Land Liger

Piloted by Masato Shibiku, the CBF’s ‘youngster at heart’, the Land Liger is a fast attack-type mech.

It has three modes: Twin-barrelled attack tank, Liger and Humanoid Form. it forms one of Dancougar’s feet.

Both Masato and the Liger are, to my mind, the most forgettable of the Dancougar ensemble. This mech is too closely related to Sarah’s Land Cougar to really get the excitement going, and Sara herself is a much more interesting character. However, that doesn’t make the Liger’s toy any less interesting.

Tank Mode: 

The Liger is a fully tracked vehicle mounting a twin barrelled cannon in a turret on its back. It is a bit awkward looking, and as far as conventional armoured warfare goes, its high silhouette and extensively glazed canopy would be considered detrimental. However, it is very mobile, although prone to getting flipped over.

The SoC is a good representation of the Liger. It captures the mech’s main features very well. The first of these is the distinctive twin cannon; the second is the odd “shovel” on the front of the vehicle, formed by the beast mode’s “mane”. It’s just as odd looking in the SoC as in the anime, for better or worse!

The tank also has two semi-flexible guns mounted at the extreme front corners, and the SoC includes them as well. Suitable only for mowing down Muge’s grunts, they are quite delicate, and will not stand up to repeated positioning!

Twin-gun turrets are awesome, and even more so when the barrels are at different elevations! That’s a nice feature of the SoC; the two guns aren’t coupled together, allowing for cool anime-like poses, as seen here!

More twin-gun coolness! Note too the very exposed canopy and the odd “dust buster” nose that forms the mane.

This closeup shows the two bow machine guns to good effect, as well as giving you a sense of their fragility! The Liger’s eyes are only somewhat convincingly hidden…

Liger Mode:

The Liger’s Beast Mode is the most exciting and well-proportioned of all the modes. It really looks like the anime, and has a certain feral ferocity to it. It is very stable, although it only has limited poseabilty!

Now that looks tough! The Liger in Liger mode looks pretty cool, and the mane looks far better here!

With a good leg spread, the Liger is very stable. He’d look cooler with those guns deployed, though!

Humanoid Form:

The Liger’s humanoid form is nothing to write home about. It is the weakest mode of the three, and isn’t all that convincing, especially if you’ve ever played with a Transformers Predacon like Razorclaw or Rampage before. They got good robots out of jungle cats, but the Liger… not so much.

The Liger’s Humanoid Form looks disjoint; the big shoulders are out of keeping with its small arms and almost knobby knees. Also, the robot appears to have a peaked cap on, which makes him look youthful (appropriate, given the pilot’s sensibilities and proclivities). Unfortunately, the robot also looks somewhat stunned. His rifle is nice, and fits in the robot’s hand, but it’s a bit big, and cannot be wielded aggressively or the toy will fall over!

While not the worst toy robot ever, the SoC Liger is definitely better displayed in some other, non-humanoid mode.

Big gun, small arms, weird knees. Someone tell the Liger to stay in tank mode….

From the back, the cannons look kind of like the tails on a tux! That clashes with the peaked-cap head, except in some parts of the world where that’s likely “Sunday Best”!

“I’ll feed him and pet him and call him George”… that’s the voice I hear when I look at this guy’s rather blank visage. I don’t think a mech this vacant looking should have a gun…