Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Dran

Dran detail shots

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Like Deckerd/Duke, you can swap between 3 different face expressions, but the left 2 are onl

Like Deckerd/Duke, you can swap between 3 different face expressions,
but the left 2 are only slightly different at the corners of the mouth, so they're still hard to tell apart without panel lining.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - The Ryugaken comes with both a sheathed version and an unsheathed version, along with the sc

The Ryugaken comes with both a sheathed version and an unsheathed version, along with the scabbard provided separately.

A total of 4 types of hands are included.

To mount it on a stand, you need to swap out the parts inside the rear section.

Along with Dran, Great Goldran parts are included.

Great Goldran parts

Great Archery and the arrow, plus hand parts for holding the arrow

A posing hand and arrow are provided separately, so they connect nice and securely.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - The tip of the Great Archery has some articulation, but the joints are way too soft and frag

The tip of the Great Archery has some articulation, but the joints are way too soft and fragile, so you need to be careful.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - I was wiggling it to see how far it could bend, and without any warning sound it just smooth

I was wiggling it to see how far it could bend, and without any warning sound it just smoothly snapped right off. T_T
Please handle it with extreme care.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - The handle slots into Sky Goldran's hand and locks in from the inside, so it holds on nice a

The handle slots into Sky Goldran's hand and locks in from the inside, so it holds on nice and firmly.

You can apply the Great Parts to the separately sold Sky Goldran.

To configure it as Great Goldran,
you remove and swap out various parts from Sky Goldran.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran completed by adding the Great Parts to Sky Goldran (1/6)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran completed by adding the Great Parts to Sky Goldran (2/6)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran completed by adding the Great Parts to Sky Goldran (3/6)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran completed by adding the Great Parts to Sky Goldran (4/6)

Great Goldran completed by adding the Great Parts to Sky Goldran

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran detail shots (1/4)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran detail shots (2/4)

Great Goldran detail shots

Dran and Great Goldran

Leftover parts

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Articulation and gimmicks are identical to the existing Deckerd/Duke. (1/4)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Articulation and gimmicks are identical to the existing Deckerd/Duke. (2/4)

Articulation and gimmicks are identical to the existing Deckerd/Duke.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (1/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (2/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (3/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (4/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (5/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (6/9)

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Dran action poses. Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing. (7/9)

Dran action poses.
Small but light and flexible — a great kit for posing.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts - Great Goldran's signature Great Archery firing pose. The joint strength isn't quite enough t

Great Goldran's signature Great Archery firing pose.
The joint strength isn't quite enough to hold up the weight of the Great Archery, so pulling off this pose is harder than you'd think. T_T

Together with Sky Goldran.

Together with Deckerd/Duke, which share the same format.

Dran from Brave of Gold Goldran has been released as a Kotobukiya plastic model bundled together with the Great Parts. Sky Goldran came out previously, and now we've got Dran and the Great Parts in the same format as the Duke & Fire Parts set from Brave Police J-Decker. Dran also reuses the same joint parts from the existing Deckerd/Duke, and the structural features — size, joints, gimmicks — are all identical.

J-Decker and Goldran were the 5th and 6th entries in Sunrise/Takara's Brave Series to begin with, so they always shared a similar concept and format. The plastic models feel the same way — same concept and structure recycled, just with a different design. Dran comes in the same small size as Deckerd/Duke, and it's a solid little kit that punches above its weight with great color separation and articulation. The three face expressions and the stand mounting method are completely identical to the previous releases.

The Great Parts, Great Archery included, are large and impressively realized, and you even get a dedicated arrow-holding hand and arrow. The issue is that Sky Goldran's joint strength isn't all that sturdy, so holding the big Great Archery horizontally is a struggle. I did my best to get a horizontal firing shot in the review photos above, but it's a bit of a letdown in that regard.

The Brave Series lineup represents some of Kotobukiya's top-tier quality — the parts are soft and easy to clean up, and the assembly feel is satisfying enough to rival Bandai. The downside of that softness, though, is that you really have to watch out for breakage. As you can see in the review photos above, the articulated section of the Great Archery snapped on me. I was barely applying any force, just bending it to see how far it would move, and it just silently gave way with a smooth little snap. -_- I strongly urge anyone building this to be extra, extra careful with those joints — they are incredibly fragile.

Anyway, if you have fond memories of Goldran, just having this kit exist at all is probably enough to make you emotional. As long as you can get past the price being steep for what you get — which is very Kotobukiya of them (feels like roughly double Bandai's pricing?) — it's a pretty fun kit to build. :-)

* I've received multiple requests through the errata board, emails, and messages asking me to merge J-Decker, Goldran, and Great Exkaizer into a single "Brave Series" category. I imagine it's because these kits share parts and follow a similar format. Kotobukiya's official website organizes products by individual title, and to avoid controversy I try to follow the manufacturer's own categorization as closely as possible. If I lumped them all under "Brave Series," fans of each individual show would probably start sending in "suggestions" asking me to split their title back out into its own category. That kind of endless back-and-forth has happened before, which is exactly why I stick to the official site's structure.

The bigger issue is... a good number of those "suggestions" are things I have no choice but to decline, and I end up getting flak for it. The category rules are something I thought through and set deliberately, and I've explained my reasoning to each person individually — but being turned down is never a pleasant feeling, and it genuinely makes me uncomfortable to have to say no. Typos and errors are always welcome to report, but casually tossing "suggestions" my way puts me in a tough spot. Most of the time it's just adding to my workload when there's nothing actually broken.

Because of all this, some people have gone off on other boards saying I ignored them or that I'm a stubborn old man — and I do have eyes and ears, I see and hear all of it. I'd ask that you spare a thought for my position, having to decline requests while feeling uncomfortable about it myself. I hope going forward, no one will be sending in any more requests to merge things into a Brave Series category.

Goldran Dran & Great Parts | 2022.3 | ¥7,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.