Power Rangers/Boukenger 5" Daibouken/Drivemax

[Alpha OTS]

I posted this on another forum, but I thought it might be of some interest to the people here as we enjoy mecha with gimmicks too. I'm not a Power Ranger fan, but I am a fan of Voltronish things, and it's only by random chance that I came to be aware that the deluxe Japanese version of this mold existed which is highly detailed and expensive. Walking through the toy aisle, I saw a mini domestic version of that deluxe. For $9, I thought it was worth investigating. I pick it up, look at the back and see that the other vehicles that combine to the basic mini "zord" set I had in hand also are capable of making their own "zords". So that's three mini-voltrons of a sort.

So I picked up "Set A" which is 3 vehicles(truck, bulldozer and sub), "Set B" which is 3 vehicles(jet, hovercraft and car) and Set "C" which is 4 vehicles(steam shovel, driller, cement truck, hook crane) for a total of 10 vehicles.

Caution: These pics taken with a crappy camera which is very good at making my desk look much more damaged than it actually is.

From left to right here's Set A, Set C and Set B.

And let's combine that into only two mechs. I believe these are as close to official as the official modes for Drive Max and Drive Tank as you can get. So let's combine one more time into only one mech.

And this is what the packaging says the total super combined mode or Ultimate Drivemax/Daibouken should look like.

Here's a variation that looks a lot better, but the black car isn't as solidly connected to the back as it could be.

And here's what the teeny tiny instructions say the total super combined mode should look like with everything solidly connected. Since there's options, let's see if there's combined vehicle modes.

Again, I believe this is as close to offical modes as is possible with this set.

And let's try a complete connected train ala Brave Tiger.

And with the red jet so there's no loose pieces at all.

This is more like Lego Voltron, cool, so let's try some variations.

And the last two I came up with. I added a couple very minor paint details to cover up the screws in black plastic and to make the red truck look like it had a real cockpit.

Now for the negatives. Lack of paint apps, especially if you've seen a picture of the Japanese version of the normal sized toy this is based on. For the smaller size, eh, I can deal with that. I added the ones I thought it needed without much effort. Other negative, due to the lego-ish nature of these sets, you can see above there's some partforming going on. Things break apart then reassemble elsewhere. So insteady of things folding in half, they instead break apart and then peg to another hole with some pegs and holes still being visible. Last negative, articulation is pretty basic, and in Set B zord mode pretty much nonexistent.

I used to own a vehicle Voltron and this reminds me a lot of that set, only much smaller(which I prefer) and with more articulation and WAY WAY WAY more combination options. I thought it especially neat that they managed to have a unique head for each individual set zord AND the A+B+C zord. So all together it was about $27. Definitely worth checking out if you're a Voltron fan of the vehicle sort.

[gerwalk25]

These Boukenger/Overdrive toys are pretty cool. I own two of the sets and are compatible with Bandai's other toyline Machine Robo Mugenbine.

I used this link to reference which vehicle connects to the other plus it seems that Boukenger has the most reconfigurations of any Sentai Robo. Very Cool! (Click on Daibouken)

http://www.boukenger.com/products/index.html

Edited March 8, 2007 by gerwalk25

[Alpha OTS]

These Boukenger/Overdrive toys are pretty cool. I own two of the sets and are compatible with Bandai's other toyline Machine Robo Mugenbine.

I used this link to reference which vehicle connects to the other plus it seems that Boukenger has the most reconfigurations of any Sentai Robo. Very Cool! (Click on Daibouken)

http://www.boukenger.com/products/index.html

Daibouken looks awesome. Unfortunately he's expensive even before import costs. The recolored black Daibouken looks even nicer, but is usually even more expensive.

It's a shame Bandai of America fubar'd the domestic "Power Ranger" release. It's completely different and in a bad way. It looks like an oversized knockoff and doesn't have the versatility and poseability that the Japanese set has. There's far less paint apps, gaps in the legs, the crane and mixer look like flat bed trucks which in turn look even more like rollerskates in the super combined mode, the sub and dozer don't fold in half which is a huge deal, and due to the changes they made it's very unlikely that the large red jet will be released. Only upside is that it's relatively inexpensive compared to the Japanese version, but it's clear why that is.

That's partially why I'm happy with the 5" Bandai of America sets. Inexpensive, small, versatile with more fan modes, a much better representation of the Japanese Daibouken than the official larger version, and it didn't break my wallet to boot. Although if I ever happened upon a reasonably priced Daibouken, I'd definitely snag it.