Kantam Robo
The Kantam Robo appears thanks to Bluefin Distribution. Get yours at the ToySource!
We now resume our show already in progress. Shin-chan is enjoying a quiet day at home. He is watching his favorite mecha show, which spoofs the mecha anime genre, Kantam Robo. The Kantam Robo soars through the air as it heads for the monster that is threatening Japan.
Oddly enough, the show cuts to a commercial break and a review for the Super Robot Chogokin Kantam Robo plays during commercial break. I didn’t think CDX had the kind of money to run something like that!
The Super Robot Chogokin Kantam Robo is a bit more heroic looking than the Kantam Robo that Shin-chan is currently watching, but it still captures all of the signature features and essence of the Kantam Robo.
The Kantam Robo features a simple design that harkens back to the days of robots like Mazinger Z. The design of the Kantam Robo is minimalistic yet goofy design. I like to think of the Kantam Robo as the unnoficial Robot-child of the Mazinger Z and the Boss Borot. The unique expression on the Kantam Robo is a nice mix of serious and silly.
From head to feet, the Kantam Robo features a lot of nice detail. The undersides of the feet even have those black parts, which look like those rubber pieces you get with your Ikea furniture, on them
The head has two rectangles. I am not quite sure what those are, besides proof that Bandai pays attention to the finer details.
The SRC Kantam Robo features a lot of nice articulation.
Iron Man, Schmiron Man!
Kantam Robo can take a knee thanks to the collapsible panels at the back of the robots legs.
The ankles feature extendable ball joints. As for the thighs, they each feature a swivel and a hinge.
There is an extendable ball joint at the waist and a ball joint where the chest meets the midsection.
There is a bit of a gap if you extend the waist joint up and lean the robot back.
The wrists feature a ball joint and the elbows are double jointed.
The shoulders feature ball joints inside of the body, which can extend forward. As for the green shoulder plates, they has a swivel that allows the arms to be raised.
As for the head, it appears to be on a peg. This allow the head to move a full 360 degrees around.
Oh no! What happened to Kantam Robo’s face?
Found it!
As for the flight pack, each wing has about a 130 degree range of motion. In the down position, the wings will touch and keep each other from moving more inward. However, if one of the wings is not fully down, you can move the other wing inwards a bit more. But that just looks weird. I for one like to keep the wings in the up position, ready for action.
The flight pack is removable and doubles as a weapon for the Kantam Robo.
The SRC Kantam Robo features the Crossover Joint system, which is the same arm-swapping and flight pack-swapping gimmick featured on the SRC Shin Getter 1 and Mazinkaiser.
The gimmick, however, is not without its shortcomings. As you can see, the contours on the Kantam’s back are very different from curvature of the inside of the Shin Getter 1’s flight pack. So there is a gap between the pieces, which means that Shin Getter 1’s flight pack does not plug in at all and it will fall off.
Poor Kantam, he needs some wings to go with those Shin Getter Arms.
Much better!
Another shortcoming of the line is that Kantam Robo’s connection pegs on the arms and the holes they go into are slightly smaller than those of the other two robots. So the lower part of the arms of the Shin Getter 1 and the Mazinkaiser fit very snuggly into the Kantam Robo’s upper arm parts. On the other hand, the lower part of the arms of the Kantam have a tendency of sliding of the other two robots’ arms. However, if you can put up with the slight size variations between the parts, you can have a blast interchaning parts between the three robots.
The back of the package features the Kantam Robo doing a rocket punch attack. Unfortunately, this set does not come with the effect parts featured in the picture. I am sure that the box explains, in Japanese, that these parts are included in the SRC Mazinger Weapon Set.
So no rocket punch for my Kantam Robo.
Just kidding! Luckily I own the Dynamic Option Parts set for the SRC Mazinkaiser and Shin Getter 1, which has effect parts for the Mazinkaiser’s Turbo Smasher Punch.
So think of this as the Kantam Robo’s upgraded rocket punch!
The SRC Kantam Robo features metal in the lower legs and in the chest. The metal content makes the Kantam Robo a very well balanced toy.
The Kantam Robo comes with 3 sets of hands: closed, open and holding-things hands. Since you have seen them all in the review, I figure there is not point of taking pictures of just the hands. While you don’t get a lot of hands with this release, you do get all of the ones you need to get all sorts of heroic and/or goofy poses from your Kantam Robo.
The only other extra included with the Kantam Robo is a clip for attaching the toy a Tamashii stand.
So you get get all kinds of cool aerial poses from your Kantam Robo.
So the Kantam Robo is a simple robot, from a show that may be unfamiliar to many people in the States. However, it is a damn fun toy and action figure. Going into this review, the only things I knew about Crayon Shin-Chan were: the Mr. Elephant Dance, that the Kantam Robo is the titular mecha of the show inside the show and that Shin-Chan had a crossover with Kamen Rider Den-O. Although only one of those bits of knowledge was relevant to this review, it did not stop me from having a blast with this toy!
Now back to our show!
The evil Biryu, which totally not Kiryu, is wreaking havoc on Japan’s imagination-fueled transportation system.
Who will save the day?!
The Kantam Robo of course!
There is an exchange of blows between the two giants!
Then with one mighty punch, the Kantam Robo defeats Kiry… I mean Biryu.
Thanks Kantam Robo!
The Kantam Robo appears thanks to Bluefin Distribution. Get yours at the ToySource!