Kabaya Fortress Maximus

Candy toys must be double bonus for kids. Besides getting a toy, you also get a candy!

A common practice in Japan, where toys are packaged together with a candy or sweets and sold in the candy section of a grocery store.

Kabaya Foods Corporation (Kabaya Syokuhin) is a Japanese confectionery company. In business at least since the 1960s, they are well known for their candy toys: a variety of figurines, model kits and other widgets that come packaged with a variety of different candies and gums. And they make a lot of them, with boy-oriented products alone ranging from plastic dinosaur kits to a broad variety of Lego properties to Transformers toys and model kits.

Kabaya's relationship with Transformers began in the Generation 1 era, when they consistently produced figures and model kits of various size from 1985 to 1990.
Latest from them is the Fort Max model kit.
Well if you can't afford the original Fortress Maximus, a candy version one might be an answer.

Fortress Maximus comes in 3 parts and are packaged in 3 separate boxes.
The good thing is that they are not blinded boxes and are labelled 1 to 3.
Box 1 you get the main body of Fort Max & Windcharger.
Box 2 comes with his right arm & leg plus Cerebros
Box 3 comes with his left arm & leg. Sword and Powerglide

The packaging is really nice and very colourful.
It is filled with beautiful graphics.
The 3 boxes are differentiated with a different design on the front and one side of the packaging.

Box 1 (Front)

Box 1 (right side) - shows the bonus Windcharger.

Design on the left side of packaging is the same for all 3 boxes

The design on the back of the packaging is also the same.

It shows the 3 transformation modes of Fortress Maximus

Box 2 (Front)

Box 2 (right side) - shows the Fort Max combined.

Box 3 (Front)

Box 3 (right side) - shows the bonus Powerglide.

As this figure is a model kit, you would need instructions to piece the figure together.
The instructions does not come as a separated piece of paper in the box but is printed on the inside of the box. Hence in order to read the instructions you would have to open up and flatten the box.
Unfortunately with that, you have to destroy the packaging.

After all this is a candy toy so it has to come with some sort of candy.

We get a small stick of gum and it is really small. It is about the same size as the WST (Worlds Smallest Transformer) Blaster. (for those who are not familiar with WST...trust me it is small.) 

Kabaya must have known that it is the toys that sell not the candy.

In box 1 you get the main body of Fort Max. The toy is pretty big and solid and will definitely withstand the wear and tear of being a kids toy. There are limited details and color but the work around is to use stickers for details and colours. The stickers stick well and do not come out easily. 

The bonus item is Windcharger. Windcharger is really small, 3/4 of a average WST figure. Due to its size, there are not much details and depends heavily on stickers for its details. A passenger figure to the overall main Fort Max. But I guess a good intention from Kabaya for it.

Box 2 is For Max's right arm, legs and ramp. Like his main body, it is solid with little details and colour.

Interesting part of this item is the ability to rotate the ramp through the small dial. It actually makes no sense but I got a kick out of rotating the ramp!

The bonus item is Cerebros. Again due to its size, the details are limited and need to depend heavily on stickers. Cerebros transforms into the head of Fort Max and the details of Fort Max's face are all stickers. 

Surprisingly, it is actually passable and do not look like stickers.

Box 3 is left arm and leg of Fort Max. Basically the same assessment like Box 1 & 2.

Box 3 does come with his sword. As an individual piece, the sword is attached to the back of the piece...I must say it looks pretty silly.

What makes Box 3 different is the launching ramp for Powerglide.

Inside the blue box there is a small spring allowing you to pull back on the small blue block.

Push the button on the top and Powerglide launches off.

As this is a model kit, you also get to put together the launching ramp. Look out for the small spring and don't lose it!

The bonus item is Powerglide. Again the lack of details mainly because of its size. However I feel that Powerglide is overall a better sculpted figure as compared to Windcharger. 

Seriously, it does not make sense to have all 3 different pieces as 3 different stand alone pieces. They look stupid and serve no purpose. However when you combine them, this is where the magic happens. You get FORTRESS MAXIMUS and boy does he looks good. He is also damn solid.

He does display well with other transformers because he stands around 6".

Fortress Maximus

What's great about this figure is that it can transform as well. Here is Fort Max in city mode.

I like to call this mode the "star destroyer" mode. It does look like a Star Destroyer!

Overall a very solid figure. Nice addition to my transformers collection.

Power of the Force 12" Han Solo & Carbonite Block

One of the best things about toy collecting or any kind of collecting, is that you never know when you may stumble onto something that would add onto your collection.

I stumbled onto this figure when a bunch of my friends and I were "toy window shopping."
I usually won't pick up such figures but that Carbonite Block really caught my eye and the price was very reasonable.

The packaging is pretty simple with a big window to showcase the figures.
The design is similar to the green Power of the Force design commonly seen on the 3.75" cards.
There are twistees but not that much. Enough to secure the figures and not drive you crazy.
You could easily take out the figures without damaging the packaging.
I found it funny that 50% of the back shows Lando Calrissian while Han in Carbonite takes up a little corner...and I thought we were buying a Han Solo figure.

Lando Calrissian?

The sculpting on the Han Solo figures by today's 12" standard is poor.

However for a mass market toy produced in the 1990s, I guess you can't compare.

I do like the vintage feel of the figure. I guess you can spot Harrison Ford in the sculpt if you squint hard enough and tilt you head to the left...  

The "arm cuffs" were a nice touch to the figure.

I did not notice that part of the white shirt has started to brown due to age until I got him home...oh well I can live with that cause Han was not the reason why I bought this.

Han comes along with a blaster that has a red projectile. I am sure it can shoot but at the point of this review, I still can't figure out the firing mechanisim.

The real reason why I got this figure is the Carbonite block.

Some little trivia here...in the freezing process, the gas was pumped into a freezing chamber where it was mixed with molten carbonite into a solid block. The gas was released later at its destination or at the processing center.

Darth Vader ordered the modification of a freezing chamber on Bespin's Cloud City so that he could freeze Luke Skywalker—eliminating any chance of escape—to transport him to the Emperor.
As a test, the process was tried on Han Solo.
I really like the sculpting on this.

There is a good amount of details and at first glance it does look movie accurate.

Unfortuantely, it is not one solid piece but hollow inside.

Hence it is very light and I can't stop feeling that the amount I paid for this actually is for the Han figure.

If only I could have gotten this loose for a cheaper price. 

Nice details on the control panels

I though it was cool to hang the Carbonite Block onto my Toy room's wall.

Maybe a Leia in Boushh disguise would look great with it...