Ahhh the Brave Series; such a great franchise from Sunrise and Takara that just needs more merchandise these days. Well, it seems like Bandai heard the call and answered it, by putting out more Brave series figures in the Super Robot Chogokin line besides GaoGaiGar and friends. Bandai started out by making one of the more popular titular robots: Might Gaine. I’ve noticed he’s one of the more identifiable Brave heroes out there; which is deserved enough. I personally didn’t care much for Might Gaine as a series, but the robots looked cool enough and the villains were great, so at least it had some redeeming qualities.
I’m sorry, but I’m just such a sucker for this line…
Might Gaine is one of the taller figures in the Super Robot Chogokin line, standing about two heads taller than Big Volfogg and a little bit taller than the Mazingers, but he doesn’t have as much girth as GaoGaiGar, of course. As a result, he has such a great… stable feel to him. He feels incredibly solid, even for a chogokin. He’s a design with little to no fiddly bits, so it never feels like he’s going to fall apart or break.
In fact, the only thing he has that possibly could break is his little head antennae. But of course, Bandai was one step ahead, and they included two sets: one in hard plastic, one in soft plastic. I personally prefer the soft plastic ones, because hey, you never know what might happen, even in a display case.
Might Gaine also comes with two faces: open and closed. The open one is from the end of his combination sequence, which to be honest, is kind of an odd choice for an accessory. I could understand the GaiGar face for GaoGaiGar since it’s sort of iconic, but this seems sort of redundant.
But hey, you can’t not love the little train conductor hat helmet. It’s just so cute!
The articulation here is absolutely fantastic. He has the same hidden double joints in his arms as most of the other SRCs, but they went above and beyond with the legs. Just look at those joints! He even has a sliding thigh piece like a Master Grade kit! It’s weird to see that on a toy, but hey, I’ll run with it.
Naturally, we’ve got a pretty good assortment of accessories, with three standard sets of hands plus a pointing finger, and a lot of swords. Honestly I can’t even remember what most of these attacks were, but these swords are pretty great. The two smaller gold ones come with a part to connect both of them for one awesome double-edged sword, but you can actually connect any two swords you want…
…which can result in some absurd combinations…
First releases of the figure come with this awesome “trident base” for displaying SRCs. You know those silly little pieces that have come with pretty much every release? Yep, now you can put them to use. Were GaoGaiGar not so heavy I’d be displaying him on here with ChoRyuJin and Big Volfogg. I hope we get a third Brave robot at some point so I can do some kind of cool display.
Or you know, Getter Robo or Grendizer. GET ON IT, BANDAI!
So yeah, even if you haven’t seen the series or aren’t the biggest fan of it, I HIGHLY recommend this figure to anyone. He’s an extremely well-crafted figure with little to no flaws, and a great first release bonus. It seems like with each SRC release, they get better and better, and this guy is no exception. You’d be a fool to let this slip by if you saw it at FPNYC, JUST SAYING.
