Samurai Gattai DX Shinken Oh

侍戦隊シンケンジャー　あっぱれ　Samurai sentai shinkennjaa... Appare!

I can still feel the hype, the first time I listened to the new super sentai series, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger's OP song. "Oh man, it was AWESOME!". And the awesomeness didn't stop after the opening song, the entire episode was really great. It manages to preserve it's awesomeness even until today (the 9th episode was already shown by the time I wrote this).

The first episode was very powerful, and somehow turned me, hypnotized me to collect all the shinkenger merchandise - stuff - toys. The first things I managed to buy was the Shodo Phone and its holder as well as the Shinkenmaru. But I'm not going to review them here today, instead, I'm going to review the Samurai Gattai DX Shinken Oh (侍合体DXシンケンオー).

I bought it from ebay directly from Japan instead from local store, because I just couldn't wait for it to come to my hand.

Back view, Inside view

As far as I know, it's the first sentai mecha that has 2 forms (apart from the form when the 5 mecha combined into megazord form), emblem form and animal form. The emblem form basically shapes - polygons, pentagon, hexagon, circle, square, and triangle.



They are embedded with kanji - as symbol for their elements, fire (火), water (水), heaven (天), wood (木), and earth (土). They're called Shishi (獅子 - lion) Origami, Ryuu (龍 - dragon) Origami, Kame (亀 - turtle) Origami, Kuma (熊 - bear) Origami, and Saru (猿 - monkey) Origami respectively. Origami is an artistic folded paper, which was very famous during Samurai era in Japan. Some say that Origami in shinkenger is 'Folded God' (because it's officially written as 折紙 - orikami - fold god), but I prefer to stick it to the folded paper, because they do look like one (those 'small', flat arm and legs will give you the idea). Oh yeah you can hover your mouse to the colored text to change the pictures.

In the show, they can be used for a preemptive attack even in small form (they're turned into big form using the Shodo Phone by writing kanji big (大) on them), they can transform from emblem form to animal form freely (yes, it also happen when they're big or in megazord form), and apparently they also can fly :O (well I saw they flew, perhaps except Kuma Origami. Anwyay, toy wise, they are great. It kinda gave me the first experience that I couldn't master the DX sentai toy transformation very well especially for Shishi Origami and Ryuu Origami.

Apart from the rather complex transformation, the toys were made with very great detail. The surface of the emblems, the "Shinken" crest at each Origami, movable mouth, the detail of the Shinken Oh's sword, or the top knot head of Shinken Oh (without his helmet - which really resembles samurai). The minus side is, as stated previously, they do look like origami - most of their limbs are flat, and Ryuu Origami even has this hole neck thing. Yet, I still love them - perhaps due to my interest to Shinkenger.



After the Origamis transformed to the final form/gattai form (which was done by writing kanji gattai/combine 合 in the show), the final attaching part is simple and straight forward. Unlike Go-Onger, where all parts came from the Engines, Shinken Oh's sword and shield do not come from the Origami (the helmet does come from Ryuu Origami), they just magically appear.



Shinken Oh's shield, also known as Hiden (秘伝 - "Hiden" is Japanese word, meaning mysterious, secret, something like that) Disk 08, and is replacable by other Hiden Disk, but this is not shown in the show yet. And unlike other sentai, Shinken Oh's sword, is really a main weapon (perhaps due to its nature which is Samurai themed) - and not only used during the finisher (anway what I meant is, Shinken Oh rarely uses his fist in the show).



Final words, despite the funny look of each Origami, DX Shinken Oh still offers great playability, offers elegant pose of samurai mecha toy to be displayed, and a great addition to any collection. That concludes this review, 一見落着.