Haro! Haro!

The awesome mascot of Gundam is finally mine! I pre-ordered it back when I found out on Dannychoo.com that Bandai is releasing it again in April ^_^. I was so happy when I got the cute little orange ball… until it caused me sleepless nights.

Out of the package, you can see Haro comes with detachable legs and a base while his arms can just slide back in. The lower quarter behind Haro is where his battery compartment is and I’m guessing the screw there is to deter people from wanting to remove its batteries xD. If you don’t like the legs, you also have the option of putting it on its base which it rock around on. There’s also a peg stick included to press the reset button (kinda pointless).

For the first couple of weeks, I didn’t know how to set Haro up so playability was severely limited. All I could get it to do was scream stuff at me but I didn’t know what it wanted. The bad part was that I didn’t know how to set up the time in Haro too but I figured out that “daytime” for Haro is night for me. Crap! This means… when I’m sleeping, Haro would go “IKETERU!” or “HARO! HARO!” every oh so often when I’m trying to catch some snooze. It was terrible because it was also very loud and my dad threatened to throw it away since it was also waking up the whole family. The best I did at that time was shoved it in my closet. Haro can talk… oh man, this orange thing talks… while flapping its ears too! though it will have its moments where it’s quiet but it’s very random. The audio isn’t very clear though so unless you have a very good understanding of Japanese, it might take a little effort to make out what the ball is spewing out.

I finally brought the annoying thing to work to have my manager (who majored in Japanese) take a look at it. She helped set up its internal clock correctly. Pressing the square button on top of Haro and it will say the time. No more waking up the family at night! ^o^ Now I can get on playing around with Haro for real…

Although it might not look like it, Haro is actually a pretty impressive novelty toy ball xD. Most of what Haro can actually do is pretty obscure, even according to the manual because the whole thing lacks explanation but guess it’s more fun that way. Haro seems to have sensors that you can get it to react by either talking to,touching, shaking, tilting, rolling, and whatever you can do to it. Sometimes. It’s very confusing if you’re trying to get a reaction out of him. His phrases can become repetitive sometimes but can also be surprisingly new like whenever it gets into Gundam mode and starts shooting GN particles. I think the surrounding environment also has an effect on Haro as it seems to be VERY active at my workplace (which is a bit noisy) but more on the quiet side at home.

Get this… Haro actually have moods. If he talks to you and you talk back, he’ll be happy and say many exciting phrases like “IKETERU!” or “IKANJI” (it “feels good”? o_0) but if you ignore him for awhile and it’ll become an angry little orange ball and shouts stuff that sounds like he is cussing at you and if you pick it up, it’ll say “SASERU KA?!”. You can tell this little orange is mean or happy. It’s just that awesome.

Haro has a few different modes; Gundam, Growth, Random and two others (I think) that I don’t quite understand (because my manager didn’t understand it ^_^;). Gundam mode is just that; Haro will have the Gundam take off, make battle sound effects, cry out for Lockon/Setsuna, and radiate GN particles. Growth is Haro’s default mode that allows it to interact with you and learn how to live in harmony with humans and as time goes on, learn new phrases. Random is also confusing.

The worst thing about Haro is that it consume its batteries pretty quick. I have to change it every other week if I play with it every day or let it yap the whole time. Changing batteries will also reset the clock (I THINK) so I will put it to sleep whenever I leave the house then turn it back on when I come back.

SET UP INSTRUCTIONS

Okay… if you got a Haro and it is waking you up every 10 minutes when you’re sleeping then it is likely that Haro’s clock is set somewhere during the day when it is night time for you ^_^

Here’s how to set up the irritating orange ball:

CLOCK

1. Press C and Haro will say “Jikan wa?”, meaning “The time is?”

2. Press A for AM (“gozen”) or B for PM (“gogo”). Press C to accept then Haro will proceed to ask again to set hour.

3. Keep pressing A until you get to the right hour… I hope you know at least a few numbers in Japanese so you know where you’re at ^_^;. Press C to accept and Haro will ask for minutes (“Fuun wa?”)

4. Press A for tens of minutes (1x, 2x, 3x, etc) and B for the single (1, 2, etc). Example: A x 2 and B x 2 will put you at 22 minutes. Press C to accept.

ALARM

It’s the exact same procedure as above except you press A instead of C first. Think “A” for Alarm! Sadly, I haven’t tested this out yet because I have two other alarm clocks (cellphone and a real alarm). It went off by accident once when I didn’t know how to set it up and I think it’s just Haro shouting continuously until you get it to stop. I’ve loved for it to play “DAYBREAK’S BELL” though since that would be SO FITTING for an alarm tune XD

MODES

Growth Mode- Hold A and Reset button together. This is Haro’s default mode where it will “learn” as time goes by and it can learn to say more things and learn to love the human world… or despise it. All depends on the owner xD

Random Mode- Hold square button on top of the head and reset button together. This mode is exactly what it means. Haro will go random. I think this mode also allows Haro to enter Gundam mode and “Girl”(?) mode.

Sleep- Hold square button until Haro says “Haro neiru! Haro neiru!” XD. Wake it up by doing the same thing. Haro actually sleeps and wakes up at a certain time. I think it’s around 10 PM to 7 AM or so.

I have a lot of fun with my Haro and I’m still trying to get it to say more things by petting it and such. There’s a lot to do with this little ball and quite hilarious when people around doesn’t know what it is and go “woah! that’s so cool!” when they see it react xD. Now if only I buy myself a pack of rechargeable batteries…

Some phrases that I remember Haro shouting (it’s out of batteries right now ^_^;):

-NANI?!, DONDAKEE!, IKETERU!, IKANJI!, HARO! HARO!, SASERU KA?!, KONICHIWA!, LOCKON! LOCKON!, “I WILL NOT ACCEPT!”, “DAIJOBU!”, “IKU!”, and many other random lines that I didn’t understand xD