Dragon Kaiser

Continuing on with the Masterpiece Brave line, here is the second and sadly last entry: Dragon Kaiser.

Dragon Kaiser’s box is larger than that of King Exkaiser and doesn’t have a flap, but the packaging is otherwise similar, right down to the cardboard tray being usable as a backdrop.

We also get another collectable card, this time featuring Dragon Kaiser of course.

First off, the vehicle mode. Dragon Kaiser transforms into what I hesitate to describe as a jet so much as a big blue brick with wings and an enormous nose cone. This mode is not so subtly called the Dragon Jet. The arms of the robot mode just hang off the side and have no locking mechanism at all, which is strange considering Takara went to trouble of letting you lock King Exkaiser’s legs together in its trailer mode. Mine came with a minor defect in one of the wings that causes the smaller part to pop off when you try to unfold it, but it’s fixable with some minor sanding and repositioning.

The Dragon Jet can be placed on the ground with the help of diecast landing gear with rolling wheels.

In addition, you can fold out a small peg from under the nose cone and attach the dragon jet to Exkaiser’s car mode, in case you were missing a plane and a pushback tractor for your airport diorama or something.

Transforming into the Dragon Kaiser is an even more simple affair than King Exkaiser. The only caveat being two crotch joints that require a considerable amount of force to pull out and push back in. The head is also connected to the nose cone and must be attached to the figure’s neck manually.

Similarly, you can lift up the chest and open panels on the legs to cram in the Exkaiser figure from the King Exkaiser set. It’s slightly easier to do than with King Exkaiser, but again you don’t need to do it at all.

Dragon Kaiser is a hulking behemoth of a figure with the usual diecast in its very chunky legs. One oddity I noticed is that the box art and manual show two screws coming out of the holes on the shoulders, but the figure itself lacks them for some reason.

The arm articulation is about on par with that of King Exkaiser, flexible and not obstructed by the body. The legs on the other hand are a bit different. For starters, they can’t go as wide as King Exkaiser.

Not much in the way of forward or backward motion either.  Its big black feet, however, have a great degree of sideways motion and a very large surface area that allow it to stay upright with ease.

Another major difference from King Exkaiser is that the legs can rotate at the knees. Given how limited every other part’s movement is, it doesn’t mean much, and I don’t dare abuse its limits for fear of snapping the one-sided ratcheting joint that connects the thighs to the hollow leg blocks.

Moving on, Dragon Kaiser comes with three sets of hands: holding, open palm, and straight palm with a swivel joint for some martial arts tom-foolery. In addition, it comes with one right hand for holding the Thunder Arrow.

It also comes with two interchangeable chest pieces. The first one can fold down and slide over the green eyes on the chest to mimic the figure’s non-sentient Dragon mode. The second one is a solid non-moving piece.

A switch on the back of the figure’s head can be used to toggle between modes by hiding the green eyes.

Let’s talk weapons. Dragon Kaiser’s prominent feature is the large pair of cannons on each hand. They also double as a sort of bladed tonfa. Simply push the cannon nozzles inside, push down the small wing, rotate the entire piece, then swivel down the handles into the hands. When you want to return them to cannon mode, there’s a handy pair of switches on the underside to help push the cannons back out.

It also comes with Dragon Claws. These attach to the shoulders and have the annoying tendency to pop off very easily when you’re handling the figure. Having not seen the show, I can only assume that they’re supposed to be thrown at the enemy in some way.

Dragon Kaiser’s main weapon is the Dragon Archery, a massive golden bow that grows out of its chest piece. You can slide the black handle inside and attach the whole thing to the chest, but it becomes damn near impossible to pull the handle out again because the inside of the bow is a very tight fit and the plastic is too brittle to try forcing it out. Luckily the bow is actually held together by 3 screws so you can open it up and free the handle. You might want to do some sanding while you’re in there to decrease the friction and allow the pegs to connect to each other. Mine had ugly seam lines and fitting problems all over it.

The Thunder Arrow comes molded in the golden color of its powered up state and can attach somewhat reluctantly to a swiveling piece coming out of the figure’s back.

Overall, this figure displays a toy collector’s two favorite traits: It’s amazing to look at but infuriating to work with. It’s also very bulky compared to its anime appearance due to its main gimmick: Combining with King Exkaiser into Great Exkaiser.

It’s also much more difficult to find than King Exkaiser and goes for insane prices. Next review we’ll cover Great Exkaiser combination which I now have to clear massive shelf space for.