[Byg42]

Gaoranger I would say was the first series that gave the mechas their own sort of shared gimmick. In this case, many of the Power Animals were interchangable with one another, be they arms, legs, to even the whole body itself. And boy does Gaoranger abuse this aspect as there's like a gazillion combinations between all the Power Animals. So for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to just stick to the base combinations and thankfully, all the Power Animals are used in at least one, so none of them are going to be left out.

GaoKing







I really like GaoKing. There's a lot of design elements about it that I found really striking and they all come together really nicely. There's a very smooth look to the design, not as blocky as some animal based mechas have been in the past. The wings on GaoEagle becoming this sort of extended mane for GaoLion is kind of ingenious. The head really has this sort of King helmet vibe to it and is pretty awesome looking. The legs are also a really striking element to me and I don't know why, they just look really nice. About the only weak points I can say about GaoKing is the arms, specifically the shoulders symbols. They don't really match how GaoKing looks colour wise as they are a really dark shade of red whereas GaoKing has more lighter shades of colour, so they stick like a bit of a sore thumb. Besides that though, I still think GaoKing is solid looking.

GaoMuscle





Like with GaoKing, GaoMuscle has a lot of cool design elements that synegize together nicely. GaoGorilla, GaoBear and GaoPolar form a much more heavy and muscular looking upper body than GaoKing. I really like how it looks and the torso having this sort of jade green colour to it looks really nice. The head has this really cool roman centurion look to it. I also want to commend how they were able to get GaoEagle to become part of the waist. Just helps to differentiate it from GaoKing.

GaoHunter Justice/Evil/Blue Moon







GaoHunter has a lot of different variations to it, all of which only have minor differences from each other so lets take it step by step. Justice is the form GaoHunter takes once Tsukumaro becomes GaoSilver. Despite GaoSilver being themed after a wolf and the head of GaoHunter also bring wolf themed, GaoWolf only really makes up the arm, with the other arm being GaoHammerhead and the entire body being GaoLigator. GaoHunter is all things considered pretty nice looking. It has a variety of animals that we haven't really seen before, some of the design elements like the cresent blade on the chest or the alligator head as the whole torso look nice, and it has quite a lot of colours going on. Silver, blue, purple, green, black, that's a lot but the gold highlights that are present throughout do help seal them together. Also I got to say, the Ligator Blade is a pretty cool weapon. I mean it's so huge and if I'm remembering corectly, the finisher involves him spinning it through the monster like a drill. The Evil form which came with the debut of Rouki is mostly the same except for the head which looks more evil and has some of the design elements common to the Org's like the horn. The Blue Moon form is a power up form it gets later and I'll admit, I don't entirely get the point of this form. It just seems to exist so that they can sell a repaint and honestly I'm not a big fan of the colours since it now has an overdose of blue and gold wheareas the green and silver on Justice form helped break things up a bit.

GaoIcarus







GaoIcarus is a pretty majestic mecha. The wings on GaoFalcon are kind of the reason for this due to their exotic design with the whole eye motif along with how huge they are, the fact that they can also fold in front to form a shield is pretty neat. The head has a very unique shape to it especially around the eyes. All the component pieces are nice as well. Granted they debuted way before GaoFalcon showed up but considering how they are shaped especially with the shoulders, it does feel like they were all supposed to come together as a cohesive mecha. Plus they make some pretty neat arms and legs. GaoGiraffe forms this long spear which is quite cool, GaoDeer creates these large pincers which look nice though I wish the head tucked up a bit more, the sort of soccer motif going on with GaoRhinos and GaoMadillo is a little ridiculous but is kinda fun it's own way. So yeah, GaoIcarus, pretty cool all around.

GaoGod







The ancestor to GaoKing and, as his name implies, God to the Power Animals. Though he is just a retool of GaoKing, there are some pretty major differences between the two. The large use of gold along with the much darker shades of colour makes GaoGod look like an ancient yet divine being. All the other components have differences that help separate them from their GaoKing counterpart. The biggest one is GaoCondor who not only house a different head piece, but the wings are in a totally different position than they were on GaoKing. The exception to this is GaoLeon who is essentially a black GaoLion which is a little lame, I mean even GaoJaguar had a completely different spotting pattern from GaoTiger. Still though, GaoGod is a pretty cool retool of GaoKing.

GaoKnight




The first true movie exclusive mecha and it kind of sets the trend for all the movie exclusive mecha, basically being just retools of existing mecha, changing them in small or big ways. In this case, we have GaoKong, a repaint of GaoGorilla with the only new addition being his more knight like head. To sort of add to the knight theme, the base combination also includes GaoElephant which we haven't talked about yet. Its ability to become a sword and shield makes it pretty different from all the other Power Animals which is ironic since I believe he was the first one to show up after the core 5 Power Animals. The shield is pretty basic, it's just the elephant head. The sword on the other hand, I actually quite like how it looks especially the blade. Besides the addition of GaoElephant, there isn't really much to say about GaoKnight since he's just GaoMuscle except red, has a knight helmet, and has a sword and shield.

GaoKentaurus

GaoKentaurus is pretty out there as far as mecha designs go which makes it quite unique. I mean really the concept of this mecha alone is just brilliant. It's a centaur, except its part lion instead of part horse, its got bird wings on the back, and its even got a sword and shield. Having GaoFalcon as the base torso adds a bit of majesty to this mecha, the use of sword and shield are a nice touch, and well, it's a centaur that's part lion. How is that not cool.