Gaiking The Knight by Sentinel Available From HobbyLink Japan
By Cacophanus from Mecha Damashii
In another entry into Sentinel’s ongoing Metamor Force line comes Gaiking The Knight. This is a new design based off the original and classic Gaiking that aired back in the ’70s. Similar to the Dino Getter Robo toys, Sentinel has opted to support an all-new take on the design and it doesn’t disappoint.
Gaiking was a curious series and not one without its own array of legal trauma. This is because the premise for the series came from the father of super robots: the mighty Go Nagai. Unfortunately Toei Animation got greedy and claimed the series was created by Akio Sugino, which meant they wouldn’t have to pay Nagai his royalties.
The legal case waged on for over a decade and it wasn’t until recently that Nagai came out and explained that Gaiking was indeed his creation.
That sad chapter aside, Gaiking was a really great show and was nicely action packed though a bit dark in places, especially as the main antagonists, the Dark Horror Army from the planet Zela, were simply trying to escape their home planet after it was destroyed by a black hole. As such the enemy was mutated due to the exposure to excessive radiation, with their ruler’s mouth actually on his forehead on account of this.
With that in mind the resultant combat between the two forces, one trying to escape certain annihilation and another trying to defend their home, resulted in some great storytelling and no small amount of pathos.
Thankfully, those wonderful people at Diskotek are planning on releasing the original series in the West sometime in 2016 and I really can’t wait.
There were also plans for a live action movie as well but those sadly never materialized.
The series was also updated and re-made in 2005 and while that was definitely a good show, the ’70s original is still a classic and one this new toy from Sentinel references more directly.
As this new toy is a standalone design, penned by Yuki Nakamura, it takes a more fantastical route and is quite lithe in its proportions (almost like a mortar headd from The Five Star Stories) but even then Sentinel hasn’t scrimped on the final figure, as the detailing, sculpt, and overall quality are thoroughly exemplary.
Anyway, the review will be going up soon, so keep an eye out for that!
