Plastic Model Time: Keroro Dai Shogun!

Many, many days ago I got a magical shipment of auctions from the Far East. Three of these were plamo - or plastic models - from Keroro Gunsou (also known in weeaboo circles as Sgt Frog - presumably because weeaboos can't spell 'Gunsou' OR 'Sergeant', Sargent is a company that makes crayons ~_^). Since roughly 2007 in the Keroro universe they've been taking the series in the same direction that One Piece and countless others have gone to, albeit in Keroro it seems kinda non sequitur versus One Piece adding it as part of the actual story. And that direction is theme-story arcs like samurai and pirates.


Keroro is a quintessentially Japanese series, so anyone who didn't see through the culture - pop or non - references to this eventually happening obviously didn't watch more than one or two eps, or read more than one volume of the manga. The samurai version was a supplement short film to the third Keroro movie (I think it was the third one), and of course being Japan, soon after models and other merchandise followed. But the second "transformation" caught me by surprise. One day I was browsing Yahoo Japan Auctions and up popped Pirate Keroro! Essentially using the same gimmick as the samurai version - and both borrowing from sentai/tokusatsu shows - the pirate Keroro collection has our 5 main heroes with their own vehicles/robots that combine to form one giant robot (with the samurai versions) or one giant assault ship (with the pirate versions).


The "Keroro Shogun" versions were released one at a time, first the models of the characters themselves and then their robots. And of course - again, being Japan - they re-released all 5 character models together and then all 5 robots together, in sets. Individually, I didn't really like the Keroro Robos, but together they make the Dai Keroro Shogun, which is just awesome.


Despite being two totally different lines, one being biped robots and the other being vehicles, my second model in this shipment was the Keroro Pirate King: Super King Mode, which contained a few of the same runners as the Keroro Robo did. Essentially it's the same body as the Keroro Shogun Robo, with a few pieces interchanged and a few colors swapped to make it look more "piratey" arr.


The second model also contained what was needed to make the third model, which I didn't really notice. So now I have that model in robot and vehicle modes (even though robo-mode has a few extra parts). Despite sharing parts and the overwhelming similarities, these all look fairly different - and perhaps more importantly I like them individually for their visual styling. Eventually they will get painted, but for now unpainted pics'll have to do.