Toku Toy Box: Power Rangers Lightning Collection Dino Charge Gold Ranger Gallery

"I have a score to settle!"

The Red Ranger has spent the last 10 years searching for his missing father. Suspecting that the villain Fury is the key to the disappearance of James Navarro, Tyler won't give up until his father's fate is known. And thanks to the Gold Energem the secret hidden deep within Fury, is out! Fury has held his host prisoner for hundreds of years, but now nothing can contain this 800 year old warrior! The truth about James Navarro is still a mystery, but a piece of history has been found. Ivan, the Knight of Zandar awakens from his ancient slumber as the Dino Charge Gold Ranger! And he owes Fury, about 8 centuries of payback.

Packaging
As we are all pretty familiar with the line by now, I'm sure I probably don't need to go through my usual list of reasons why it's awesome. Hasbro was keen to make sure these appealed to collectors and fans of the franchise from throughout it's various eras. And they also really pop thanks in no small part to some wonderful box art, lovingly crafted by artist Tom Whalen aka @strongstufftom on twitter. His artwork is breathtaking, and makes these figure's feel like just a bit more of a passion project from the folks at Hasbro.

Main Figure
Divisive is probably a good word to describe this figure. Or just the suit it's based on in general. When Dino Charge was airing, Saban Brands created a new Gold Ranger suit for all of the American made footage in the series, one that really came off as more beige in most scenes rather than gold. The toys Bandai America produced at the time for the character were occasionally gold, but often more of a muted color. Of course in the source Kyoryuger footage the suit is more of a shiny metallic gold, as it's meant to be. Adding to the zany situation, this Lightning Collection figure is yet another color. It's certainly gold, but more of a yellow gold, definitely not the kind of metallic sheen it should be to be in line with the source footage, nor is it muted enough to be in line with the American footage. However the LC's body color does match both suit's boots at least.

So there are plenty of folks frustrated that the figure looks like this, and I can completely understand. With that in mind I've included some side by side shots for quick comparisons of the various color palettes this suit has been through in the gallery below. There's a direct comparison with the Kyoryu Gold S.H. Figuart, but I've also thrown together a side by side shot of a few other things to help illustrate the point (see image 28). I try to be a bit less critical with this line and some of it's issues, and in all honesty I'm not as bothered by the the color of the figure as some, but it's certainly disappointing that it looks like this. This is an imperfect release overall, but the colors aren't necessarily my biggest concern with it either.

Much like Dino Charge Red, I find that Gold has frustratingly tight ankle ratchets. You have to apply a fair bit of force to get them to move. They also seem to be off center. The ratchet is about a half rotation off in either direction so getting Gold into a static standing straight pose can be difficult. As you can see in my profile shot of the figure he leans forward quite a bit because of the ankle issues. That said they are nice and tight so they won't loosen with use any time soon. Gold has the same boot cuff style swivel below the knee though it's much less obvious because of the largely uniform color. The knees feature a double bend and although I know some collectors aren't fond of the sort of square shaped knee pad that's left from bending the leg, it's really the most sensible design for functionality. The standard hinged hips are present as well and they strike a nice balance of firm & flexible and are helped along in posing by the thigh swivel. Around his waste, Ivan bears the Dino Charge Dino Com buckle. It isn't fully painted but the details present are painted well enough to communicate what it is.

As with most any Lightning figure, DC Gold's ab crunch is the best part of the upper body, really giving him some dynamic range. The floating ball jointed upper body is always welcome too. The difference here is that unlike many rangers in the line who have either so far had a lot of chest armor over this section, or a less intricate design on the chest, Dino Charge Gold has that elaborate sash design. And not only is it painted but also sculpted into the torso coming down from the upper body and back across the lower torso as well. Undoubtedly much of the cost for sculpting and paint apps went into this area of the figure, which like DC Red perhaps explains some of the other missing details on it.

DC Gold does make one addition to the mold, his small golden wings. They're of the same yellowish gold as the rest of the figure, but made of a much softer plastic. You would think they'd be able to angle a bit more away from the body but because of how the figure is packaged with them sandwiched under the torso, they curve inward. They don't impeded the torso movement a lot, but they can be a little bit of a bother. The arms are a direct carry over from DC red. Featuring the butterfly shoulder joint, those fantastically sculpted dion scales, the bicep swivel, double jointed elbow, and pretty free moving wrists. Gold makes one addition here with the Gold Ptera Morpher on the left arm. Clearly not detailed as thoroughly as it should be, and molded in a perpetually open position, it at least rotates around the forearm quite easily. You can remove it to give to other figure if you'd like, but to put it on you have to slide it over the wrist before pegging a hand into the joint, which can be difficult if also quite pointless. This figure comes with a karate chop style left hand that serves absolutely no purpose when he should be basically always wearing the Morpher.

That brings us to the Gold Ranger's helmet which like Red, is another very sharp sculpt. While some Lightning Collection figures feel a bit soft, particularly around the visor, Gold has some well defined details and layers.Unlike the Red Ranger, Gold does have that additional shoulder armor and collar around the neck, so you will lose a little bit of neck movement, but I didn't find it to be too much of a detriment. Speaking of the neck, Hasbro missed a daily obvious detail. The neck should be painted white, that gold there is very distracting and incorrecct. Also this gallery features cameos from the Kyoryuger S.H. Figuarts in a few group shots as well as several of the Gold Ranger with the S.H. Figuarts Kentrospiker accessory. AKA the Dino Spike.

Accessories
Like Dino Charge Red, Gold comes with just about everything you need barring a couple oddities:

1 - Lightning Effect Part. This effect part is patterned quite similarly to DC Red's though it's substantially longer. In theory it should slide over the sword, but because of how much thicker this weapon is in Gold's case, it does fit around the blade nearly as easily.

2 - additional hands. This gives you an optional closed right fist, which makes sense. But then also the totally nonsensical karate chop left hand. As I mentioned above this hand makes no sense at all given the Ptera Morpher on the wrist. I would have definitely preferred another right hand option instead.

1 - Gold Ptera Saber. Molded after the Zandar Thunder from Kyoryuger, the Ptera Saber is a pretty hefty weapon for the Gold Ranger. Modestly detailed, the sword's mouth can be opened and there are 3 empty slots inside for Dino Chargers. Dino Chargers which do no exist in this line. So there's that. My Ptera Saber was molded improperly so I had to dunk it into some boiling water to reshape it a bit a few times. As you can see there are still some shots in this gallery where the mouth of the sword isn't fully closed as it should be because how weirdly molded the charger indentations were.

1 - Sir Ivan civilian head. Like most any Lightning Collection Ranger, Dino Charge Gold also comes with his alternate civilian head. Based on the likeness of Ivan's actor Davi Santos, this sculpt at least gets the more neutral expression I tend to like. But the likeness is pretty bad honestly. As I've experienced with the rest of Wave 3 so far, I find this head to be frustratingly difficult to plug onto the neck as well, a problem I also had with Wave 1's Dino Charge Red. The payoff of having the two rangers together, helmets in hand, next to one another is nice. Can you imagine Hasbro actually giving us the entire Dino Charge line up of rangers all with civilian heads as well? Now that would be something. I just hope they get the likenesses better somewhere along the way.

Final Thoughts
As with Dino Charge Red, there's a lot to like here. But that's primarily because of the mold. The execution of Dino Charge Gold leaves much to be desired. From the color and paint app inconsistencies to the odd issue with the ankles and sword, this release feels very much like a mixed bag. In a crowd of Dino Rangers or 6th rangers, those issues won't matter much though. I paid fill price for this fella and I can't quite say it was worth that. But given that he was just $13 on Amazon at one point a couple weeks ago, I think it could be a great if flawed addition to anyone's collection at that price. The Power Rangers Lightning Collection has been a fantastic line, but as with anything in it's infancy, there are growing pains it's still trying to move beyond. I'm still here for it every step of the way.

Part 2

This is definitely one of those cases of not-terribly-accurate-but-screw-it-it-looks-good that Hasbro's proven adept at over in Transformers. And naturally it's still accurate enough that unless you're a huge stickler for colour gradients, it still looks like the guy.

... wait, the saber opens?! That's awesome!! It doesn't come with gimmick items to completely replicate the function, sure; but they'd be so small they'd be easy to lose track of and it looks fun enough anyway. Legitimately didn't know this!

Yeah right off the bat the SHF is a better presentation using a metallic gold plastic, white neck, lower collar, and painted hands.
With other figures you can make a debate on which you prefer but this reminds you that the LC line is a much cheaper figure.

In terms of accuracy though the color of the LC figure is closer to the show. DC Gold(moreso the american suit) is not that shiney metallic gold in the SHF.He was closer to being the Yellow ranger really.


I painted my neck and hands.

Part of me is surprised considering the Shadow Saber they made can't snap its crossguard shut, but another part me says we should expect such things since they made the Power Axe able to transform.

I just hope that in the future when we finally get a figure of my guy Prince Philip, they'll have the better suit accuracy that DC Red did.

With the Shadow Saber, there's too many parts in such a small space. With this sword you have two big parts with an area you can get away with for rotation.

The power axe that was a surprise. I was hoping they get the golden power staff going(I just got stuck on opening the crown, the blade sliding mechanism wasn't a problem).

This is the first one that's really felt like a true miss to me. The plastic gold color really reminds me of what Bandai was doing that earned so much ire. And the missing paint apps are particularly noticeable; something like the hands I'd probably be able to overlook, but the missing white neck is just too obvious.

I feel like the inaccuracy here is really down to gold being Very Shiny. Grey is... grey, so Philip should be fine.

DC Gold could have been held back and another figure taking it's place. Would have been prime for maybe a Psycho or LG figure.
Funny enough I don't think i've seen any QC issues with DC Gold. I'm sure they exist but not like Drakkons visor for instance.

Oh dear, gold meaning yellow may be concerning for future releases