Much like last year, there are literally tons of kits revealed just for the first day of Mecha Smile Impact 2023. And I definitely don’t have the time, nor money, nor interest, to buy them all, so I’ll be cherry picking those that catch my interest. Let’s start with those under the SD and fantasy or “isekai” category as Good Smile Company is doing a great coverage of these designs that would normally be ignored by other manufacturers.
MODEROID Hyper Granzort
Having done both Granzort and Super Granzort, it only makes sense for Good Smile Company to continue the evolutionary lineage and release MODEROID Hyper Granzort. It comes from the OVA Mado King Granzort: The Last Magical War and the main thing you will notice about this design, besides the dominantly silver color, it the real-type proportions. It also appears to ditch the head mode transformation that’s been a feature of its predecessors. I hope we get maximized articulation thanks to the absence of this gimmick.
MODEROID King Squasher & Queen Cideron
Another fantasy/SD mecha franchise Good Smile Company is bringing to the forefront is NG Knight Lamune & 40. They revealed two kits on the get go — first being the mostly gold MODEROID King Squasher and the other is the mostly black and silver MODEROID Queen Cideron.
King Squasher is mostly gold and I’m not sure if the MODEROID kit will go with the chrome plated route or they’ll just go with the two tones regular finish I’m seeing here. Personally, I’d prefer the latter as you really can’t do anything with nubs on chrome plated plastic. The kit also replicates the transformation of King Squasher to Samulion through some clever parts integration. Queen Cideron can also transform into Yaripanther using the same engineering.
While the reveal video double bills King Squasher and Queen Cideron, I still think they’ll be sold as individual kits.
MODEROID Toybox
Good Smile Company is far from done with their Knight’s & Magic kits and they have revealed a couple. Before our main protagonist Ernesti Echevalier goes to board the Ikaruga, he first creates a silhouette knight as proof of concept for all the tech he’s trying to perfect. And thus, we get the aptly named MODEROID Toybox, as toybox or sandbox for all these tech.
Compared to the much more streamlined and knight-like Ikaruga, the Toybox is bulkier and angular, representative of the design language from the world Ernesti came from. But it also has the aesthetics established in this world with the curved surfaces on the arms and legs. It does have a more intricate design so I’m not sure how much of these would translate to actual plastic pieces and which would require paint. But it’s a good design to have and if I’ll get this guy, I’ll need to get Ikaruga too.
Of these three, from the most likely purchase, it would be Hyper Granzort, King Squasher and then Toybox. But I said the same for the MODEROID Gravion kits and eventually cancelled my pre-orders for all of them, so we’ll still see. But these do appear to be great kits so if you fancy anyone of these, then just wait for the solicitations to open.
