Review: Marmit Mini Metal VOTOMS, Wave 1
I have Marmit’s VOTOMS toys in my grubby little paws. Here’s the lowdown on the first batch, which consists of:
V-01 Standard Scopedog
V-02 Red Shoulder Scopedog
V-03 5th Unit Scopedog
V-04 Konin’s Scopedog
(I’ve given up trying to take good pictures, so accept this crude size comparison shot of a household item, the Takara 1/60 Scopedog, and Marmit’s toy. Roger Patterson, eat your heart out.)
Construction: Gotta whole lotta PVC. Hernia sufferers, ignore the “TOO HEAVY!” warning on the box. There is zinc, but it’s minimal: only the nine leg and waist armor skirts are metal. The head and shoulders are articulated, and it doesn’t take a lot of effort before they come off due to the gashapon-style straight pegs. The large scope rotates, too, but that may not have been intentional.
Accessories: Each one of these comes with a rifle. That’s it. The rifle plugs into the hand using a peg in the palm, letting the robot cradle it. The two mounting rungs on the back actually come out, leaving rectangular slots where (presumably) future Scopedog variants will have their backpacks inserted.
Detail: The sculptor absolutely nailed the robot depicted in the line art by Okawara. Every little rivet and outline is there. The paint job is flat, with no weathering or panel lines, which is a good thing in my book.
So are they worth 1600 yen each? Maybe. I think they’re some of the best looking VOTOMS toys ever, but they’re really just gashapon figures with some metal bits stuck on them. The first four are identical except for the paint job, and I’m probably not de-carding the remaining three because of this.
I prefer these over Kaiyodo’s figures, though. The card back shows the Berserga and Diving Beetle, and they both look excellent. I’ll definitely be getting the other entries in this series so as I get more, you’ll be hearing about them here.
(And for those keeping track, they were shipped from HLJ via SAL for 880 yen and arrived here in 17 days.)
