Gunbuster

Review sample courtesy of hlj.

I have a real fondness for Gainax’s Gunbuster, Aim for the Top!. The anime was top notch, and I dig the mecha design. I can’t afford either of the excellent transforming Gunbuster toys, so I was excited for (yet still wary of) the Revoltech release.

I don’t expect miracles from a smallish posing figure which also transforms. I more or less enjoyed the Revoltech Valkyrie, but Gunbuster is a different beast.

Gunbuster is packaged in a typical Revoltech window box.

Inside, a suspicious number of extra parts.

Out of the box, the base figure is fine, but just fine. Gunbuster won’t stand on his own; the stand is entirely necessary.

While Revoltech exists for posing, this figure is pretty limited. Gunbuster is bulky and inelegant. The articulation is merely adequate.

You can sorta recreate a few iconic Gunbuster poses.

Even in its base form, assorted kibble falls off with the slightest movement. It really messes with the playability when you have to keep finding and replacing tiny pieces.

Things get complicated with the transformation, really complicated. Here’s the amount of disassembly required. Can we really call this transformation at this point? I don’t mind parts-forming, but his is a kibble-former.

These bits combine in some fashion to form two ships. Ship one:

Ship two:

The ships both fit on the included stand, and look handsome enough.

And here’s what’s left over:

The worst feature of modern adult robot toys is the de-emphasis upon perfect transformation. I’d rather something hold together as an actual toy instead of maintaining some standard of line-art or anime accuracy. Gunbuster meets these standards but ends up not being any fun.