Eldoran
 

Back in the early 1990s, Tomy launched their own super robot series to capitalize on the success of Takara's Brave series. The three Eldoran series were produced by Sunrise who also produced the Brave shows, and were generally aimed at a younger audience than Brave, and mostly focused around young (6-8) year old children gifted with powerful mecha by the Earth's guardian spirit, Eldoran, to defend Earth from alien invaders.


Backstory over, let's admire some pictures of the cool robot toys!

Raijin-oh was the first series, it featured two main robots, Raijin-oh himself and Bakaryu-oh. In true mecha anime tradition Bakaryu-oh did not show at the beginning of the series, he turns up over halfway through.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ldoran/Ohs.jpg

Raijin-oh's components.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Bakaryu-oh.jpg

Here's Bakaryu-oh, a huge, gigantic dragon.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Raijin-oh.jpg

Robot modes, Raijin-oh is on the left, Bakaryu-oh with his huge cannon o' doom is on the right.

And what kind of super robot show would it be if those two didn't combine?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...dRaijin-oh.jpg

God Raijin-oh, this guy is pretty darn badass folks.

CM's corporation has made an updated version of this set which is more show-accurate and is a high-end collector's piece, although I personally prefer the vintage one. You can afford to be a bit more "rough and tumble" with this dude.


Next up, Ganbaruger. Watch out if you don't like robots who you have to dismantle to transform, this guy would be like your kryptonite!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ran/Ganbas.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...n/GanbasRM.jpg

The cool thing about Ganbaruger is he's made up of three smaller robots who transform all on their own. They're fun little robots too, simple but fun.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Ganbaruger.jpg

Here's the combined robot, Ganbaruger.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...lGekiBeast.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ivolGekiRM.jpg

Later on, Tomy released two more robots. Rivolger, on the right, came first. His name's a pretty terrible pun on "revolver", which he encourages by turning into a gigantic cannon. Gekiryuger is the red dragon, a gorgeous piece in either mode, although you pretty much dismantle him to change from one to the other.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...evolcannon.jpg

Here's the Rivol Cannon, Rivolger's weapon mode for Ganbaruger. In one episode of the series the elephant was knocked out of commission (by a giant banana no less!), so the other two mecha who make up Ganbaruger took up the cannon on their own. There was a great "Brave" moment in that scene too - "we can't do it without King Elephan / All we need is there two mecha, we CAN do it!"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Ganbaruger.jpg

Naturally, all three mecha can merge into the most gigantic robot Tomy could imagine at the time. Size wise, the Great Ganbaruger rivals the likes of Victory Saber from Transformers, you'll have to look into Shogun Warriors or a Fortress Maximus to find a transforming toy that stands bigger.

Unfortunately, he can only really move his shoulders.


And the last one. Gosaurer is my favourite of the bunch. He's smaller than the others, but it's like Tomy simply compressed the same amount of awesomeness into a smaller package. Here's the main mecha, Gosaurer, who splits up into three little dinos:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...n/Gosaurer.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...an/Saurers.jpg

Pretty cool, no? The design is very polished, the individual dinos work nicely and the robot mode manages to avoid having too many obvious cues to the three dinos (mostly because things like the Apatosaurus head and neck come off and lay to one side)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../SaurerJet.jpg

Another cool feature of this series is how the robots could recombine into vehicle modes. The way it worked, they flew to the scene in jet mode, transformed into dinosaur form to evacuate the people etc, then go to robot mode to finish the bad guy of the week.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ranMagnaRM.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...agnaSaurer.jpg

Here's the support mecha. Gransaurer the Triceratops is a bit bigger than the others, and comes with an awesome polearm weapon. Magnasaurer always reminds me of Grimlock from Transformers in dinosaur mode.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...an/Granjet.jpg

Gransaurer has its own jet mode, one of my personal favourite jet forms ever.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...SSaurerJet.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../SGosaurer.jpg

Meanwhile, Magnasaurer merges with Gosaurer to form massive back mounted cannons.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ngGosuarer.jpg

And here you've got King Gosaurer, the combined mode of all three mecha. He's the smallest of the three final combinations, but honestly I think he has the biggest pressence. It probably comes from the fact he is nearly as wide as he is tall.



The Eldoran toys are kind of hard to come by on the secondary market, unfortunately, though I believe they are still being made in Korea or at least are relatively easy to come by over there. One thing I would recommend is to try to get the ones based on the "originals" rather than the reissues. The reissues replaced all the gold chrome with flat yellow. You can see one of the reissues up above, my Gransaurer's a reissue. It's not so bad on him, but consider Ganbaruger or Gosaurer with flat yellow instead of the lovely chrome.

Still, chrome or no chrome, these are some awesome toys and if you are into Japanese mecha like Brave and want to expand your collection to another series, you can do far worse than pick up a couple of Eldoran mecha.

Wow, those are nice. I can't afford another line right now, but I do like those bad boys! Must...Resist

And thanks for the info, man!

Haha yes, try to resist if you can!

In all fairness though if you do go after these, I recommend looking to pick up the sets of the three robots who make up the final combined form in one go. Some of them can be hard to track down individually compared to the rest. A set is more expensive in a one-off buy, but in the long run it saves you so much trouble looking for the last one to finish the set off. That's how I got mine.

Nice post. I have CM's Brave Goukin God Raijinoh, now just Raijinoh. Bakuryu's joint for God Raijinoh's left hand/Bkuryu's left leg broke so it cant make any of the modes involving it :(. I like the look of the original Raijinoh but I always thought God Raijinoh's feet should angle down a bit but i guess its hampered by its transformation.

I know what you mean. That is good advice.

When I was still completing my G1 collection, I had some headmasters and Targetmasters I got in a lot. I tried to complete them, but the parts alone were close to getting a complete one. Scorponok's shield and Fasttrack's guns come to mind. After searching for over a year, I ended up buying a complete Scorpy and sold mine.

I ended up spending around $100 over the price I sold my incomplete one for, which IMO was ok because I was done with the hunt, and I wasn't left wondering if I would ever complete him.

And dammit, I am drooling over your pics again, Simon :)

I'd love to get into the Eldoran series, but I don't want to spend the cash to buy a complete bot. I had Revolger, but sold it b/c I couldn't find Ganbaruger for a decent price :(

Hmm since we're talking abt Eldoran here, there's a question i've been wanting to ask. ok so far i know there's only three toylines in the series right?

Ok in the Brave series collection book by mediaworks, there's listed a fourth one in the franchise. it's called Kanzen Syouri Daitei-Oh. anybody know any info abt this series? from the pixs inside the book there's only one robot in that series & also it didn't show any alternate mode that it transform to. :confused:

Theres a youtube video of it. Its transformation is kinda similar to Raijinoh's. The video is all that came out of that line though some rumours about a custom kit was released to customise Raijinoh into it but I dont know if thats true or not. Also a manga may have been released as well.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=e10a4B...eature=related

Yeah, Daiteh-oh is something of the black sheep of the family. Cool design, though. I could see a customisation kit for Raijin-oh working easily, they share a transformation, with the exception of the little robot in the middle being upside down on Daiteh-oh.

One of these days, Simon, I'm going to stop reading your threads on Brave series and similar lines. :p Last time, you and Vangelus got me to watch the whole GaoGaiGar series and now I want the toys too.

You really make me want to pick these up too, especially the Gosaurer ones. It's like the Dinobots have a combiner! Gransaurer, especially. He really gives me a Slag vibe (Snarl for you Animated fans). I've always been partial to that particular dinosaur.

It's kind of ironic that Sunrise has always considered the Eldoran robots Braves.

Really? I thought Raijinoh just cameos in some brave games like how Votoms cameo-ed in the Brave Saga games?

Raijin-oh was much more of a cameo in Brave Wars for the PS2. He got into the game when many of the other Braves (Exkaiser, Fighbird) did not. The Votoms cameo in the original game was just for one or two missions. Very brief and disconnected with the story. Raijin-oh's appearance on the other hand has him join the party as a full member (though you don't get to use God Raijin-oh at all, sadly)

The series is more or less accepted as a cousin to Brave, especially now Takara and Tomy have merged.

Its kinda strange that the general rule with Braves is that the bots all have their faces uncovered in there individual forms but then get mouth plates in combined form whereas in Eldoran its the opposite (extra partner pieces not accounted for).

i like calling Daitei-Oh "raijin-oh's twin brother"