Ninninger DX Paonmaru & Shurikenjin Paon Gallery

Paon! Paon! Paon! Wasshoi!

The incredible melting pot of the Shuriken Sentai Ninninger toyline continues with the addition of the first Otomonin upgrade mecha! The DX Paonmaru! Born from the first of the restored Sealing Shurikens, Paonmaru joins the Ninningers in their fight against the Youkai! But we're here to talk the toy of this interesting mecha, so read on below!

Packaging
DX Paonmaru comes in a pretty standard small cardboard box, and by the looks of it so will the rest of the Otomonin. It's pretty basic stuff for sentai lines honestly. Once one additional mecha comes out they almost all follow the same formula for packaging with each successive release. Some basic stock photography of the figure as well as shots of it's combined forms to round it all out.

Main Figure
A bit of an odd one, DX Paonmaru has an interesting transformation method to say the least. The standard form of this figure is indeed it's elephant form. To create it you need to take the the two axe weapons and plug them on to the back of tiny half robot. It's legs in turn fold out and forward. The Shuriken itself with the disc attached then plugs onto what will be the chest of the robot mode later. Then simply plug the elephant face and trunk on. Thus completing the look! It's actually a pretty intricate little figure in this mode, despite a general lack of much in the way of paint apps. Though nicely enough the head, front knees, & trunk are all painted very well. In the same way that Shinobimaru has a greatly detailed chest, so does Paonmaru. It's about on par sizewise with one of the only other elephants we got in sentai, Hyakuju Sentai Gaoranger's Gao Elephant. I don't actually own a Geki Elephant to compare it with. Though you can't get much pose wise from this form it's pretty fun.

The basic robot mode for Paonmaru can be achieved by reassembling the given components. Separate everything back down to it's base and start from scratch with the small humanoid robot. Straighten the legs out properly and then fold the head up out of the back of it's chest. Take the face/trunk portion of the elephant and plug it onto the Paonmaru robot's chest which gives you the basic robot. The Elephant head actually completes the arms of the robot weirdly enough. The base robot only has elbow length arms but some tiny fists are sculpted into the head section to complete them. Then take the Axe/hind legs and attach them to the shoulders to add two giant missile launchers. The actual Shuriken and disc aren't used for this mode at all. But that gives you Paonmaru in robot mode, comparable size wise to Shinobimaru though quite a bit bulkier. He fits right in.

Accessories
It's hard to classify accessories with something like this as it's harder to distinguish between those items which are included with the figure optionally, or those things that are integral to it's basic structure.

Nin Shuriken Base & Disc. This electronic item is what forms the head and face of Shurikenjin Paon. It's normally stored on Paonmaru's animal form plugged onto the neck as a mane-like appendage. I find it slightly odd that so far bot Paonmaru can store these items in at least one form, but Shinobimaru has no such storage options for the Shurikenjin Nin Shuriken when not in use. A pair of triggers on this piece detect when it's combined to form Shurikenjin Paon and plays out the appropriate phrase & music when done. When not connected pressing the physical button on top will cycle through three sound bytes "Paonger" "Paonmaru" & "Otomonin Shuriken".

Shurikenjin Paon
To get Shurikenjin ready for this combination you need to remove and rearrange a few things. Start by removing the standard Shurikenjin Shuriken and leaving that to the side, it won't be used. Remove Shinobimaru from the throne all together, and then remove the right arm made from Dumpmaru. People often question why a third shoulder peg exists on the back of the figure and it's for this, to store the arm you just removed! So plug the Dumpmaru arm there and transform Shinobimaru into the new right arm and plug him on. Now take the basic Paonmaru robot minus the shoulder cannons and fold his legs up to seat him in the throne. It should be noted that seating his hand over the control mechanisms on the throne is a little bit difficult. But once you do it looks pretty great.

Then simply plug the Paon Shuriken onto the the neck of Shurikenjin. As a side not the new faceplate is pretty awesome looking compared to the standard Shurikenjin face, mine though appears to be molded on a little bit crookedly. Now take the Paon Axes and flip out some small handles on the bottom of each. Plug them into the combined robot's hands and there you have it, Shurikenjin Paon is formed! Sadly the axes are rather small and inaccurate but that's to be expected. These things tend to make some small compromises in toy form. Whether it's intentional or not you can plug the axes onto Shurikenjin's back for storage.

This form manages to incorporate most everything from the standard Shurikenjin mode aside from the Shuriken, Drago Sword & Shield. But you'll see that you can still store or use the Drago Shield & Sword if you so choose. Either way Shurikenjin Paon is a pretty welcome sight. The green & gold Paonmaru brings to the table really helps break up the otherwise uniform color scheme of Shurikenjin and mixes it up a bit. It's a pretty great look actually. And because of the dynamic hips Shurikenjin has you can get some decent poses out this form.

Final Thoughts
As this line continues I continue to be very pleased. The Otomonin series of additional mecha is shaping up to be a pretty damn fun one. While it's likely these many upgrades won't be incorporated into any sort of final combination robo, they each seem to have a unique charm that I love. DX Paonmaru is a great addition to this line that once again gives it a pretty great variety of design. After 2 years of being pretty unimpressed by the mecha lines of sentai (Kyoryuger, ToQger) I'm happy to report that Shuriken Sentai Ninninger continues to be a winner in my book.

We'll be back next time with a review of DX UFOmaru!

And more shots!

so Elehung from Gekiranger doesn't count?


Also, gallery is incomplete without a giant ball of dung for Paonmaru to roll into battle. :P

I was on the fence about Paonmaru before, but after seeing this gallery I've decided that I need to get this toy. It looks really cool.

The Gekiranger toys were so bad I just forgot they existed

I'm liking all the mecha so far with Nin, looking forward to the others.

May I ask if the arm of Dumpmaru can use the Paon's Axe, which mean it can replace Shinobimaru as the left arm? I think it'll look better.

The pegs for the axes and the fist holes are universal so yes you could do that. But that isn't accurate to the transformation so I didn't bother with a picture of that.

Tempting...

Dammit, don't want to buy Sentai again! ToQGer was bad enough! This is so nutty that resistance is mocked!

Man these toys look so tempting, but the show just isn't making me want them. But still these toys look pretty fun and the sounds are what really make me want to get these.