Baikanfu

Baikanfu comes from the show Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos which ran from 1986-1987. The release of this series was mainly an effort to match the popularity of the Transformers which debuted in 1985. I was late in getting into Baikanfu. He never really struck me as a must have character. I was more of a Gardian fan. It wasn’t until a Soul of Chogokin Baikanfu crossed my path real cheap that I decided to give it a go. Needless to say I enjoyed it because I am now the proud owner of another Baikanfu diecast. This time around it is in SD form. When I heard a Baikanfu was in the works I imagined the combining feature was going to be a disaster. After seeing the prototypes, I placed a preorder. Well it is finally here. Let’s take a look.

Baikanfu comes in the usual fantastic thick box that all ES Gokin come in with full color front and back and foil lettering.

The figures and accessories are securely nestled inside these sturdy plastic trays. There is a third tray which is for the included stand that works for the entire set (not shown).

I’ll be starting off with Rom Stol. He is rendered here in teeny stylized form. As small as this little guy is, he is articulated in the head arms and legs. Both his head and legs are ball jointed. A pair of alternate arms with bent elbows is included. Although not the easiest thing to do, it is possible to stand on his own.

Here you can see just how small this little dude is. He’s shown here with one of his two swords.

Also included in the set is Rom’s little sister Leina. Her head arms and legs are articulated.

For some reason, her helmet can be removed and swapped for hair. Why not do the same for Rom?It’s a girlie thing I guess.

If you thought Rom was small, check this out.

KENRYU

OK, it’s time for some robots. Here is Kenryu. He is small but has an acceptable amount of diecast that resides in his chest and legs. Handling this figure made me wonder why no one has bothered to make a series of small scale articulated diecast robots.

BAIKANFU

Last but definitely not least is Baikanfu. Although he has been pleasantly distorted, he still manages to look like he can kick some butt.

I’m fascinated with paint finishes for some reason and when it is done well on a figure, I like to recognize it. Check out the flawless gleam on his head. Not one measly particle of dust in the paint.

I like how they worked in the knee feature. It allows a decent amount of movement.

When Kenryu is not combined with Baikanfu, Baikanfu’s interior will obviously be hollow. To keep the solid look of this figure, there is an included filler piece just like Bandai included in their SOC release.

This release takes that filler-piece a step further and includes a light up feature as long as you go out and buy a couple of LR4 batteries since they are not included. They paid attention here because they even added a cloth strip to allow the easy removal of the batteries when you use them up.

What’s nice is that they could have just made the eyes on Baikanfu out of a clear yellow plastic but they actually gave it a slight misting of gold. Just enough to give it color but let light pass through.

COMBINATION

You can go ahead and put Leina Stol away because you won’t be needing her for this part.

Open up Baikanfu…

Next open up Kenryu and place Rom Stol inside…

Now you can insert the Kenryu/Rom Stol combo inside of Baikanfu. Not necessarily in that order if you want to get technical.

I came away impressed with the overall execution of this set. Not much was compromised to achieve this little feat of engineering. The only spot that really had to be compromised due to the design was the necks on both robots which are flat plates running down the back. Although the heads are on ball joints, the articulation is very limited especially on Kenryu which is stuck looking down. There have been issues with neck ball-joints snapping. Some of the neck snapping can be due to trying to make Kenryu look up which unfortunately is not part of his design. While my necks are still intact, my Kenryu suffered from a snapped leg alignment tab and a bent ball joint shaft that articulates the foot. The most annoying issue was the scratched up Rom Stol sword. One side is clean with crisp paint apps right down to the wolf logo and the other side looked like this.

It’s too early to tell if these are isolated incidents so don’t let that deter you from sourcing one of these sets if you are a Baikanfu fan or enjoy it’s design.