I’m really excited about the upcoming Pacific Rim. I’m a fan of Guillermo del Toro’s work, and it’s nice to see a monster vs. robot movie that isn’t anime.
I try to stay away from spoilers when I’m really looking forward to a movie. So this review isn’t going to cover any of Gipsy Danger’s background. Instead, this review will focus only on the toy and its qualities.
Gipsy Danger’s design is interesting, but pretty basic. His humanoid shape and bulky chest/shoulder armor conjures up the image of a robotic football player, which seems pretty appropriate for America’s defender.
Hands down, this figure’s best feature is his sculpt. The armor plates are surrounded by little details like hydraulics, gears, and exhaust ports. There’s even a robotic spine running down his back. I particularly like that giant turbine in his chest. The sculpting looks so good that it’s easy to mistake certain segments as articulated when they’re not.
This is also a pretty tall figure, clocking in at just a hair over seven inches. This makes him a little bit bigger than most of Bandai’s SH MonsterArts line, but thankfully not so much that he looks terrible posed with them. I really was hoping my kaiju and giant robots could mingle with each other on the shelves, and so far they look pretty nice together.
Paint jobs on the Pacific Rim figures are going to vary widely, even among the same character. Gipsy has a grayish blue base coat covering most of his figure, with more mechanical parts being highlighter in gunmetal gray. There are red and white tampos in various places, which may not match up perfectly sometimes. Continue to page2…
I’ve seen this figure at various Toys R Us stores lately and I’ve been tempted to pick him up. The lack of poseability is a bit of a letdown, though. It reminds me of an old-school McFarlane toys figure (something out of the Spawn line). Looks really sharp, crap for poseability/articulation. Looks pretty on my shelf, but I’d really like to play with this guy….
the sad thing is, the articulation is mostly there, you just can’t use it! it’s beyond aggravating because you can see articulation and still not get it where you want it for a dynamic pose.
personally, i was beyond disappointed in the pac rim figs. i had them ordered from BBTS, so i got the whole wave, and if i had it to do over again, i’d spend the money elsewhere. i got them at the same time i got jungle disguise dutch, and by comparison, he is exactly what i love about NECA, while the pac rim figs are why i understand the vitriol against them (or maybe, i understand why people complain, i’ve never justified the vitriol some people seem to harbor for NECA). but like gypsy, the hips are a huge one, you’d have to shave off the whole top panel of the leg armor to get the use out of the articulation there, and since he has those wicked cool ball ankles, he could finally take some dynamic poses. the only thing missing then would be the double knees that you’d SWEAR should be there, given the sculpt. i’ll let the IAT boys review each fig as they will without spoilers here, but i’ll offer my full thoughts on the set back on the boards, if anyone is interested.
Nifty looking figure. Very useful review; you talked me out of getting one. It’s cool, but I’ve got other uses for the money and the space.
Having said that, with a bit of repainting, it could pass for a Man-At-Arms robot from the MYP cartoon.
I’ve seen this guy at the store several times, but the paint has always been crap. I haven’t seen a single one where the visor doesn’t look like someone just threw some really gloppy paint at the head from a good distance away. Now hearing that the articulation’s not useful has me rethinking him. If I end up really loving the movie, I’ll probably pick one up, but I’m not a Guillermo del Toro fan, so my hopes aren’t too too high.
I just couldn’t pull the trigger on this one, but his case mate Crimson Typhoon made it home with me. Typhoon is a little more satisfying in the articulation category and his design caught me with its asymmetry and brutishness. The shoulder ball joints have a little flexibility in that they can somewhat make up for no bicep swivels, but not much.
I want to hit up NECA on Twitter to see if the 1/4 scale version of Gypsy will have better articulation. If it does, I might be a goner.
Didn’t pick this one up; found his design a little boring (though I will pick up Crimson Typhoon if I see it again). Did grab Knifehead, who has even less articulation, unfortunately, but fits with my Monsterarts wonderfully.
oh wow, that first shot on page 2 seems like they just went with a heavy drybrush of the blue over an otherwise casted in black figure – it looks not too bad…reminds of when paint for modelkits didn’t came as thin for airbrush useage. the tampos help but the visor paint is rude. I wish the design wouldn’t be so much US faux anime something. I wish me some Robo Joxx figures now, haha.
I haven’t seen the full armor body in the trailers, I don’t think, but this is a nice figure. the arms seem a bit tapered, but again, I don’t know how accurate that is. Best picture I’ve seen is the one where it’s arm is blown off and he’s kneeling in …defeat(?), which io9 keeps using for a Morning Spoilers pic header.
NECA seems to vary on articulation, and even sculpt. Most of the sculpts they put our are nice/great, but artic is a chancey propostion, from something like this to LPS, where you only get a few moving joints. I’m not sure why they do that?
I wasn’t aware these were coming (interested in these other figures mentioned above), esp after the Robot Boxer movie (with Wolverine) bombed on screen and in toy aisles last year. Then again, I just found out tonight there are **DUCK DYNASTY** figures already out! LOL (I think Iron Cow shared the pic? tell Noisy to see my FB feed for the store display Matt & I shared.)
Y’know, comparing him to a football player really brings to mind (for me at least) images of the Fox Sports Football Robot.
I was hoping that these figures would be my first foray into the world of NECA, but I’m just not impressed 🙁 I’ve loved the NECA Terminator and Predator stuff I’ve seen, but they’re tough to find in my area, and lately there have been so many other figures that have taken priority over those. I made a point to allocate some of my action figure budget specifically for these figures, and since I love Del Toro so much, I had planned to snag these before even seeing the movie. However, I was less than impressed when I saw the sloppy paint application, and after reading this review, I’m especially glad I passed, since the articulation is disappointingly not up to NECA’s typical standards. Oh well, maybe I’ll spend some of the money on one of those Kenner-inspired glow-in-the-dark Robocop NECA figures at Toys R Us.