Holotech 'Zaber Fang'

I hadn't planned on buying any US Zoids (with the possible exception of the regular Zaber Fang), but the minute I heard of a translucent Saber Tiger, I knew I wanted one. I have a weakness for translucent and/or shiny things. One would think I would have been able to find one of the darn things in a store-it is a US release, after all, and I was looking for it before Christmas, a time when most toy stores tend to get in lots of stuff...but no. No Holo Kitty. One Toys R Us had a regular Zaber Fang...for more than it would cost for me to buy one from amenbo and have it shipped to me. Giving up on the local stores, I got one on eBay.

I already reviewed Saber Tiger, so I'll just focus on the differences between the two, since they're the same Zoid at heart.

I didn't like Hasbro's earlier packaging...the neon green stuff, with the plain photos of the Zoid replacing the cool Japanese dioramas. The newer boxes, like Holo Kitty's, are something of an improvment. They still have photos, but the colors are a lot nicer-looking, and they appeal to my eyes a little bit more overall. I noticed that the silver stuff on the box has very faint Japanese on it-looks like part of a battle story from a Japanese box...and that there were faint outlines of parts of Berserk Führer's instructions in the red background parts, too. No idea why, but it doesn't look bad or anything. It had some technical data on the Zoid, but not in the in-depth way the Japanese boxes do, and there wasn't a Battle Story thing either. The inside packaging was pretty much the same, although one sprue was not in a plastic bag, and there were no pretty shiny Japanese leaflet things. No Hasbro ones, either, which kind of surprised me. The instructions were pretty much like Saber Tiger's, but the booklet was smaller, and it had a picture of the actual Holotech Zaber Fang on it. And it wasn't in Japanese, of course.

On to the coolest part-the translucent pieces. All of the parts that would be brick red on a Saber Tiger are molded in a semi-translucent dandelion yellow color. It's very eye-catching, imo, and it's also kind of shiny. The parts of the leg armor and tail that are painted blue on a regular Zaber Fang still are painted blue, and the rest of the plastic is still the same color it looks like in pictures I've seen in its regular cousin as well. The black plastic felt a bit...I don't know, cheaper? than the Japanese stuff did, but not overly so. The translucent plastic is a little more brittle. It doesn't crack really easily like the translucent parts on some Japanese Zoids...cutting those off the sprues made me nervous, and I was able to cut this stuff without problems. Getting the leftover bits off without leaving a white spot and/or scratches was trickier, and I had to be quite careful not to leave a big yellow mark on the painted parts, but even so, you can see where they were cut off clearly.

Upon finishing, the first thing I did was hold Holo Kitty up to a light...it looks very cool like that, imo. The translucent pieces let you see more clearly (er...no pun intended) how it went together, which I think is neat. I had also bought a CP-02, mainly for the connector that would let me get the leftover Geno Saurer cannons on Saber Tiger. But the CP itself was too neat-looking to let it go to waste...so since the connector was a leftover piece, I put the CP-02 on Holo Kitty. It's obviously meant to match Saber Tiger's colors, but it doesn't clash horribly or anything. Heh, my first American Zoid, and I promptly stick a Japanese CP on it...