Observations & Critique: Not (entirely) Your Siegfried’s Super Parts!
As a Tamashii exclusive item, these Super Parts come in a brown shipper box. Inside, you’ll find a retail ready, full-color box (24.6 x 18.8 x 6 cm). The retail box houses two plastic trays filled with the following:
1) Super Parts
2) A fighter mode adapter (wider than the standard fighter mode adapter that comes with the toys)
3) Black & white instructions printed on matte paper
The adapter makes perfect sense to include. It doesn’t make sense that it was also included in the launch edition stand.
Released in May 2022 for 8,000¥ (add 10% tax since it was only available to the domestic market through the Tamashii website). You may be wondering if these parts would work on a Siegfried toy and the answer is “mostly”. The boosters are significantly larger than the boosters that come with Siegfried super parts and would need to be mounted to the hard points under the wing. The chest armor from the AX works on Siegfried toys but not vice versa because it has grooves in it for the larger AX canards. The leg, crotch, and forearm armors are perfectly interchangeable.
These parts are very similar to the Siegfried Super Parts but better. Even on the parts that look to be the same mold, the paint applications have been enhanced, sometimes significantly. Look at the back of the leg armor which is now littered with painted on details. The chest and even the hip armors also have more paint applications but they’re more subtle. There’s also a very slight shape change to the chest armor, we’ll be talking about more in a bit.
The hip and front of the leg armors look the same to me but the side of the leg armor has a slightly different shape and the forearm armor has shrunk down considerably.
The boosters are the biggest difference. The theme of the AX is “make things bigger” and that carries over here. The boosters are huge and have extra fins and again, better paint apps.
No matter the mode, the parts add significant bulk to the vehicle.
There have been three VF-31AX releases but only one set of Super Parts. The fit of the Super Parts are universal so you can put Hayate’s parts on a different variant. Here are my criteria for well-designed accessories and how the 31AX Super Parts fare:
1) Do the parts attach securely? Many do, but the armor on the side of the legs could be improved. The armor on top of the hip did better than expected. If you’re having issues, give it a bit of a massage to try to seat it firmly.
2) Does the toy retain all its fun gimmicks with the parts attached? Yes, with one exception. The parts do not interfere with the cockpit, landing gear, or mission pack in any mode. If you use the included fighter mode adapter, the display also will function the same. The only item that is impaired are the back of the calf missile bays which become inaccessible when the calf armor is installed.
3) Does the toy retain perfect transformation with the parts on? For this variant, yes, though a 31AX toy with a different head may make it so you have to remove the chest plate between modes to expose or hide the head. Transformation is also MUCH easier if you remove the forearm armors. It’s very likely you will accidentally knock off some of the leg armor during transformation.
4) Does the toy maintain its articulation with the accessory attached? For the most part, yes. There will be a fair amount of weight over the back of the toy. You flare the wings out wider when the big boosters are attached which helps draw the center of gravity closer, but you will still want to pick very secure or front leaning poses to prevent your toy from spilling to the ground. Using a display stand is highly recommended. The back of the calf armor is also a little taller than the back of the calf missile bays which slightly hinders the backward the knee bend but you’ll still be able to get at least 90 degrees.
5) Does the accessory add any of its own fun elements or gimmicks? Yes, these parts have the same chest missiles that we saw on the VF-31 super parts, articulated thruster nozzles on many of the parts, and the big boosters pivot on the wings.
I did not encounter any issues with durability, build, or paint. I worry that the weight of the boosters puts a lot of strain on the wing hinges, particularly in battroid mode. The instructions could have been more clear on how the legs work in fighter mode. I found that they needed to be treated the same as the 31 toys with a very slight angle down at the hip and slight angle up at the knee (to get that straight) in order to place the leg armor slot right where the wing peg is.
Should you buy these? Here are some comparison pictures of the toy armored and naked so you can decide if you like the look. While the parts are mostly secure, they do make the toy a bit more ‘fiddly’ overall so if you’re a tactile person who needs the best feel, these may not be fore you. If you like the look, there’s nothing here that I found so annoying that it would slow me from grabbing a set (if you can stomach the price). As an added bonus, I found the super parts made the fit issues of the 31AX toys less noticeable.