The AZ Shield Liger received its own promotional video, this time animated from the perspective of Raven analyzing the Zoid from his Saber Tiger. This was a fun take on the existing promo video style, and it's nice to see the Tiger running around.
Zoids Official has posted a new video featuring Zoiko, the mascot of the MPZ Zoids. Along with this they've announced that they'll be sharing the highest nominated student videos on their channel soon. For those of you who aren't familiar with HAL, it's a university that focuses on 3D modeling. You might remember some of their videos being shared a while back.
Last night Kotobukiya hosted a live stream where they built an HMM König Wolf. A straight build, with no trimming of parts, was accomplished in just two and a half hours! We're seeing a big simplification of parts in newer Kotobukiya designs. Different people have different views on this, but personally, I love this. I haven't had the time to build HMMs in a long, long while. The idea of being able to build the HMM Wuf in a day, without having to spend literally all day doing it, is so exciting. This will also be a blessing for customs.
We have another wave of Zoids Episodes! In Genesis, this is the episode where we meet Kotona and her Zoid, the Rainbow Jerk. Matu over on Twitter, apparently part of the animation team in the earlier and later episodes of Genesis, gave their perspective of this episode.
The next wave of Zoids Episodes are up! Since these expire week to week I'm going to limit the number of news posts displayed on the front page to only be what's still relevant, so that the front page isn't flooded with 'video no longer available.' Please also note that I'm posting these once every series has updated, so by the time you see this news post, there's only a few days left to watch some of them!
The next wave of Zoids Episodes have hit Youtube, but I'd really like to talk about Fuzors! Fans who saw the earlier western release of this series may remember the underwhelming feeling. Fuzors isn't to a lot of people's taste. However, when the series aired in Japan, it had tons of differences, from changes in lighting effects to a copious amount of redrawn frames. Surprisingly, the entirety of Episode 2 was remade to be much darker in aesthetics and theme, really upping the visual impact of this battle. I highly recommend watching at least this one, to see the one episode you might've missed when watching the Western Release!
Zoids Genesis Episode 1 is now available on Youtube! Aside from that, GowTohgetsu over on Twitter posted a nice high-quality image of Ruuji's Village, which has appeared throughout various articles and media relating to Zoids Genesis. In the Twitter thread they also discuss a staff member's perspective of the series and the decisions made for its world setting.
Photos and product information for the AZ-03 Murasame Liger have dropped! Several details have been pointed out about the kit over on Twitter. The Pile Bunkers on the front legs are movable. The eyes and core have LED lights. The cockpit has been modeled after the anime, including a forward-leaning Ruuji figure. The Murasame Blade, which will be chromed, features a telescoping joint and can extend to both sides, unlike the former motorized kit, where it could only extend to the left as part of the spring-loaded gimmick. This kit is scheduled to release in Late January 2024, for 14,300 yen (tax included.) An article from Dengeki Hobby features some additional photos.
Earlier on, we saw a teaser of the Murasame Blade which, aside from having the script normally seen along the edge of the blade, also features the 'Murasame' kanji at the base of the blade! Other prototype shots included a face view, a 3/4 view, and a shot with the blade extended.
Bikkuriman Collab
On April Fools, Zoids Official also posted about a collab with Bikkuriman, a product line from Lotte that focused on collecting stickers that are typically packaged with wafer snacks. During this announcement they mentioned a sticker that showed off Murasame Liger and Super Zeus, Bikkuriman's mascot character. Looks like this sticker will be packaged together with the AZ-01 Murasame Liger when buying through TakaraTomy Mall!
As part of the Zoids 40th Anniversary Project Zoids Official has announced that it'll be posting the first four animes online! This includes the classic Zoids series, Zoids New Century /ZERO, Zoids Fuzors, and Zoids Genesis. These have mostly started airing already, and will be publicly posted on the TAKARATOMYHOBBY youtube channel! Only the first episode is available for a longer span of time. Otherwise, each episode will be available for 1 week, until the next one 'airs'. We'll try to stay on top of posting here when new episodes are available. For those curious, Zoids Official has said they're working on making the series available in more countries, but this may take extra time, so please be patient as they jump through the technical hoops!
As they've been posting more about the upload date of each series, they've also been posting some nice high-quality art, starting with a Bang image. Otherwise, each series has been posted with its blu-ray box character art, including Chaotic Century, New Century /ZERO, Fuzors, and Zoids Genesis. Chaotic Century has been airing for a bit now, but we'll post what's currently available. As a final note, voyager_vision on Twitter, who seems to have worked on some of the anime storyboards, posted images of the covers!
In a surprising turn of events, Zoids Official has posted a teaser for some upcoming content. It's too early to know what it is for sure. Could be new products, could be the series airing on TV in Japan again, or could even be a new animation project. Whatever it turns out to be, the teaser certainly sparks the imagination for many older Zoids fans!
We've got months worth of content to go over, so there's going to be some older stuff as far back as September (like this post). Don't be confused if some of this looks oddly familiar!
To start things off, this video was released by TakaraTomy, looking back over their 40 years of history with the Zoids franchise. It shows glimpses of the various toy brands, and commercials.
On top of the product pages, Kotobukiya also live streamed a first look at the two Redler types, exhibiting their articulation. It was quite impressive to see how many points of articulation there are, as well as how well hidden the joints are. There's so much to these kits that doesn't quite get noticed in still photos, so I highly recommend checking it out!
As a final note, Kotobukiya has announced a reissue of the HMM Shadow Fox Marking Plus Ver.! It's scheduled for April 2023, at a price of 5400 yen.
A shocking new collaboration was announced between Bandai and Takara Tomy, which will result in a brand new Liger Zero action figure! For Takara Tomy's side, they're recreating the Mobile Suit Gundam "White Base" within the Tomica line. Meanwhile, Bandai is recreating the Liger Zero within its Chogokin line. Chogokin figures include metal alloy parts, and typically run in the higher price ranges. It's expected to be released sometime in 2023. The twitter account for Bandai Spirits posted a look at this figure, both with its final form, and with the fully-detailed armorless variety!
An article on Hobby Watch showed off more images from the event, with the Zero in a leaping pose. Furthermore, they showed the interesting prototypes, which (from left to right) were the Initial Mechanism Trial, Appearance Trial, and Appearance / Mechanism Modification Trial, with the final result at the end. Mantan Web showed a second view of the kit.
TakaraTomy is collaborating with the vocational school HAL to create videos! In this project, student teams created a number of videos based on licensed series, all posted on the HAL Project page. It was interesting to see the different takes, with some students aiming for a more serious sequence of events while others enjoyed making some silly, light-hearted projects.
The Three Tigers Legend is a series of promotional videos dispersed between limited DVDs that were included with the Brastle Tiger and Rayse Tiger, and the Zoids VS III opening. We previously did a splice together of all of these videos, trying to piece them into correct order. However, in a fascinating turn of events, Twitter blog After10yearsL posted videos of the Whitz Tiger, Rayse Tiger, and Brastle Tiger featuring brand-new scenes that were never included in the officially released media! Definitely check these out for some new 'Tiger content. A new splice-together with corrected scenes will be added at a later time~
On September 29th, Zoids Official tweeted this teaser of the next Zoids Wild Biographies kit. This kit is still available on the TT Mall for 9,350 yen, and will remain available until November 15th. It's scheduled to be released in March of 2022. You can read the Japanese version of the Biographies story on the TakaraTomy Website.
- Promo Video
In the last couple days a promo video was released for the Psycho Genospino reveal, which mentioned the end of Zoids Wild Senki. It spent a short time describing the history of the Psycho Genospino, including that it inherited the Zoid Factor of the Zero Grizis, and is able to absorb the Zoid Factor of other Zoids using the purple Reactor Bones. What was formerly a flamethrower on the default Genospino has been converted into an Infinity Buster, a weapon that gathers the absorbed Zoid Factor from its body and fires it. The Psycho Geno Sawzer on the back is also able to improve its sharpness by charging the blades with Zoid Factor.
For now, it seems implied that the Psycho Genospino story is the conclusion of the Zoids Wild Senki series. The end of the below video mentioned that TT will be publishing a new Photorama sequel to Zoids Wild Senki. Given that this is essentially what the Biographies line has been so far (stories with photo diorama images), we can probably expect it to be the same format, possibly carried out through Zoids Wild Biographies.
The story and video also elude to a new lion-type that the Republic planned to donate to the Empire. This will likely be a new variant like the Psycho Genospino, but we don't know much yet.
The HMM Liger Zero X has gotten a preview video! This kit is releasing in December for 9,680 yen. The Koto Direct version includes clear colorless shoulder armor.
Kotobukiya TV posted a video of the full HMM Rev Raptor build! This kit is quite simple, so for those of you who struggle to find the time to build HMMs, this may be the perfect Zoid for you. It's also lightweight enough for it to hang off of other objects without assistance, which is fun. If you haven't ordered the item yet, it's available domestically on Amazon as a pre-order for $49.99 (shipping included), scheduled to be released on November 24th. If you want it now, it's also available on Amazon JP for 4,091 Yen + Shipping.
So, since it has been so long since we've posted news, we have some catching up to do here. Most of these Biographies kits are no longer on sale, but I'll be covering the details nonetheless.
While we've already shown the announcements for the Clive Dias liger, some interesting updates have been posted since then. First is an image of the box which shows that they'll have brown cardboard boxes with black printed details. This is also the first time we'll be seeing more solid English spellings for some of the Wild ZERO characters. Another post from Zoids Official shows what looks to be an out-of-the-box photo set. The kit and all of its painted details really do look great! Last but not least, you can now view the official product page and TT Mall page. Its pre-order period is already over, but it was sold for 4,500 yen (+ tax) and is scheduled to release in July.