TOP TEN ROBOTS: #9....CM'S BRAVE GOKIN PATLABOR INGRAM REVIEW

If you know anything about CM's robot figures then you know that CM is probably the least consistent figure company than anyone else out there. And don't think that price gives any indication of quality. Many of CM's most expensive figures are their poorest designs, and might even contain less metal content than the lower priced figures. BUT, CM has had some excellent figures as well. Perhaps as a general rule of thumb, it seems that any CM figure with a complex transformation is risky at best. CM's Baangaan DX and Rajin-Oh DX weren't horrible, but far from stellar. They were OK. But then in a couple of cases CM has produced some outright defective designs. The biggest (in every sense of the word) was the Genesic Gaogaigar DX that had a price tag of $600+ USD. Really it never should have been released to begin with.



But moving on to CM's Patlabors is a whole different story. All of the die-cast Patlabor figures which includes the Ingrams and the Griffin, were of such quality construction that many collectors thought CM had perhaps forever left their rocky past behind them and would make nothing but awesome quality gokin from that point forward. This didn't prove to be the case, but regardless, the Patlabors were practically perfect. The metal content is high, the articulation is great, the sculpt is excellent and the gimmicks are well implemented and accurate to design.



Previous to this there had been other Ingram figures made, but many were small and none were die-cast. Bandai had created a set of Ingram models that are certainly deserving of merit as far as models go, but then models aren't what collectors are ideally looking for. So with all the Patlabor figures produced up to that point none of them fully captured the full package of quality, materials, size and content that collectors would hope for. CM stepped in and put together the perfect mix. It had all the weapons accessories including guns, a pilot, and changeable face plates. They implemented great gimmicks like the opening cockpit and ankle gun bay. And if that wasn't enough for gimmicks, CM also incorporated flashing LED lights on the shoulders (much as the Bandai models had done earlier). The size was roughly six inches and was solid and tight construction, and the metal content was upwards of 50%. It was all around a nice piece, and fun to mess around with.

There are a couple of maybe not-so-obvious points that indirectly helped CM make this figure a success. I came across some information on the net that briefly noted that none of CM's engineering is produced in house. All the technical aspects of CM's figures are designed in China. It's obvious how this could create problems with engineering QC. With CM being in this situation, it boils down to this: the simpler the design idea, the better chance CM has of making a successful figure. All the cool facets of the Patlabor figures are excellent, but none of them are excessively complicated either, nor do they involve elements that are dependent on another element to work. And this is the type of game plan CM should continue to focus upon. This simplified road is why many companies excel. Aoshima is a prime example. Otherwise history has shown that CM's engineering debacles will continue and collectors will get tired of it. How many times can a company not deliver the goods before a person changes brands? In my experience, maybe two, if you are lucky?



But all this aside, I recommend any of the die cast Patalbors whole heartedly. They are excellent chogokin figures with lots of fun accessories and great gimmicks. Being very poseable and stable also makes them great display pieces. Prices on Ebay have stayed close to their initial list price, so it's still a good time to pick one up before they disappear over the next few years.

My Official CM's DX Great Baangaan Review

Being a dedicated robot collector is tough sometimes because you have to make those tough purchasing decisions that aren't cheap. So I finally decided I had to get the the DX Great Baangaan.

It's hard to not have a bias against robots that transform with parts that have to be swapped out because it kind of feels like its cheating even when there is no other way to get the desired results. The other reason that it's so hard to give DX Baangaan an objective review is because he falls outside the boundaries of the standard amount of sheer content and material your average robot figure would normally contain. So really he's not a "figure", but a "figure set".

After my first round of putting everything together my initial reaction was one of bewilderment. This thing has tons of parts. With nine different characters and/or vehicles there's a plethora of little moving hinges and connections and removable swapping parts. So far I haven't seen a photo session that accurately portrays this aspect to its full extent. My impression is that DX Baangaan seems to have been designed by modelers. And in retrospect, mucj of the CM DX line leads me to this conclusion also. It's very much a line where you put things together to make other things. Modelers often don't have as much of an appreciation of the "zen" that comes with perfect transformation or smooth and simple transitions. The mind set of a modeler is to put things together to make bigger things, and with the more parts the better. This is exactly how DX Baangaan works. I continually had the sensation I was putting together a half completed model where the larger pieces have already been put together for you. In a sense it has similarities to something like the Kotobukiya Armored Core models, where the pieces are interchangable to make different robots. I can also see where the $320 price tag came from. It's an extreme piece of robot engineering. In fact it's too extreme. CM perhaps tried to do too much with this set, and it would have been much more successful if they had streamlined it down.

Without covering too much that has already been said about DX Great Baangaan, you basically take apart Mach Sperion and attach some of his parts, along with several additional parts, onto Baan Gaan in order to create Great Baangaan. All in all it works out ok. I didn't have to force anything putting him together, and it all seems relatively stable once combined. There are some very small easily breakable pegs to watch out for though. For anyone still planning to yet purchase Great Baangaan, keep in mind that you shouldn't really have to force any of the parts together. If you are having to force pieces, chances are you are probably doing it incorrectly.

Metal content is mostly on blue Baan Gaan, and almost exactly what I expected from the beginning. Blue Baan Gaan has a basic skeletal metal frame on his back to support the white, fanning wing system. This wing system is actually surprisingly well engineered and very stable whether folded in or fanned out. But all in all, the metal content is very minimal. I should probably note that there is also a couple of detachable metal plates on Mach Sperion's feet.

The articulation of both Mach Sperion and Baan Gaan are average. So mostly in the arms, shoulders and knees. There are a number of ratched joints on blue Baan Gaan to give added support. Mach Sperion and Baan Gaan on their own are generally decent figures with a fair degree of articulation and decent size being about the size of a good size Transformer. Both of these figures also have quite a few accessories like Mach Sperion's shotgun, different fists and some cool swords. Nobody seems to take pictures of these for some reason.

Sperion and Baan are tiny, and Sperion is used for a lot in the different combinations. The detail is fine, but they really should have made him bigger. Baan is tiny too, but where he isn't really used for anything other than being a little transforming car, not a big deal.

I should say a couple of things about all the other transformation forms, being the Mach Phoenix, the Mach Jet, the Gaan Dragon, and the Gaan Dasher. Even though it's kind of cool that you can do all these things out of one toy set, it's a lot of work with all the parts swapping and interchanging of pieces to make them happen. I don't see myself changing them back to these forms often. Out of all of these I probably like the Mach Phoenix the most for some reason. The Gaan Dragon could have been made to look much bigger and tougher where his extra pieces aren't used for anything else.

The end result of the combined Great BaanGaan is impressive looking and holds together ok.
I didn't find anything falling off or overly loose, and there was nothing defective in my set right out of box. DX Great Baangaan is maybe not the most solid figure I've ever held, but he isn't unstable either. He's not very posable, but you can get a couple of power poses out of him so that he makes a strong impact on the collector shelf. Upon reflection I would compare Great Baangaan's posability and solidity to being one step down from SOC Dancouga maybe (although not even close to being as heavy). Basically he's a "power stance" robot, where even though there is a fair degree of movement in his arms and legs, you end up putting him on the shelf in his face forward power stance, if only for the sake of looks and overall stability.

There is a vague Sentai feel to this set, and most especially in the combined Great Baangaan figure. It's like an "advanced" Sentai set. Even with it's number of small-ish parts, the majority of the mass comes from the large, iconic pieces that have a chunky Sentai look about them, and where it's a large and mostly plastic figure this also gives it a very Sentai feel.

Conclusion: For what it is, DX Great Baangaan is an ok set, and I really feel I've been too harsh on CM about it. I can't say that I'm not disappointed about the low diecast content, BUT in all fairness my disappointment mostly stemmed from having assumed this set was going to be a different type of figure/set altogether than being that of what it is on its own terms (I hope this makes sense). It really depends on what you look for out of your robot experience. This is not a gokin, and not really a gattai or henkei transformer in the classic sense. DX Great BaanBaan is mostly a hybrid sort of model. If you aren't into modelling and demand the smoothness of play and zen transformation that come from SOCs or Transformers etc, this is not the robot for you by any means, but if you like to tinker with parts and doing transformations using lots of parts swapping, DX Baangaan will be hours of fun. I would also say unless you are an experienced modeller, I would recommend maybe taking it a little slow. I would have much more enjoyed a diecast simplified SOC version of Great Baangaan, but for what the CM version is, it's done fairly well as a very comprehensive set of the entire Great Baangaan milieu. After about three hours of putting things together the price didn't seem that much of an issue anymore because I could see where it came from. I also have to say that now that I have him in the showcase, DX Great Baangaan looks quite stunning. He's large and striking. Definitely a big plus!