DA-07 Diaclone Cosmo Battles 02
I want to talk about DA-07 Cosmo Battles v2 but to do that I need to quickly talk about DA-01 Diabattles v2, which is formed from three vehicles which can be combined in a variety of different ways and all come together to form one robot. Battles 01 is a one man space pod, with engine to the rear, that forms Diabattles body. Battles 02 is a large winged spaceship, with engines under each wings. This becomes the back of Diabattles with a channel formed between Battles 01 & 02 which allows the engines to slide forward to become the arms. The front of Battles 2 removes to form a one man spaceship. Battles 03 is a tracked vehicle which form the legs of Diabattles with it's cockpit forming a separate two man spaceship that can be combined with the one man ship from Battles 02.I liked Diabattles but it didn't set my world on fire. Plenty of spare bits left in the box, including 6 alternate gun barrels, and an odd feature where the front of each shoulder lifted up to allow you to slide the arms out. I also didn't feel it was worth the money I paid for it and that, together with really not feeling that the following armoured suits were worth it led me not to pursue the line any further.
In September 2016 at a Japanese Toyshow TakaraTomy revealed a new version of Diabattles in white with a new toy in the place of Battles 02 which was DA-06 Dia-Battles v2 Cosmo Maneuver Type. I liked the look of the new toy but didn't want to pay out for 2/3 of an expensive robot that hadn't wowed me again. Fortunately the new toy was released by itself as DA-07 Diaclone Cosmo Battles 02 and in colours matching the original toy. Unfortunately it was a TakaraTomyMall exclusive and proved hard to find prior to release but I eventually secured one from Kapow toys.
Like the existing Battles 02, Cosmo Battles 02 is a winged spaceship with engines under the wings and a removable front cockpit/spacehip, this time for two pilots. The rear of Battles 02 and Cosmo Battles 02's removable cockpit/spaceships are identical meaning that can be swapped between both toys and Cosmo Battles 02 mini spaceship will attach to the one from Battles 03. The connector has been improved and indeed a revised version of Diabattles using it is due shortly. The engines once more slide forward to form the arms when attached and, like the previous Diabattles, feature Depth Charge like flip out hands. However here we have not two but three hand versions. Firstly there's the engine version. The top & bottom of the forearm open up to flip the engine round to form the hand, now with a 4mm socket unlike the 5mm found on Diabattles. However the engine version also has hinges at the top & bottom to allow it to become a claw hand. The 4mm sockets on the fist hands can't hold the swords from the earlier toy but instead have a pair of blocks that can be inserted into them which in turn have holes to mount the spare gun barrels from the previous toy. These blocks also fit into the side of the small 3 man spaceship.
Back to the Cosmo Battles 02 spaceship: The wings here are smaller, but still bend at the base & end as well as turn at the base. The ends of the wings feature the same width slot as found for the shoulders into which two HUGE booster engines are inserted. These boosters rotate at their shoulder joint connector and have two holes at the front which can also take spare gun barrels from the original toy. In robot mode this forms wings on the robot's back with boosters/cannons on the end which can be turned to face forward.
On top of Cosmo Battles 02 are two MASSIVE dual barrelled cannons, also mounted on the shoulder connectors and at the other end of an L shaped slot to the arms/engines. In robot mode these usually sit as shoulder cannons but if you open up the front of the shoulders, the mysterious unused feature mentioned above, the arms can be slid out, the cannons slid down the L shaped slot to take their place which then unfold to become a new pair of arms topped by the front half of the cannon.
We've now got 4 separate pairs of pieces that use the shoulder slot & joint system which massively increases the combination options here. Cosmo Battles 02 also includes an adaptor that allows pieces with the shoulder joint to be mounted on the back of the smaller ship from this set or Battles 02. This piece also allows them to carry the containers the Armoured figures come in.
Love this set. Really enhances the toy I bought a year ago, making sense of some odd decisions there. It gives Diabattles vastly increased firepower and even looks fab by itself. Yes, it wasn't cheap but I think it was worth it.
