Astro Toy

DX Munyu Munyu Zuba—n

DX Munyu Munyu Zuba—n
Maker: Bandai
Series: Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger Season 2
Price: $80 (sale)

Oh my god, has it been a while. I've gotten through a tear of Figmas and Nendoroids and basically normal things, but this. This is different. I love to get obscure and interesting things for the column, but this figure is actually bizarre. We haven't bought anything this downright weird at Astro Toy since last year... when we bought the companion piece to this item. You are going to love it.  And I'll have you know I pushed for this. I pitched it twice!

But it made it. Can I talk about Akibaranger for a little? Let's. There's an episode of Akibaranger where Red's completely down in the dumps because his anime wife Aoi was ruined by bad movie versions (Eva 3 had just come out when this aired and it's worth noting that Madoka 3 was on the horizon). Because Akibarangers run on delusion, it's getting him beat up. Yellow buckles down to draw the ultimate doujinshi to fix this situation... and she gives Red fanfiction where Aoi finally confesses her love and they're both anime married or something. This sequence is animated, it's incredible. Anyway, Red is so moved by this gesture that the sheer overflowing power of his delusion manifests this very item, allowing him to transform into Super Akiba Red, whose “armor” is actually just a sculpture of Aoi embracing him tenderly.

And I feel like you should know all that before we get started. This is a weapon with significance.

So what the hell is it? Well it's a knife, right? It's a knife made out of a girl. (Of course this is the Aoi we were just talking about.) And yes, it's pretty much too big for our photo setup. Pardon my shelves.

Her body is the handle (gotta give her a grab, don't be shy), and her hair is the blade.

It's a big piece: the huge box boasts that the blade mode is 50cm long! It's also heavy: just like the previous Moe Moe Zukyun figure, you can feel a lot of diecast metal in there.

This is a direct replica of a prop from the TV show, a little different than most tokusatsu weapon toys, which are low-detail-- but still very expensive-- approximations of the show prop that are intended for young kids to play “I'm Kamen Rider!” with. (Akibaranger specifically instructs children not to watch it.) When it came out half a year ago, Bandai's infomercial had one of the show actresses (also the voice of Aoi, hence her reaction) put the toy next to the prop, and as you can see they're pretty damn close to the same thing. The original price of this figure was more like $150 before shipping.

You will note the on switch over the butt, by the way. What's that do?

Just like the Z-Cune, you get the same sounds from the show when you pull the trigger, and some light effects from her head to boot. Aoi will also speak in character-- like telling you to go see her new fictional movie which does not exist-- when you pull the trigger. Batteries not included, which is shameful when you remember how much this thing originally cost. Enjoy the video, in any case.

Of course it transforms! Fold out the legs and hair and you can more clearly see Aoi-tan, standing very tall at 36cm. Again, this is probably the tallest thing we've reviewed. There's a little give in the shoulders so that everything will fit together right, but it's effectively a fixed-pose figure, same as the one on the show. Don't yank on those arms and definitely refer to the manual. It's not the most beautiful PVC figure you ever saw, but as you can see in that previous video, neither is the show prop. That's kinda part of the joke.

But that's not all, kids!! I've got the gun out. Why have I got the gun out? Because, in the finest tradition of sentai/Power Ranger toys, they combine.

Behold the Munyu Moe Zubakyu~n, the ultimate weapon. The Moe Bayonet. Do I need to explain to you how incredible this is? There are, again, sounds and lights when you connect the two weapons. The combined monster is basically a rifle and completely too huge for our photo setup.As you can see I had to clear off my entire Top Shelf, where two RAH figures and DX Mazinger usually reside, just to take a proper picture.

If you want to hear these sounds and you can't get a Z-Cune-- understandable--, all that happens when they combine is that a button on the bottom of the hilt is pressed. Just tap that and the same thing will happen but with 200% less fun.

We don't usually specify that an item was on sale-- almost everything we get is at least at 20% off-- but we got this piece in a 75% off sale at HLJ. It was $36 before shipping... but it's huge and shipping it EMS actually cost more than the item itself did. It's honestly kind of a hard sell unless you somehow already have the Z-Cune... and that's going to run you $100+ right now. But if you do, oh man, get this. It's so worth it.

When he isn't killing time on fighting games and mahjong, David Cabrera makes moe 4-panel comics about videogames atKawaiikochan.You can follow him on Twitter @sasuraiger.