SuperHobo

I'm going to agree with you there. I wished it had a more self-contained transformation. It almost like watching a magic-girl transformation.

There's no escape now. Join me to get the ultrazord!

Bandai has went full madman and doing an SOC titanus. My gawds the shipping cost will be horrendous! BUT I need it. https://tokutoystore.com/2018/08/17/soul-of-chogokin-titanus-revealed-at-power-morphicon/

There almost always seems to be a problem with first releases from Yamato or Arcadia. I hope floor polishing the shoulders works this time around. I think I'll wait it out buying any further megazone pieces from Arcadia.

Ahh thank you for being brave and opening up the shoulder! Alright now we are talking!

Unfortunately, I think any disassembly of the shoulder joint would result in some significant damage done to the toy. It follows Arcadia / T-Rex's current methodology of layering parts over each other making any disassembly for maintenance a pain in the ass. I really need to stop buying Arcadia's first run of something.

UPDATE 2: After putting floor polish into the left shoulder,it did not work to tighten the joint. On top of that, the right shoulder is also getting pretty loose. I'm going to try to angle the arms a little differently to let the floor polish target the looser part. Hopefully this works......my last option is some super glue

I hope Bandai goes full madman and makes an SOC Titanus and brings it out next year. For me, that would be the beginning of the end of collecting for me.

UPDATE: So after posing this guy around this morning, the left shoulder on my copy has also gotten loose. I stuck a healthy amount of floor polish in the joint and I'll let it cure for 2-3 days. Hopefully, that will remedy the issue for a while.

Get in the zone. Megazone 23. My thoughts on the Arcadia Garland. Bike mode: It's very solid with some excellent heft. Initially out of the box the swing bars were disconnected from the arms and connecting it to the half moon shaped peg was odd, but I eventually got them in. It didn't help these pegs are all painted so expect some paint to come off here and there. With that being said every surface is painted in a gloss or matte paint. One of the half moon pegs I think I sheared off a small chunk of paint to get the socket pegged on. With everything pegged in it's a lovely hefty brick. Shogo's figure goes right on and fits over the handlebars like a dream. Transformation and robot mode: Transformation was pretty smooth and wotafa's video review made things clearer. Everything locks is in very solidly with the exception of the crotch armor which basically rests on the wheel. A major improvement over the old 1/15 Yamato Garland is the wheels lock into the chest VERY SOLIDLY this time around. No more weird jiggling for robot mode. My favorite part of the transformation is how when you rotate the chest forward the head pops out in unison. It's a pretty cool transformation moment. Robot mode and Articulation: All of the joints are friction joints and no ratchets. All of them are perfectly tight with the exception of the shoulders. The shoulders are not loose, but they could be a bit stiffer. The hand proportions and articulation are excellent, but there's no peg to hold the gun. The fingers can hold the gun no problem, but a guiding peg and slot would have been more ideal. Elbows and knees are double jointed. Ankles are on an interesting 4 hinge mechanism that gives a pretty good range of motion either way you want. Verdict so far: This a very fine Garland toy and assuming Arcadia used good materials this time around it shouldn't crumble. Diecast was used in a lot of much more fragile areas as well as parts of the biceps and the red parts of the lower legs. Transformation is complex, but fun. If you're looking for an animation accurate Garland from Part 1 this could be what you're looking for.

That's a bit concerning with joint B there becoming loose after some moderate handling. Is there any screw to access to tighten it or some floor polish to stick in the seams?

I got Dragonzord in over the weekend. He's much heavier than expected. A solid amount of diecast in his feet, lower legs, chest, joints and head. I'm glad they worked in a thigh swivel, but I wish his lateral hip movement was better. The paint job on my copy is near perfect except the left side of his face which has like 3 or four small chips...... So far he's pretty fun to handle. Battle mode is beautiful, but limited in poseability, more so than the megazord, which I knew was going to happen going into this. If Bandai ever makes a full action battle mode dragonzord I would pick it up very quickly. Mega Dragonzord ended up being a much better combination in person that I thought it would. Locking mechanisms for the legs and collar section really make this mode more solid than I expected. This mode does weigh a ton so it's not the most fun to play with, but it looks amazing on display.

Nice! Arcadia should have mentioned that in their item description. A little under 8 inches is a good size for a toy.

I'm glad it sounds like the delays to improve quality are really shining through on the final product. I'm still not a fan of them opting out of using an pegs or slots for the hand, but at least the Garland can hold it well for now. Websites mention the size in maneuver craft mode is 18cm long, is it still about 18cm tall in maneuver slave mode?

Fantastic to here man! The Garland really needed a well built sturdy option after all of crumbling efforts from Yamato and Freeing. Are all of the joints friction joints? How well does the hand hold the gun? I don't see any tabs in the palm.

So far from Japanese Twitter reports the Arcadia Garland seems good on the build quality front.

Nice! I didn't know it was out already.

I hope Sentinel will tampo print all of the lovely markings on this legioss.

From Fewture's twitter, the mold needed to be adjusted and has been completed ( about damn time). Production is going to start, but it's being delayed another 4-5 months.

Wooo progress!!!

I hope so! The curse needs to be broken!

Now knowing I can get the whole team in 1/12 makes me super thrilled! I've always wanted to see what T-REX could do with a legioss and the results look decent, but need a bit more work. Here's some other images found off of twitter:

Whew wee.......I think we have a candidate for worst toy of the year. Thanks for the review Jenius.

According to Yaco off twitter, evo changed the shoulder sensor array for the Zeta.

Your opinion did not ruffle my feathers, I just found the "unnaturally flat and two-dimensional" statement about a 2D medium to be quite funny. However, with your additional comment about how you would have liked more shading to add depth to the characters, I can now fully understand your opinion. I also apologize if my previous comment came off as rude and snarky. Sousuke's inability to express himself has been a part of his character since the past 3 seasons, but even in the first episode of IV he's making progress because he actually went ahead and held Kaname's hand, which was huge for Sousuke actually acting more like a regular teenager. I also think Gates from TSR was more like Dr. Evil, whereas Leonard is more of the calm, yet calculating type who only shows his most upmost emotions when confronting something like Sousuke's courageous heroism. Nevertheless, if you do not like the art-style, there's no point in forcing yourself to watch something you do not enjoy. Let us both agree not much was particularly done well in episode 10, including a certain reveal towards the end. Although I still find Courtney pretty funny: From my point of view the Namsac arc was a real step out of what viewers/ readers were previously accustom to when it came to FMP. It was like a refreshing restart for Sousuke. Imagine a place where Sousuke was actually good at his job, respected for his job, and had a potential love interest that did not always criticize him for every of his action he took. The Namsac arc is also consistent with TSR and the earlier four episodes of IV where Sousuke keeps thinking about going off on his own away from Mithril and the Namsac arc showcases what that could be like. While Sousuke has some mild success in Namasac, reality comes back to him when all of these good times get taken away from him. As for your previous comment about, "they should have done a true to form adaptation, blending all those stories into something original." This statement does not really make sense and I would recommend being careful in your choice of words, as this statement would usually imply some kind of filler or original material that was not in the previous adaptation. However, after reading your additional comments, it just sounds more like what you actually wanted was a smoother transition between each story arc in IV. At least in my opinion, the transition from episode 4 to 5 felt okay because we see Sousuke making that big step out of school and going into episode 5 as something completely new. I think the more abrupt transition from Japan to Namsac worked for the narrative and I'm sticking by it. The transition between the end of the Namsac arc and this current arc has also been okay as it goes back to Sousuke and Lemon while also giving us the much needed current situation Mithril is in. People generally care that the adaptation is faithful to the source material especially in anime because the source material is what made the story popular in the first place. I will agree with you a 1:1 adaptation does not work, but it should only be minor changes made at best to fit the next medium as necessary. Although, what could be considered minor is totally subjective and is probably different between the both of us. Furthermore. the only reason the original FMP and TSR had to have original content added at the time, was because the novels and manga were simply unfinished. However with IV, the novels and the Sigma manga have been completed so at least in my mind it makes sense to go with a faithful adaptation because the material is already there. Why make more work for yourself? Anyways, this long analysis takes me back to the old days of discussing anime and maybe we should all sit back and enjoy ourselves sometimes instead of pointing out all of the flaws.