Official solicit:

Revoltech Tetsujin 28

The iconic robot Tetsujin 28–you may remember him as “Gigantor”–makes his well-deserved entrance into the Revoltech series’ lineup of legends! This fantastically articulated 12cm action figure is loaded with Revoltech joints for posing possibilities galore, and comes with a slew of option parts: a red-eyed “evil” head, flames for his rocket pack, a damaged arm, four optional hands, and a display base with a joint arm to assist with dynamic action poses!

March 2008
MSRP (roughly) 18.06USD

This review has been sitting in my posts queue for a few months now, I’ve been kind of afraid to publish it because I honestly wasn’t sure how it would go. I’d held off on buying any Revoltech figures for awhile, despite how appealing they’ve looked, for fear of getting addicted to another line of toys. Even after seeing the awesome Transformers and Gundam versions I managed restraint. Once I saw Gigantor here though, I just knew I had to get him.

For those that don’t what Revoltech’s are, our friends over at CollectionDX have a nice graphic and rundown of the line here. Basically though, they’re little ridiculously articulated figures, with a ridiculous amount of attention to detail, and usually a ridiculous amount of accessories too. The line of characters range from a variety of anime and animated, Transformers, Gundams, and even old anime classics like Gigantor here.

But with all that coolness, why the trepidation on my part to post this review?

First of all, the box for this is pretty amazing. It’s a great design with lots of open space, and by itself makes a great display piece. The window panel open to show off the figure, which is also great. Out of box, you get the plastic tray that contains Tetsujin (Gigantor’s Japanese name.) and all his parts and accessories, which includes a stand, 2 extra sets of fists, an extra head, jetpack flames, and even a damaged arm attachment. Kind of annoying though, the tray tends to spill his parts any time it’s bumped, as the molded pockets aren’t as snug as they could be. Minor gripe, but digging around under my desk for 10 minutes for 4 tiny fists after the 3rd time they were knocked loose got kind of annoying, yeah?

Out of package, Gigantor stands at around 5 and a half inches tall. His colors are vibrant, and the sheen on his plastic body is pretty intense. It was quite a trick to take pics of this guy without having my reflection in his belly for every shot (although you can see me still in some - d’oh!), he’s REALLY shiny! As you can see, he comes equipped with a rocket jetpack, which has hinges at the top to allow for directional changes - pretty cool!

Articulation is insane with this, and all the Revoltech figures too. I’m too lazy to even count, but it’s well over 20 points easy. The joint system is what this line prides itself on, and it’s definitely worthy of all the acclaim. I’d like to see some larger figures use this system at some point, because unfortunately (and which may be hard to tell from these pictures…) these figures are pretty damn small. 5.5 inches might seem tall enough, but given the scale issues (especially for this guy, who is roughly a 200 foot tall robot right?) makes him seem even more compact. A good 12 inch tall Kaiyodo figure would be an amazing thing I think, and I hope is something we might see down the road.

What you cannot see from these pics is, Gigantor here can’t much stand without the use of his stand/base. I had to use a little dab of clay at the bottom of his feet to get him to stay stable, and even then he’d still want to tip over lots of times. Now I know that with the addition of the stand, I’ve not got a bunch of room to complain, but just you watch me try! Gigantor’s problem is that his teeny little feet are either too short, or not heavy enough to keep his weight in hardly any poses at all, and then it’s just TIMBER!!! For figures that tout their articulation ability so much, it’s kind of frustrating to find this guy can’t maintain hardly any poses at all without the use of his “walker”, err… I mean his stand.

It’s just a bit of a letdown, and really not something I was expecting. I’ve seen pictures of plenty of the other Revoltech figures, and many of them didn’t need to rely on their stands, or so I thought. Maybe they do though, and I just never noticed…

WITH the use of his stand however, and Gigantor’s mobility becomes almost limitless. The joints on these really allow for an amazing amount of movement, almost anything you can think or do, and it still looks natural and “human” as well.

The accessories are easy enough to change in and out, a slight *POP* and you can take out a hand, replace his head with a slightly different one, or even attach his battle damage arm as seen in the above far right picture. I’d imagine you could even interchange pieces and parts from other Revoltech figures as well, which might make for some fun customizing!

One thing I really like about the accessories, is that aside from how many there are, and how much fun they are to interchange, is also that one set of the hands actually has the ability to open and close thanks to a hinge in the palm area. It’s that sort of attention to detail that really endears this line to me, at least in theory.

Another great feature, thanks to the stand, is being able to make Gigantor fly. Strap in his jetpack flames, attach him to his stand via a hole in his back, and away you go! Unfortunately, given the size of it all again, Gigantor is barely an inch off the ground when he flies. It’d been nice to see the stand be a little bit higher off the ground I think, but I suppose that’d be easy enough to alter and customize myself.

Overall, I really love the figure in a big way. It looks awesome, it’s exceptionally well built, and it’s even amazingly affordable too. If you think on the fact that the newer Marvel Legends figures are going to be almost 15 dollars, and that for just a few more bucks you could have a Revoltech instead, it really puts the price into perspective.

In the end though, I’m left just a bit disappointed. I can’t quite get over the falling issue, and the size thing really bothers me too. His head is smaller than my pinky nail, and that’s small! Plus, after hearing so many great things about Revoltech’s for so long, once finally getting this guy I think maybe I had built the hype up in my head a little too much, and the few problems he does have feel much bigger than they are. It’s really much less than an action figure too, and more of some kind of cool display piece for sure. I mean, yeah, you CAN play with it, and it’s got plenty of ability for action, but it seems to work best looking cool on a desk or posing on a shelf with other teeny plastic warriors.

I think I may give the Revoltech line one more shot down the road before I make a final decision about them, and grab another of these at some point. The Hot Rod figure certainly piqued my interest when it came out a few months ago, and if you don’t think the Megatron one is cool as all get out too, then you probably aren’t reading this anyways.

I can’t say to recommend this guy for anyone though, unless you have a fondness for old Japanese cartoon robots like I do. For anyone other than a collector, I’d definitely say this isn’t a figure you want to give to your average pre-teen or toddler-type, as they’ll just lose the parts if not flat out eat them. And if you really want a cool version of this guy, and are willing to spend to get it, the Soul of Chogokin Tetsujin 28 rerelease coming out later this year might be the way to go. Of course, for the price of this Revoltech, you’re really not gonna beat it given all the good things there are about him. Plus, it’s possible I’m just too anal about my toys.

Nah… couldn’t be that.