Gigantic Series Dunbine – Available From HobbyLink Japan
By Cacophanus from Mecha Damashii
Being a big fan of Aura Battler Dunbine I thought it necessary to cover the new Gigantic Series Dunbine from X Plus. This is not your average figure and is more like a semi-poseable statue. It is also both entirely amazing and absolutely enormous.
Dunbine is a classic Yoshiyuki Tomino series set in the strange realm of Byston Well. This is an alternate world where technology is still somewhat stuck in the middle ages, except for aura technology. This channels the aura of a person and can power machinery. The titular aura battlers are mecha built from the dead limbs of giant monsters and then powered by the aura of its pilot.
Unfortunately the inhabitants of Byston Well are fairly weak in terms of their aura, so people from Upper Earth (our realm) are snatched and taken down the aura road to Byston Well. One of these is the Japanese motorcross youth Sho Zama. A rebellious kid, he doesn’t take too kindly to being taken against will.
What follows is a surprisingly nuanced and complex series, where people out of their element have to pick sides in a burgeoning war that will engulf all of reality if left unchecked.
The mecha design for the series was very famously handled by Kazutaka Miyatake. Creating a fresh new fantasy aesthetic, many of the series’ aura battlers were based on insects. The Dunbine, being the mecha initially piloted by Sho, was given a somewhat heroic beetle aesthetic.
For me, I love this series utterly. What with Bandai’s increasingly incredible Robot Damashii figures from Dunbine I was happy to see that X Plus was going to go all out with something a lot bigger.
Big being the operative word here, as this is no ordinary Dunbine toy we are talking about.
This is a rather special piece, so keep a watch for the review!
