August 4, 2001 CURRENT RUMBLE It Had to be Made Darren 08.04.01 It had to be made. Just so you understand the total extent of my bona fide geekiness, nearly every lunch period of my 6th grade year was spent in the library with my best friend ... drawing robots. With our mechanical pencils and spiral-bound notebooks, we exhausted every possible transformation gimmick that 11-year-old minds could conjure. On rare occasions, we would hike up to my house for lunch (we had an open campus) to see what weed-induced fantasies Tatsunoko had dreamed up for today's episode of Otasukeman. For Peter and I, the lifelong journey of the Japanese Super Robot student had just begun. We were literally weeks into starting to comprehend the vast universe that is Japan's robot toy industry. Our notebooks were ornamented not with sophisticated portraits of Gundam mecha, but with thick, gray, unsteady lines that framed elementary geometric shapes and unrealistic proportions. The difference between our art and that of the experienced Japanese hand was as stark as night and day. But if you looked carefully at those piles of boxes we called "robots", you would see a glimmer of what might be Raideen, or Combattra, or Daimos. Yes, you might think old Daimos is pretty boring, but in our minds he was a big, transforming truck, and those attributes ranked pretty high on our scale of coolness. Our own designs were unspectacular. Arrange a set of boxes this way, you have a robot. Flip them around differently, you have a transport carrier. Our science notebooks were punctuated with a living library of custom robot designs. We considered everything we could in our schemes -- a tire could double as a hovercraft's fan, tanks' treads could become a utility belt, a bulldozer's scoop could become a shield. Eventually, all robot-designing children encounter an epiphany -- one of those rare moments when the world stops, and you realize you've come up with something truly new and unique. It is as if a giant gold star had been applied to your forehead. Yes, you've just said to yourself, "What if the robot's CAPE wrapped around him like a GIANT SPACESHIP!" The inevitable retort from your friend ensues: "Well, I already thought of that one last week." This is why the DX Bismark is so appealing to me. The robot is ugly, and uninspired, and looks like standard Metal Hero fare. The spaceship, Battle 1, is a hallmark of 1980's spaceship design: a solid brick with rounded edges, free of any void spaces. And it had treads, as any good spaceship would. It is exactly what might've sprung forth from my 6th grade notebook -- it validates my undeveloped, juvenile design ethic. It is a pure monument to much of what Super Robot design meant to me, so long ago. It is utterly uninteresting, yet it had to be made. It is default robot design, compatible with the sensibilities of a child. Studio Pierrot isn't known for any Super Robot anime other than Tobikage, but Sei Jyushi Bismark developed a small, strong following both in Japan and in other countries. The ST version of the toy comes with a Naugahyde cape, much coveted by Yappy, but I prefer the full-henkei DX myself. DX Bismark sports decent diecast content, flip-up cannons on his chest, and wonderful claw-like chrome hands that snap shut on springs. He is black, white, and chrome trimmed in red. And, like all "Star Gunfighters", he has a pistol. The color spectrum decals on his torso, wedge-angular surface detail, and chrome highlites are borrowed straight from the Space Sheriff's family album. Battle 1's dark, monolithic, scale-ambiguous design is lifted from Japan's "wandering space cowboy" genre. If you're looking at the accompanying pictures, the ship does come with little rubber treads, but I've left them safe in their zip-lock baggie. Could the transformation be simpler? Stick the robot in the spaceship. Battle 1 serves both as Bismark's transportation and his cape. We all know there's nothing cooler than a robot with a cape. Battle 1 is essentially a big, hollow box formed from jointed panels. As a cape, Battle 1 may either enclose Bismark, or wrap around the back Superman-style. If you're wondering where Battle 1's nose goes, it flips over the back. The rear view isn't so elegant. One of the nicest gimmicks included with this toy is the small trapdoor that allows Bismark to fire while safely protected by his cape. Battle 1's landing gear retracts, and old fashioned spring-loaded missiles are found on the forward part of his main hull. Brimming over with Super Robot cool? Not a chance. A graphic artist's masterpiece? No way. The coolest toy ever built? Nope. But Bismark is a very well executed DX Chogokin toy, a solid personality on the shelf, and perhaps a capsule of childhood nostalgia for me. Bandai's DX Bismark Sourced from Robozone  RUMBLE INDEX  |  CURRENT RUMBLE