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Gold Knight Garo - Garo & Zaroba |
| Series | Gold Knight Garo |
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| Title | Garo & Zaroba | |
| Release Date | January 2006 | |
| Manufacturer | Bandai | |
| Suggested Price (JPY) | 3,800 | |
| Scale | 1/10 | |
| Height (cm) |
Human Form: 16.8 cm (approx.) Armored Form: 18.9 cm (approx.) |
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| No. of Parts | 1 figure + 22 parts + 1 instruction sheet | |
| My Rating | Very Good |
Related Items:
Introduction
The
ever popular series of SIC figures is now at volume
32 (at the point of writing this article) and Bandai
is running out of Kamen Riders. Thus, on January
2006, Bandai is releasing another product line
bringing the characters from a new Tokusatsu series,
"Garo - The Fanged Wolf". This new series is named
"Equip and Prop" but then it is obvious Bandai is
bringing most of its features from SIC series.
What is "Garo - The Fanged Wolf"? It is a Tokusatsu series release on 2005 in Japan and a first of its kind oriented to mature audiences, while other mostly focused to younger viewers (children). It has a dark atmosphere with monsters rendered in CG and a very stylish fighting scenes ala Matrix style.
“Garo - The Fanged Wolf” revolves on the life of a Makai (magic) Knight, Saejima Kouga, protecting humanity against their own dark demonic manifestations called "Horrors". In his quest to purge them, he encounters a young girl named Kaoru that he saved from a Horror, but she was stained with demonic blood. It is a rule that those that been stained by Horror blood should be cut down or they will die painfully in approximately 100 days. Kouga takes mercy upon her and tries to find a way to purify her before her remaining time expires. Thus the series focus on Kouga developing relationship with Kaoru and his stand in protecting humanity after the wishes of his father.
Saejima Kouga is the Golden Makai Knight of the West and earned the title "Garo" from his predecessor and his father, Saejima Taiga. In his quest to purge "Horror", he has the ability to summon his golden armor and transformed into Golden Knight Garo. His armor helps protects him from damaging blows but his armor is not invulnerable. If a Horror is strong, though they can damage and injure Kouga. If the armor exposed to a very powerful blow the armor will retract before the 99.9 seconds time limit. The Sword of Garo is a powerful weapon that can cut down almost anything, only a rare few Horrors are strong enough to resist its force.
Packaging
This is the first volume of the new “Equip and
Prop” series from Bandai. It is packaged in vivid
clear plastic boxes that fully display its contents.
The contents are rested in 2 plastic trays and the
parts are as listed below. Like SIC series, this
package also roughly comes with 30% metal. The items
indicated in bold are made of metal and
bold underline
are partially made of metal.
| Upper Tray | Lower Tray |
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There is 1 page black and white instruction sheet tapered inside the colored cardboard. It is hidden between the folded cardboard (I almost freak out looking for it).
Saejima Kouga Figure
This
is an articulated action figure but I am a bit
disappointed in this department as the range of
movement is in overall limited comparing to the
usual figures from the SIC series. This cannot be
blamed as Bandai tried to give a realistic human
sculpt and it lack places for them to hide the
joints. This is point is further highlighted as it
is compared to Kouga’s Garo form in the next section
where it show much better articulations.
There is no head articulation point. The nearest is at his lower collar that gives limited sideway and rotation range of movement. The shoulder is ball jointed and comes with limited range. Elbows are hinged jointed and only bendable at 90 degree with no rotation movement here. At least both hands are ball jointed with free movement.
The waist made of 2 articulation points that give the figure a dynamic movement. There are located at the lower chest and waist area and the combined point are somewhat giving only limited range of movement owing to the tightness of its suit.
The pelvic is ball jointed to both thigh but then again his tight suit pant is limiting its range. The knees are similar to the elbows that are hinged joint and only bendable backward at about 90 degree. There are no rotation movements here. His shoes are ball jointed but then the range is limited being block by his pants.
That is all for the articulations. Now, let us talk about the aesthetic perspective of this figure. SIC series normally deal with bug like riders and that was the easy part. Replicating a human complexion is the challenge. In my opinion, Bandai failed to deliver a real look-alike head sculpt. It does look real enough but then it is not Hiroshi Konishi, the actor as Saejima Kouga. The sculpt looks older comparing to the boyish face of Hiroshi. The hairstyle is out. It is not as messy and fluffy as seen on TV.
As for the body, I noticed tons of additional details added on the simple black suit of Kouga’s costume. The Zaruba ring worn on his left hand is faithfully replicated. It comes equipped with a sleek silver katana with red sheath. Both katana and its sheath are very well detailed.
The only complain I have for the figure is there is no additional left hand provided. As seen on TV, Kouga often fight or pose with his sword sheath and the lack of additional left hand has removed a lot of posing possibility.
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Who is Zaruba?
The
packaged mentioned Garo and Zaruba and I
have been wondering for a while where the
Zaruba is.
As in TV, Zaruba is actually the Madou Ring supporting Kouga as a Makai Knight. He is actually a piece of sentient gothic ring that are able to help train, advice, and detect horrors. They also help empower certain techniques when in their mystical armor or help dispel hypnosis from horror influences. Zaruba originally belonged to Saejima Taiga. After Taiga was killed, Kouga has since worn his father's ring. Zaruba himself was created by the Makai Priest Amon who creates the anti-Horror equipment to aid and support a Makai Knight.
Zaruba comes in 2 pieces. The first is the 1:1 scale metal ring intricately sculpted and large enough for any fingers. The second part is its display base, entirely made of metal, sculpted as the upper half body of a skeleton. It has both arms cross-folded to the chest. Zaruba act as the head and slot into the base and while combined, it look like half of a skeleton figure.
Obviously, this actual scale Zaruba cannot talk.
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Gold Knight Garo Like SIC, the golden knight is converted from the Kouga’s figure. The conversion is extreme where it requires the figure to be dissected into pieces and only the abdomen area is being reuse. Unlike some of the SIC where only requires change of armor pads or maybe some limb segments, full limbs and head are provided to swap here. (I think this is what it means by “Prop”) As arm and leg is of different of different parts, the articulations here completely different. It comes with tons of articulation points and pose better compared to the Kouga’s figure. A black semi-transparent cloak is provided to display Garo with a stylish cloak or without. The cloak is made of soft rubber and feels quite heavy. 3 pins are use to pin the heavy cloak to the figure. |
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Talking about pin, I notice a good improvement over the SIC figures here. Garo’s chest armor is made of the usual soft PVC that wrapped around the inner chest part. The parting lines are usually located at both side of his waist. This is similar to SIC figures. What better is that this item uses pins as connectors to keep the parting lines inconspicuous instead of the flimsy catch or latch technique normally used on SIC figure. Garo comes equipped with a large gold sword. This sword is made of metal where its blade are colored in black and decorated by intricate patterns in white. The heavy sword comes with a well-detailed golden sheath. |
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Conclusion
This is a new line from Bandai with most of the
features borrowed from their SIC series. This solid
debut release allows the figure to be “Equip” with
well-detailed weapons and “Prop” into armored form.
This is great to those who got bored with Kamen
Riders.
Beside the figure, I also recommend “Garo – The
Fanged Wolf” to those who has not watched it.
This is item is purchased locally at Low Yat Plaza.
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Document Date : 2006-04-07 |
Responses to this page:
FYI: This is not a part of the S.I.C. series. Some people actually mistake this as a part of the S.I.C. line.
Your are right. This is not SIC but another product line; Garo - Equip & Prop series.
yup this is a beautiful figure and the coming up product line of Garo is even better