Originally posted at http://slangards.i.ph/ on 05/27/09
I don’t buy very many anime figures. Mostly because I’m not a fan of a lot of the TV series these toys are often based on. Japanese storytelling sensibilities are the complete opposite of Western storytelling, and as a kid who spent most of his Elementary school days in the library, wading through aliterations to Japanese mytho-historical figures can be tedious. Compound that with either overly exuberant fan-subs with often vague allusions to Japanese pop-culture or barely intelligible translations from Chinese pirates who downloaded the mpeg from a Pakistani, who copied it from some Russian who recieved it via email from his Pinoy Multiply contact, who got it through torrent from some geek in his basement in Arkansas who burned it from the original courtesy of a Japanese friend.
It’s just too much trouble.
So the only time you’ll see me in Greenhills picking up Japanese toys is when there is a high concentration of what scientists call “bewbage”. The Fräulein Revoltech Yoko figure from “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann” definitely has a high ration of this wonderful natural resource. Ask me about this Anime series and I will look at you blankly, an perhaps drool. All I know is that it has a girl with red hair and a big gun running around in cowboy boots, hot pants and a bikini top. Who cares about the rest?
The figure comes in the standard Revoltech box. It’s white, rectangular, with pretty pictures. It does what a box is supposed to do. The figure is housed in nice plastic tray that is taped shut. No twisties, no annoying excess plastic over arms which you need to cut through. You just open the cover and lift out the figure. All the parts are either held on the tray, or in back of it in small plastic bags. It’s very collector friendly, though if you’re not careful, the small parts may bounce out and disappear.
Speaking of accesories, she’s got a few. The best part are the extra hands. I’m a big supporter of extra hands and think all toys for kids over a certain age should have them. Toybiz experimented with hand articulation back in the day with their Marvel Legends line, but it wasn’t really that effective, especially with the smaller figures. You got all kinds of weird ones and you could never get them to make either a proper fist, or a proper open gesture. Yoko’s got quite a few in different gestures, from open palms, to relaxed, to a peace sign (one of those allusions to Japanese pop-culture that aggravate me so).
She also comes with an extra head… and extra bangs. What? yeah. She’s got an extra hair piece that goes in front of her face; one with glasses, one without. The two heads mean you can choose which figure you want to display, either Cute-as-a-button Yoko, or Gonna-kick-your-heinie-into-next-Tuesday Yoko. Both are a nice touch and the system for changing them is more effective than the Figma line’s method of changing parts. You basically pull off the head, remove the hair (front and back pieces sandwich the face) and Revoltech neck joint, and then place the parts on the new head and put it back on the neck. Sort of like one of them 3-D puzzles.
The last accessory she comes with is the BFG.The thing is taller than she is if you stand it up. You can just imagine the cartridge that this sonofabitch uses. As in WHAMMO! and you’ve got a hole in your tank (or ginormous robot, as the case may be). In any sensible universe, a little girl like this could not hold this thing up, let alone take the recoul, but this is anime, son. Where all girls are blessed with hour-glass figures, technicolor hair, dinner plate eyes, and a penchant for wearing beachwear in public.
The gun is very delicate, which is a drawback. I can’t fault the manufacturer’s though, since it looks like this was the way the show’s creators designed it, but you’re going to want to be extra careful handling it and storing it. Both the bolt handle and the gun mount are supported/attached by very very thin pieces of plastic. If you’re careless with either, they’ll snap and you’re gonna have a tough time getting them back on. The mount is actually detachable (there are two, on folded, one extended), but it’s so hard to remove from the fragile barrel, that you might want to think twice before doing so.
The extended gun mount does allow her to take a sniper position though. With a little work, you can even have her lying down with it, just like a real commando. Let’s see your puny 1/18th G.I. Joes do that, Hasbro! If you have a desert diorama and some large mecha models scattered around, she’d make a great addition to it. Though I’d imagine she’d be a bit out of scale.
The only real drawback with Fraulein Revoltech figures is the line’s main draw, the articulation. The line boast of it’s “Revolver” joints which are great. They allow a good range of motion and are racheted so that you can have your figures pose in some nice stances, but there are some things that detract from it. For one thing, Revoltech figures are infamous for becoming loose really fast. I have several and in a about a week you’ll notice the joints don’t hold as well. Since some joints (like the elbow) don’t have alot of room to support a Revolver joint, they’re stuck with a more basic peg. These get loose even faster than the ratcheted ones. There are supposed to be pliers that are specially made to adjust these joints, but I’ve yet to see one, and considering it’d be imported, I’m thinking it would be expensive.
Despite that, I think the Revoltech line is one of the best ones out there right now. Price is a little steep (they run about p1,200-p1,500 normally, depending on the figure’s popularity), but they’re high-quality, imported figures. It’s expected that they’d be more expensive than your average Hasbro toy. If you want to collect something with a little variety, or want some female toys to spice up the sausage fest you’ve got going on your shelf, these Frauleins aren’t a bad way to go.
They’re really fun to look at, too.
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