2020 saw the absence of the Good Smile Company’s Summer “Wonderful Hobby Life for You” or WonHobby because of obvious reasons. 2021 has proven itself to be better (despite Gundam Hathaway being delayed twice already) as the Summer season event has returned as both online and limited physical exhibit. So of course, I’ll try to cover the stuff coming out from the Good Mecha Smile end, or their mecha-related products.
SSSS.Dynazenon
This was sort of teased or leaked last week, but we’re finally getting the confirmation of the MODEROID Dynazenon, the titular machine from SSSS.Dynazenon. It’s basically a self-contained humanoid Assist Weapon (i.e., assisting Hyper Agents like Gridman or Gridknight) comprised of multiple components. Unfortunately, I still have SSSS.Gridman on my to-watch queue but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate Dynazenon over here because it looks fantastic.
As mentioned, MODEROID Dynazenon can also split into the components that make up its on-screen counterpart. These include Dynasoldier, Dynawing, Dynadiver, and Dynastriker. Likewise, these four can be also combined into Dynazenon’s alternate form, Dynarex. While my usual mantra for transforming model kits is to get multiple copies for each mode, I’ll trust the engineering of this kit and will just get one copy and rely on its transformation feature… if I decide to get one.
I was initially going to type “I hope they also do a MODEROID Gridman” but I just remembered that it exists as a Super Minipla set. Not sure how that release would stack up to this guy, nor its availability on the aftermarket.
Shinkalion Z
I always thought that Shinkalion was one of those series that just continued running, without knowing that the original series ended way back in June 2019 after 76 episodes. After a theatrical feature in 2020, a new season premiered in April as the very uniquely titled Shinkalion Z. It’s set in the same continuity as the original albeit after time skip of unknown length. Like the previous season, we are getting new MODEROID kits of the current one, starting with these two.
The lead machine for this series is the Shinkalion Z E5 Hayabusa which looks very similar to its previous namesake. Also introduced in this season are Zailiners which are based on non-Shinkansen trains that act as support machines to the Shinkalions. For Hayabusa, its support unit is the Zailiner E235 Yamanote which can combine as enhanced arm units to form Shinkalion Z E5 Yamanote.
For the new MODEROID releases, they’ve revealed a stand-alone Shinkalion Z E5 Hayabusa kit and the Shinkalion Z E5 Hayabusa + Yamanote Set. I assume the latter is basically the vanilla Hayabusa kit with the additional Yamanote parts. If you collect the E5 Hayabusa lineage, then you definitely need to get its next ‘evolution’.
Magic Knight Rayearth
A gray prototype of MODEROID Rayearth was revealed during WonHobby 32 earlier this year. Some months later and we now get updated colored prototype shots of Rayearth, as well as the other two Rune Gods or Mashin from Magic Knight Rayearth. But before going there, let’s first take a look at Rayearth and its changes from the gray prototype.
Here’s the colored and gray prototypes side by side and it is more or less the same. The most noticeable difference is with the right shoulder armor and how it has the same jewel and gold piece as the left. In the gray prototype, the right shoulder armor is just a plain rounded armor with the fins at the bottom. We can also see how all the jewel pieces will use red transparent plastic. Speaking of transparent plastic, Rayearth will also include flame effect parts as seen in the anime.
We also got colored prototypes of Selece and Windam which will complete our trio of Magic Knights. Comparing these to the original designs, you’ll probably notice how these have more angles but still have the sleek aesthetics of the originals. And while Selece and Windam aren’t shown to come with effect parts, they will be selling one for each Rune God/Mashin.
On a side note, there’s also a combined form of the three but obviously, that was done through the powers of anime magic and can’t be recreated as fully transformable kits. But they can always release it as a stand-alone kit.
Tangent: ACT MODE Maple (Bofuri)
I didn’t want to create a separate post for a single item but I think this is too awesome not to get some mention, albeit a tangent from the MODEROID stuff.
Doing some quick research, I learned that this ACT MODE figure/kit set is from the light novel-turned-anime Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense, particularly of the character Maple in her Machine God armor. Now, I’m totally not familiar with this series, much more of its power scaling but based on the clip below, this thing is insane.
You wouldn’t want to be caught in the business end of this massive beam-spamming monstrosity. If there’s a design that’s very fitting of the ACT MODE concept, then this would be it! This might be the first ACT MODE kit that I’ll buy.
None of the items shown have their release information provided but we’ll keep you posted once solicitations for these are up.
