Compared to previous years, Good Smile Company / Good Mecha Smile is doing things a little differently for this year’s Mecha Smile Impact. Instead of a single big bang reveal of everything in their development pipeline, they opted to split it between the Winter and Summer. This would not only help maintain recall and excitement for their upcoming products, but it would also allow them to compete with other companies doing reveals around this time.
Most ‘real robot ‘mecha series have this one special and high-performance unit that often takes the stage and just beats the crap out of all the enemy grunt units. And as a mecha collector, I usually gravitate toward these special machines. However, there are also mecha series with stories that don’t provide the luxury to have that one special unit and everyone fights with the same mass-produced machine, with their pilots praying for their survival after each battle.
In such scenarios, I often appreciate these grunt machines more and Good Smile Company has managed to produce kits for some of them. I’ve managed to snag a couple like the Aestivalis from Nadesico and that’s pretty much it. I wanted to say the Ingram from Patlabor but that’s a special machine. Now, they’re adding a couple more to the pipeline and I really wanted to get one.
MODEROID Chamber
If you watched the 2013 series Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, then you’ll know how Chamber became the giga chad towards the end of the series even before “giga chad” became a thing. So much so that Good Smile Factory and Max Factory already made a couple of renditions in the form of the Good Smile Arms and PLAMAX versions respectively. I can’t say for the quality of those versions but both are unfortunately much larger than my preferred scale so I ultimately skipped those.
But third time’s the charm as Good Smile Company is coming back to Gargantia as we are getting MODEROID K-6281 Chamber! Its design is mostly black with white and orange highlights and I am curious how many of these will be actual plastic or color-correcting stickers. Also, my purchase will also be based on how large this kit will be and whether it will fit my collection.
MODEROID Zark
To be completely honest, I’m not really familiar with Argento Soma. Following a quick Google search, I discovered that many consider this series as yet another Evangelion derivative and this is a testament to Good Mecha Smile’s mantra of bringing more of these obscure properties to the mainstream. The Zark is an anti-alien mobile weapon that can transform between a humanoid “high-mobility” form and a flight form.
The transformation is done by parts replacement and multiple sets of decals are included to match each of the five units that appear in the series. If you want to complete the whole team, then you’ll need to get five copies. It also comes with a rifle as its primary weapon. I’m quite interested in its unorthodox design so I might consider getting one, at least after we get more information on this kit.
As this is going to be my last post to cover the MODEROID reveals, I do want to quickly go through a new model kit concept they also revealed, the Mini Gattai Henkei” kits. These are compact kits, at 115mm head height, that feature perfect transformation and good articulation. Some are probably asking why do this on such a scale? I’ve read several comments on this online and a good explanation is that there are certain transformation mechanisms that would only work on a more compact scale. Taking into consideration the transformation, combination, articulation and overall engineering, such an approach would make sense. Especially after knowing they’re choosing to pilot this subline with Getter 1 and Gunbuster.
115mm is actually within my wheel house but I do prefer my super robots to be slightly larger, even if it means ditching the whole transformation feature. Hence the reason I really like Action Toys’ Mini Action line. But I might consider Getter 1 since my Getter Robo collection is mostly Revoltech figures and they are on the smaller side.
Overall, Good Smile Company continues to deliver with their selection of MODEROID kits and I am looking forward to catching up on some of these kits. I do have one more post covering Mecha Smile Impact 2024 Summer but this is for their character-centric model kit line, Plamatea.
