What else is similar to Mandarake?

Yahoo japan auctions is the first that comes to mind granted you will need a middleman service to use it

For middleman services, I recommend wakuwakumono. They charge very reasonable rates.

seeing as gao muscle was p-bandia finding the individual power animals will be difficult

Zenmarket let?s you directly look at listings from Yahoo Auctions. You can even filter for free shipping to their warehouse.

Jungle and Suruga-ya are also second hand shops that have online stores

Theoretically speaking, I can see them maybe having the pauldrons slide up a bit to allow for elbow articulation in the Megazord arms (Red Dragon arms would handle shoulder rotation just like the original toy). As for the skirt armor, possibly having the Phoenix Zord break apart, connecting each wingpiece to the sides of the waist might do the job? Either way, it's likely going to be much more partsformer-y than the original if they want to add any decent articulation, especially in the lower body. I can definitely also see them breaking off the upper leg armor and connecting that separately to allow for functional knees.

I just finished assembling GaoHunter and immediately got the Ligator Blade hilt stuck inside the tail. I wish Bandai made it easier to remove with something like a PC part but alas. Is there any good method to remove it? The hilt is easily the most fragile part of the kit and I wouldn't want to break it at all.

It's not Sentai but it's Super Minipla, so I'm posting it. Just finished this the other day.

https://i.imgur.com/1LacqCq.jpg

Sorry for it being a bit dusty. I was so excited to take a picture that I forgot to finish cleaning off the dust from sanding.

Anyways, I've been wanting this kit for a while and finally found it for a super reasonable price. The only caveats are that a few of the sprues were attached in hard-to-sand places, and the transformation has a bit more partsforming than I would like. Still, I'm really happy with it.

I'm a big fan of Ideon. The kit looks great! Great job!

Thanks! I love the design. My only complaint is that a few of the nubs were put in hard-to-sand places. There's two white marks on the back that I can't get rid of :\ Other than that, it's great.