Before 2021 ended, Good Smile Company and its mecha sub-brand Good Mecha Smile have been promoting Mecha Smile Impact, an event which they promise would excite and bring impact to the mecha modeling world. They promised to reveal tons of upcoming model kits and figures from both the MODEROID and The Gattai lines. They had the video presentation of all reveals yesterday and, yep, it was very impactful with almost 40 new items across multiple series and franchises.
For the last set of reveals and my unsolicited thoughts on them, these are the kits that I personally think to be very notable. But that’s not to say I’m automatically getting them, case in point being the first one in this set.
When they announced the MODEROID Dynazenon set, it was just a matter of time before they revealed they do the Gridman set. And now we finally have the confirmed kit. As much I liked both SSSS.Gridman and SSSS.Dynazenon, more of the former actually, I’m not that sold on building kits of the titular machines. It’s mainly because of their tokusatsu-based designs which tend to have colors and patterns placed all over the place. Which means you’ll probably have to use the included color-correcting seals or do the painstaking task of masking these details yourself. But I digress.
As this is the Full Power Gridman set, it will come with parts to build not just Gridman, but all the Assist Weapons used by the Neon Genesis Junior High Students. You can also see above how their individual combinations with Gridman look in model kit form and some of them don’t translate well from animation, chief being Buster Gridman. It also makes me wonder if the Gridman kit will be stable enough to hold that giant Gridman Calibur.
Let’s not forget how the four Assist Weapons can combine by themselves and form Powered Zenon. Thanks to the way each component combines with Gridman, it appears that the articulation of Powered Zenon will be down to the basic points — i.e. no elbows, knees, or ankles. But then again, previous MODEROID kits have worked around such limitations with the inclusion of additional articulated parts, so we’ll have to see if this kit does the same.
In any case, if you got MODEROID Dynazenon, then you must also get this set, especially with the Gridman ✕ Dynazenon feature film in the horizon.
MODEROID Full Power Gridman
TBD
Unlike the first item above, this one is a kit I am looking forward to getting. While they’ve yet to release the MODEROID God Gravion kit, it makes perfect sense they do the follow up set, Sol Σ Gravion. To those unfamiliar, God Gravion actually gets a mid-season upgrade in Gravion Zwei with the Sol Gravion which is the same Gran Kaiser now combined with the Sol Grandivas.
But instead of just releasing a kit of the Sol Grandivas, Good Smile Company went with this version — which is the Sol Grandivas combined with Gran Σ.
They are also teasing a kit of Ultimate Gravion, which is the Gran Kaiser combined with all Grandivas and Sol Grandivas. Though for this combination, the Grandivas are now in darker colors to match Gran Σ and its God Σ Gravion combination. In any case, I am sure to get these sets.
MODEROID Sol Σ Gravion
TBD
The last MODEROID reveal for the event comes from a poll they held some time ago, asking which mecha fans wanted a kit of.
Heck yes! If the magenta and cyan colors aren’t enough of a giveaway, then let me reintroduce you to Lio de Galon, the final machine (well in its second form) used by Galo and Lio at the climax of Promare — check out my full review here. It is an amazing movie, so it actually made me scratch my head that it took a while before someone released the mecha that appears either in model kit or figure form. Regardless, Lio de Galon topped the Good Smile Company survey so we’re finally getting a kit of it.
My big question regarding this kit is how they are going to do the colors, because if you check out below how Lio de Galon looks from the movie:
You can clearly see how this guy is really technicolored. I don’t even know if the magentas and cyans and yellows are actual colors or just the shadows playing tricks on us. Either way, I am curious how they’re going to deal with this with the kit. Oh, are we also getting other mecha from Promare, including Galo de Lion, its other oppositely colored, much larger form?
There you go, the MODEROID announcements I found to be interesting. As previsouly mentioned, I really appreciate how Good Smile Company is going through the lesser mainstream properties that fans really wanted kits of, but the larger companies feel to be less profitable. Like who would’ve expected a kit of MADOX-01 of all things? While I don’t think all of these are getting 2022 releases, it does give them a good chunk of backlog to work with before announcing more upcoming kits. I think it might take a while before they announce a new set of upcoming kits after this, but at least we have a great pipeline to look forward to.
As always, you can check out the announcements for these kits through the video below.
