[Tokumonkey]

When I first saw the DX Zyuoh King toy, I scoffed and decided I wouldn't buy it. Today, I got my case of minipla in the mail, and now that I've assembled it, I love this toy.

The minipla fixes most of my problems with the DX toy. I'm boggling at the mindfulness that went into this toy's design. There are sticker sheets, but in most cases, you're applying the sticker over molded details. The designers clearly intended for us to have the option of painting the toy.

The feet and the rear are amazing. The default instructions allow us to replicate the DX toy's limitations like the uni-leg, but we're given the option to separate the legs and have ball-jointed ankles. The choice is wholly ours. The minipla corrects part of the DX toy's gross profile by letting us remove the 2 block and use it as a shield. That's not a fan alteration: they actually included an optional part that allows the figure to hold the shield either in his hand or at the wrist. (At the wrist looks way better to me, since it simulates a strapped-on shield.) None of the videos I've seen of the DX toy indicate that it can do this, but it looks so good on the minipla, you'd think it was part of the initial design.

This toy can move! Some of this movement is relatively restricted, but it's enough to allow the thing to take on relatively-natural poses that are impossible for the rigid DX toy.

The individual cube modes suffer for all this freedom. The cube mode for Cube Eagle doesn't look remotely good, but I'm comfortable with that. The cube modes don't appeal to me in the slightest. The animal modes, on the other hand, are pretty good. (Again, Eagle is the worst, but I'm inclined to forgive it, since it appears it will need ultimately to serve more modes than just cube, animal, or body part.

What does appeal to me - and this took me somewhat by surprise - is that I actually like the design of Zyuoh King. I didn't think I would at first, but now that I've seen the in-show suit and I've got the minipla in hand, I'm realizing that it's a cool design, if you can enjoy the 8-bit aesthetic.

Things I wish I'd known when I was building it: that I needed to decide on whether to use the stickers BEFORE assembling it. For the two Cube Eagle sets, there are several stickers - the face and the black part under the eagle's head - that you DON'T want to wait until later to decide on. I tried to apply the face after the fact, and the result wasn't pretty, since I no longer had proper access to the areas where they were supposed to go.

I'd absolutely recommend applying the stickers behind the lion-knee eyes, however, since they look great. I also see no viable alternative to the 3 sticker provided for Cube Lion. That's the only sticker that doesn't have paintable detail under it.

I gather I should be cautious about acquiring more minipla, as this set might've set my standards a little too high. I gather that this may be the best minipla to date. I impulsively picked up Gekitouja off Mandarake before I had Zyuoh King in-hand, so... we'll see how that goes.

I couldn't help but notice, by the way, that Zyuoh King scales more or less perfectly with Super Robot Chogokin Shinken-Oh. LOVE.

Edit: And OH GOOD GRIEF, I just realized I can plug the tiny sword into the back of his sword-wielding hand, effectively giving Zyuoh-King a cool-looking double-bladed sword. I suspect the designers did it on purpose, given the thoughtful details everywhere else.