Thank you for the insight on Bio! I’m gonna keep an eye out on the BBTS listing and see if it comes back in stock. I was like, “if the other SMP kits are snap kits...why would this guy and his homeboy be glue kits?” Also - got Leopardon! The GGG Amazon sells is the Part.4 version, not the classic look I was hoping for - easy decision.
I perordered and got my Grand Liner, Victory Robo, and Liner Boy from them. It was my first time using them as well.
I don't have it, but a couple of Taiwanese reviews I've seen are pretty positive on the Dagwon kit. I was thinking about getting it with something else in a shipment from Japan, but couldn't find both items available in the same shop so I skipped it, as I don't have any connection to Dagwon so it's not a must have for me. If I see it for a reasonable price I might get it down the road.
My SMP Biodragon arrived yesterday and I spent about 2 hours building it. I can't get enough of these SMP "Big Scale" carriers despite their ridiculous price, and this one doesn't disappoint. I love the accessories storage for Biorobo, but I do wish they designed something to hold the Biojets in place while inside the Biodragon. Overall a killer set with Biorobo if you can stomach the price.
Fire Dagwon is nice ableit the fire ladder and rescue stickers are satan. Also the ankles can pivot but not the heels so it's a little awkward. Dagfire kind of sucks though, the rear doesn't tab into place at all in vehicle mode. Nothing stays in place and it's very gappy. Either leave him in robot mode or put it away and never touch it again.
Awesome! Looks great. Mine is coming by boat. Took the chance with NY and it actually shipped out. I was bit surprised they shipped out so fast given their recent history.
Cool. I got SMP Liner Boy and Grand Liner from NY by boat after preordering. The transit took a while but eventually got to me. Not sure I'll be using NY again any time soon given the horror stories, but I guess my personal experience has been OK. (they do take forever to respond to tickets though)
I REALLY hope that given that there’s designer overlap between SMP and SOC, that this set serves as kind of a proof of concept for an eventual SOC. This set looks damn good as is, I can only imagine how good an SOC would be. I had the US Godaikin Bio Robo back in the day so seeing Bandai revisit Bio Robo is awesome.
Agreed, this would make an AMAZING SOC set. They could even keep the brilliant swing-down joint mechanism in the hips, just replicated in metal. Actually it’s really similar to the hip joints on SOC Daimos so they should already know something like that would work perfectly.
Looks like Bandai is rebranding SMP as Shokugan Modeling Project: 食玩新プロジェクト『SMP [SHOKUGAN MODELING PROJECT]』始動！ - バンダイ キャンディ スタッフ BLOG With announcement teases for Fighbird and Aquarion, among others. Also, a tease of a new, stylized offshoot, starting with Gunbuster.
Woah that Gunbuster looks great. Interesting they’re rebranding, I wonder why. Oh well, as long as the product stays excellent they can call it Stupid Monkey Poop and I’ll still buy it.
Shokugan is in the new branding so these are still candy toys. I'm a little puzzled on why they are doing the rebranding but as long as they stay the course on making well designed toys, I'll keep buying them. It's not a great sign that the new Gaoking preorder sold out so fast though. I would hate for these to go the way of those DX Macross Chogokins and some other Bandai products that most people outside Japan have no shot at even preordering.
I’m rusty with Japanese but it did seem implied in the recent video that the new kits will be of higher quality with more emphasis on styling and dynamic articulation. Since some of the SOC designers work on SMP, I’m hoping these are being used as proof of concepts to convince higher ups that they can use these designs as a base for eventual SOCs in the future. I also think Bandai is pushing more effort behind SMP to give collectors something cheaper to collect that won’t break the wallet but still looks good on the shelf. They’re tugging hard at my nostalgic heart strings too. Had no idea they’d go as far as to release Bio Dragon and even include dedicated storage for Bio Robo’s parts. It wouldn’t surprise me if Aquarion SMP kits end up far more stable than the SOC(noticed that Kawamori’s modern mecha don’t make for the best transitions to toy form). Hoping SMP eventually includes Escaflowne as I have a feeling the guymulefs would be more poseable than the Moderoids. Plus SMP seems lower risk for Escaflowne than SOC. Hell make a giant transforming SMP Escaflowne and Shodo figures of Van Fanel to fit inside and Valgas to train and fight the Zaibach guymulefs! Hell something, how does Escaflowne not have much toy/model representation? Wouldn’t surprise me if Bandai adds Tekkaman and Tekkaman Blade into the mix.
I think SMP is a pretty good vehicle for some of the more "unstable" designs due to its size and lighter weight material. I would love to have something like an SOC BioRobo, but if such a toy is designed with the same kind of hip-joint system as the SMP, I bet it would be a floppy mess. I'm not familiar with a lot of the mecha you've mentioned, but it seems that SMP will tackle more obscure stuff. The Gyakuten-Oh that went up for preorder at the same time as Gaoking seems to be fairly obscure, at least to me. I just hope general release SMP's continue to be accessible most of the time (unlike Gaoking).
Always hated that girly mid section on the mini-pla Golion. Decided to 3D print something that resembles the SOC. Needs some tweaking but looks much better, I think.
