Karolia Tetsujin

Tetsujin No. 28, the space aged robot (or something like that). Controlled by the precocious boy detective Shotaro Kaneda, Tetsujin No. 28 fights to protect Japan from criminal regimes and the evil robots under their control. However, when the far off country of Karolia gets their hands on Tetsujin’s blueprints, all goes wrong. With an opposing army of 10,000 Karolian Tetsujins, just what will be the fate of Shotaro Kaneda and his trusty robot?

With this, Evolution Toy gives us the limited edition (limited to 100 pieces) Karolia Tetsujin from the giant robot show Tetsujin 28-go. Another offering from their Dynamite Action line, Karolia Tetsujin is a solid figure with some very defined gimmicks and manufacturing making it a figure all its own.

Let’s review:

Packaging:
The box is your average fair with logos and words. Nothing too exciting going on here save for some excellent photos of Tetsujin on it.

Aesthetics:
Karolia Tetsujin is exactly like the original Tetsujin but with a different color scheme and a large “K” plastered in its chest. His colors are simple: white, black, and gray. These colors all have a wonderful sheen to them and are quite deep. All of them play well together to emulate its black and white on screen counterpart.

As stated, this is the Karolian Tetsujin from episode 28 of the original series, a mass produced variant.

The paint, though deep and shiny, does suffer in a few areas, namely the feet and the elbows. The feet, being metal and possessing joints, has had some of its paint rub off and suffers from some slight overspray. The elbows look as if paint was simply splattered on and have bare metal peaking through. There are also a few, small spots of uneven paint on a few limbs, but nothing serious.

Karolia Tetsujin’s sculpt is near perfect; it’s undeniably 1960’s Tetsujin down to the bug eyes and the paper towel arms and legs. Being a Yokoyama robot and being so old, there isn’t much detail to talk about, but what’s there is well done be that bolt heads, gasket joints, or rocket boosters.

There are a few parts of this sculpt, however, that are not so nice too look at, namely the arms. While the magnet joints offer unparalleled range of motion, they also leave gaping spaces in his elbows. There is also a rather large chunk missing on his underarms. These two considerations are rather unsightly; however, they do allow for extreme range and for Tetsujin to hold his arms next to his sides (kind of a big deal).

The overall manufacturing of the figure isn’t really up to par with other companies, and this starts to show hard on seams on the figure. The seams are inconsistently tight and show a variety of manufacturing flaws such as mold flash and chunky paint. These are somewhat easily seen and possibly the worst on the arms. It’s rather disappointing.

Karolia Tetsujin has a good bit of heft on him thanks to his solid chest, metal feet, and heavy-ass magnets. A solid and substantial feel overall.

Articulation:
The posability on Karolia Tetsujin is out of the world. With the use of magnetic joints and joints connected to those, Karolia Tetsujin can bend most every joint near 360 degrees offering a wide variety of poses. However, though his arms and legs can go most anyplace, the lack of friction joints do not allow most every pose to be held; magnets slip, y’all.

But, hey, that’s fine as long as Tetsujin can do the classic Tetsujin pose:

Yup, 10/10

Karolia Tetsujin sports a waist swivel, ball jointed cowl, ball jointed hips, elbows, wrists, feet, and knees, double ratcheted shoulders, ratcheted knees, and a toe joint. All of these joints can go EVERYWHERE.
AND IT’S AWESOME.

The legs sport a nice hidden extender in them to make posing even easier:

Very cool.

Rather than disrupt the sculpt in a major way, the head does not move. The face does, however, and in an ingenious way. The face and plume move together on an internal slide and can be left at any angle up to 90

Karolia Tetsujin stands at 6.5 inches to the tippy top of his plume.

Accessories:
Karolia tetsujin comes with:
– 2 extra pairs of hands
– A jetpack

The hands are easily swapped for one another on a double ball joint. The jet pack is connected via magnets as well and the two gray arms simply wrap around the torso. The regular release of Tetsujin No. 28 also came with a little Shotaro, but he is missing from this set (for obvious reasons). That doesn’t stop one from substituting a new controller in, however.

Tetsujin also comes with 5 screw covers to be attached. The end result is nice:

Gimmicks:
Dynamite Action’s entire deal is magnets. This in itself is a gimmick, as it is an uncommon practice and pretty damn cool. They are implemented well and well hidden all things considered; they looks good and allow a lot to be done.

The magnets also allow for the main gimmick to happen: parts switching. Since every Dynamite Action robot is held together by magnets on every joint, one can switch limbs, torsos, and heads with other figures of the line to make custom robots!

It can produce some rather silly combinations, but the gimmick is rather refreshing and simply awesome.

Closing Remarks:
The Dynamite Action line is still rather new and lacks some finesse; this is evident in some of the manufacturing flaws present on the figure. That aside, Karolia Tetsujin is a good toy. It’s substantial in size and weight, has extreme posability and a good sculpt, and it’s fun to play with. It’s on the pricey side—¥11,800—which makes it a hard recommendation from me. It’s good, yes, but it lacks the finesse of even a cheaper toy such as a SRC. If you can overlook the flaws you won’t be disappointed, but know that this figure isn’t necessarily up to Bandai’s level of quality.

Hahaha! With a slightly negative review, now I, Black Ox, can take over Japan (or something)!

Whahahahaha—

—wha?

Leave here, Fake Tetsujin!
Do you know who you’re facing?!

The Mighty Black Ox!
You’ll never win—

—oh no