Let’s Go Gokaiger–Gokai Red!

Carrying on the Super Sentai theme I started.  Theme?  Addiction?  Whatever…(Tomato, tomaarrto) I have here a figure of the series that got me raring for some Power Rangery goodness.  It’s Gokai Red from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (Pirate Squadron Stylish-jer).  Or Pirate Power Rangers.  It is made by Bandai and is from their SH Figuarts line of action figures. 

After seeing the first episode, I knew I had to hunt down a toy of Gokai Red.  I mean his real name is Captain Marvellous.  Seriously.  That’s what it is.  No other names in there, that would effectively mean his first name is “Captain”  and his surname is “Marvellous”.  I think I have found the name for my child.

I just couldn’t resist…

Luckily there was little need for me to resist.

This was the first one I got from this line and I must say, I like the articulation.  From my experience with Kicker and Micoman, I thought that was the pinnacle of human figure articulation, but I am pleasantly surprised by how versatile this Figuarts line actually is.  Let’s get cracking.  First thing that I feel I should note, is the box.

It’s a little bit special.  A little bit showy, a little bit…  STYLISH.  There is a picture of the toy posed on the front and a nice bold margin with the name of your Gokai member in there.  Special mention goes to the front and side of the box which has an eye attracting foil finish.  Hmm, foily red goodness.  It’s very very nice to look at.  The back just goes through his accessories and poses. 

Speaking of accessories, he comes with quite a few, which you can see in the blister once he’s out of the box.  This series of rangers don’t have individualised weapons, well, not quite.  More on that with other figures.   The blister is a solid piece that holds him in well.  No real dramas and not much to say about it.


If you grabbed a toy in the initial production run, you got a bonus.  This is the same idea that I raged about when I got my Daizyujin and missed out on those effect parts for my Gokai-Oh too.  But I am glad to say that I got these ones, and I am glad I did.  I’d say that it’s worth hunting down a first release, they are fairly common and so not all that expensive.  This works well as the bonus is the “Gokai Darin” which just so happens to be the steering wheel for Gokai-oh.

I’ll cover that in more detail later.

Capt. Marvellous looks very nice out of the box.  I must admit I was impressed by the sculpting on this guy.

I like it, because it looks very much like a guy in a super hero suit, complete with tight pants.  Even the upper back area has a nice toned looks to it.  As you can see from the side, he is very sleek.  The only downer being the copyright stamp on his lower back, which sticks out like a sore thumb.  I mean Really??  They couldn’t have gone for a more subtle ink?




One thing I that nabbed me from the start was the pirate theme.  I was impressed that the typical pirate hat (A ‘Tricorne’ hat apparently) has been incorporated into the design of his helmet!  BRILLIANT!

The gold paint has been nicely applied to him and gold and red naturally make a nice combo of colours.  In the course of shooting these pictures, I discovered that mine has a small chip on the front.  Chip, or maybe excess glue.  Something anyway that won’t come off.  Luckily it is not too big.

There are a lot of joints on this guy and some of them are very cleverly thought out and made.

He comes with a double joint in the shoulder allowing his arms to cross his chest easily, double jointed elbows and knees,  ball jointed like ankle, toe cut, mid-chest cut, waist cut and hinged hands.  The neck has a point of movement both at the collar as well as at the base of the helmet, creating an incredibly emotive head despite the lack of actual facial features.  The hips in particular are very clever.  So as to not ruin the lines of the figure, and to allow better movement, they can be pulled down out groin area, which allows him to lift his knee up higher.  Very impressive.  About the only downer to the articulation comes from the belt.  It is so thick that it does impede his waist joint a little bit.  However with all the other joints he has, it is rarely noticed.

The clever shoulder joints.

            

He comes with the usual Gokaiger accessories of his Gokai Sword (scimitar), Gokai gun (a flint lock style pistol) and his Mobirates (I love that pun, mobirates!), a pirate mobile phone that is his morpher.  He also comes with his sentai key which he needs to plug into the mobirates to change form, as well as activating more power for his weapons.

Right now I am going to have a look at his weapons.

The design is very sharp (geddit?) and the paint is crisp with excellent detail on the pirate logo.  There is even one on the hilt in red in the gold circle in the third picture.  Now THAT is awesome!  He comes with a movable silver cartridge which can be swapped for another one that has a Ranger Key inserted for making him do his finishing move the “Final Wave”.

The gun’s detail is no less lacking!!  Add to that, he can still hold it pistol whipping style!!  NICE.

Before and after Ranger Key insertion, which just involves quickly switching the silver cartridges over.

And how the cartridges look when separate to the gun.

The sword’s cartridge is quite a bit bigger than the gun’s.

It’s a nice little effect, very minor, but I am glad it was included.

His next main accessory is his Gokai Red Ranger Key.  this is the key that is used to change Capt Marvellous into Gokai Red, as well as allowing Gokai-Oh (The Gokaiger's super robot) to unleash the Starburst attack.  The key is insanely small and it has two variations.

One where you can see the ranger, the other where it is flipped over to show the ‘key’ aspect.  He also comes with different hands for holding them.

The key of course plugs into his Mobirate.

Damn I love that!  Just be sure to keep the key somewhere safe as they are small and can be lost easily. (and plus, Basco might try to steal it!!)


The final accessory that general issue Gokai Red come with are and extra pair of arms.  Boooring!  I hear you say, but fret not my chum for they are better than you think, as they are folded arms, SAWEEET!

Oh yeah!  Now that is a lovely addition!  It’s just so Captain Marvellous/Gokai red it’s incredible!!

It also justifies the bicep seam somewhat, I love this.  Look at how emotive he is, despite not having a face.

The first run bonus, which I alluded to at the start is his Darin, and out of the box, it comes in a couple of pieces.  All of the Figuarts Gokaigers came with one, Pink and Yellow  had theirs included as they were Bandai shop exclusives and the others had them for first runs.  The only one that missed out was Silver.  I suspect that is because his would have needed a new design.

The bagged darin, and instructions, just in case you can’t work it out yourself…

Anyway, Gokai Red’s Darin is a bit different to the others, being larger and it doesn’t have a chair.

As you can see, it has the wheel, is sculpted nicely and very red.  There is a black stand (well I think it’s a stand) that can be used but I think it makes Red too tall for it.  The wheel spins really freely and it has the section for the Ranger key to go in the middle.  I like that it even has the little window that would pop up with “Let’s Go” when they used their Ranger powers on Gokai-oh.  I guess it would be asking a bit much to have had that included in this, but it would have been too awesome!!

It’s a great addition to the set.  I still recommend getting this if you can, they don’t appear to be all that rare and really add to the extra playability of the figure.

I think that with him standing on the stand he is too high up for spinning the wheel like he does in the show but I suspect it’ll be handy for raising him up over the others when they are all together.

So now that I have covered all his bits and pieces, let’s see how he poses.

I love how you can make him looks bored.  “I have my Super Robot and nothing to smash…”  I also like that you can make him crouch unaided!

Had to enlist some aid from a figma stand, as I don’t have any figuarts ones as these guys don’t get one…

The toe hinge comes in handy for the good old Ranger charge!

I did find it a bit hard to find inspiration for a jumping pose.

More crouching. 

Best of all, more cross legged sitting! OH YEAH!

Here are some attempts at classic Gokai Red poses.

FIIIINAAAAL WAAAAAVE!

About the only thing missing from this guy is a collar flicking hand.  You can improvise with one of his other hands, but considering how all the other Gokaigers come with they ‘Change pose’ hands, I am surprised they missed this for Red.  I mean Silver comes with two hand JUST for his change pose…


So I think to summarise this up, this is a really well made figure.  The amount of joints in this guy make him so dynamic, it’s just a joy to play with and pose.  The accessories he has are a nice touch and the sculpting is great, I love that he looks like a suited up dude, and the suit looks authentic, from the flared boot cuffs, to the ridges on the back of his gloves!!  The fact that the toy is so well designed makes me happy that I sought out the other Gokaigers as well.  At first I just thought I’d grab Marvellous since all the guys will be the same, except with different helmets, but it’s such a quality figure that I don’t mind having 4 of this toy in different colours.

Sadly now I am looking at other figuarts figures.  Sigh.  There are two more Gokaigers to get (Gokai Christmas and Basco) and I have been nabbing some Sentai Jetman figures as well.  Plus a Gavan one.  Sigh.  They are good.  So is this guy, it’s spot on.  All I would have liked is a collar flicking hand and a stand for him.