Plezu-Oh

The 9th Great Zyudenryu in Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger is Plezuon. It is originally the partner of Kyoryu Violet, the Kyoryuger tasked with traveling the stars in search of clues on how to defeat the evil Deboss Army.

Since the Plezuon’s function is to sail the cosmic seas, it is fitting that its motifs are a sea-faring Plesiosaurus and a rocket ship. Obviously, the first part of Plezuon’s name is derived from the species of the dinosaur that mecha is derived from. As for the second part, the “zuon” it is a Japanese onomatopoeia that is the equivalent to “zoom” in English. So this mecha’s English name would be Plezoom.

In rocket ship mode, the Plezuon is a nice, hefty and pretty cool looking purple and white piece of intergalactic traveling technology.

This toy has a lot of detail, depth, angles and lines all over the place. These features were missing from most of the Kyoryuger line due to most of the toys in the line being rather flat and basic.

At the rear of the mecha, is the Rocket ship is the Kyoryuger logo and the tail/thrusters of the mecha.

If you take of this end piece, you can display Plezuon in an upright and ready-to-blast-off state.

Plezuon has three small wheels on the underside, which seem a bit impractical for a rocket ship. But they do allow the toy to roll around.

The transformation from rocket to dinosaur mode is very easy. It only requires folding out the panels on the sides. This reveals the flippers of the dino and the other mechanical bits underneath the boosters. While it is neat to be able to see more of the mecha as the sides unfold, it is not much different from the last mode. So it isn’t super-original and it just ends up looking more like a space shuttle rather than a rocket ship.
For the next transformation, you have to do a bit of parts swapping and contortion of the body. But the end result is much more different looking than the previous forms of the Plezuon.

The robot modes is known as the Plezu-Oh. While I was not a big fan of this mecha’s design originally, it has kind of grown on me, with its big-ol Kyoryuger symbol on the chest and giant dinosaur head for an arm.

Plezuon’s head is a mighty gun for the Plezu-Oh.

The left side sports a normal arm, which is half of the of big purple part with thrusters that sits atop the Plezuon’s spaceship and dino modes.

The other half of this part is stored on the back of the Plezuon, partially covering the square recess on the back. With all of the engineering that was done for this toy, you would think they could figure out a way to completely cover the hole up.

Just like in the show, the Plezu-Oh can combine with the other arm mechas in the line, thanks to having the same connection points on the shoulders as Gabutyra and Pteragordon.

Here it is showing off its first combination from the show, the Plezu-Oh Bunpachy.

If you want, you can also set the dino head arm aside and attach the other normal arm piece on, to make a more symmetrical and traditional looking robot.

When the Plezuon transforms into the Plezu-Oh, it becomes a towering mass of white and violet.

It is actually taller than the Kyoryujin.

Turning the Plezu-Oh to face back, folding up the legs, releasing the connection points in the back of the legs and swapping a couple of parts will get it ready to combine with the Kyoryujin and the Bunpachy to form the Bakurestu Kyoryujin!

This massive mecha that is pretty much just the Plezuon riding Gabutyra has also strangely won a place in my heart. It is neat seeing how all of the parts fit into this combination, which earlier had worked in different ways to form the Plezuon and the Plezu-Oh.

My newfound-love for this combination aside, the proportions for toy representation of the Bakuretsu Kyoryujin are a bit odd and the gaps to the right and left of Gabutyra’s body make the actual body look more anorexic than it is in the show.

Although this is far from a perfect representation of the Bakuretsu Kyoryujin, it is a fun toy to transform into the Bakuretsu Kyoryujin.

Articulation in both robot modes is pretty much limited to moving the arms up and down.

In Bakuretsu Kyoryujin form, you can extend Gabutyra’s lets outwards. The legs on Gabutyra cannot move backwards because there is an extra stabilizing clip that attaches around the waist and prevents their movement towards the back. You can move the legs forward, but that will completely throw off the center of gravity of the toy and it will not hold such stances. So because of that the only thing you can really do with the legs of the Bakuretsu Kyoryujin is vary the wideness of its stance.

While it may lack articulation of the extremities, it does have the ability to move its head a full 360 degrees thanks to its octagonal peg at the base of the neck, which can rotate in its socket.

it is nice to have a Super Sentai mecha that can face a direction other than forward. And if you have it face all the way back, it has a weird sideways-Venus-Fly-Trap thing going. This of course is the side of the face that opens up and is used for the Bakuretsu Kyoryujin

Plezuon, like the other Zyudenryu, comes with his corresponding Jyudenchi. On the back of the battery, it has the name of the mecha.

On the front, there is a clear plastic window that displays the panel on the inside of the battery. The panel can be flipped by pressing the button on the top of the battery.

On the “dormant mode” side of the battery, the second one from the left in the picture, the outline of the dinosaur is made of a glow in the dark material.

As with the other mecha in the line, the battery can be inserted into Plezuon’s mouth. Plezuon, however, is a bit special, since it is the third mecha in the line to have its own electronics. These are housed in the head/neck part of the toy.

When there is no battery inserted into Plezuon, the triangular button with the Plezuon logo will cause the toy to produce a long roar/cry. Holding this button will make the toy go “Zuuon”, which is followed by some explosions. The semi-rectangular button will elicit a laser sound from the electronics. Holding this button does not produce a different sound, instead it just makes the laser sound over and over.

You would expect an expensive and big toy like this to have a battery reader like Gabutyra, but it does not. Instead, there is a spring-loaded button at the rear of the chamber.

So the electronics will react the same no matter which battery is inserted into the chamber.

Placing a battery in the chamber and sliding the battery to the rear of the chamber using the landing gear/ gun handle under the chamber, will make the Plezuon go:

“Gaburincho! Prrreezuon”, in the voice of Kyoryu Violet, who is the voice-over for the show.

Having the battery fully inserted into the chamber will change the sounds that Plezuon will produce when the buttons on the toy are pressed. Pressing the triangular button will produce the catchy and upbeat “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh” tune to play, followed by a“Prezu-Oh”. Holding the same button will produce a mash-up of the previous tune and the Kyoryujin samba song, followed by a “Bakuretsu, Kyooooryuuujin!”

Pressing the other button will cause an upbeat drum-heavy song to play. This is your queue to use the gun handle to slide the battery forward and back three times in the chamber. Each of the three times, you get a countdown from three to one, in Japanse. On third and final time doing this, you will get an “Ichiiii! Zuoon.” Followed by a charging and laser sound, which culminates in some explosions.

While Plezuon may lack a true battery reader, it does have a couple of unique features that make up for its lack of ability to read the beast batteries in the line.

Overall the Plezuon is an awesome toy! While the transformation between the dinosaur and rocket ship is a bit of letdown, there enough engineering magic put into the transformation between the dino (or rocket ship) mode, the robot mode and its combination with the Kyoryujin (and Bunpachy). You can really tell that a lot of love was poured into designing the transformations and gimmicks for this toy. I wish more of the line felt as inspired as the Plezuon and the Pteragordon because these toys prove that PLEX still remembers how to engineer the kind of toys that have made the DX Super Sentai such a sought after line.