Awesomest Toy News in Years
Last weekend Japanese toy company Kaiyodo held their (presumably annual) Revoltech Expo, to showcase upcoming figures in their line. Revoltech is a line of highly articulated 5″ figures based on various anime and other licenses, predominantly in the giant robot genre. I try to keep my eyes on it, and I’m a proud owner of the Revoltech Convoy - the ass-kicking truck/robot known to people outside Japan as Optimus Prime. It is definitely a cool figure, but as I have little to no interest in most of the anime that Revoltech figures are based on, I don’t really collect the line. At this year’s Expo however, an announcement was made that absolutely rocked my world.
YES. KAIYODO WILL PRODUCE REVOLTECH FIGURES BASED ON HOKUTO NO KEN.
As most of my friends know, I am an absolutely huge fan of Hokuto no Ken. And if there’s one thing I like as much as HnK, it’s highly articulated action figures. I have often lamented the apparent demise of Kaiyodo’s Hokuto no Ken 200X line of well-articulated 7″ figures, but these are more than a worthy successor. The smaller scale means less shelf space is required, the articulation will be even better, and perhaps most importantly, they will be significantly more affordable. The Revoltech figures retail at 2000yen, whereas the second hand value of HNK200X figures often go up to 10.000yen and beyond.
The rather impressive list of characters announced for the line so far are Kenshirou, Raoh, Toki, Jagi, Souther, Rei, Shuu, and the generic grunt dubbed “Abeshi” (after the famous death scream in the manga - seen here in a T-shirt print). The lineup is surprisingly populated, but it does make the absence of iconic characters Shin and Yuda somewhat curious. Hopefully they will be released later, along with Yuria, Mamiya, and with any luck the Goshasei as well as lesser villains like Heart, Kiba…. well, you know, they can release just about anyone and I’ll want them.
