Plamo: Evoroids EVV-GC1 G-Crawler (Kotobukiya)

I picked this one up at EM-Con. What's EM-Con? Well, its like every convention you've ever been to. Just slightly less good. If you move in nerd circles, you probably know the sort of event. A vaguely corporate affair of no strong theme, with a dealer's room, a lot of Funko Pops, and a selection of minor celebs charging for autographs. Great for parents and thier kids. Kinda interesting on the cosplay front. I saw a Femme version of Immortan Joe. Possibly Immortan Jolene, but I digress. I was underwhelmed by the event, and frankly overwhelmed by the noise. But I did acquire this chap cheaply, so it wasn't a total waste of time for me.

The G-Crawler is from Kotobukiya’s Everoids, non-scale robot kits of a cute style that transform, often with a bit of Metal Slug in the visual mix. It, and indeed the vast majority of Kotobukiya's output, falls into the category of Bandai's direct competitors. There's a maybe a bit of an Apple/Android thing going on there, but you're much more likely see Bandai stuff in the West. At its best, I’d say Kobi makes worthwhile robot kits that encouraged Bandai to raise its game. At its worst? Frame Arms Girls. While Everoids had been on my radar for a while, I had to go look these up, and English language info seems thin on the ground, so my commentary here is gonna be a bit surface level.

 

The actual build is based on a core block not dissimilar to a rubrics cube via BeastBox. This seems to be common to the line, the central frame, but each kit uses it differently, for its respective transformation. The G-Crawler isn't using it for anything markedly fancy by itself, it largely stays a cube, but it does do interesting things with the pelvis and shoulder joints. By the standards of transforming robot kits, I'd say its rather good. There's minimal partsforming, as while you have to reattach the weapons, that would be acceptable on an actual Transformers toy. On the downside though, there's little in the way of securing tabs, and the arms do like to separate at the bicep. Its not a polycap system, which may explain that weakness, but otherwise you get pretty solid articulation for what is a Super Deformed Gunpla in all but name. There are stickers, but these seem largely optional, colour accuracy is a nonissue here and I do like the translucent visor. And the opening turret hatch. Shame about that tiny gap around the red sensor though, maybe the parts fit isn't quite as good as modern Bandai?

 

I managed to get the basic assembly done in a couple of hours, and so applied some basic weathering techniques, fixed that gap, and the loose joints. This worked pretty well, although the gun sensor put up a fight. I might just apply the sticker over that. Otherwise, a nice little kit that looks great as is, but looks even better with a bit more work. Would buy another.