[Tokumonkey]

As expected, I'm pretty darned impressed with Kyurenoh now that I have it in-hand. As expected, the color separations are very good. Chameleon Voyager came with six sprues! There's minimal use of stickers, although there's some black on Oushi Voyager that I was surprised to discover was a sticker rather than plastic, given that just about everything else is cast in an appropriate color.

The articulation is as good as you'd expect from modern Sentai minipla, with functional knees, hips, and ankles. The shoulders are on hinges in addition to a swivel, which really opens up a lot of options. It's got elbows of variable functionality depending on which limbs you use. The Kajiki and Chameleon Voyagers feature a ball joint on a section that can collapse back into the forearm when not in use. The design still limits the elbow articulation to some extent, but you can still get a pretty solid bend out of them. The head/neck is on a swivel rather than a ball, but it makes sense given how the different modes work. The extending wrench for Chameleon and the opening mouths on Oushi and Ookami are all replicated here. (And the mouth of Oushi is crying out for an accessory to hold.)

The Kyutama are a little puzzling. As expected, two stickers are applied to the plastic piece in the center, one side for the constellation/animal, and the other for the pilot in the cockpit. Like the DX Kyutama, you can turn the globe with a satisfying click. Unlike the DX, I can't figure out why you'd do so, as the image does not turn. The pilot details are cool, although depending on lighting, it's very hard to see the pilots in the darker Kyutama.

The Oushi and Ookami Voyagers don't work quite as well as arms, as they lack the extendable elbow joint, but between the ball joint and the moving necks, you can kind of fake a little bend. There are some cool, unexpected little details, like a rolling wheel on Oushi's underside. This set has some of the tiniest, most delicate stickers I've needed to place on a minipla, as well as some of the fiddliest individual components. (Getting Chameleon Voyager's eyes in place took some careful effort, and they look great.)

So there's significantly better articulation than the DX, and although the profile of the individual limb Voyagers is a smidge off as a result, I think it's well worth it. The only real downside is that the force needed to bend the elbows tends to be greater than the force needed to remove or attach the Kyutama from/to the ball joint, so it's exceptionally easy to accidentally pop off a forearm when you're just trying to bend it. I've found I mostly need to fully extend and bend the joint, then try to get it connected in its bent state.

I'm really glad I picked up this set, and that I wasn't stuck with extra boxes. I hope those of you who weren't able to get the first round of preorders will nevertheless be able to pick it up (and I honestly expect you will; there hasn't been a Sentai minipla set in the last few years that seemed particularly difficult to find.)