The RMZ Helcat now has an official page on TakaraTomy's RMZ website. As usual, this shows off tons of images of the kit, which is expected to release in late April 2025 for 2,970 yen (roughly $21). We also now know that the Helcat will come with an action stand for different poses. The stand appears to have two connector types and three different pole lengths for more dramatic posing.

 The page also shows off a concept art image that contains several interesting details. We see in the concept art that it had a new type of gun mount, but it seems that the team was able to secure this range of motion even with the traditional design, which looks nicer imo. On top of that, the concepts show what the Helcat would look like if it were equipped with boosters from the Gun Sniper. It seems the gun mount still has two pegs on the sides, so if we ever get a Gun Sniper, it might be possible to recreate this concept.

- Preview Video

 There's also an official page for the RMZ-005 Molga! Tons and tons of images of the kit as well as some concept art showing off the missiles and cockpit. Among the various articulated parts, I was particularly happy to see that the gatling guns on the head are attached to an armor piece that can rotate up and down, making this weapon less of an ankle biting height. While the Molga includes a slot for one, it actually doesn't come with the action stand. You'll need to buy the Helcat if you want a stand for the Molga. This kit is scheduled to be released in late April 2025 for 2,750 yen (roughly $19).

- Preview Video

 Takara Tomy's AMZ Berserk Führer has been getting a lot of coverage over these past couple of months, including being displayed at Yodobashi in Japan. The official product page collects tons of images showing off each form and its poseability, and it seems they've taken some extra steps towards quality of life additions, such as a hangar frame that, similar to Chogokin, allows you to display the unused armor separately. The standard AMZs were shown off at the Tokyo Toy Show. Here are some details from the recent updates.

• It's scheduled to be released in March 2025 for 44,000 yen (roughly $300 USD)
• It measures about 350 mm from nose to tail tip
• It includes a Zoid Core
• Includes a gold pilot figure
• Includes a Hangar Frame (display stand) as well as additional armor frame.
• This is a painted figure / kit
• Die-cast parts are mostly included in the legs to help keep the Zoid balanced
• LEDs are included for the eyes and Charged Particle Cannon

Hobby Watch Interview

 An interview with Nakase, the man in charge of this product was held by Hobby Watch. As always, they never fail to deliver some interesting tidbits about the development process and what went on behind the scenes. Below I'll list some of the details, but I highly recommend checking out the article itself.

• Takara Tomy was planning to start an alloy line around the same time that the Chogokin collab was in talks.
  
  
• The first Zoid in the AMZ series was originally going to be Murasame Liger, but because of the ongoing AZ series, the idea was shelved. Afterwards, it came down to the Berserk Führer or Geno Saurer, but again, with Geno Saurer being involved in another upcoming line (RMZ), Führer became the new flagship Zoid.
  
  
• The Wild Form's eyes are a larger clear red piece that also forms a 'brain' inside the head. Wild Zoids traditionally have their brains inside the Zoid Core, making this purely for aesthetics. However, the team wanted owner's of the AMZ to feel the lore behind wild Zoids, as if they were building them up from their wild forms to their weaponized forms.
  
  
• AMZ is intended to continue as a line even after the second figure, the AMZ-02 Blade Liger. They'd like to explore additions such as CAS units and other Zoids. Which brings us to our next news post...

- Review Video

- Preview Video

 The RMZ-003 Command Wolf page is now live on the official website! Get a glimpse at some concept art and a ton of images showing off the kit's overall articulation. I really love how tough this kit looks compared to regular Command Wolves. It's scheduled to release in March 2025 for 3,800 Yen (tax included, about $26). We've received a couple of videos showing off the articulation as well.

- Review Video

- Preview Video

 We've now got box art for the RMZ-001 Blade Liger and the RMZ-002 Geno Saurer! This is actually the first RMZ box art we're getting to see, and it sets the standard for what we can expect going forward. A gritty, semi-realism style in the same tone as the recent Monster Hunter collabs. We also got to see a post from the store account of Vivion Blue, showing off a size comparison between the RMZ Geno Saurer and its HMM counterpart.

 An interview with Katayama, one of the lead developers in the Zoids franchise discussed the new RMZ kits. Some key points of the interview include:

• The RMZ line was designed with the idea of being easy-to-collect and assemble kits with a high degree of articulation. They were also conscious of time economy, a common issue for model kit collectors, and wanted to design products that you'd get more mileage out of in that regard.
  
  
• Katayama expressed how he'd like to someday, if possible, be able to release larger figures to anime scale. It's a fun idea.
  
  
• He teased that they're working on something else that'll surprise people, though I'm not sure if that something was any of the stuff thats been revealed since July.
  
  
• He reiterated their desire to eventually be able to line up different scale Zoids in the RMZ series, such as the 1/35 Zoids Wild Series and 1/24 Zoids. These would all be introduced in 1/100 scale, allowing you to see the real size difference between them.

- Interview Video

 Pre-orders for the first two RMZ kits are up, starting with the RMZ-01 Blade Liger! Bladey here is scheduled for February 2025 for a retail price of 4,950 yen (tax included, about $30 USD.) You can find these on all your typical pre-order sites. AmazonJP, HLJ, AmiAmi, USA Gundam, and more. The official page for this kit (linked above) contains a couple pieces of concept art and a heaping ton of images. Blade Liger will come with effect parts for the Dual Laser Blades. It'll also come with sitting pilot figures of Bang (Van) and Fine (Fiona) as well as a general pilot figure.

 They've also released a video on the RMZ Blade Liger narrated by Bang's VA, detailing its various points of articulation. This stood out as an especially cool video to me. Moveable gimmicks tend to be broad stroked, focusing mostly on a few key poses and the actual equipment. After all, covering all moving pieces would take forever. Seeing a video that puts the articulation itself on display is a breath of fresh air and makes me nostalgic about doing Zoid kit reviews. I look forward to seeing more of these going forward.

 Zoids Waiting Room
 About a month ago they also held a Zoids Waiting Room discussion corner where people involved in the Zoids series got together and talked about the new line. It shows off a lot of stuff, such as staff members interacting with the AZ-07 Death Saurer and size comparisons of the RMZ kits with the traditional motos. Prototypes of the next 3 RMZ Kits, RMZ-003 Command Wolf, RMZ-004 Helcat, and RMZ-005 Molga also get shown off in the video.

- Preview Video

- Zoids Waiting Room

 The next up in this 1/100 scale poseable model kit line is the RMZ-02 Geno Saurer. Scheduled for February 2024 alongside the Blade Liger, its got a retail price of 6,600 yen (about $41 USD.) The Geno Saurer's page has two pieces of colored concept art, comparisons of movable gimmicks to the anime, and a ton of pictures. The kit will come with effect parts for both the Charged Particle Cannon and the Long Range Pulse Laser Rifles. It'll also include a seated Raven figure and a generic pilot figure.

 Honestly, this may be the best-proportioned Geno Saurer we've ever gotten. The poseability of this kit is something else. The joints are so well hidden, and the tail movement in particular looks so fluid with no unsightly gaps. The tail vents are also a neat design, and its good to see this often-forgotten feature included on a smaller scale product. The video is likewise narrated by Raven's VA.

- Preview Video

 Molga was first teased with this diorama image. Well, the kit has now officially been posted on TakaraTomy's website! (Does AZ not have a dedicated page on the TT website?) The page has a piece of concept art and goes over all the new features of this kit. Pre-orders are already up. The kit is scheduled to be released in February 2025 for a retail price of 4,950 yen (about $30 USD.)

 First and most noticeably is that the AZ-08 Molga comes with a brand new piece, the Jamming Horn. This is a part original to Advanced Zi. It is not seen in any other canon. The part itself is based on the osmeterium organs of swallowtail larvae, which release a foul-smelling chemical repellant to ward of predators. The kit also has a surprise motorized function: Forwards and backwards movement. A rotating gear on the back adds an extra detail during movement and the kit has all of the manual gimmicks expected of a Molga.

- Preview Video

 The HMM Guysack is releasing this month, with the OJR version expected to open pre-orders soon as well! Kotobukiya posted a LABO article in celebration, introducing the Guysack and its various details. There'll be a live broadcast (which we'll stick below) just before its release, where they hope to build it in just under an hour. In the article we also get to see the box art, which looks absolutely amazing. There's even an early sketch concept for it, that would've been based on the Tomy box art from back in the day. (There's a lot of Zoids in this box art, and they're all doing something interesting. It's particularly dynamic!)

- Assembly Broadcast

 The AZ-07 Death Saurer, which is closing pre-orders on the 9th* has received an updated commercial that uses the original Deathy's commercial audio! There was also an interview video which discusses the Zoid's development, echoing a lot of thoughts we saw in earlier interviews. The kit was also displayed in a diorama setting at the Shizuoka Hobby Show.

 * Pre-orders in Japan regularly close earlier than elsewhere, so don't worry about this.

- Updated CM

- Updated CM

 The Wild Liger Kokuoh, a Zoids x Fist of the North Star collab first teased at the Big Zoids Expo is finally gaining some traction with a new product page. Interestingly it varies quite a bit from the original painted concept seen at the Big Zoids Expo. I like the direction they chose to take it, which better represents the source material. The kit is scheduled to release in late December 2024 for 6,600 yen, though other sites like Amazon JP and AmiAmi have it for a slightly discounted price.

 This kit will come with an acrylic standee of Roah, the man who rides Kokuoh, the black horse that the Liger is based on. A second mini standee including the 40th anniversary logos for both series was shown in the product photos, but isn't specifically mentioned, so may not be included. This kit will also come with a Fist of the North Star themed backdrop for you to display the kit on. Last but not least, the box art features custom manga-style artwork for the Liger!

- Preview

 A couple days ago Hobby Watch posted an interview with Takashi Nakase of Takara Tomy, a key figure of their Zoids projects. This interview also included our first look at the AZ Death Saurer kit in motion, with a video of its motorized walking features. The interview is full of interesting details, a few of the talking points being:

• When they first started talking about the next kit to commercialize, both Gojulas and Death Saurer were recommended. Ultimately, Death Saurer was chosen for commercialization.
  
  
• The interview contains numerous pieces of concept art in a nice, clear viewing size as well as a photo of the prototype.
  
  
• Advanced Zi will continue as a model kit series, and they're considering many different options. For example, they're obviously looking at popular antagonist Zoids, but also as kits that didn't get a chance to appear in the animes of the past.
  
  
• They've also expressed interest in tackling some of the wind-up Zoid designs, with the idea that they'd be reimagined and released under Advanced Zi as now-fully-motorized kits instead of relying on main spring power.
  
  
• The closing statement included a vague mention of exploring new categories of products, so we'll see what comes later! This is an interesting note since they have a section for various 'brands' on the new website that currently only holds AZ. (This is purely speculative, but it's fun to think about what might come next!)

 After the interview, they posted a commercial of the kit that recreated the classic advertisement from its original release! Just tonight, a Review Video was also posted featuring Zoiko. This shows us more of the finished product and its motorized features, including the Display Mode, and gives us our second look at a size comparison. This new comparison seems to place it at about the same size as Death Saurer (it appears smaller in the video because it is leaning forward for its firing pose.) One thing I quite liked about the video is the inclusion of the old motorized kit, showing off how various sections have been updated in design. This highlighted lots of details I hadn't noticed before.

- Advanced Zi Commercial

- Original Tomy Commercial

- AZ-07 Review Video

 Over the last day or so the AZ-07 Death Saurer has gone up for pre-order! You can find it on other sites, too, not just on Amazon Japan. This kit is scheduled for a late November release for a retail price of 33,000 yen (though many sites are getting it for closer to 27,000) and what a beast it is. There's an overwhelming amount of information to cover on this thing, so let's get started.

 First, the product page. This is the largest product page we've gotten for AZ kits yet, and wow does it go into detail. There's tons of concept art images displayed, discussions about the development process, and beautiful images compiled into a huge gallery. This kit looks amazing. Another concept art image was shown on Twitter a while back.

 Now let's talk features. The AZ Death Saurer comes with a seated Prozen pilot as well as a standing one. Standing pilots are a nice addition for the AZ line. It also comes with a standard pilot, to be seated in the cockpit in the stomach. The Zoid design is updated with more realistic details including a more dinosaur-like posture, the body raised off of the ground, etc. The hydraulics of the legs all move as the Zoid does. It contains LEDs in the core and the Charged Particle Cannon. The Charged Particle Intake Fan has an option part to change it into the Charged Particle Converter as seen in the anime. There's a forward-leaning firing pose meant to mirror the anime.

 The kit also has a Display Mode, which allows you to display it with the LEDs on. This is an awesome idea that I'm really excited about, and will make enjoying the kit so much easier. I've been keeping the AZ kits on my desk, with batteries alternating between my favorites just to swap them on every now and again. I have so much appreciation for the engineering of these kits, as well as how up front staff is about the development process (which is always a fun read.)

 * Some details in this news post have been updated to fix mistakes.

- PV Video

 We've missed some updates for the Liger Zero Phoenix along the way, too. This post from Zoids Official shows off the BLOX joints, which look quite nice. They also included a neat detail that the armor piece on the face is split into two parts, so you can make it into the white-armored version from the anime or the black-frame version from the original model kits. As a reminder, this kit is up for pre-order in late September for 17,600 yen (tax included.)

- Review Video

- PV Video

 So, yesterday morning Kotobukiya held a livestream to introduce the upcoming HMM Guysack. The video is worth a watch because man, the articulation that they managed to squeeze into this tiny little bug is impressive. All of their recent kits have been, really. Aside from that, though, there was a lot of interesting discussion going on during the stream. This is all relying on machine translations, so please take with a huge grain of salt.

 Exhibition!
 Kotobukiya will be holding an exhibition in Japan on February 12th, starting at 1pm. Here, they're showing off displays and all of the recent HMM artwork in beautiful quality. This comes one day after Wonder Festival.

 Upcoming Releases!
 They've announced that the next two kit rereleases will be the Lightning Saix MPV and the Berserk Furher Repackage! As someone who hasn't picked up the standard Saix yet, this is tempting.

 New Releases!
 Aside from that, Kotobukiya announced its intention to release the RMZ-012 Guysack, the original OJR! This is a nice surprise, as the OJR color schemes have always had a classic funkiness to them. Pre-orders are expected to open in July as a Kotobukiya Shop Exclusive with its final release planned sometime in Spring 2025. This kit will include clear colorless parts in addition to the orange pieces. If you want the red canopy pieces you'll need to pick up the upcoming Guysack (the first release) being released in July of this year. It's currently expected to be the same price.

 Updates!
 The Salamander they hope to release sometime around or after Summer of next year. It's about the height of an Iron Kong, but has a huge wingspan.

 Fun Facts!
 Apparently when they chose Guysack, they were choosing between it and Helcat, the top voted small Zoids.
 Death Saurer scored the highest in the end-of-year survey this year! The hype surrounding the AZ is real.
 Apparently Redler and Raynos have roughly tied in votes over the years

 

Economic Decisions For Small Zoids?

 Kotobukiya took a few minutes of the stream to discuss the current economical climate of producing these kits. This weighs in especially hard with small kits like the Guysack. Small kits are harder to produce because the profit is quite small compared to something like a Liger kit. They still have to pay for brand new molds, which are quite expensive, but the kits sell for much less. This leaves Kotobukiya often asking themselves about the feasibility of continuing to release small Zoids. Like the Rev Raptor, they are calling for people to order the Guysack to help them determine if it is a worthwhile endeavor.

 This conversation got pretty in depth. They mentioned that a major factor of current Zoid prices is that the average wage where the kits are produced has doubled in the past 10 years. The kits have been struggling to maintain their current production cost, and are finally reaching the point of inching upwards in price. We've seen this in kits like the Red Horn (6800 yen, tax not included) to the Red Horn MPV (9,240 yen, tax included) and Fire Fox (4800 yen) to MPV (6000 yen ish.) They threw out some calculations of what kits would cost to produce today. While some are reasonable (Command Wolf Repackage from 4800 > 6800 yen) others were surprising. Dark Horn, originally 6800, was estimated at 18000 yen if they had to start from scratch.

 To Molga or to Molgas?
 This line of questioning brought up an interesting question. In the past, Kotobukiya released Molgas in a two pack, with different variations. These Zoids are small, they should be cheap, theoretically, but with production costs climbing, staff asked what people thought of releasing them in a different way. They estimated that the cost of producing the Molga & Molga Canory (formerly 4200 yen) would be around 6800 yen now without tax, so if it were released again, it would be released as an MPV at the new price.

 This brought up the question of what people would think if the MPV were released as a single Molga (not a two set) with the weapons of all three variations included, like the Command Wolf Repackage? The full set would contain the Canory Unit, Anti-Air weapons, and Carrier equipment, and would shake out to roughly 6000 yen. There's still a lot of support for releasing the two Molga sets, even at the increased price, and Kotobukiya was clear that this didn't mean they wouldn't release the two-packs anymore. However, there are still many '1 Molga' releases we could have. Rokurou, what with the other web comic Zoids released over recent years, and the NJR color scheme to name a couple.

 It was an interesting stream, with interesting questions and insights. These dilemmas are also why we haven't gotten Gilraptor yet, which was estimated to cost 20,000 yen to produce in the current climate. I look forward to seeing where Kotobukiya goes, and I hope they can continue to attract good sales through these difficult times.

- Guysack Stream

 The Model Kits section is receiving some updates after a long time. The Yuji Kaida Fire Fox page has had all of the images updated and also gotten some minor tweaks to the review. I've wanted to do this for some of the older motos for a while now. Even after all these years, they're still my favorite kits.

 A review has been added for the MPZ Shield Liger covering the plethora of motorized actions. Joining it is a review for the Tomy Blade Liger, featuring a pre-owned Bladey. Please note, that this review is for the MPZ Shield Liger released in 2016, NOT the upcoming Shield Liger, which features anime colors.

 Takara Tomy has released the first image of the AZ-07 Death Saurer, along with a nice little teaser video! This variant looks amazing and the posture leans into its dinosaur class. The kit is scheduled for fall of this year, with pre-orders scheduled for April, sooner than we would've anticipated.

- Teaser Video

 Zoids Official posted several more videos from HAL, a 3D & animation school. Each one featured Zoiko, a mascot who originally came out around the time of the MPZ Kits, and has returned for the 40th anniversary promo videos! You can view them here: Link Link Link

 TakaraTomy's Youtube Channel has posted a video report of the Big Zoids Expo! Though the event is now over, it was a heck of an event. It's nice that the company has chosen to archive it in video form.

- Report Video

 When Hunter Wolf MPD was exhibited at the Big Zoids Expo, it was in front of a screen featuring a promotional video. This has now been posted online, along with a look at the weathered model kit by SigemikanZ and a dedicated Collaboration Page containing lore content!

- Video