Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Detail shots (1/4)

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Detail shots (2/4)

Detail shots

Eye parts that can be swapped out in 3 different ways

Medal stored on the back

A total of 3 hand parts are included.

Speech bubble paper pieces

Joint parts for transformation

Leftover parts

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Arm and leg articulation. It's hard to move and the range of motion is pretty limited too..

Limb articulation.
It's hard to move and the range of motion is pretty limited too..

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Speech bubbles and various poses (1/5)

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Speech bubbles and various poses (2/5)

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Speech bubbles and various poses (3/5)

Speech bubbles and various poses

To transform into Mighty Reckless Mode, you first separate the body into individual pieces.

Remove the hand parts and swap out the elbow parts with the fixed 90-degree parts, then..

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Transform the legs into the shape shown above. (1/3)

Transform the legs into the shape shown above.

Detach the face from the head, then rotate the neck part 90 degrees backward.

Remove the pointed chest piece and add the auxiliary part to the waist joint.

Attach the chest armor along with the joint parts onto the face section.

Rotate the rear skirt on the lower body upward as shown, then

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Add the joint parts for connecting the limbs, then attach the arms and legs to complete the

Add the joint parts for connecting the limbs, then attach the arms and legs to complete the transformation.

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash - Mighty Reckless Mode (1/3)

Mighty Reckless Mode

Underside

Together with the previous Arc Beetle.

The Arc Beetle Dash has been released as the 8th kit in Kotobukiya's Medabots series. Just going by the name it looks like a color variant of the previous Arc Beetle, but aside from a few shared parts, it's actually an all-new kit made up of mostly new parts throughout.

Compared to the original Arc Beetle's design, the concept is similar but it feels like the overall volume has been bumped up a notch. In particular, the Mighty Reckless Mode transformation has been implemented by swapping out a number of joint parts — the process is a bit of a hassle, but the end result is pretty convincing.

The Medabots series has generally had poor joint strength across the board, but maybe because the Arc Beetle Dash came out later in the line, its joints are better than the earlier kits. That said, the ball-joint polycaps are still a bit flimsy, so joints popping out during posing is still something that happens — it's just that the standing pose holds together better than the previous kits, which is about the extent of the improvement. On top of that, the increased body volume has made the range of motion even more restricted, which really limits the poses you can pull off in robot mode.

So while it does bring a new transformation feature and slightly improved joint characteristics over the earlier kits, it's still hard to give the Medabots series a glowing review in terms of quality. Then again, it's pretty much a niche item for fans, so if you're a Medabots game fan, you're probably just happy it exists at all.. :-)

Medarot KBT06-C Arc Beetle Dash | 2018. 11 | ¥5,500

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.