MagiKing: Crazy Nice

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Darien_Shields
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MagiKing: Crazy Nice

Post by Darien_Shields »

I recently picked up the MagiKing toy (or at least the closest UK release) cheap off eBay, and was struck by just how nice he is. When I actually watched Magiranger I kinda frowned on MagiKing because I didn't like his hat (pretty much the only reason...) and I wasn't familiar with sentai mechs. But now looking back at him? He seems really awesome. So, umm, I thought I'd do a little micro review of him.

First of all, anyone who's seen Magiranger probably knows that MagiKing is a pretty unorthodox design. Rather than the usual approach of "red guy goes in the middle, other guys become his arms and legs", MagiKing has a completely unique approach. Most of the mech's body is made up of MagiTauros, with MagiMermaid becoming boots, MagiGaruda becoming wings on the back, and MagiPhoenix and Fairy turning into his massive pecs.

This winds up giving the guy a really nice design. It's one of few sentai mechs that winds up being symetrical, which is a nice change. He's still got a lot of colours, but the scheme looks more unified- a lot of red and gold around the chest, a little green on the hips, and blue around the legs. And of course, he has the massive yellow wings. As far as aesthetics go, he just looks pretty damn cool. I've totally switched around as far as the hat goes- I think the hat and the pointy shoes give him a lot of personality, which is a very nice touch.

One thing that I think really makes this guy stand out as a toy is the fact that he has knees. I got Dekaranger Robo and Dekabike Robo a while ago and was totally disappointed with their articulation. The first only had hip articulation, meaning his legs swung back and forth but you could never really pose him without him falling over. Dekabike's legs didn't move at all because of the design. So... knees are actually very nice! A slightly disappointing feature is that MagiTauros has not only knees but elbows too- something that's dropped when his arms transform into MagiKing's arms. But still, the arm transformation is pretty funky so I still like it.

It strikes me that MagiKing is pretty special, because when you think about it, he's one of the only mecha in the last, what, ten years? Who didn't combine with anything else. MagiRed can pop out and plug into Barikion or whatever, but MagiKing stays as is. There are no special equip mechs like GekiElephant or Kabuto Origami, Travelion doesn't combine into it like DekaBike robo, it is just standalone. And I think that's one of the reasons it's so great; because it doesn't need any extra utility or space to plug other stuff into it, it is complete and perfect as an individual closed system. Possibly it had a higher design budget for this reason.

I won't go into detail about the dragon mode or the individual mechs- they're all awesome, but I've probably bored you all half to death already. I just wanted to make a little blurb about how nice the guy is, since, well, he is, and I felt a little guilty about looking down on him back when I watched Magi.
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takenoko
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Re: MagiKing: Crazy Nice

Post by takenoko »

Totally agree. I'm surprised you didn't touch on the fact that his alternate dragon mode more since that was one of the major winning points for me was that it also formed a pretty reasonably cool looking animal. It's always great to not have to go "hey, there's an airplane with feet" or "that animal is made of a frog and an elephant"

And people know I always thought MagiKing had a pretty cool hat
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Re: MagiKing: Crazy Nice

Post by Lunagel »

MagiKing and GekiTouja are my favorite mechs insomuch as they actually fit the theme of the show really well and I can actually see them being light enough to reasonably move around the city. Bulkier mechs (G12, nuff said) just seem really heavy and what they gain in power they definitely lose out in speed and mobility.
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mateo360
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Re: MagiKing: Crazy Nice

Post by mateo360 »

takenoko wrote:Totally agree. I'm surprised you didn't touch on the fact that his alternate dragon mode more since that was one of the major winning points for me was that it also formed a pretty reasonably cool looking animal. It's always great to not have to go "hey, there's an airplane with feet" or "that animal is made of a frog and an elephant"

And people know I always thought MagiKing had a pretty cool hat
But how often was the dragon mode actually used?

I like the hat too. How often do you get mecha with a distinguishable hat?
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