Grendizer

When the SRC line started way back in 2010 with the two Mazingers, you’d think that Grendizer would have followed pretty shortly afterwards. Instead it took nearly 3 years before the gold horned Go Nagai robot Spazered his way into the metal confines of a SRC figure. So here we are.

You know the drill: standard SRC box, standard plastic trays.

The figure stands 14cm tall to the tip of its horns.

Now let’s address the Giru Giru in the room that toy collectors always obsessively bring up with every new Grendizer figure: Yes, this thing isn’t completely anime accurate and has a few design tweaks. Most notably the larger elevated shoulders and the somewhat small head. The upper torso isn’t as ‘roided out as the Revoltech version, and overall this is a fine representation of a 70’s cartoon robot.

Now that we’ve shooed all the purists out of the room, the fun can start. Grendizer is a hefty bot thanks to the copious amount of metal in the legs and the torso.

The head sculpt is a work of beauty and rests on a double jointed neck. The neck is a bit problematic in that it sometimes doesn’t rotate along with the head so you have to manually realign it.

Articulation is good. It can’t do anything too crazy lateral-wise because the hips dig into the waist and the arms can’t go above shoulder level without rotating the joint.

Speaking of the shoulders, I have to admit that the empty space where the joint passes through is rather inelegant from certain angles. I’m not sure why Bandai couldn’t let the shoulders lift up at the base like they do with other SRCs.

The stomach area is double jointed and can be extended to allow Grendizer to lean quite nicely. Combined with his generous knee bending he ca-wait we can do something better with this pose…

German suplex!

Another angle!

Oh the pain and humanity!

On the other end, Grendizer isn’t gonna reach his toes anytime soon.

Getting the figure to kneel is possible but it took a lot of twisting around due to the aforementioned hip problem. Additionally, wearing out a hip joint make’s the legs’ metal content work against them as the left leg on my figure now sags when I pick it up.

Grendizer’s arm flares were always a bit of a challenge for toy makers to implement. The default solution was to mold them in soft rubber so they bend with the elbows, while the Revoltech tried something different by molding the tip of the flare into the elbow. The SRC ingeniously mounts the two inner flares on ball joints that let them move out of the way when the arm bends.

Grendizer shares the same joint design of his Mazinger brothers which is a nice touch.

He also has a hole in his back and his forearms can be removed, making him compatible with the Crossover part swapping gimmick.

The figure comes with a pair of closed fists, two pairs of open hands and one pair to hold its weapon. All mount on large ball joints. Be sure to not be gripping the moving flares while changing hands or they will pop off.

It also comes with an extra pair of forearms in Screw Crusher Punch mode. Bandai mercifully included two rocket punch effect parts to spare people the pain of having to track down a Mazinger Weapons Set. Since the parts extend the reach of the figure’s arms…

How’d you like me now coach?!

Making its debut for the first time on a modern Grendizer toy is the effect part for his iconic Space Thunder attack. Rather than being attachable to head, the part comes molded into a spare set of horns.

Rounding out Grendizer’s arsenal is of course his Double Harken. You can either use the blades on the figure’s shoulders (which have popped off the figure at least 20 times over the course of the photoshoot) or you can use the bigger more dynamic looking blades.

Interestingly, the SRC Double Harken is slightly shorter than the oversized Revoltech version, which can be wielded comfortably by SRC Grendizer for some Quad Harken action.

As usual, the figure comes with a Tamashii Stage Act adapter that goes into the back of its waist.

Once again we have another fine addition to the SRC line. The question now is whether it’ll ever get any of its support vehicles, particularly the Double Spazer. As of this writing, its main saucer Spazer has been announced but there’s no word yet on release date, price and availability.