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- HMM-033 Berserk Fuehrer
This has been a long time coming. I know I'm not the only one that waited for this Zoid to come out, and while it has some quirks it really has delivered with its reimagined design. I gotta give props to Kotobukiya.
I'll be doing this review in two parts. This first section will be geared towards the armorless Berserk Fuehrer, the basic body features, etc. Armor related features and my impression of the armor will be given in a separate section about half way through the review.
Plastic quality varies. The lavender was a lot more darker than I expected; I was pretty taken back. It is also leaning towards a pink hue, while the normal color is closer to a blue lavender hue. The silver has some marbling, but not much. In my opinion the black plastic is where they dropped the ball. It's the same dry black plastic used in a lot of their kits. If you make one wrong cut you'll lose an entire slab of plastic that just peels off when you try to accomodate for the cut.
Pros:
-Extremely sturdy, NO falling parts on the armorless version
-Great articulation in the head, feet, arms, and tail
-Great balance, able to maintain a number of poses
Cons:
-Black plastic is extremely brittle
-Legs cannot bend as far inwards as I'd prefer
-Center rib cage leaves a large gap when turned
-When the armor goes on it loses a lot of its balance and sulks in many poses
- Box Art
Gimmicks (Unarmed Berserk Fuehrer)
- Cockpit
Berserk Fuehrer has beautiful red eyes which effectively capture light from outside sources. They open up with the cockpit, which flips backwards on a hinge in the back of the head. Inside, a small control console rotates outwards.
- Mouth and Charged Particle Gun
The large hinge on the animal's jaw can open the mouth. At first I thought these silver teeth were a little oversized, but it looks better in person. They have a wide range of motion and by default the Charged Particle Gun rests on the bottom of the jaw. You have to pull it upwards to 'extend' it and the rotation range is limited, but not bad.
- Head
The head has a slight range of motion up and down, enough for it to effectively nod. What interests me a bit more is that it can rotate from left to right. It's also on a peg that allows it to rotate all the way around (even upside down!) so you can get better poses from it.
- Neck
The neck is able to rotate up and down but honestly, it's not much. Kind of a disappointing point of articulation.
- Shoulders
Both shoulders can rotate inwards and outwards, both at the fronts and vertically. It starts off a series of excellent articulations in the arm.
- Arm
The arm has a lot of articulation. Below the shoulder, the large circular section can rotate almost all the way around. This allows the arms to turn completely inwards. The forearm also rotates at the elbow. The range of motion here is wonderful.
- Hand
The hand can rotate up and down at the wrist. Each claw is also separately articulated with a good range of motion.
- Ribs
The mid section of the body as a much wider range of motion than almost any other Zoid I've come across. I was really impressed. What let me down was that the second rib leaves a huge gap in the side that is turned away. I still am impressed by the interlocked panels, though. They really help to hide the points of articulation that normally make a Zoid like malnurished.
- Thigh
The thighs really don't have a good inwards/outwards range of motion. They can rotate more or less 360 degrees around, though, so that definitely gives it an advantage.
- Knee
The knee is a small oval shaped section that can flip forward or bend backwards. I don't necessarily like the knee being separately articulated. Most of the time I just leave it folded up. You can never have too many gimmicks, but I do feel that it was a little bit unnecessary.
- Leg
The mid section of the leg can fold almost flat against the back of the thigh. Excellent~ It really improves the number of positions that the leg can achieve. The lower section of the leg can also fold pretty closely to the rest of the leg, which you'll see in the last two pictures.
- Feet
The feet have a couple of different articulation points. Half way through the foot, right where the toes begin the foot bends in an arch. This is ... mildly- annoying to someone that doesn't use a stand, but for a stand I bet that it makes poses much more dynamic. What's really impressive is that the toes section can rotate 360 degrees around, so the toes can stand flat on the ground no matter what angle the legs are at. I was really happy to see this, since so many earlier designs had a problem of not being grounded. What is disappointing, though, is that the toes are not separately articulated, but I think the rotation makes up for it.
- Tail
The tail rotates up and down where it connects to the body. This is a welcome addition, not many rexes take the time to do this. The segments are individually able to rotate left and right to a limited extent, shown in the photos above. Also note the new concealed weapon in the end of the tail. Well, concealed when the armor is on.
- Core
The core is something I usually forget. For how lose it sets into the chest I'm amazed it stays in there, but it does.
Gimmicks (Armored Berserk Fuehrer)
The armored Fury fixes a lot of the funky anatomy mistakes visible on the armorless version, but it's still got some proportional issues. Nonetheless, I love this Zoid and its easily one of my favorites. The real down side is that once the armor goes on the Zoid loses a LOT of its flexibility. The armor is simply too heavy for it to hold up properly so a lot of the poses that the original unarmored version was able to achieve will cause the armored version to simply sulk/fall to the ground.
- Cockpit
While the black portion of the cockpit flips backwards the armor portion flips forwards. This is a cool cockpit design, and adds a lot.
- Neck
Panels on the top and bottom of the neck flip outwards. This is meant to be used in conjunction with the charged particle gun.
- Leg Thrusters
With the armor adds the thrusters on the back of the legs. If you flip open the panels you can see the thrusters on the inside.
- Tail
Each segment on the tail has two flaps that open up away from the tail. It also conceals the knife set and gun in the end of it.
- Back Thrusters
The boosters on the back can open up, but the pieces that define them are very thin. For some reason this feels a little empty. It'd have been nice if there was some sort of panel in the middle, but it's still got a nice amount of detail. They also rotate a wide range.
- Buster Blade Arms
As always these have an absurd amount of articulation. They rotate upwards from the back of the thruster unit. At the end of that section is another arm piece which can spin in a full circle and rotate. An equally articulate piece is at the end of that. At the end of that, yet another piece that can move on a hinge, and finally, the base of the clamps which can rotate in a full circle at the connection point.
- Buster Blades
The blades themselves are quite cool. The protrusions are exagerated from the original motorized version but still look quite menacing. They can rotate at the base so that these protrusions face inwards or outwards. Then there is a small middle section, which allows the blades to flip outwards either straight, or slightly outwards with the main blade still facing forwards. A barrel is in the center of all three blades.
