Pii-tan / Pterardon / Yokuryu-Oh / King Rishiryu-Oh
And we’re down to the last Kishiryu. It’s been an interesting road. Most of these toys have been exceptional in terms of Super Sentai releases, but as this line was advertised as a build toy that aspect of it got weaker as time went on as well. Yokyryu-Oh sits in the middle of that. (I’m still sad we didn’t get a sauropod equivalent. First dinosaur theme to not have one.)
The Good: As its base body is very similar to Kishiryu-Oh, it doesn’t need to come apart in the same ways as the smaller Kishiryu do which excuses is from most of my problems with them, and has a few good blocks that can be utilized in interesting ways. The arm blocks give you access to another 8-point ratchet with more plugs than MosaRex, the shield provides nice aesthetic flare as well as giving you a more easy to display head upgrade than DimeVolcano’s, and the Pteranodon head is a nice touch.
Pit Mode is surprisingly fun, probably because it’s close to scale with the show. It’s just neat to have it sit around. Yokuryu-Oh is also a nice design. It’s very similar to Kishiryu-Oh in transformation and plug layout, but has its own aesthetic and silhouette. Pterardon is probably the weakest mode, having a ton of engineering to get it where it is, but not looking great. It’s probably the feet. The colors are great in all of them, though. None of the translucents are load-bearing, and the only plugs that can be are on the knees and shield. Any paint on those parts is either recessed or covered in another layer of plastic, and the Pteranodon head, which is the one part you’d worry about breakages on, is tough ruberized plastic to prevent that issue.
The Bad: Like with MosaRex, Pterardon’s biggest issue is probably its combination. It is more solid than Gigant Kishiryu-Oh as Yokuryu-Oh’s waist is designed to not shift when attached to Kishiryu-Oh’s legs... But I literally have to pull both these toys in half and Frankenstein their parts together. I will say that having the two halves means you can put together another Megazord with the pieces, so it’s not Kyuutamajin Syndrome, but it’s obvious Tyramigo isn’t meant to do this. This was probably a rushed design decision to get a third Megazord out in Q3 that combined with the previous two.
Oh, and you can’t plug anything in Yoku’s shoulders because of the wings.
The End: And with that, we’re done. That’s every Kishiryu. It’s weird because I feel like there’s actually a pretty dynamic shift after you get out of Q1. With the first five releases (Tyramigo through MilNeedle) they were decent building blocks and had a good number of usable parts. Once we get into Q2 with DimeVolcano we start seeing the building block aspect take a back seat to canon combinations, and if I’m honest I really like a lot of them. SpinoThunder is great, CosmoRaptor is cool, the interplay between Pachygaroo and Chibigaroo is cute. If the entire line was just “not only can you combine it with the Megazord, but you can make other Dinosaurs by combing them with other Zords,” I would have been way more into this line (not that I’m not already). I hope they take some of the things from this line, like the combining Zords, and use those ideas again in new and exciting ways in the years to come. Y’know, so long as the ratings for this season were good enough to warrant them not winding the show down into cancellation over the next few years...
Overall, I like Yoku. I wish he combined differently, but he’s a solid standalone piece with some good combination parts.
If you plan on picking this line up after the show finishes, my recommendation for the minimum package is still Tyramigo/Dinomigo, MosaRex, and DimeVolcano, but if you like those three then I’d strongly recommend CosmoRaptor and Pachygaroo as well. They may not be good blocks, but they’re pretty awesome Super Sentai toys.
