the series are recycled and modified from the Transformers cartoon.

Sorry, I won’t be putting up any images of this in robot mode as I will not be adding it to my collection. But the quality and build looks better than most robot knockoffs I have seen. If I actually liked the robot it would be on display now. It may be cheaply made, but it does not look cheap. They are fun additions to the site, so I will put them up on my site until they stop making them.

 

Polyfect Toys makes a number of knockoff toys or KO for short, but the quality is much better than I would have thought initially based on Construction the Devastator KO I picked up from them. Even if they do not last, $5.99 for a cheap plastic robot will not break the bank for a nice little display robot.

I put an image of the Takara Granbird below. Look familiar?

Meet Power Goldan or Ougon Gattai Goldran from the anime Ōgon Yūsha Goldran from 1995-1996. I had never heard of Polyfect Toys till I bought Construction(Devastator knock off). They seem to be the fine purveyors of knockoff robots. Power Goldan will not be a part of my collection, but I find this toy line fascinating. The quality is not terrible and these are not the worst robots I have ever seen. But they are all plastic, the color is terrible, and this one looks kinda cheap. The instructions show he can turn into a dinosaur/dragon type robot and back.

I always find cheap robots fun and really tacky(which is the fun part). So if you don’t mind spending a few bucks on Power Goldan you can add him to your collection on the cheap. I hope they keep extending this line until I see something I like robot wise.

 

This is Construction(lamest name ever, right?). I found this combiner robot at Danny’s Carwash 6 years ago. Aside from the robot’s name and brand Polyfect Toys, there is almost no English on the package. It’s all in Chinese. But what this really is, is a really cool knock off of the Generation 1 Devastator. Go figure. I had hours of fun playing with these at my desk at work transforming them when I was bored.

 

The only other English on the box besides Construction is the name of each combiner robot, the distributor, and the choking warning. The names are as generic as you can get(Building, Feeding, Picking, Sanitation, Ravage, Disguise). Wonder what genius figured out those names? Anyway, I lost this piece and I found it again at the Dollar Store. Guess they keep pumping out more of these, but I am glad they did.  I see some Spanish on these, so they must be selling it in Spain or Mexico too. Probably China too, seeing as there is Chinese all over it.

This is a fun piece to have and such a great price. I only ever had 2 of the original G1 Constructicons, so it is nice to have them all in this piece. I am wondering why they are still selling the Polyfect Construction after all these years. I am thinking Takara must have sold them rights to use the original molds as they look identical to the original Devastator. The quality is not that great(the plastic is cheap and the paint job is not that good), but now I feel much more comfortable transforming each of these as I did not spend a ton on these robots.