9.23.2014

Inside the box with Ichabod presents:

S.R.C. GaoFighGar from Tamashii Nations/Bluefin

 The OTHER King of Braves....


 And here we have GaoFighGar, Guy's main Mech for a good chunk of GaoGaiGar:FINAL. This time, there is no Galeon, and instead we get the Human built center, GaoFar. It's all chunky and blue. They nailed the look of it here, too. From the gigantic boots to the badass StealthGao III. The sculpt knocks it out of the park, and this guy is super heavy, too. Lots of diecast to be found here.

 All the paint on mine was crisp and clear, even when it was green on top of red on top of black. Lots of layered metallic paint. His red has a metallic sheen to it that really pops. The blue on the shoulders and chest do as well, but less so. I love the little mechanical detail on the back of the legs, under the treads. it's a super nice touch that makes this feel like a real robot and not a toy. The same can be said for the vents on the wings and arms. It has a wonderful fit and finish to it.

 The head and crest have some fine details to them, considering how small both are. The eyes are a bit heard to see though, under all of it.

 His articulation is just...wow. The arms themselves have more than some American toys' entire bodies do. The shoulders are on a 3-stage joint that allows it to move inward, outward, up, and pull away from the body. The elbows are double jointed, have a swivel and a collapsing piece in the forearm to allow for a satisfying range of motion. He can fist bump himself in front of the huge chest. There is lots of engineering here to really help get the arms as expressive as possible.

 Now, normally the giant winged backpack would prevent motion...

 ...but not here, as they can fold back a full 90 degrees. It is a lovely little addition to help with articulation, and achieve some of the impossible poses it does in the anime. Also, the joints are so tight and built into natural seam lines that you can not even notice that they move.

 The torso section doesn't fare as well as the arms do, but you still get a nice forward crunch thanks to the lower pylon being able to bend upwards, or even pulled out to give you more range. Once again, a lot of engineering went into this guy.

 The hip blades - these are my least favorite part of this toy. While they do move out of the way and are on a Gundam styled ball-joint system, I had a huge issue with them.

 The hips are on these nice, thick diecast joints that give you good outward and forward range, but go too strong in one direction and you will pop the hip blades out. 

 The Knees have tons of engineering in them, too. From a sliding red piece connected to the double joint, there are lots of heavy diecast parts here, all shifting when you move it. It is lovely to handle in person. The double jointed knees give a pretty good range of motion, but just due to their sheer bulk, it isn't as much as the elbows give. Still, you get more out of it than you would think.

 Look at that Ankle.

 The ankles are on a pull-down joint to give you a better range of motion outside of the large boot cuffs the legs have. Here I have one pulled down and the other pushed up in it's normal "resting" position. That is a large difference in height. And they click in and out, so they don't want to just flop around on you.

 All these great joints allow GaoFighGar to strike a good amount of action poses. And the Diecast allows it to stay standing unassisted in even extreme poses.

 So, lets talk about the hip blades. They like to pop out. The sides and the front. On my figure, the front--which has two cylinders attached to it--came off so easily I had to grab some tissue paper to help hold them in, and even then they liked to fall off. It is one of my only major gripes with this figure, but it did make everything more difficult to pose and photograph. 

 Accessories. Some hands, a Genesic GGG shaking hand, because that is what giant robots do, and some new knee pads.

 The extra crest is a softer, more pliable version. I appreciate they included an extra in case you break/lose the other, but mine has some nasty mold flash on it.  I just used the rigid one.

 Swapping hands is also a chore. The hand system is a ball joint in the arm, and a weird long peg in the hand, so you have to swap them between each hand set. It doesn't add any extra articulation, so really I don't know why they did it this way. It makes the whole process more annoying than it should be.

 But, once you get them in, you can make him really strike a pose. Or have fancy jazz hands.

 The elongated Drill knee just pops on and off with a simple peg. Much, much easier than the hands.

 Now comes the fun accessories. The halo effects for Broken Magnum and Phantom Magnum both slide onto the back of the forearm and look pretty cool. You also get a small peg to plug into the back of one of the arms to simulate it shooting out towards a enemy. The forearms pop on and off the arms with just enough force to make you not worry about them just rolling away when displayed. 

 And the protect Shade! This thing sucks!!!! Getting it on is a pain, and it is made from super thin, cruddy plastic. It really feels like they painted part of the clamshell runoff that he is packaged in. It's a noticeable difference between the Halo rings and this in terms of plastic quality. I have to say it is somewhat disappointing.

 Also included is a small clip and peg so you can use him with a flight stand. My stage here didn't want to hold his heavy ass up, so no cool flight poses for GaoFighGar.

 Speaking of flight, you get interchangeable wing tips, so they can glow green. It's a neat thing, but sometimes puling them out and off is harrowing. I feel like it is constantly gonna break. Though they do look cool all cast in translucent plastic. 

.....GEMU....GIRU.....

 Oh wait, lemme just pop off the top, and remove the cockpit cover to show off the inner energy here....
.......GAN.......GOFUO....

 HELL......AND......HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting the arms into the Hell and Heaven pose is as easy as swapping both hands into the clasped one, and then positioning them, which, thanks to the shoulders, is way easy.

So, I don't own the regular GaoGaiGar SRC to compare this to, but I really enjoy this figure, despite some of the issues I had with the skirt. He is big and chunky, and a pretty cool design overall. Also, did i mention heavy? I feel I could knock someone out with this thing. He sports lots of diecast and amazing engineering, which I am a big fan of in my toys. Get him right over here and seriously go grab those  fire effects right here. They are way, way fun.

This product was provided courtesy of Bluefin/Tamashii Nations

1 comment:

  1. Super tempted by this and genesic but trying to stick to just vanilla hammered-GGG. The colors on the green parts looks really nice.

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