Review: Sluban M38-83387 Morking-Hanries Mecha

The Side Story

Hello it's me again Ron bringing you your dose of non-GunPla mecha in the form of brick toys.

One fine day I was walking along The Landmark's brick toys section when this caught my eye:

Well I knew I wanted to get it.  I mean wouldn't you want a mecha named MORKING-HANRIES!?!?!





Besides it reminded me of this mecha (I don't know why):

Photo from: http://www.popscreen.com/p/NDYwNzI2NDg=/-Revoltech-Action-Figure-Kaiyodo-AnimeManga-Action-Figures-

So I took a moment to consider whether I really wanted to get this particular kit.  I've generally liked the Sluban brand as an alternative to Lego but their one robot kit I obtained the Space Flamingo and I was disappointed with the loose parts used for the joints.  The kit was still pretty to look at though.  So I spent more time looking at the box itself.

Wow they actually bother to put a backstory on this one.  And that faux Decepticon symbol drew my attention.  Apparently there's a whole line of these bots but Landmark only had two of them.  Here's the backstory in all it's glory:

So we have ESSAX planet which has all the good bots and LISAMOS planet which has all the bad ones.  Also STAR SOURCE!

Well now this further convinces me to pick up this kit.  Let's see some more!

So the right arm of the bot is known as the Hades Sword!  Pretty powerful stuff!  You don't want to mess with a mecha carrying a Hades sword!   Plus it's rated at 6 stars!

And the detail that convinces me to finally get this kit:  THE FANTASY CANNON!  Whoa!  Who the heck names their WEAPON as a FANTASY CANNON?  When it hits me does it take away all my fantasies?  Does it shot UNICORNS?  Does it blow me away with a bunch of sexy models?  Someone please tell me what a FANTASY CANNON does!   Reading further it's attribute is supposedly BLOCK HOLE!  Whoa again!  BLOCK HOLE? Really?  The FANTASY CANNON will block your holes for you!  PRETTY POWERFUL!

So I popped 250 pesos to get this.

LET'S BUILD THIS!

 Opening the box everything inside was wrapped in one polybag.  Surprising!  Normally they do away with this and loosely pack everything.

After tearing the polybag open out comes MORE POLYBAGS!  4 bags of parts and the instructions to be exact!

Here comes the Bot!

So out come the instructions and the pile of parts.  I apologize for the lighting in my roomit's somewhat dark so I had to turn on some extra lamps.  There were a lot of darkly hued pieces in this one as well as little pieces.

The kit also comes with pieces that I normally do not find in Lego brand kits:

Getting along to building it, the feet was the first components in the instructions and it was composed of several little pieces.  The details were good but my fears regarding Sluban bots were already being proven true as the way the feet were constructed did not offer ample support.

Here's the complete set of legs.  This still doesn't fill me with confidence as a load bearing structure. Also the feet itself ends in an up sloping brick that makes me envision this bot won't be able to take a heavy back assembly.

Lets hear it for the bot

I won't bother with the other components and go straight to the full bot.  Much of the building process was complicated by the number of small bricks being used.  Sluban is one of the more decent China manufacturer in terms of mimicking Lego quality but their smaller bricks don't snap together as easily as Lego or even top ranked Star Diamond.

Here's Morking-Hanries in all it's glory!  Well almost!  As I was finishing up on the Hades sword I couldn't find the 8x1 plate that would serve as the swords base.  So I ended up jury rigging it's right arm leaving it with a stubby right arm.

In the proper light Morking-Hanries does look imposing!

Full frontal!

That improvised right arm really looks stubby! ugh!

Morking-Hanries ikimasu!

FANTASY CANNON deployed!

Watch out it's FANTASY CANNON will block your hole!

back view!

Will the real Morking-Hanries please stand up!

I took the pictures above with the thought that I was missing an 8 peg plate.  While cleaning up I found the missing piece and redid it's right arm which carries the Hades Sword.

Now my sword is in its proper length!

Fear my HADES SWORD!  Get ready to get the BLOCK HOLE treatment!

Leg details!

I am still wondering why they decided to use an upslope for the back part of the foot.  It just doesn't provide a stable platform for standing or any other pose.  It doesn't even do a good job of bearing weight and makes the model prone to falling on it's back.

Showing its better side!

I've fallen and I can't get up!

Just like with the Space Flamingo this kit was nice to look at when it was done.  My problem again with Sluban is they do not do a good job of the actual construction as most of the limbs are done without much thought to supporting loads.  As the last picture shows Morking-Hanries can barely stand on its own.

The snap fit of the small bricks left a lot to be desired.  And the finished model isn't exactly a good example of how to go about load bearing brick components.  But it does look good in the end and it is a robot.

So for the price point it wasn't too bad of a purchase.   Sluban does have it's work cut out for it in the realm of brick toy mecha.

For other brick toy mecha review you can hit up my other blog here:

Star Diamond Blocks Deformation Soldier

Ausini Guarder Robot

Until the next brick story!