ROBOT SPIRITS OBSIDIAN FURY, SABER ATHENA & GUARDIAN BRAVO | FIGURE REVIEW

The first 3 Robot Spirits Jaeger's from Tamashii Nations were pretty cool figures, but can the next batch be just as good if not better?

Let's start with the rogue Jaeger, Obsidian Fury.
Obsidian Fury has a nice, sleek design. It looks a lot like a Football player, with the huge chest and very broad shoulder pads. The entire body has a very muscular design which is sculpted very well, and the back has a very prominent spine.

Obviously, the majority of the body is painted black. But the extra detailing and panel lines still stand out pretty good. The visor on the other hand is a bit hard to see. It's supposed to be a bright orange, unfortunately the coloring is a bit dull. It's a clear plastic piece that I feel could've been enhanced by some extra paint.

Next up we get one of the more unique looking Jaeger designs to come from 'Uprising', Saber Athena.
Next to Lady Avenger, Saber Athena is one of my favorite  Jaegers from the new movie. I just love her design, a mix of grace and elegance with ferocity and strength.

It's also nice to see another Jaeger with a more dynamic color scheme. Although, if you've seen clips of Uprising with Saber Athena, you'll see some black paint on the wings which the figure does not have.
The silver compliments the figure nicely and Saber's eyes as well as the PPDC logo's are nicely painted on.

I like all the wing like paneling on Saber's arms and legs. Along with the big wings on the back and the booster rocket, this Jaeger looks like it was designed to be fast.

Guardian Bravo is the third and last Jaeger released by Tamashii Nations so far. Off the bat, I love Guardian Bravo's color scheme! The red, white, grey and black look great together, highlight a bit of the finer details and really helps this Jaeger stand out from the rest.
It looks similar to Ratchet from the original G1 Transformers. (That's the only serious comparison between Pacific Rim and Transformers I will ever make).

The most detail on this Jaeger has to be on the back. Specifically the workings on and below the jet pack.

There's one little detail that looks really odd to me. The head overall looks good, but it looks like there's a mouth sculpted into the head.

Articulation remains mostly similar from the past Jaegers, but all have slight differences.

While all are capable of extending their arms out and moving forward/backward, full rotation is impossible.

With all the Jaeger figures, their heads can move forward but full head rotation has also been tricky or difficult. Saber's head on the other hand can turn all the way freely.
Saber's wings can move up, down, inward and outward.

Let's get to the accessories.

Yes, open hands. Moving on to the cool stuff.

Obsidian Fury comes with 2 Plasma Chainsaw's. Both of them look great and the way they attach to the arms is pretty neat too.

You have to remove the arm panels on both sides, place the Chainsaw pieces into the arms and place the arm panels back on top. It really looks like it's coming out of Obsidian's arms and I love that.


Saber Athena actually comes out of the box with open hands attached. Her alternate hands are actually closed for holding things.
What things you ask? Freakin' SWORDS!

Saber comes with 2 small Plasma Swords and 1 big Plasma Sword. All three of which look really nice and can be placed in the hands easily.

Guardian Bravo also has 2 hands for holding 2 Arc Whips.

The Whips do look nice, but they are made of really soft plastic which is bendable but does not stay in place. That also makes placing it in the hands a bit of a hassle, I'm always afraid I'm gonna bend and break it when placing them. Best advice I can give on that is take it easy.

Unfortunately, Guardian Bravo does not come with any pieces for his arm guns. I would have really loved to see that. I'd bet that the Diamond Select figures would have it

And to answer your question of weather or not I will review any of the Diamond Select figures: I don't know.

The same scale applies to these Jaegers as well. Intersetingly, these 3 are all different heights. Obsidian Fury stands at 7.5 inches, making it the tallest of the Jaeger figures. Saber Athena is 6.5 inches and Guardian Bravo is the shortest of the figures at a little over 6 inches.

All in all, these are 3 great figures to add to the collection. It's nice to have all the main Jaegers featured in Pacific Rim Uprising. I wonder if Tamashii Nations will release figures for the other Jaegers featured in the film. I wouldn't mind having figures of November Ajax and Valor Omega. There has to be a Jaeger Drone figure in the line and a larger, more detailed Scrapper!

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

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SOFVI SPIRITS RAIJIN | Figure Review

In addition to the Jaegers, Tamashii Nations is also releasing Kaiju figures under their Sofvi Spirits branch.

(Sofvi = Soft Vinyl)

As of this review, only one Kaiju figure has been released, with 2 more on the way later in the year.

Today we are looking at the figure based on the Kaiju known as Raijin. Raijin himself is a great looking Kaiju.

His head has this fierce, venus flytrap looking outer mouth with rows of teeth and multiple eyes on each side. And it's inner face also has multiple eyes and teeth. But if you'll notice, the teeth on the lower jaw are individually sculpted, while the ones on the upper jaw are sculpted into the gums and painted individually, a practice that isn't exactly foreign to Bandai vinyl figures.
But while the lower teeth are painted on the outside, the inside remains the same color as the face. The same face color applies to the gums and the tongue.

And looking down the throat, you can see some blue paint to indicate the luminous inners of the Kaiju.

The body is mostly painted dark brown with some lighter brown air brushing on body and the limbs. The back of the head and tail however, are simply just brown.

The claws and nails are painted a dark brown color which looks great, on the front side anyway. The back of them remains unpainted and retains the same brown color of the body. The claw on the back of the foot (I think it's called a Dewclaw?) is also unpainted.

You know how most of the Kaiju have the luminescent lines all over thier bodies? Raijin...sort of does. They're there and are noticeable, I just feel there should have been more. Look at Raijin's belly and you'll see 2 of the lines are unevenly painted. Were there supposed to be more on the body?

Being a vinyl figure, there isn't much to Raijin in terms of articulation. The arms rotate and the legs move forward and backward, with full rotation hindered by the arms.
The wrists also appear to be twistable, but I would not recommend doing this. It can loosen it up and a piece of the arm blocks it's movement and trying to force movement could pop it off.

Raijin fits nicely in scale with the Robot Spirits Jaeger figures. He stands at 8.25 inches tall and 11.75 inches from head to tail, keep that in mind when trying to clear shelf space.

Aside from the mixed paint work, Raijin still looks pretty good and the sculpt and detail more than make up for that.
If your looking for a cool Kaiju figure to have on your shelf to go with other Kaiju or Jaeger figures, Raijin is a good choice to go with.
I will say though that $40 might be a bit too much for this figure, if you can find it at a better deal, then do go for it.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!

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Pacific Rim Uprising | Gryphon's First Impressions

This review has been edited from its original version. It has been reformatted for culturally sensitive reasons.

As much as I loved Pacific Rim, I would've been happy if there wasn't a sequel. I felt that the first film was a nice, self contained story that wrapped up nicely.
If there was going to be another movie, I would still go see it. I'm always up for movies like this.
And after much deliberation, a sequel was finally released.

I basically gushed over the first film and now the only question is: How does this one compare? Well, I figured I'd go over most of the same points I made in the last review.

THE STORY

This time, Guillermo Del Toro only serves as the producer for this film, Director duties were handed over to Steven S. DeKnight. DeKnight was previously a writer on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville and Daredevil.
So going in, I knew that I probably wasn't going to get a deeper movie than the first one. So I just sat back, watch the movie and tried to appreciate it for what it was. And it was pretty good.

The story goes in pretty much the way I expected it to. With the Kaiju no longer around, Jaeger parts are being sold on the black market while other nations attempt to create their own Jaegers. The Pan Pacific Defense Corps still keeps a few of them handy on the off chance that the Kaiju should return, while a new company is creating Drone Jaegers.

And then the movie has a pretty ridiculous plot twist, and I mean that in a good way, it was a good twist in the way that I didn't see coming. The trailers would have you believe that this new Shao Corporation goes rogue and starts opening new drifts to unleash the Kaiju threat, but when you see that Newt Geiszler has been continually drifting with a leftover Kaiju brain, this is your first sign that something more sinister is afoot.

I went into this with as little expectations as possible. I had a feeling I wasn't going to get a movie as amazing as the first one, but for what I got, I was still impressed.

THE CHARACTERS
The only returning cast members are Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori, along with Charlie Day and Burn Gorman the scientists Newt Gieszler and Hermann Gottlieb.

The new cast includes John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, Boyega always makes an entertaining and charismatic lead. I also really loved the character Amara. For her first major film role, Cailee Spaeny did an excellent job.

Unfortunately, aside from them and maybe Scott Eastwood Jing Tian's characters, the rest of the cast aren't that memorable. Not only that, but to me, there seem to be too many side characters. I don't hate the Jaeger Cadets, I just felt like there were too many of them with not enough character development for me to really care about them.

With this many characters, it feels like 'Uprising' is trying to be a movie pilot for a Pacific Rim television series.
Actually...I wouldn't mind that at all.


THE JAEGERS/KAIJU

Uprising has a ton of awesome looking Jaeger designs, my favorites being Lady Avenger and Saber Athena.

And then there's Scrapper. I love Scrapper! I want a Scrapper, right now!
There are only 3 (technically 4) major Kaiju in Uprising and all of them are really cool.

And the fights between them are honestly the highlight of the entire film. If you go into this looking to watch giant robots and monsters fighting each other, The Shatterdome attack and the final showdown in Mega-Tokyo deliver in just the right way.

There is one thing I wanna bring up. I don't really get why people are complaining about how the Jaegers move too fast in this movie.
On the one hand, I kinda understand. Big machinery tends to move pretty slow and the Jaegers from the last movie were mostly lumbering giants.

On the other hand, it's been 10 years since the last movie. Don't you think Jaeger technology would have advanced beyond what the past ones were capable of? Also if you remember from the last movie, the Jaegers were mostly in the water. Things tend to move slowly in water anyway, and when we do see them on land, they move considerably faster.
Lastly, this is science fiction. Can we not just sit back and enjoy without thinking too hard about it?


THE MUSIC

Honestly, I don't remember much of the score from this movie. I'd have to wait until I get my hands on the soundtrack itself to fully make that judgment.
I do remember hearing the Pacific Rim theme from the first movie, slightly rescored, but still awesome.

I was worried at first because the trailers included this stupid hip hop song which did not fit the mood of the movie. While that song is not in the movie, there are still some hip hop and rap songs in the movie. Are they distracting? Yes, but unlike the trailer it doesn't get in the way of the more epic parts of the movie.
With the exception of one particular song that is played for humor during one big scene. I mean, it was funny, but it was still a pretty big WTF moment.

WILL THERE BE A THIRD ONE?

As we saw in the final scene, (that should have been placed in the middle of the credits) Uprising ends on a cliffhanger. It's implied that if there is a sequel, it will deal with the Jaeger pilots going to the Kaiju world (called the Anteverse) and bringing the battle to them.

It sounds like a good idea. But as we saw before, the first Pacific Rim wasn't exactly a box office hit until it reached international audiences.
As of right now, Uprising seems to be following the same path. The combined Domestic and Foreign gross has more than surpassed the films budget so a sequel is indeed possible.

In my opinion, Pacific Rim Uprising is nowhere near as amazing as the first one. But that DOES NOT make it a bad movie. It's still a pretty good follow up to the expanding Pacific Rim universe. I highly recommend it and I will continue to anticipate updates on the potential sequel.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!

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ROBOT SPIRITS LADY AVENGER, BRACER PHOENIX & TITAN REDEEMER | FIGURE REVIEW

This review has been edited from its original version. It has been reformatted for culturally sensitive reasons.

It's been about 2 years since the last NECA Pacific Rim figures came out and afterward, the future of articulated figures based on the possible sequel was uncertain.

And then...this happened:

I almost foamed at the mouth seeing that tweet.
Given the quality of work that Tamashii Nations puts into it's figures, I was very excited to see what they would bring to the Pacific Rim table.
One San Diego Comic Con later, it was revealed that we would be getting 6 new Jaeger figures from it's Robot Spirits branch, better known for making articulated Gundam figures and they all looked great. But do they hold up to all that hype? Let's find out by looking at the first 3 Jaegers that have been released.

To start things off, we have Lady Avenger. The Mark V successor to the original Lady Danger, who was my favorite Jaeger from the last movie and Lady Avenger may be my favorite Jaeger from this movie, I'm having a hard time deciding between her and another Jaeger, but I'll talk about it when that figure gets released.

Lady Avenger has a fantastic look to her. It echoes the look of the original GD, but gives it a more streamlined, modern look. It even adds wings to the back, possibly as a tribute to the fallen Jaeger, Striker Eureka.
(Note: The wings come separated from the figure in the box and must be attached to the back)
Having not seen Uprising yet, I don't know how well the figure matches up to the film version, but I think this figure mimics that fantastic look to a T.

Avenger has it's signature bold blue color scheme, complimented with some patches of silver and red lines scattered throughout which looks fantastic. Looking closer, you can see a lot of other small details, including panel lines and insignia's. The one that impresses me the most is on the shoulder pads. You can see the PPDC logo as well as the words "Pan Pacific Defense Corps". For such a small detail, it looks really good and I'm surprised they were able to make it look as good as it does.
Looking at the back, there's much of the same good detail. One thing that stands out to me though, is that the inner workings on the back of the hips are painted blue. Shouldn't they be painted grey?
The visor and the double reactors on the chest are made of translucent plastic and can appear to glow when placed against a light. It makes me wonder if they'll ever release an actual light-up version.

The next Jaeger I'm looking at is Bracer Phoenix. Probably the bulkiest of the new Jaegers, but more than ready for battle.
She looks like a military assault vehicle with arms and legs, with a light tan body, highlighted with silver/gun metal joints, a gold visor and...brown eyebrows? Okay, that's kinda weird.

There are also some decals on Bracer, but not all of them are that discernible as they were on Lady Avenger. I can read the numbers alright but the words all look muddled. 

There's also a lot of interesting stuff about this Jaeger, you can see what look like cannons on the left arm. And a spiked gauntlet on the hand, could those cannons actually be boosters for a punching attack? I'll find out when I see the movie.
There also appear to be ammo packs on the left thigh.

The last Jaeger of this first wave of Robot Spirits figures is Titan Redeemer.
Titan Redeemer certainly looks like a very sturdy Jaeger, her color reminds me of a big tree, but more resembles a tank, with it's dark emerald body with gun metal patches/inner workings and some hints of yellow.
Titan's legs look very intricately detailed. On the front and the back, there's a lot going on with this Jaeger and it looks really impressive.

But let's get to the elephant in the room, or rather the wrecking ball.
Actually, it's known as a "Seismic Morning Star", a mace weapon with rows of spikes that spin individually. This weapon looks like it could cause a lot of damage and I can't wait to see it utilized in the film. 

But what about the one area we all know Tamashii Nations products can nail just as well? The Articulation.
When it comes to these Jaeger figures, The movement on all 3 of these Jaegers are very fluid and easy to move. Sometimes the articulation outshines the NECA figures and sometimes they feature the same limitations.

Their heads can look down, left and right and can tilt side to side. Tilting Bracer's head is kinda hard given the massive collar.

Lady's arms can move out pretty far, even though that movement is limited because of the shoulder pads. But those pads can move up allowing the arms to rotate all the way around.

 Surprisingly, Bracer's massive shoulder pads don't hinder much of the arm movement. The arms can make a nice "T" pose and make a full 360 rotation around the torso. 

Titan's shoulders however are pretty much stiff, making torso rotation impossible. But they can move out thanks to a small flap on the side.

The arms can also rotate below the shoulder.
The arms have double jointed elbows with no rotation.
The hands rotate and wobble around like you'd expect.

Their bodies can bend backwards and tilt side to side. But this presented an issue with Bracer.
Her waist is connected via a ball joint and normally when the joints are separated, it's just a matter of pushing it back in. Sounds simple right? Well for some reason, it took me 30 MINUTES to get my figure back together. So be wary of that.

The legs can be a bit funny in terms of articulation. The inner waist joints aren't glued into the figure itself and that can make Lady look really awkward.
The legs can move forward and backward and there is rotation at the hips.
The Knees are also double jointed and the feet can move up, turn and pivot nicely.
Below Bracer's knees, the lower leg has this extra bend similar to Crimson Typhoon's legs, although Bracer's are considerably smaller.

The Jaegers come with a fair amount of accessories

There's the usual pair of open hands. The hole is positioned in an odd way that you don't normally see on many action figures. Titan Redeemer obviously only has one open hand.

At least you can make Lady do that famous pose.

Unlike the NECA figures which had Lady's Chain Sword piece attach to the wrist, the Robot Spirits figure comes with the Chain Sword attached to the arm on a separate piece. That doesn't make it feel any less fragile though.

Lastly, there is what looks like a Plasma Cannon, but it's actually referred to as a Gravity Sling. They look to serve both functions and the piece itself does look great.

Bracer Phoenix comes with a pair of Vortex Cannon pieces. 

Both attach to Bracer's chest and back, the pictured pieces have to be removed to be replaced by the cannons. They can be a bit tricky to wiggle out, especially the back one, so it might be a good idea to take it slow.

Once removed, the cannons fit on nicely and make Bracer even more war ready then usual.

Titan Redeemer has one of the more interesting accessories. A mini 1 1/2 inch figure based on the smaller, single pilot Jaeger: Scrapper

Scrapper isn't as highly detailed as it's -- inch counterparts, but it still looks very nice. It is a little disappointing that it's just painted silver and there wasn't more color to it. And there is no articulation. It makes me wonder if a larger, more detailed Scrapper figure will be released in the future.

The Robot Spirit Jaegers stand a little over 6 1/2 inches, nearly 1 inch shorter than the NECA Jaeger figures.
I personally think they fit well in scale with the NECA Kaiju figures and even standard 6 inch Godzilla figures.

I think all 3 of these figures are fantastic! All have great articulation, wonderful detailing and I cannot wait get ahold of the next figures from Tamashii Nations and to see all of them in action on the big screen.
Lady Avenger retails for about $19.99, while Bracer Phoenix and Titan Redeemer retail for $29.99 each. For those price points, I'd say these Jaeger figures are more than worth adding to the shelves of any Kaiju collector.
I highly recommend them.

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.

So long...

If you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, Be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. Thanks for reading!

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