Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack.
On its own, J-Der looks compact and cute ^^

J-Der

Color separation on the head and chest is decent.

D Style King J-der - The J-Der body is mostly fixed, so there's very little articulation. The legs and shoulders can fold sli

The J-Der body is mostly fixed,
so there's very little articulation.
The legs and shoulders can only fold slightly forward and backward.

There's not much in the way of action poses — that's pretty much the best you can do. ^^;;;

J-Carrier and J-Der.

J-Carrier

Underside

To combine into J-Bird,
you need to remove J-Der's hands and tuck the arms inward into the shoulders.

Fold the head 90 degrees forward to stow it, then rotate the shoulders 90 degrees to the front.

D Style King J-der - Fold the legs forward, lower the feet, then rotate the gun barrel on top of the legs to face forward, an

Fold the legs forward, lower the feet,
then rotate the gun barrel on top of the legs to face forward, and J-Bird is complete.

D Style King J-der - Then place J-Bird on top of J-Carrier and J-Arc is complete. J-Bird itself is hard to set down on a flat

Then place J-Bird on top of J-Carrier and J-Arc is complete.
J-Bird itself is hard to set down on a flat surface due to its shape. ^^;

Now, to transform into King J-Der, detach the legs.

Remove the yellow V-shape from J-Der's chest and reattach it higher up.

Fold the shoulders back up 90 degrees
and King J-Der's head is complete.

Fold J-Der's legs in various directions like shown..

Attach the separate hand parts
and J-Der's legs become King J-Der's arms.

Unfold the feet on the underside of J-Carrier.

Fold the front section forward, close the backpack, then detach the bow section.

Remove the attached leg section and J-Carrier is ready to go.

D Style King J-der - So J-Der's body becomes King J-Der's head, and the legs become the arms — then you combine everything to

So J-Der's body becomes King J-Der's head,
and the legs become the arms — then you combine everything together.

The bow section is then fitted inside the right arm.

Size comparison of King J-Der with a cigarette pack.
Quite a bit bigger now, right?

King J-Der.

Upper body and head

Back and arms

Legs

Articulation is not great.. ^^;;

D Style King J-der - Action poses~ (1/4)

D Style King J-der - Action poses~ (2/4)

Action poses~

D Style King J-der - Bow-firing action using the Kotobukiya display stand. Not exactly the most natural-looking pose ^^ (1/4)

D Style King J-der - Bow-firing action using the Kotobukiya display stand. Not exactly the most natural-looking pose ^^ (2/4)

Bow-firing action using the Kotobukiya display stand.
Not exactly the most natural-looking pose ^^

Together with the D-Style Brave robots.

The latest D-Style release is King J-Der from GaoGaiGar. In the show it appears as something of a rival to GaoGaiGar, and its power is absolutely no joke..

King J-Der can transform and combine in a number of ways — broadly speaking, there's the robot body J-Der, and the flight form J-Carrier. J-Der folds up into a flight vehicle called J-Bird, which then combines with J-Carrier to form J-Arc, and from there everything is reassembled into the large robot King J-Der. (It's complicated..;)

The D-Style King J-Der is a kit worth noting for pulling off all of this complex combining and transforming, and it manages to pull it off reasonably well despite the small scale and super-deformed proportions. That said, articulation and proportions feel like they were largely sacrificed for this — J-Der in particular comes out as a fixed-pose figure with basically no room for action poses. Once transformed into King J-Der you do get a bit more posability, but hey, nothing in this world comes for free.

Compared to GaoGaiGar, it looks a bit plain — whether that's because fewer areas have been painted, or because the original design's color scheme is just a bit on the dull side to begin with. GaoGaiGar is so colorful that it probably makes anything next to it look understated, but either way, you can't help feeling like a little less care went into this one.

It's a D-Style kit that deserves credit for recreating all the canonical transformations despite its small scale — it's not exactly what you'd call cute, but if you're a GaoGaiGar fan, this should be a fun one :-)

D Style King J-der | 2012. 3 | ¥2,500

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.