Ginou
- Ginou is an Autobot Trainbot from the Generation 1 continuity family (via Masterpiece).
Ginou (ギンオウ Gin'ō), development code Silver (シルバー Shirubā), is a prototype Trainbot, able to form G Liner with his set of teammates or replace Shouki as the upper torso of Raiden.
Fiction
Train Wars
Silver was one of the prototype Trainbots created by Doctor Fujiyama before he would go on to create the finalized six. After three of the finalized Trainbots were activated, Nightbird managed to break out (thanks to the rogue AI, Shadow) and upgrade herself with the technology at Fujiyama's facility. Called into action, the active Trainbots met with Nightbird before she could run away with the three remaining unactivated Trainbots. The prototypes combined to form G Liner, but the combiner was taken over by Shadow's cerebro-shell program. The three remaining Trainbots did a last-ditch effort to literally crash into the combiner, breaking him free of the brainwashing. The Train Wars: The Origin
Toys
Masterpiece G Series
- Trainbot Ginou (2024)
- ID number: MPG-07
- Release date: 2024 September 28
- Accessories: Weapon, shield, maintenance box, seat x 2, joint part, rail A, rail B, sticker sheet
- Known designers: Kōjin Ōno (TakaraTomy), Dai Ono (Tomytec), Yuki Ohshima (concept artist)
- Ginou is the seventh release in the Masterpiece G Series. Produced in collaboration with TOMIX, the train department of TakaraTomy's scale model oriented subsidiary Tomytec, the figure converts into a fully HO scale compatible incarnation of the 0-series diagnostic 922 type train also known as "Doctor Yellow". Ginou is a redeco and retool of Masterpiece G Series Shouki, featuring a newly sculpted, Diaclone-toy inspired head. Ginou can also transform into a third mode that can replace Shouki as the torso of Raiden. In conjunction with Yamabuki replacing Yukikaze, Ginou can form "Raiden Special Formation Shiden" (ライデン特別編成シデン) with the remaining Trainbots.
- Like Shouki, Ginou includes seat parts scaled to fit two figures in the front cabin, both Masterpiece human figures or pilots from the 2016 Diaclone toyline via a pair of flip-down "booster seats". The figure includes a newly sculpted shield/chest plate based on early catalog artwork for the Diaclone version of Raiden, as well as a new "maintenance box" which can transform into an abdomen filler for Raiden, be held by Ginou in robot mode, or stored on the side of their train mode. Ginou includes the same handheld rifle as Shouki which can still be stored on the train mode's undercarriage.
- Lastly, the figure includes two modular railway sections which can combine with segments included with the other Trainbots à la the team's original Diaclone plastic tracks. This track can be converted into a base for a stand armature (sold separately), and an adapter is included for display as either a "flying train" or a floating Raiden torso for when Shouki is hogging combiner duties.
Notes
- The etymology of Ginou's name isn't fully clear, but it may mean "silver king" (銀王) or "silver yellow" (銀黄).
- Ginou is a repurpose of the silver "Tōkaidō Shinkansen, Metallic Type" deco of the Diaclone mold whose original coloration would later become Shouki. Their name comes from the "Silverliner" (シルバーライナー) designation of the Diaclone No. 7 Train Robo.
- The colours of Ginou's toy in the Masterpiece G Series owe their origins to the MP-G Trainbots adhering as closely to real-world trains as possible. As the "Doctor Yellow" deco for "Yellowliner" does not exist on the model of train used for her original mold-mate Yukikaze (Doctor Yellow trains of the 200 series, like Yukikaze, use a green stripe), nor does a metallic-plated version of the 0 series exist (the color scheme of Shouki's Diaclone variant, Silverliner, as well as Ginou's in-fiction colours), it was decided to redeco Shouki in Yellowliner's colors instead, making the toy accurate to an actual, existing train. (A fortunate coincidence is that the metallic parts of the original Silverliner toy are molded in yellow and then painted silver.)
- Ginou's chestplate for the combined mode is pulled not from Raiden's Diaclone moldmate (later characterized in Transformers as G Liner) but rather from Raiden's markedly different preproduction character model as seen in Diaclone catalog artwork.
