Megazone 23: EX Gokin Garland Review

Megazone 23: EX Gokin Garland – Available from HobbyLink Japan

By Cacophanus from Mecha Damashii

Following the unboxing, here is the review for the EX Gokin Garland from the classic mecha anime Megazone 23. This is an impressive and hefty toy but it is surprisingly complex, so brace yourselves.

Before we even get to the review, you need to understand that this toy of the Garland comes packaged with the arms not attached to the main body.

That means that before you can even think of transforming this toy, you first need to attach the arms.

Thankfully, Fewture has a handy video on its YouTube channel that shows you how to attach the arms properly. This is not a simple process.

With that done, the maneuver slave (or mecha) mode is now ready to play around with.

Like the Yamato version, Shogo Yahagi can sit inside the cockpit. The articulation is also solid and can hold poses well.

Now if you want to transform the mecha mode into the maneuver craft (or bike) mode then Fewture has a handy video for that as well. This is also not a simple process.

With that behind you, the bike mode looks similarly glorious as the mecha mode. As you can see, this is a very stylized version of the Garland but that doesn’t mean the sculpt and paint job aren’t amazing, as they very clearly are.

Details are crisps and clean throughout and a lot of work has clearly gone into this toy. The amount of diecast used here is also impressive and this results in a nicely weighty and sturdy toy.

However, this is by far the most complicated transforming toy I have ever played with. Just attaching the arms out of the box took me a lot longer than I expected and without the videos, I don’t think I would have been able to do it.

To transform the mecha into the bike was also very intricate and again, without the tutorial video from Fewture, I doubt I would have been able to do it with just the manual.

Is this Garland toy worth the effort though? Put simply, yes. I have been waiting years for Fewture to bring out this Garland toy and it’s definitely been worth it.

The transformation is complex in order to ensure the resultant modes are sturdy and hold well together. The excessive amount of diecast is also present to avoid any kind of breakage issues the various Yamato versions suffered from.

The only real downside here is that this EX Gokin Garland, like other Fewture toys, is very expensive. It is a big toy though and if you love Megazone 23, you should try and get one of these before they disappear.