A few weeks ago in one of the ToyboxDX chats, a certain little dog shared some pics of the newish B-Daman (otherwise known as Bomberman) Calibur toy from Takara.  The first few shots showed a bunch of Super Deformed vehicles and characters.   "Phah," I thought.  "SD sucks.  Nothing to see here..."  Then I saw the picture of the various vehicles in full gattai mode and become slightly more interested.  Something about the final combination appeared to be somewhere between super robot and transformer gestalt design.

"It shoots ball bearings from little cartridges that you load into a magazine," the little dog continued.

"Phah. SD sucks," I thought to myself.  Then I went on over to MugenToys and hit the buy button.

A week later (props to MugenToys for getting this thing here so darn quickly) a mid-sized box arrived.  A heavy mid-sized box.  "You have to put it together," I remember the pusher saying.  Opening the thing up, I find that other than the little plastic bags containing each sprue, there's not an ounce of packing material in here.  There doesn't need to be -- every square inch is taken up by toy.   Undaunted, I pulled out the first bundle, readied my x-acto knife and began...

Three hours later as I finish applying the stickers to the first robot, I realize that this thing is really an SD Master Grade kit in disguise.  I also retire my hobby knife for a set of clippers -- this is toy-grade plastic, not the flimsy-by-comparison stuff used for your typical gunpla kit, and it's hell to cut through with a regular knife.

Three evenings and 39 sprues later it's complete and  I'm impressed and surprised.   Initially I hadn't realized that each vehicle transformed into a robot.  The various modes are cool in their own right (although the SD faces still irk me somewhat -- fortunately, you can hide them in robot mode).  Each robot shoots something -- the coolest being the large black one that forms the legs.  The ball-launching, cartridge-ejecting mechanism is incredibly cool and really needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.  The white guy also takes a cartridge and ejects his in a different, but nifty way as well.  The blue robot launches a little fighter whose rear spring-loaded wheels act as the trigger to fire a ball bearing from its cockpit once it hits the ground.  The green robot has a double-barreled launcher that relies on pent-up inertia as you force the metal balls past the ridges at the barrel mouth.

Don't aim Calibur at any pets that you plan on keeping.

The gattai ends up working rather well -- it's sturdy and holds together tightly.   It does suffer slightly from GodMarz syndrome, though (a condition whereby you are afraid to handle the toy because if you grab it at the wrong spot it will launch a small piece in a random direction -- this is why you almost never see GodMarz with all his fists) but fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately for your cat) all of the projectiles are large and heavy and easy to locate. Calibur is big, too -- about the size of God Ginbrick.  Like most combining toys, shoulders and elbows are the only points of articulation.  The little guys are decently posaible, though (well, as much as SD's can be posable).

Overall I have few gripes with this toy.  And it is a toy, although if you've never been exposed to gunpla before, you might be inclined to mistake it for a model.  The only thing that annoys me is the fact that quite a few of the stickers seem prone to peeling (and the stickers are pretty much required for this thing -- it would look completely naked without them) and every time I turn around it seems like another one is coming off.  Maybe I'll seal the more troublesome ones behind a gloss sealing coat as I generally do with model kits.

I can't remember the last time I got this much toy for $30.  If you love SD then you should grab this thing.  Even if you're like me and you can't stand SD in general, you should probably at least give it a look.

In the distance, I can hear the mocking laughter of a little dog...