Post by Real G on May 30, 2024 16:16:12 GMT -5
This was just an impulse purchase, as I only watched the first OVA anime "Fight! Iczer One!". Ah those heady days renting bootleg VHS tapes from Japan Video. That was our only way to get an anime fix back in the late 1980s. Iczer One was from the "Real Robot" anime boom but was more "Magical Robot" due to its nebulous origins and abilities. I mean, you never saw the Iczer Robo docked somewhere while technicians reloaded ammo or wiped the windows. 
The kit hails from the Good Smile Company and is part of their rapidly growing Moderoid line. Their M.O. is pretty clear - make robot kits from any series that Bandai does not have the IP for. Bandai is now like Disney, in that the IPs they hold are pretty much top to bottom, i.e. videos, toys, apparel, posters, games, pencil boxes and slippers. But what the Big B does NOT own is surprisingly extensive, and the OVA animes that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s were created by a myriad of studios. And the Good Smile Company has not been shy kitting everything from 1970s Super Robots to 1990s Real Robots (and 1980s Magical Robots). This has made a lot of anime fans really happy, as there were not a lot of injection molded kits from OVA animes. That used to be the domain for resin and vinyl garage kits, until Bandai pulled the Disney and C&D'ed all the little guys into oblivion.
Anyway, this kit represents Iczer Robo from the third episode, and differs from its initial guise in being more slender and angular.
Like all things Bandai, which the industry seems to follow these days, the kit is molded in color and assembles via snap fit. One extra touch the Moderoid kits have are small pre-painted components vs Bandai's sucky stickers. For this kit, the visor and face are pre-painted. I am considering masking off these parts to save myself from having paint them later on. The Iczer Robo is a pretty simple design, so the kit goes together quickly:
The parts are not fully pushed together at the moment, as I only wanted to assess the overall fit and to determine how to best paint the kit. The colors the kit comes in are actually pretty close to what is seen in the anime, but I want to add some weathering (nobody is wiping the windows you see...). I still have to sand the nubs off the parts and start gluing whatever I can prior to painting.
The kit hails from the Good Smile Company and is part of their rapidly growing Moderoid line. Their M.O. is pretty clear - make robot kits from any series that Bandai does not have the IP for. Bandai is now like Disney, in that the IPs they hold are pretty much top to bottom, i.e. videos, toys, apparel, posters, games, pencil boxes and slippers. But what the Big B does NOT own is surprisingly extensive, and the OVA animes that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s were created by a myriad of studios. And the Good Smile Company has not been shy kitting everything from 1970s Super Robots to 1990s Real Robots (and 1980s Magical Robots). This has made a lot of anime fans really happy, as there were not a lot of injection molded kits from OVA animes. That used to be the domain for resin and vinyl garage kits, until Bandai pulled the Disney and C&D'ed all the little guys into oblivion.
Anyway, this kit represents Iczer Robo from the third episode, and differs from its initial guise in being more slender and angular.
Like all things Bandai, which the industry seems to follow these days, the kit is molded in color and assembles via snap fit. One extra touch the Moderoid kits have are small pre-painted components vs Bandai's sucky stickers. For this kit, the visor and face are pre-painted. I am considering masking off these parts to save myself from having paint them later on. The Iczer Robo is a pretty simple design, so the kit goes together quickly:
The parts are not fully pushed together at the moment, as I only wanted to assess the overall fit and to determine how to best paint the kit. The colors the kit comes in are actually pretty close to what is seen in the anime, but I want to add some weathering (nobody is wiping the windows you see...). I still have to sand the nubs off the parts and start gluing whatever I can prior to painting.
