Plamo: The 30 Minute Missions Spinatio (Sengoku Type)

Well, clearly I'm late to the party on this one, but sometimes you get lucky in the nerd shop...

The Spinatio and its variants represent something of a departure for 30 Minute Missons. In terms of fiction, this represents a third faction with a new and distinct visual style. Here, the Mecha invoke samurai and ninja tropes, rather than Zaku-alikes or Frame Arms-wannabees. This is a popular period of Japanese history, and use often in romanticised media, although not my usual area of interest or expertise. I'm personally at the "Q.I forfeit" level of knowledge, where I know enough so that I know how little I actually know. Samurai were a feature of Japan in one form or another for about 1000 years, after all. More practically, this kit is something of achange in play pattern, as armour parts are included with it, as well as a bonus sprue of gubbins in the initial production run. Sold-separately add-ons are course plentiful, but things feel a bit more feature complete this time around, with two weapons and spare hands for swordplay poses. All this, combined with a new joint sprue, makes the Spinatio a slightly different and much less generic beast than its predecessors. It's a skinny robot in general, looking more like a gymnast than the real robots 30MM has previously done, and I can see this making for an absolutely goddamn amazing Spider-Man custom. Adding the armour has almost no limiting effect on its mobility, which is sufficiently good that I didn't miss the swing-out shoulders earlier kits had.

 

As a build, a Spinatio is obviously familiar, but perhaps a little less elegant than its older kin. As you have 3 main colours rather than 2, it ends up more "bitty", with multiple small sprues. The use of black for the armour makes for a good contrast , although the weapons would benefited from being grey. I like how these are implemented though, with a clip that can store both on one hip. Compatibility with previous kits is present, but the new joints use two less polycaps, and add mobility in the core/abs area. One quirk however is that the completed mecha omits shoulder armour, so you have to swap parts to allow such things to be installed. Also, while you do get multiple hands of the "sandwich" style, corners are cut by only including two plates for the outsides. Also, be mindful of the translucent visor when attaching the faceplate. I managed to both mark it AND loose it, muppet that I am. A shame, as this is otherwise a joyous build.

|I kept this project simple, as it was my first time playing with one of these, and so left the gubbins sprue for future projects. One idea I did experiment with however was the idea of panel-lining the black with purple, based on the memory of an old batmobile toy. This didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it did add definition to the piece.

While the samurai stylings are not necessarily for everyone, this is the best kit I've built all year.