[ Liger Zero | Elephander | Shield Liger | Berserk Fury * | Shadow Fox ]

After several weeks of voting, the Shield Liger won out over the Berserk Fury. Definitely a close vote though... Almost 50/50, so lets take a look at the big nastiness, the Berserk Fury. When I looked for this model I noticed that it was occasionally called the Berserk Fuhrer. I don't know why there are two names for it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there are lots of interesting translation choices when it comes to the Japanese using english for marketing purposes. Maybe it holds true for German too. Either way allows me to use German references through out this page in an effort to supplement my own attempts at humor.

Tabelle 1: Der Kasten

WalMart Expedition
The day that I bought the Shield Liger I became worried that I wouldn't be able to find the models very easily. I decided that it would be a good idea to get the models that I wanted as soon as I saw them. The original reason why I didn't buy up the models I knew I would eventually buy, was because I didn't want to go making them all at once and have no more to make. Worse yet, I would keep buying them and spend money on things I really didn't care to have. I decided I should suck it up and go get the ones I wanted and practice a little self control.

So that night I decided to go out to WalMart and get the Berserk Fury before some 8 year old got it. Bree went with me this time. We got there after midnight and just my luck, the toy section was being completely restructured. You may recall how I found the Elephander in a totally separate aisle from the rest of the Zoid models. That aisle had nothing. I looked in the Aisle with all the zoids, no Fury. So then we walked up and down every aisle... nothing. So then we asked one of the people working there if they knew if this was all of the zoids that they had. Unfortunately they didn't know. I was really confused now. I had seen at least 2 Fury's the other day. They should be around here somewhere. All of the restructuring meant that there were tons of people with shopping carts filled with things that belonged somewhere else. So i get the idea to start searching the carts. Zoid aisle carts, nothing, Barbie aisle carts, nope... Lego aisle... no dice. Random irregular toy aisle (former home of the Berserk Fury), not a thing. I didn't understand and was about ready to give up. Something didn't seem right. I realized much later that what seemed so strange at the time, was there were so many empty shelves and there really weren't that many carts of toys. I was getting discouraged, but Bree pushed me down a few more aisles looking for the models. After wandering once last time through the aisles, we turned the corner to the bike aisle, and found the motherload. A dozen or so carts were in the aisle and were all filled with toys. I was very excited. We found two carts that had Zoids in them. One had an Elephander, and I knew we had to be close. As Bree dug through the next cart she asked 'Is this it?' and thus, I had found my new model. I don't know if I was more excited to have the model or to get the heck out of WalMart. Either way I got both. I totally wish I took pictures.

Tabelle 2: Verstecktes website

Hidden.website.com
One thing I found noteworthy about the box this time was there was a website on the front. It must not be a very good one, because look at how hard it is to read. The top is how it was originally, the bottom is the super high contrast Photoshop version. I would think that they would do a better job of making it visible. To be honest, they do have it written on the back. But easy to see on the back, is equally useless in my mind. I sent to the site, it looks nice enough. If you have a high speed connection, you can download little video clips of a few of the Zoids walking.

Tabelle 3: ziehen Sie sich Fischatem zurück!

The other thing I noticed on the box, No Republic or Imperial logo. This must be because it is from the new series. It has stickers for the Empire. Which is odd. But it also has a sticker that looks like a bee of some sort. Perhaps it is the official Zoid of Bumblebee tuna.

Berserk Parts
I had read online about how some Zoids were a lot simpler to make than others. The Fury has a ton of parts. And they are sorted differently than other models. Each set of parts starts at 1 instead of each part having a unique number. I think the Elephander may be the only one that is close to being as complicated as the Fury so far. I'll just have to wait and see. The first night had me putting the head together 4 times. I guess I had it together right the first time. But the movement for this guy had me pretty confused. It's a little more jerky than I had thought it should be, so I kept rebuilding sections and testing the movement as I went.

Tabelle 5: ein oder zwei

Speaking of movement, this model has two modes for moving. Option 1 is walking, option two is attack mode. But take a look at this. The settings show that option 1 corresponds to two dots, and option 2 is represented by one dot. Must be a german thing, or a tuna thing. Either way, it makes no sense to me. I would think it doesn't matter really which is which. But if you are going to use braille, The easiest think to figure out is which is one and which is two. Actually I don't know for sure that this isn't correct in braille. But if it is, then I'll have to write a page all about how confusing the numeric system in braille is.

Progress

Tabelle 6:Herr Lavender

Lavender
I realize that some colors have different meanings in different countries. I had a friend in high school. He said that he hated snow because white was the color of evil and death. He was an odd duck anyway, but I attribute this particular difference to a cultural thing. I am pretty confident that even Hong Kim would agree that lavender body armor does nothing to make a motorized killing machine more vicious or menacing. Only those that have a fear of PAAS would feel that way. Why it couldn't just be a nice steely gray, I'll never understand.

Tabelle 7: Käse!

Yikes!
So what makes this guy special? Well in the whole scheme of things, the Fury is the counterpart to the Liger Zero. Both have similar 'organoid' systems. These systems allow the Zoid to be a learning living machine. This translates to the Zoids being one of a kind and packed with super neato histories, armor, weapons and pilots. I don't plan to go out and get every zoid that is out there. I am not that bored. I just thought it would be neat to get some of the key players in the series. I now have the two key good guys, and the two key bad guys. There are a few others I might pick up but for now I am done being a collector, unless new options present themselves.

Tabelle 8: Blick heraus dort ist eine Gewehr innen dort

I like this model cause it made me feel like an eight year old a few times. I am pretty handy as far as it comes to putting things together. I had to pay close attention to the directions and their odd methods of listing directions so I could get it all together right. All in all it was a pretty mean looking bugger. Nice contrast to the grinning liger brothers.

Next model, The Shadow Fox!

(German translations done by babelfish)
Nick put the things I translated into German back into Babelfish. Here's what what he got back: