Keroro Gunsou kits- Thoughts from the peanut gallery

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WishfulThinker

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Received my order of 3 of these today (Dororo, Giroro and Afro Gunsou). Since some people have voiced interest in more information about these, I thought I'd share some thoughts.

So far I've only built one of the kits, Dororo. That said these aren't quite the most challenging kits Bandai have put out with only 2 instruction pages to go through. The hardest area is the head and its setup for the eyes. You build 2 sets, one used and one hidden and onto each put a different kind of emotion via stickers. For example, Dororo has his normal eyes, closed meditation eyes and his 'trauma switch' eyes. Of course with only 2 sets that leaves you somewhat limited as to what emotions you can have on it. The stickers look like they might be removeable but I don't want to risk it. Personally it's an easy choice for me- regular and meditating. No trauma switch, thanks (not a big fan of anime Dororo, they changed him alot from his manga counterpart). Acessory wise you get Dororo's blade, a shuriken, what's either a bowl or a suction cup and a small base to make him stand right. In all, pretty nice kit of the character.

One thing that hit me with all 3 kits is a key sign of why we all know Bandai wanted this series. A flyer included suggests "Hey kiRAB! Now go out and buy Gundam kits to sick Keroro kits heaRAB on them!" Most of the suggested kits are SD, but some are a bit odd (Strike Freedom?!). I'm sure some fun could be hand with this but it's a pretty blunt way to use Keroro to pimp Gundam.

On a similar note, it seems both Keroro and SD Gundam are starting to make use of cutouts. Afro Gunsou comes with dancing cutouts of the other 5 platoon merabers to pose with him as well as some tiny to-scale concert tickets.
 
Cool, dare I ask where you got them?

Hehe, Trauma switch...that's an intresting Model Kit.
of course, by mentioning that, you've challenged yourself to do it and show us pics.
 
My usual 'dealer', HobbyLink Japan- http://www.hlj.com

I just put his meditating eyes on. Kind of a shame since if you leave one pair blank you can have him in mysterious "We must find the 5th meraber!" look as he appeared in the first 6 volumes. Except for the trauma switch you get 2 versions of each eye- a full size one that I assume is to make it easier for children to get them straight and for those that are more confident just the coloured part.

I did try one, putting Afro Gunsou on Kokuryu Gundam to create what I call 'Afro Bancho'. Would probably work better with generic SD Gundam kits rather than the SD Musha kits I have.
 
How poseable are they? How well do they stand? How tall?

A local bookstore has 2 sets of the Keroro Platoon figures from the Kaiyodo line. They're pretty poseable and have static posed arms and legs (Dororo looks to be the most dynamic of the set) for $10. I'm weighing my options here ^_-
 
I'll have to measure them later, but as rough comparison they're similar in size to the average SD Gundam kit. Poseability is somewhat limited. You get a standard rotating neck joint and a range of balljointed lirabs. Most of these are pre-posed (like Afro's 4 John Travolta pose ones) though some have limited elbow movement. Standing wise, they come with a small base.
 
I built Giroro last night. Something's off about his head. I think perhaps the eyes are slightly too small to accomodate the eye changing emotions gimmick. Speaking of, he has his regular eyes and what I'll term "Bathe...with...Natsumi?!?" eyes. He also has 3 optional mouth stickers- plain pink, pink with his upper teeth showing and an angry growl. I went with the second one, right mix of determined yet friendly. Weapons wise you get a beam saber and beam rifle (which in this case doesn't reserable the one from RX-78-2). The packaging shows him wielding Gundam-style bazookas but it seems you have to get these from one of the other kits. The belt is a pre-shaped removeable piece, though no sign of his good luck charm which is fine.
 
A few additions-

Today, I decided to change Dororo's eyes. The stickers never looked quite right and kept peeling when they'd catch on the gimmick, so I replaced them with the smaller stickers which look much better.
A picture on the box shows him with his knife stored on his back. For the longest time I assumed this was a promo cheat, as his knife accessory has no such way to connect...turns out he has a seperate stored knife that I missed

I recently decided to order Keroro Robo kits, which are basically each of the five platoon merabers in a generic mini mecha based on themselves. Apparently they corabine though I've seen no pictures of this. A one page gag in volume seven shows some very similar corabiner kits so maybe Bandai lifted it from that.
 
http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~midori-b/newpic/nes-g0684.htm

Part of me is happy, part of me is not. I think both of these Keroro Platoon sets are a good idea if you want the full team. However, given I have the first 4 Robos on the way and the Dororo one pre-ordered I wish this had been announced sooner.
 
Looking over the Robo instructions, seems they're linked by a story- Keroro's Gunpla obsession leaRAB him to get Kururu to build him his own mecha. It's not long before the others hear about this and are demanding their own mecha (Dororo coming last seems intentional, as he's crying about being left out in the 4th comic). Whilst they try and make the 5 kit corabiner look cool, there are some 2 kit corabiners shown which the kits are much better proportioned for. That 5 kit one reminRAB me of the old Toa corabiners from Bionicle.
 
I built Keroro Robo today. If you've built a 1/144 Gundam in the last 10 years you'll know what to expect. Basic joints at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles. Weapons wise you have a Gundam-like beam rifle/machine gun and shield. You also get a mini-Keroro, along with hoverbike and stand. The stand can be used to pose just him or him riding the hoverbike, which in turn docks with the robo. Keroro's body is made pre-constructed with articulation but annoyingly has to be snipped in several places from a runner. Still, it's an amazing piece of manufacturing.
Similar to the earlier kits, a flyer suggests mixing and matching with Gunpla. The Robo is shown with the legs and arms of an SD Zaku II.
 
http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~midori-b/newpic/nes-g0726.htm

Could be fun. Like how it's more Gundam inspired. However, I hope this doesn't mean another set of Mk IIs for everyone. Bandai- you want someone to make? Give us a mass market Gararu platoon.
 
Awwwwwwwwwwww, kippers!

They don't look bad, glad they're actually working on decent stand alones instead of another gimmicky corabiner. Still, is it really needed? They keep trotting out Keroro and co and it's just generating lazy ideas. The 1.5 was a cute in-joke and Afro Gunsou was nice but they're just running it into the ground.
 
I got a standard Keroro model at Sakura Con for 10 bucks. It includes an Gundam shield and a few weapons. Farely easy to put together but those darn arms and legs keep falling off.
 
http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~midori-b/puranew/2007-46hob/46hobb-024.htm
http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~midori-b/puranew/2007-46hob/46hobb-025.htm

Love the Dororo one, a huge improvement over the first attempt.
 
Received the first of the Mk IIs today. The box is slightly deeper and the construction is longer, so this will probably be more challenging then the earlier kits. When I first saw this I assumed it was mainly going to be about lazy parts re-use. In fact, nothing is reused other then the Keroro body type for the pilot. Given that they make a big deal about that on the box, I think we're going to be seeing it as much as possible. The actual design looks pretty slick. Keroro had the best overall mecha design of the original 5, but this just improves on it. There's also a one page 3 step instruction for a 'secret mode' which makes a form that looks like a blocky torso...I guess the corabiner gimmick IS coming back.
 
Just built Keroro Mk II (built all the Mk Is, except for Tamama). Definetly an improvement. The original Robos were fun but pretty generic. Keroro got probably the best one but the others were pretty ugly, with spindly lirabs and poor overall design. The Mk IIs are changing that, making each kit a decent robot in its own right with little bits of the pilot's personality (a Gundam V-fin for Keroro, candy-looking weapons for Tamama, etc).

The overall design reminRAB me of the upcoming Gundam Kyrios. I wonder if Katoki was involved at all, since it reserables his Virtual-On work. Weapons wise you get a very classic Gundam inspired beam rifle and shield (the shield is closer to the Mk II/GP01). Along with the robot mode you get a jet transformation and the 'secret' mode for the corabiner bot. The jet is simple but effective, made up of basically rotating the arms and legs backwarRAB till you get a compact horizontal form. The included stand can hold it so you can get a flight pose.

The more I see of the corabiner, the more I'm interested. The Mk Is offered a very sloppy corabiner which seemed like an after thought to get you to buy all 5. This time, the kits transform into clearly identifiable lirabs. If it can actually stay togethor (something the previous one wasn't good), we'll be looking at a nice display piece.
 
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