Reviews, Shuriken Sentai Ninninger, Super Sentai

Review: Otomonin Series EX Dinomaru (Shuriken Sentai Ninninger)

Otomonin Series EX Dinomaru
August, 2015 – ¥3,800

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During every Sentai movie, we either get a full on new mecha, or a new auxiliary mecha that can be added to the big robot. Where as ToQger gave us a full new mecha, Ninninger gives us an extra addition to the Otomonin Series with Dinomaru! As the name suggests, Dinomaru is a dinosaur Otomonin, being designed after a Tyrannosaurus Rex. As with most movie mecha, it’s a remold of an existing Otomonin, this one being a heavy remold of Paonmaru. It was released in early August, 2015 for ¥3,800 give or take.

As mentioned, Dinomaru is a T-Rex based Otomonin remolded from Paonmaru. The remolding here is actually really clever, with the toy taking advantage of the clips and ports scattered around the original toy. It gives the dinosaur mode some really funky arms. I don’t think it would have been really possible, but I would have liked to see some more remolding in the arms to make them smaller, but I understand what they had to work with. Despite the arms, I like this Otomonin a lot. At first glance, it’s hard to tell he’s even a remold. Dinomaru’s Otomonin Mode is about as lackluster as Paonmaru, being nearly identical. The only major difference is the dinosaur head on his chest, and the addition of the tail. The shoulder cannons aren’t that cool, and hide the neat headsculpt they developed for the robot.

The Shuriken is pretty cool. It’s standard fare, with the “Otomonin Shuriken!”, “Dino ja!”, and “Dinomaru!” sounds we’re all used too. However the design is a really neat spiky ring, and the robot face that eventually creates Shurikenjin Dino’s face is just really awesome. Very Abaranger-esque and I like it a lot.

Shurikenjin Dino is actually really cool. The weapon configuration I used in the review is really solid, and I still don’t know why it isn’t the official one, which leaves out one of the axe weapons. I’m not sure if it’s the dinosaur head on the chest, the cool robot head, or the fact that he gets a giant tail sword and some weird club-bow-thing, but Shurikenjin Dino has quickly become my favorite of the formations of Shurikenjin. This guy is worth it just for this combination.

Overall, Dinomaru is by no means a must have, but has slowly became my favorite Otomonin yet. It’s probably just my bias towards dinosaurs, but I like the color choice, the extensive remolding done from Paonmaru, the Shuriken, and even the combination with Shurikenjin. Everything works really well for this release that I can’t help but recommend it. Unfortunately the price does seem steep to me, so it’s best to try to hunt this down at a bit of a discount if at all possible.

[youtube http://youtu.be/lpVeLOrjuuc]

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