Equip and Prop Dan & Goruba

Greetings my fellow brothers and sisters of toys’ collecting or to whoever it is that is reading this. Ghost_XIII here, reporting in to bring you yet another review. This time around, I’ll be presenting you guys with another toy from Garo Equip & Prop(just EP from now), the Volume 8: Dan & Goruba.

Dan do not appear in the first season until the movie Garo:Beast of The White Night. From what I know, Dan is the least favourite Makai Knight from the Garo universe hence might be the reason why he still did not get a renewal in the Makai Kado line. That’s it for introduction I guess so let start with the review.

Dan’s box is similar to that of Volume 1: Garo & Zaruba(which you can read the review here[http://collectiondx.com/toy_review/2006/garo_and_zaruba]) but with some design referencing to Dan.

Out of the box, all the goodies are laid out in two layers of plastic trays. You are getting

The first tray:
-Yamagatana Tsubasa
-Goruba
-spear in normal form
-the top half of the transformed spear
-the lower half of the transformed spear
-Dan’s armor pieces(head, armsx2, legsx2,chest, crotch, side skirt)

The second tray:
-Goruba’s band
-shoulder armorX2
-back armor
-holding things hand for Tsubasa(left and right)
-splayed open hand for Dan(left and right)
-holding things hand for Dan(left and right)

and of course, instruction manual.

To kick things off, lets start with the man who inherit the title Byakuya Kishi, Yamagatana Tsubasa.

Overall, he is the same deal like Kouga. Everything that I see on him in the show is present here. His jacket is made entirely out of rubber except for his sleeves. Those are molded in plastic as part of the arm. I bought mine used and there seems to be some grimes on the jacket. I thought maybe the previous owner did something to him but I did saw a mint in sealed box unit and the grimes are also present which kinda spoil the clean white look of the jacket.

Again, just like Kouga, Tsubasa’s face sculpts is not that good but acceptable in my book.

One thing I dislike on this human figure is Tsubasa’s signature earring. It is molded directly as part of the head and been given quite a sloppy paint job which looks like his ear wax is dripping out of his ear.

Goruba is present on Tsubasa but it is quite hard to notice him under the jacket’s sleeve.

Moving on to articulation, Tsubasa is similarly jointed like Kouga but Tsubasa is a little better. Tsubasa have a nice ankle tilt. The jacket does get in the way at times.

The bend of the knee and elbow is the same as Kouga.

Tsubasa’s head can look left and right unlike Kouga and the waist rotation is the same like Kouga. But the jacket will make things look awkward when you try to move the waist joint.

Tsubasa came with his signature spear as a weapon. I don’t know the spear’s official name nor does it even have an official name.

There is not much detail on the spear but that is somewhat owed to the source material. The tip of the spear is not removable in case you want to show it in “standby” mode.

Tsubasa can hold it nicely with the included holding things hand.

Enough of the human part and lets TRANSFORM!!

The whole process is similar to Kouga but less scary on Dan. The only main problem I encounter is removing the jacket from the main body. You really need to stretch the jacket to get the body out which made me worried about the health of the jacket in the long run but it seems durable enough.

Not really a bad thing per say but I sometimes wonder is it necessary to put details on places that will get covered up 100% of the time.

And here is the white knight of Kantai, Dan.

Out of all the armor design in Garo, I love Dan the most. There is something about his colour scheme that charms me. Not that I have anything against dog or wolf but unlike the other armor, Dan doesn’t seem to have any trait of said animals which I kinda like. The detail is on par with Garo and I don’t think I will get tired staring at him. And my apologies for using a white back drop for a white figure. Not the smartest thing to do but as of writing I’m in the process of moving to a new house and I forgot where I put my black back drop. Forgive me ^^;.

That gold pattern is sculpted by the way.

Moving to articulation, Dan is somewhat similar to Garo.

The arm bend is identical to Garo. The knee bend seems a bit better than Garo but the leg raise…..That really is how far you can raise his leg forward. The armor design backfired here. The side skirt is on a ball joint so you can swivel them forward and back as you please and they don’t get in the way much when spreading the leg outward but you do need to force it a little.

Waist rotations exist but armor parts will grind against each other in a very frightening way. Its even worse than Garo. The shoulder armor is on a ball joint and they don’t limit the arm that much and to their credit, they look fine even when Dan raised his arm that far.

Dan can’t really look up and down effectively. It can be quite annoying when his earring get stuck under his chin.

Side view is ok until his chin bangs against the shoulder armor.

For his arsenal, of course he would come with the transformed version of his spear.

The detail is nicely done although I wish the red body of the weapon have some sculpted detail but this is good enough.

Dan’s hand can hold on to it but not as snug as I would want. Did I mention the spear is long? IT’S FREAKING LONG. A lot, lot longer than the untransformed version.

Just like Garo, with this kind of articulation, I don’t know how to pose him properly and I’m more of a sword guy rather than spear.

But man, he still looks amazing with it.

And lastly, the prop aspect of this release, the talking madou bracelet, Goruba made totally out of diecast.

The detail is great and the clear red eye is a cherry on top of this diecast deliciousness.

Just like in the show, Goruba’s mouth can open and close to simulate him speaking.

To wear Goruba, you need to use this little piece of rubber.

Goruba fits on my wrist but a little too tight.

So, should you buy this?

Before deciding on anything, take a look at these two pictures.

The toy doesn’t feel fragile or anything but it broke. Tsubasa’s crotch was an easy fix but I can’t do anything to fix Dan’s knee. To its credit, the loop can somehow hook itself to the metal bar inside the thigh and I did the whole review with a broken knee. So this is something you want to keep in mind before buying any figure from the EP line.

Without putting in the joint breakage factor, again, should you buy this?

My opinion on this set is not so different with the Garo set. The human figure still disappoints me but Tsubasa is a lot better than Kouga. Taking into account that this lines prioritize form rather function, I can forgive the lack of articulation on Dan.

Other than that, there’s not much to complain. I would recommend this set flat out to Garo’s fan or whoever likes Dan’s design if it wasn’t for the joint breakage and the fact that this set is very rare and can cost you a lot. Sadly, as of writing, only two Dan’s figure ever been produced which are this EP set and the lot smaller SIC Kiwami Tamashii. If you can’t accept the KT size and don’t have the guts to take the gamble with the EP, then you are screwed. Unless Bandai remake this guy for the MK line which I don’t think will ever happen.

After all that, that’s the end of this review. Hope you guys enjoy it. As usual, comments or critics(positive or negative) are always welcomed. This is Ghost_XIII reporting out :).