No DX Bravers for me

After having studied my Ke-tai Sousakan min-pla models, I'm glad I didn't buy any of the DX toys. The mini-pla share similar characteristics with the DX toys and based on that I can tell the DX toys would be clunky and not as much fun to play around with as a figma or TF figure. What's worse, the LED faces prevent the DX Bravers from being display pieces. The only DX I'm interested in is Medic but I don't think it's worth it without a Phone Braver and those are definitely not worth it. So looks like I'm going to give up on the toy series, too bad.

We are riding, riding, riding...

Lots of pictures to show off. Shinkis on their rides, BRS figma and Nendo, fun stuff. If you visit my other haunts, you've probably seen them already.

First up is Partio and Pomock on the 3-wheeler Ex:ride.


More pics below!

The DOOM CYCLE!!

Harmony Grace on her new DOOM CYCLE!!



How Harmony got her bike...


She kick-stomped the original owner... ^^;

She is her own tank...

I don't know why but PB's giving me grief today so for now I'm using Flickr instead. I've opened up Busou Shinki Zelnograd. She's nice but arms are kinda lose at the upper arm socket which makes it a bit of a pain when getting her to hold up her big gun. And does she have a big gun.


Zelnograd in a GI Joe Armored Panther tank. I got the tank because it looked like it might fit a Shinki and I was right. :D I also have another vehicle which I'll open up later and see if it fits as well.

I've also tried out my Kagura Hinata dakimakura cover. It's definitely one of the smoother covers of my dakimakura covers but I still like the Haruka daki the best as far as feel (too bad it's also the most wrinkly :p).



Here's my dakimakura ranking for comfort & feel: Haruka, Hakata, Hinata, Minato, Momoyo, Saki.
As far as how they look though: Momoyo, Haruka, Saki, Hinata, Minato, Hakata.

I also got a dakimakura cover that came as a Sofmap bonus for getting Para-Sol from them. Features girls with bare nipples, a first for my collection. The feel seems to be about the same as the Saki covers though so it's unlikely I'll actually use that cover.

Mini-Pla finished!

I took my time but built all 4 of the Ke-tai Sousakan Mini-pla plastic models. If one works hard at it, you can probably build most if not all of them in a day. But I'm super slow so I took a while. :p

Here are the pics of each in their individual modes as well as the combined mode at the end. You can mix and match the sets so that 7 wears Demolition and 01 wears Grindor as well as just mixing the individual parts. However 7 only has the Grindor Chakushin face and 01 only has Demolition's since that's the setup each PB usually use in the show.


One thing that this set has help me decide is that I'm not going to get the DX toy version of them. The samples of the electronic light & sound gimmicks on Youtube hasn't really excited me and on top of that I'm aware of their annoyance factor with them ringing at random intervals throughout the day (there doesn't seem to be an off button short of taking out the batteries). And if the mini-pla versions of them are any indication, the Chakushin form of them aren't that fun to play around with either.

Fully filled dakimakura cover

I washed the Daiba Minato cover and filled it with the Sears body pillow and a 20x28" pillow bought from Target. I was originally going to use a smaller pillow but it turned out the body pillow filling can be squished higher making the top fill out more but at the cost of having the body pillow take up less space in the cover. It's hard to tell from the picture but the 2nd pillow starts from the knees down. I'm happy with the way the cover is filled out but the 2nd pillow is much stiffer than the body pillow so I'm going to switch it out for something softer.



I built the first of the MiniPla. It was easier than I thought. You can pretty much twist the pieces out by hand and then use a model knife to shave off any sprue that sticks out too much. Next will be Grinder.



I decided to keep Tsugaru for now. If I get another EX, it would be Waffebunny and she would be my last EX. I'm on the fence on getting the upcoming Shinki figures; they've gotten rather expensive.

Brief & dirty Tsugaru review

I have mixed feelings on Tsugaru. I like her look but her execution leaves much to be desired. She's backheavy due to the fact that her backpack sticks out further from her back than is really needed. Her thigh armor doesn't serve much purpose other than to get in the way of either mode. The armor's alt mode is a joke; it doesn't stick together well and you have to perform figure gymnastics to get the figure onto the vehicle. Her blades and electromagnetic rifles can't be wielded by themselves; you need to find some other part to help her use them which is a huge pain in the arse. Frankly I'm a bit on the fence about keeping her and she may be the last EX armor I'm getting.