Brox (Robostrux Zatton)

To fans of the new era, Robostrux are obscure to begin with. I admit I even have trouble keeping some of their names straight, especially with strange phantoms like Fangz...but that's a story for another day, like Thunder Tritops (which is very fun to say, and really the only reason I brought up Fangz, even if Thunder Tritops is Technozoids. Hah, I got to say it again). Zatton isn't the best-known of Zoids either, unless you're familiar with the UK comic. There you'll know him as Zunder, with his buddy Zaton (spelled with one T) being Geruder, not Zatton. Confused yet? Good, so am I. On to Brox itself.

The Robostrux line is known for odd colors, one set of which is oft-maligned as clashy. I love it, now that I've seen it...it's like nothing else out there. Brox is dark olive-foresty green, a sort of pale, greyish brown (think Minty Kitty, faded), and a deep coral sort of red that manages to not look pink. The cockpit glass is green (with an olive tint, not the brilliant green of new releases) and caps a tan sort of yellow. Larger models have extra chrome weapons, but Brox is a windup, so no shiny here other than the pilot. This scheme is almost a dead ringer for a washed-out version of our living room rug. You could almost call it camouflage, other than it'd be a poor place for Brox to hide because of the way we find everything we lose on that rug: CRUNCH.

Since my Brox came prebuilt in a very lucky find of a lot, I got to take it apart and rebuild it just like I had to build my first Zatton: sans instructions. Sans pictures, even. Zatton I had to finally relent and get a photo to figure out the pop-out gun. This time around I managed without, and it was great fun.

I've seen Zatton's construction compared to Helcat in concept, and it is a little similar, with the underparts covered by side pieces bringing a body together. Zatton's even cleverer, I think, though that just might be the challenge of no instructions. Just figuring out which way the motor and tail went on took a bit of fiddling, and from there it was a case of if the gun has to go here, then this has to go here...and whoops, that side bit's getting away. While you're holding the bar that moves the legs in place and lining up two pegs to put the side piece on, you also have to manage getting its neck in place and not letting the pop-out gun escape off its mount. It's not really frustrating so much as interesting, and it left me pleased at how clever the little guy is all over again.

From there it's just sticking on caps, legs, back guns and head, but that's okay. Once they're on, Zatton (who I should be calling Brox. Sorry Brox!) stands there, regarding you with an expression that could strike as curious, contemplative (as suiting Zunder), or just plain cute. Give it a wider release, and I bet it'd become a favorite among fans of cute Zoids like Pteras.

My Brox's motor is a bit worn (though it's better off than my Zatton, which can barely manage a stagger), but he still skip-shuffles along for a bit before sticking. It suits his his bouncy (for a philosophical sauropod) look, I think, and I bet with a newer motor he'd scoot along quite nicely like Helcat and Iguan do.

Conclusion? If you like small windups, you'll almost certainly dig this guy. Like sauropods or cute Zoids? Same thing. Either hunt down an old built one on eBay or get the Zenebas Memorial Box, which includes the first five windups. Brox is another story (I think mine's the third I've seen, though I haven't kept track of Robostrux as long), but unless you really really dig the colors, getting anything of that mold should do just fine.

Written February 9th?, 2006