Plastic Model Review] "Kunio Okawara Fun Mecha World Omoroid" Pi Bot Challenge! The legendary deformed plastic kit is newly reborn with a new mold!

When you are a working adult, you tend to have a lot of plastic models piled up in your busy life. ...... In this series, Yasuyuki Tai, a voice actor who loves robots and plastic models, takes on the challenge of building plastic models on your behalf!

The concept is "even busy working people can make it this far on their weekends off. There are only two rules: bare bones assembly and a production period of one to two days! If you read this series, you will surely find the plastic model you want to build.

So, "Weekend Plastic Model Making by Voice Actor Taiyuki! The 60th issue of the series has started!

Episode 66 "Kunio Okawara's Interesting Mecha World: Omoroid" Pi-Bot

In the early days of deformed mecha in the 1980s, there was no anime or comic series, but rather a series of original plastic kits developed by the manufacturer. The series was named after the famous mecha designer Kunio Okawara, "Kunio Okawara Omoshiro Mecha World Omoroid!

The series was originally marketed by Nitto Kagaku, then the manufacturer was changed to Sunny. For a while, the series was also produced and sold overseas, but its development in Japan ended shortly after. As a Kunio Okawara fan, one of the series that I would like to get my hands on as much as possible is the "Omoroid" series. Now, LEAPRO, an up-and-coming manufacturer, has revitalized the series as a completely new kit with a completely new mold!

Please also check out this interview!
⇒[ The second release for the first time! The original plastic model "Omoroid" designed by Kunio Okawara is back! The voice actor Yasuyuki, who loves plastic models, interviews the representative of LEAPRO about the difficult path of the project!

The first two models released were "Pi Bot" and "Darth Boss. They represent the Pontagon and Akremlin armies, respectively. With the expectation that the series will continue to expand in the future, we would like to introduce the "Pontagon Force Variable Ship Fighter Kawaras F-1A Pi-Bot.

The package illustration is by Koichi Tokita, who was also in charge of character setting at that time. The design is respectful of the package illustrations of the time.

The story and other information are also included on the side of the package, but actually, the more we dig into these settings, the deeper we get into them, so we can't fully introduce them here!　Let's wait for the official release of the story.

On the bottom of the package, there is a scanned and digitally corrected illustration of the original package. I happened to have the actual package from that time (left) on hand, so I took a look at them side by side. I am glad that the size is bigger and I can see it clearly now!

There are four runners in total. The parts are arranged in an easy-to-assemble manner. There are also clear parts.

Assembly instructions and stickers are included. Although the number of stickers seems large, it is believed that this was done with the thought that if the color coding and parts division were made more detailed, the selling price would increase and the assembly process would become more complicated, making the kit less interesting and easy to assemble.

Even so, the kit at that time was a one-color runner, so it is a very advanced kit in terms of parts accuracy.

I was going to show you the assembled part immediately at ......, but before that, please take a look at the head parts that I was wondering about.

↑The upper part of the image is the surface of the face. The lower part is the inside of the face, and the "C" shaped part is just inside the hole for the eyes. Is this really ......?

Here is something more interesting while I was assembling it. This is the landing gear storage gimmick, and to my surprise, the mechanism is exactly the same as the kit of that time!

You can see how well thought out the kit was back then. This respect is also very nice.

Let's have a look at it once before applying the stickers. It takes less than an hour to get to this point.

The detail is very clear. The part that is inevitably pinched is arranged in a stepped mold.

By the way, this mode is called "vertical mode.

The grooves on the wings are also very neat. The details are clear, which may be helpful for those who prefer to paint.

The hollowed-out part at the back of the clear parts looks like eyes when smiling. Cute.

Now, let's attach the stickers.

Here is the completed figure with all the stickers attached. Since the stickers have some elasticity, you can apply the stickers by crimping them along the details, leaving the three-dimensional effect under the stickers.

The stickers on curved surfaces require some care, but the size is perfectly matched.

The visor of the head with clear parts, which could not be expressed in the kit at that time, is still very nice. The face part is also shaped in a way to give it a three-dimensional appearance.

The kit can be assembled smoothly without the need for screwing. If you are concerned about the moving parts, you can use styrene adhesives to glue them together.

The color-coded parts are just stepped, so it will be easy to mask them when painting.

Two vertical thrusters can be seen on the back. It looks like it can control its attitude, glide, and fly to some extent even if it is not in flight form.

It would be interesting to reproduce the wingtip lights with commercially available clear parts.

The range of motion.

The head can be rotated. However, the head will come off when it is turned 90 degrees to the side.

Shoulders are connected to ball joints extending from the body. Arms can be raised by rotating them.

Horizontally, the arms can be extended slightly due to the design.

Since it is a ball joint, the shoulders can swing slightly.

The elbows are made to utilize the axis of the arm extension/contraction gimmick during the transformation, but due to the design, they are also only movable to this extent.

The wrists are connected to the axis and can be rotated.

The hip joints are also connected with ball joints, and can be moved in various directions with a small number of parts.

The knees can be bent as well.

The ankles are quite movable, and can be moved forward and backward by pulling them out, and the ankles themselves can be opened and closed. By using ball joints for each part, the assembly process is shortened, yet the maximum amount of movement is possible.

The tilt from side to side is about this much.

Fighting pose. Although it is a deformed mecha, you can add a lot of expression by posing it.

Punching with a thrust!

Although there is no base that is compatible with this model, it is possible to pose it in a flying state by using the arm of the base that holds the main body in place.

Flying kick from a dive!

Although not as free as the fighter form, it can be posed in a flight pose by spreading the main wings.

Next, let's take a look at one of Omoroid's features, its transformation!

Remove the wrists and contract the arms.

Deploy the landing gear on the forehead and in the chest hatch.

Tilt the main body.

Deploy vertical tail wing backward. Open main wings also.

Aft. Thrusters in deployed state ......

Close the thrusters to complete the transformation.

This is called "Attacker Mode". Because the landing gear is relatively forward in design, the front wheels will float if the airplane is deformed correctly in the assembled state. There are two major ways to solve this problem. One is to put a weight in the head cavity to move the center of gravity forward a little, and the other is to put some kind of platform under the rear part of the fuselage as shown in the photo.

In the photo, a commercially available pedestal plate is placed under the fuselage, since it only floats a few millimeters.

Viewed from the side, even though it is a deformed mecha, it is firmly transformed into a fighter plane.

The inside of the thrusters are also molded. This is another thing that could not be done with the kits of the time.

You can see from the front view that the wingtips are lowered.

The nozzles on the fuselage sides can also be pointed down. I wonder if the motif of this kit is based on the Harrier, a fighter plane that can take off vertically.

Seen from above, it is definitely a fighter plane. The coloring is refreshing.

In order to keep the nose landing on the ground, the legs can be placed on the ground as shown in the photo.

Aircrafts are cool in flight!　This aircraft (Type A) was a mass-production prototype of which three were made; the first was piloted by Prince Oak Kawaras. The other two were shot down by Zyber, and were converted into the Ta Pet (piloted by Lois Cinnamon) and Winby (piloted by Duo Nicklaus). This alone makes you want to build the two planes before they were shot down already!

Plus a little extra

Next, I'll show you how to use the parts inside the head, which were on my mind when I was assembling the plane!

Actually, the "C"-shaped part mentioned above can be used to fix a 3mm cannonball LED!

Let's turn on the light and look at it from the front!

Oh, wow! Just by attaching it, you can light up the eyes so easily!　Isn't it easy?

There may be other uses for this device as well, depending on your ingenuity.

I thought the LED information alone might not be as voluminous as the usual "one touch", so I prepared another kit and finished it with all the paint (left). The blue coloring is a little brighter.

When I put them together like this, there is not much difference from the unassembled one on the right!

The black part of the nose and the canopy looks smoother with paint. For these parts, I think just a quick coat of water-based paint will do the trick.

Not only painted the entire fuselage, but also embedded commercially available parts in the vernier parts on the back.

In addition, the markings on each part of the fuselage were actually scanned from the decals of the old kit and printed out again as decals. Therefore, the size and balance are different from the original decals.

Please look at it in the fighter form!

This makes me want to have decals of various sizes, such as the markings of both armies! We are looking forward to the future development of these decals.

The machine gun-like part on the nose (probably an AS-38 laser gun) was replaced with a brass pipe by drilling a hole with a pin vise.

Other than that, there is no modification, but I feel that I have made it easier to handle by gluing each part in such a way that it does not interfere with the movability.

Did you notice that the rear part of the fuselage is not attached to the ground? The rear part of the fuselage is not touching the ground.

In fact, I managed to float the rear part of the fuselage by using a bunch of metal junks as weights inside the head!

The total weight of the head at this time was 37 g. Please refer to the weight when you insert the weight.

So, the "Omoroid" series has been revived like a phoenix after more than 30 years. I am sure that the "Omoroids" series may seem rather fresh to younger people.

And even if you are new to the series, if you are a fan of Okawara mecha, there is no reason not to be attracted to this series!

The more you dig, the deeper you will get into the settings, and you will be tempted to purchase multiple kits to build variations of the model!

You can read a bit about the Black Beetle in the web manual, which you can access from the 2D barcode attached to the instruction manual.

If possible, we would like to see the lineup of this series, not only the lineup of the time, but also the variations that were never released.

To that end, let's have fun using this "Pi Bot" to make a B-type mass-produced machine or an exclusive machine for an ace pilot!

Omoroid is what makes it fun. !!!!

Product Information

Omoroid Pi-Bot

Now on sale

Now on sale: 3,300 yen (tax included)

Brand: LEAPRO