Altron Gundam

The Altron Gundam appears thanks to HobbyLink Japan. Head over to their website to get yours.

The Altron Gundam is the upgraded form of the Shenlong Gundam. It is piloted by Wufei Chang, a character, that like Treize, strives to meet an idealized concept of what it means to be a warrior.  While Treize is obsessed with the European notion of a gentleman’s code of fighting, Wufei’s warrior spirit has its origins in his Oriental upbringing. Wufei is of Chinese decent and comes from line of warriors; Wufei prides himself on his strength and despises anybody that is weak.  Wufei’s can’t-lose personality makes him a great nemesis for Treize; their rivalry on the battlefield  was sparked by Wufei’s loss to Treize in a person-to-person match.

Although this Gundam is officially known as the Altron, Wufei calls it Nataku, after a Chinese God.

Overall, the Robot Spirits Altron Gundam looks pretty good. The design for this toy is a little slimmer than how the Altron appears in the show, giving the toy the appearance of being more agile than its anime counterpart.

Like the other Robot Spirits Gundams, the panel lines are minimal on the Altron;  the color scheme of the Altron Gundam, however, gives the figure enough contrast between the colors to keep this from being a big issue. Still the  white parts on the Gundam could have used some panel lines here and there, just to give these pieces more definition. The more I handle Gundams from this line, the more I come to realize how much the simple addition of panel lines would push me to check out these figures more often.

One of the defining features of Altron Gundam are the Dragon Fangs attachments on the arms that look like dragon heads.  On the each side of the dragon head is a flamethrower. I can help but think how much cool it would have been if this this toy had included an alternate head with flame effects.

These deadly Dragon Fangs can extend to deal a deadly blow to their enemies. Whether near…

…or far!

If order to get the fully extended arms, Bandai has included four extension pieces (two per arm), which pop in between two of the links.  The end result is that you get two super long arms.

Or if you want to have some fun, you can get one REALLY long arm. 

Gogo Gadget Dragon Fang!

I have to give it to Bandai for doing a good job engineering the Dragon Fang gimmick. I was worried that the links on the arms would be loose, but they turned out to be quit tight and hold very well, even if you decide to build yourself that super long Dragon Fang.

The only issue I had with the Dragon Fangs is that the connecters will sometimes pop off if you push on them too much, since these segments were not designed to bend like the permanent parts of the arm. But other than that, no real complaints about the extending arms. You can even take off the arms at the shoulder to attach the piece that connects to the panel inside of the shoulder.

The Altron Gundam has even more amazing amount of articulation.

For the lower half, we have a rotating waist , front and side skirt armor that lift up, double jointed knees, ball and socket joints for the ankles, a swivel for the front part of the feet and thigh swivels and a the piece of leg armor above the leg that moves a bit to allow the feet to extend back.

This allows the Altron to take a knee, although it can be a bit tricky to keep him in those pose without the toy tipping over.

For the top half of the Altron, we have double jointed elbows, a swivel arm on the left shoulder pad connected to a ball and socket joint on the shield, a ball joint for the head and a swivel on the collar (which can result in a gap between the collar and the body). Oh and let’s not forget the7 swivels joints connecting the extending part of the arm to the forearm.

The back of the Altron , the panels of the wings can seperate; there is also rotating connection point that attaches the wings to the back of the figure.  The tail can snake around thanks to a rotating base and three swivel connection points between the segments of the tail.

The Altron comes with your standard hands -closed, splayed and a set for holding-which I am not going to bother showing.  It also comes with two “the Fonz” hands.

EEYYYY!

In all seriousness, we know these hands are actually meant for one thing.

Mentos!!

Okay. In all serious seriousness, these hands are holding the beam trident from the middle of the handle. The other pair of holding hands cannot reach the center of the handle due to the “+” shaped opening on them being too small.

Another non-standard hand that the Altron comes with is a right hand that is used to hold the shield. It has a square peg on the inside of the hand, which plugs into the square indentation on the outside of the shield.

If only I owned a Friender action figure, they could totally pretend play Frisbee together.

The other cool hand that comes with the Altron is its martial arts hand.

Wachaaa!

As we have already seen, one of tne the Altron’s weapons is a beam trident.

I can be used with two blades, or deliver all of the power to one side for a much longer, single blade at that end.

Other somewhat-hidden weapons of the Altron are the beam cannons attached to its tail, which springs up above the Altron’s head to shoot some fools.

The final extra that this toy comes with is  a clip that can be attached to a Tamashii Stage stand, for aerial posing of the Altron.

While the Altron Gundam is my least favorite of Wufei’s Gundams, I took a liking to this toy.  It is a well built and well designed toy that does not disappoint (if you have already come to terms with the fact that Bandai does not do the panel lines on the Robot Spirits line).  It’s got enough weapons and extras to provide plenty of hours of posing.