YMMV / Busou Shinki

• Awesome Music: The series has a number of memorable songs to draw from.
  • Battle Rondo gives us Into A Shining World, one of the first and original Shinki theme songs.
  • Also from Battle Rondo is I Will Follow You, a song that expresses just how much love and loyalty Shinki can feel for their masters.
  • Battle Masters MKII (and the second intro for the Moon Angel OVA) bring us Koko no Catharsis, a brisk track that fits seamlessly into the action.
  • The Hardest, one of the Battle Masters MKII battle themes, is pretty intense and ramps up the dramatic feel by injecting some chanting.
  • Moon Angel's first intro theme, Labyrinth, is quite a dramatic one. You could really hear some of Heavy Metal LGaim in it, which is not a coincidence as the singer for the song (MIQ, but she went by MIO then) also sang the legendary Time For L-GAIM
  • The TV series has Install X Dream, which was practically tailor-made for the simple slice-of-life mood of the show. There are also several "solo" versions, like Hina the Strarf MKII's version.
• Fan Nickname: "Babypuncher" for Juvisy, due to how powerful she could become in Battle Rondo if she's given the right parts.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With Transformers. One of the biggest English-language Shinki appreciation threads on the Internet is based on the TFW2005 forums and clocks in at over 890 pages, and it eventually budded off into a dedicated Shinki message board, Busou Shinki World.
  • Shinki fans naturally accept the AZONE 1/12 Picco Neemo doll crowd, in part because they, too, spend a lot on cute doll clothes to dress up their Shinki. The line between Action Figures and Dolls is a narrow one.
  • With the rise of 'spiritual successor' lines like Frame Arms Girls and Megami Device, Shinki fans get along well with them too, because mecha musume fans tend to have a lot of overlap in interests. Of course, this includes fans of KanColle and Touhou Project.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • On /toy/ and the 2ch shinki imageboards, there's a series of amusing image macros making use of Arnval MKII Tempesta and her 'shouting' face.
  • Planelegs, the Memetic Psychopath Abusive Master, is much-reviled on /toy/ for the way he depicts himself as a cruel and abusive Master who mistreats his shinki. It gets to the point where some of the Shinki Thread regulars would warn people "not to be a Planelegs", and he has actually gotten himself banned from My Figure Collections, a toy picture gallery website.
• Moe:
  • ALL of them, but there are a few notable examples, like Partio, Pomock, Renge, Gabrine, and Zielbellen.
  • BLADE designed kemono shinki tend towards the adorable side of shinki design with large expressive eyes.
• O.C. Stand-in: The toys don't have much personality beyond the exchangeable facial expressions that come with them, their boxart profiles, and their personalities in the games, yet quite a few have been given clear recurring personalities in fanworks. Some examples:
  • Strarf shinkis are commonly Proud Warrior Race Guy types, often to more extremes than even Hina was in the anime.
    • Conversely, many portray their Strarf MKII Ravina as having at least a slight bent of meido in their behavior.
  • Maochao is often portrayed with catlike traits, and Howling with dog traits.
  • Pomock is often a ditz, or at least weird and irrationally exuberant.
  • Partio is often portrayed as a bit of a shy moeblob, as is Zielbellen. Ziel's sister Oorbellen is often either a protective big-sister type or a slightly naggy close assistant to her Master.
  • Tigris is often a a party animal.
  • Valona is commonly depicted exactly as you'd expect for a succubus type shinki.
    • Conversely, she is also portrayed as being a shy, cute type, as a result of her voice in Battle Rondo, which has the added appeal of making her personality clash with her nature.
  • Gabrine is depicted either as Hot-Blooded, or as fiercely loyal.
  • Maryceles often has her Cute and Psycho nature exaggerated, making her cutesy and bloodthirsty as her whims and fancies take her. It is not uncommon to see her being portrayed as either a domineering type that henpecks her master or as a yandere.
• Tearjerker - A number of these pop up in the anime and the Moon Angel OVA.
  • Episode 12: The girls share a tearful reunion with Hina after Ann's seemingly-failed attempt to flash-restore her memories succeeds and she defeats the other Strarf that threatened her 'sister'. They have another tearful reunion with their Master at the end of the episode.
  • Moon Angel OVA: The Arnval-type Kaguya chooses to rescue her sister Strarf, despite all the violence that had been done to her earlier in the episode. The first thing Strarf sees after regaining conciousness was her own sister basically forgiving her for all the mean things she'd done earlier.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks! - Some Shinki fans of the toyline were somewhat dissatisfied when the "3rd Generation" MMS bodytype Shinki proved to have some differences in connector/parts sizes that made it difficult to interchange parts with "1st-generation" MMS bodies. While there are adapators and spacers available for the chestplates, a number of fans dislike that the adaptors made the resulting combination less visually pleasing.
• What Could Have Been: With Konami discontinuing the line, there was a quartet of Shinkis that were in production that never made it to release.
  • Type Racer Estoril and Type Cruiser Jill Rivers, a wave of Shinkis where the armor could be configured into a rideable motorcycle.
  • Flamberge and Corseca, a wave of Shinkis that appeared to be based on their respective weapons.

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