GX-62 Danguard Ace SOC Review by Gold

The following review was originally prepared by Gold in August 2013 on the Robot-Japan Forum:

Hi all, here's the review for the Soul of Chogokin Gx-62 Danguard Ace 

Opening credits
Please click to begin video playback.




 

Sky Arrow – The training ship used for the first third of the series while the Danguard was being constructed.
  



Just like in the Anime, the front section can detach and the secondary c0ckpit can slide down to cover the missing slot. 









Guard Launcher


Impressively, Bandai included a “filler” of sorts for the Guard Launcher, so it doesn’t look lame when it’s not plugged into Danguard. 



  



There’s a second Guard Launcher included. A transformable one that has a hinge joint.








Satelither (hey, it’s how it’s spelled in the manual).











There’s two ways to “park” the Satelither, the “vintage” way, which is the default setting for the toy and is a throwback to how the Popy GA-79 Danguard A’s landing gear was deployed.

  







The second way is the Anime Accurate way. This requires parts swapping and removing some of the parts (Danguard’s arms) for show a accurate look.










  





Miscellaneous props: Danguard comes with three interesting little accessories 


DO-IT-YOURSELF-PROP STAND
There’s a prop stand for the Satelither included, if you’re feeling uneasy about the Satelither tipping over due to the diecast feet, just assemble this baby and slide it under Satelither’s tail section to support the weight.








THE BLACK STICK 




This little thingamabob is included in the set for one purpose only… to poke Danguard! 

Well, not exactly, it’s really used to force out the afterburner parts when you fold back Danguard’s ankles.




You need to poke out the covers here…




…to make them cover up here.








LITTLE CLEAR PLASTIC SPACER

This little doodad works to help you properly align Danguard’s legs when locking him in Satelither mode. Trying it without this spacer is possible but it can mess up Danguard’s leg alignment, resulting in harder difficulty locking the sections in place.










Danguard Ace
 




You can opt to keep the wings from the Satelither on, as the wings did appear occasionally in the cartoons.







….Or go for the generally Anime accurate closed wings.





Danguard Attacks:

Teleportation Punch!("Proton Punch" in the Force Five dub)


In the series, Danguard mostly fires "energy" bolts from his arms, but he did fire the whole fist in one episode






Double shaft!("Spartan Javelin" in the Force Five dub)


There’s an optional “solid” set included, as the default set only has half a side with fold out shafts.














Bandai developed an interesting locking design for the Double Shaft. I have to say I’m impressed with it.






























Pulsar Cannon (requires parts swapping, default inner chest are the landing gear parts).
   













Display base


Danguard can be displayed in robot or Satelither mode





Robot mode







Satelither mode

  







Underside






Since Danguard was one of my favorite robots growing up (thanks Force Five!  ) Getting a second unit to pose him in both modes seemed like the right thing to do. 










Comparison with GX-01R Mazinger Z (a bit underwhelming, no?)







Comparison with the Yamato G-Nu Hagane Danguard Ace.




10.5” vs 7.5” 




Weigh in
-Yamato Danguard – 935 Grams









Shogun Warriors

For the unfamiliar, waaay back in the 1980's, Marvel published a 20 issues of Shogun Warriors, a comics series featuring Combattra, Raydeen and Dangard in a team up, with a revised background story involving only 3 pilots, an American, an African American and an Asian girl. The three would take revolving turns piloting the 3 Super Robots. 




















Lancers and Shafts









Lancers, Shafts and Arrows. 











The “Shogun Warriors” team weigh in.

-Reideen – 251 Grams
-Combattler- 665 Grams
-Danguard A-370 Grams

  



A quick note, I opened up my SOC reideens and found the arrow shafts starting to rust. I rubbed them down until I got rid of most of it, but it was strange that the rusting only appeared on one of the shafts, the one with the spiked head, while the other one with the regular arrow head was fine. The rusting shaft was present in both the regular and Fade in sets. Both of my sets have been stored in storage, with the other one never even removed from the tray. Very strange. Anyone else encounter this? Might be worth taking a look at your Reideens to make sure rusting hasn’t occurred.




The Good
-Danguard weighs 370 Grams




Stands roughly 7.5” tall



-Diecast parts include
--Feet
--Thighs
--Main joints connected to torso
--Sections of the torso (almost the entire upper torso I think?)
--Shoulders




-Hidden shoulder joints, I can see they borrowed some ideas from the SRC line.



-I love the option to make the Satelither have Anime accurate landing gear or Popy-styled landing gear. Blast from the past. 


-Danguard is evenly balanced, he can stand on one foot.



-“Collapsible” calf sections adds more poseability.





-The hip joints can also be adjusted to make Danguard’s legs more pose able. You can pull the joint down to make it have more clearance against the waist plate.


-Button for releasing Danguard’s lower half.



-Pop out ankle joints



-Thankfully, the head doesn’t look too tiny without the helmet on.
 



-Best of all, the Cosmo Arrows stay on Danguard solidly! This was my biggest concern with the toy particularly after how Yamato’s Cosmo Arrows just keep falling off. 






The Bad

-Loose connections - the Danguard’s top half torso easily pops off. The lock doesn’t really lock too well. So it might be a good idea to hold Danguard from the waist down to avoid accidents.


-Pulsar problem- Removing the chest plate for the landing gear is easy, removing the chest plate with the Pulsar Cannon? Not so easy. I couldn’t get a fingernail in to pry the panel loose. I eventually settled on using a fine box cutter blade to try to wedge my way in and create a gap where I can get a fingernail in to pop the panel out..


-Attaching the "wings" backpack is harder than it has to be. I don't know if it's just my unit but trying to plug and/or remove that backpack attachmenets was not easy. Very tight slots IMHO.



The Ugly

Those PEGS! OMG! Those horrible, horrible pegs!!!




Why couldn’t they have at least used all blue pegs? Or no pegs at all?? The solid joints certainly already do the job well enough without having to lock the legs together, plus there’s the support stand included, so why put a lame peg section sticking out?! It just cheapens the final look of the toy.


Overall, the toy is decent, not exactly the Danguard Ace of our dreams, as there are some areas for improvement. But I think it really suffers from the small height, I don’t know if it was because Bandai was aiming for the classic, vintage size or if they just trimmed down the size of the toy to make it more affordable. Personally, I wouldn’t mind shelling out a bit more cash for an “upsized” Soul of Chogokin Danguard Ace.


If given the choice of this over the Yamato G-Nu Hagane Danguard, I think I would still pick the Yamato version, as it just has more shelf presence and heft. I guess this Danguard is going over to hang out with the SRCs.





Funfact -Danguard didn't appear until the 13th episode in the series (making the story more character driven)



Danguard Ace Closing credits.
Please click to begin video playback.














Gold