A very similar toy to the Giant Robo jumbo sized vinyl, but a much cooler looking character. You gotta love those bad guy robots!!

The GR-2 is a much cooler toy than the Giant Robo in my opinion and it always drove me nuts that it wasn't readily available here in the US. The Giant Robo bootleg was everywhere, but this one just never seemed to show up on Ebay. From time to time I saw it on Yahoo!Japan auctions, but always either at a time I couldn't afford it or just for a price I didn't like. But ultimately, I managed to pick one up at Mandarake in Nakano during my winter trip to Japan in 2006.

For the most part, this toy uses the same sculpt as the Giant Robo, with the obvious exceptions being the head and arms (although there is a Giant Robo that does use the same arms, too). This toy is taller than the other though, measuring about 24.5" to the tip of the highest part of the horn.

I really like the muted, dark colors on this toy. The whole thing looks like a shadow. It's molded in in a light black vinyl, with dark silver highlights. The only real color is the white of the eyes. The eyes are great, too. They seem to burn with anger, which isn't something you see on a robot very often.

The GR-2 is articulated in all the same places as the Giant Robo, but one thing I didn't count on is that you can also twist the horns on the head. A neat addition, but honestly, it really just looks best pointed straight up and there's not much reason to change that.

When I was in Japan, I had prepared a big box to bring on the plane home with me and this guy presented a problem because it was so large I didn't think I could fit it in. Fortunately, heating with a hair dryer allowed me to separate it at the waist and it then fit in fine. So I didn't have to pay any extra shipping to get it home, always a plus.

Despite it's jumbo size, this guy was released in a bag with a header card just like most vinyls.

A surprisingly well done bootleg of Giant Robo.

Some years back, Marmit released a series of jumbo sized vinyls based on the robots from the original 1967-68 "Giant Robo" (aka "Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot") tv show. Giant Robo, Calamity and GR2 were all made. Now, to be truthful, I never paid too much attention to the whole line. I do know that I've seen some released in a bag with a header card and some released in a box. Some have arms pointing straight down and others with the arms raised above the head. The toy we are looking at now is a bootleg based on the Giant Robo version with arms at it's side. It came with no packaging.

For a bootleg, the quality on this is remarkable. I think most people would be hard pressed to differentiate it from the original without a close inspection. Other than that the copyright information has been removed from the bottom of the feet, I'm not sure if there are even any differences at all. This it the reason I don't know all the details of the original Marmit releases. This one is so well done, I never had the desire to get any of the Giant Robo originals.

This guy stands 21" tall and although it does have several points of articulation (neck, shoulders, wrists, waist, hips and ankles), it really isn't very poseable at all. In all likelihood, the only places you'd adjust the limbs might be at the ankles, and only then to make sure the the toy has a firm grip on whatever surfacing it's standing on. It has a tendency to lean forward so you'll want to make sure it doesn't topple over. I sometimes even place a few old hockey cards beneath the front of it's feet to straighten it up a bit.

Giant Robo is cast in blue vinyl with painted highlights. As I said before, the paint job is surprisingly good for a bootleg. There is a small blue jewel sort of thing embedded in the waist and he has rockets on his back. You can wiggle the bottom of these rockets, but like most of the rest of the toy, just because it can move, doesn't mean it's worth the effort to do it. Consider this just a display piece. Also, be careful with those rockets. One of mine has broken off a couple of times and I've had to glue it back in place.

When I first started collecting, these things were all over Ebay, and while you can still find them, they seem a little less common now. In fact, the official Marmit seems to be just as prevalent and the price about the same in general. Recently, a bootleg of Calamity has shown up, but GR2 has only the original release, which I'll review next.

I can't believe I didn't buy this for $20 when I had the chance! But I've got it now and I'm glad I do...

This toy is a perfect example of me doing the wrong thing while thinking I'm doing the right thing. It was the first East Coast Chogikin Summit I would attend and the whole lot of us had gone over to the warehouse at Robozone to do a little shopping. At the time, they had stacks of these Yamato Giant Robo (ジャイアントロボ) toys for a mere $20 each. But I had just bought an expensive Jumbo not long before and while I did buy a couple toys that day, I decided to pass on this one since I really didn't know anything about it and wasn't a huge fan of the character design. I thought I should try to curtail my spending somehow and Giant Robo was left behind.

At the time I felt proud of myself for trying to be responsible with my money and not just buying every little thing because it was a good price. But I would later learn that not only was a GREAT price, it was also a very good toy. Still, I didn't worry too much about it and put in somewhere in the back of my mind, with the list of other things to get if I saw them somewhere cheap. And while it took nearly four years, eventually I would score one on ebaY for the same $20 I refused to part with before (plus shipping of course!).

This updated version of the character is from a series of OAVs beginning in 1992 called "Giant Robo: The Day The Earth Stood Still". I haven't seen the anime, but the new design is quite different from the original (left side of case). I prefer the old one to the new, but now that I have this toy in hand, I feel even stupider for not buying it the first time. It's a solid, hefty, quality hunk of diecast. It's about 7.5" tall and pretty much all the blue-ish grey areas that you see are diecast, with the exception of the ABS "skirt" and in the head. Honestly, if I had realised exactly how much diecast was in this thing, I couldn't possibly have passed on it for $20.

It's also very well articulated and is surprisingly poseable. The ankles are on ball joints, while the shoulders, elbows, knees, and hips are click nicely into place when you position them. Furthermore, the waist and upper arms can be turned for enhanced flexibility. The head actually has two joints. Where the neck attaches to the shoulders is a ball joint and the head that is attached on top of that can be turned side to side. The only real drawback as far as articulation goes is that the forearms are VERY limited in how far they can be raised. The edge of the forearms will hit the edge of the upper arms so they don't go far. For instance, Giant Robo would not be able to touch his own shoulders (or even come close). This toy would have been greatly improved if it used the same extending arm feature as the Aoshima Shin Seki Gokin Mazinkaiser, where you can pull the arm further out and then bend it. In the picture below, that is as far up as I could point the lower arms.

Another thing I like about this toy, is that it is really very similar to the Aoshima diecasts. In addition to being a big heavy chunk of metal, for the most part, it is ready to play with/display right out of the box. It does come with some accessories in a plastic tray, but those, should you decide to attach them, are pretty simple to attach. You just pop the red PVC out of the shoulders and neck and replace them with the appropriate missile launchers. The parts in the chest and waist are slightly trickier, but not much. The chest needs to be pulled out and lifted to insert the missiles here and the waist is opened by sliding it down. I found on mine at least that it was a tight fit to get the missiles all the way in here. But once they are all in place, Giant Robo looks ready to kick some serious butt. Personally, I think that much firepower looks a little like overkill to me, so I display it without the chest and waist part.

You probably noticed the girl in the tray as well. That's Gin Rei and I must admit to being surprised at how well done she is, for what is basically a throw-in accessory. The sculpt and paint job are clean and accurate for the most part. In fact, they even painted the earring in her left ear!

I won't say this is a great toy. The lack of mobility at the arms, as well as the fact that the lower arms sometimes don't stay in place in certain poses (the metal in the arms is too heavy for the turning joint) are two serious drawbacks. And for a toy with so many missiles, it would be nice if at least some of them actually fired. But on the whole, if you see this at a decent price, don't make the same mistake I once did.

When I first saw images of the Revoltech No. 21 – GR-2, the only thing I could think of is “I MUST HAVE IT”. Getting a Revoltech figure of Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Giant Robo is one thing, but getting a figure of GR-2 is absolutely amazing.

When I first saw images of the Revoltech No. 21 – GR-2, the only thing I could think of is “I MUST HAVE IT”. Getting a Revoltech figure of Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Giant Robo is one thing, but getting a figure of GR-2 is absolutely amazing.

Revoltech No. 21 GR-2 arrived recently from HobbyLink Japan. The character is an enemy robot in the 1992 OVA series Giant Robo. As a weapon of the evil organization Big Fire, GR-2 faces off against Giant Robo in deadly combat.

GR-2 is a simple figure – there are no real gimmicks here, just some variant hands and a stand. The sculpting is the usual top-notch from Katsuhisa Yamaguchi. Revoltech joints in all the right places make him extremely poseable.

The selling point of GR-2 is that he includes the bazooka cannon for Giant Robo. While at first I thought it was kind of lame that Kaiyodo made you buy another figure to get the bazooka, I understand it now. GR-2 alone would not be worth the 1,900 yen – there aren’t enough accessories. But if you have Giant Robo, you will love having GR-2. You will make them fight.

Included with GR-2 is:

• 2 closed hands
• 2 open hands
• 2-piece stand
• Bazooka (2 parts)
• Bazooka support

To use the Bazooka with Giant Robo, you have to remove the right tank from GR’s backpack. The cannon plugs into the holes, but be careful – I had a hard time getting one of the Revoltech joints in. On the front of GR, remove the small red tab on the chest and insert the missle stand. The fit here is very loose, and the stand does not plug into the bazooka, so be aware and careful not to lose it.

Revoltech No. 21 GR-2 is available from HobbyLink Japan

Giant Robo stands 5 inches tall and features a whopping 14 Revoltech joints. There are NO monoshaft joints on this figure. Each point of articulation is a Revoltech joint, which in my opinion, is pretty sweet.

Giant Robo comes from the 1992 anime series Giant Robo: The Animation (ジャイアント・ロボTHE ANIMATION). This series was a retro-anime, a remake of the original Giant Robo live action series in 1967 (Known in the USA as Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot).

I've never understood why there aren't more toys of this design. It is one of the few remakes that I think successfully captures the spirit of the original character.

Revoltech Giant Robo was released at the same time as the Revoltech Convoy. They shared the ride from HobbyLink Japan to my house, like a pair of mismatched roommates. While the figures are aesthetically different, they both retain the Revoltech design sensibilities. This is a credit to the main designer of the revoltech series, Katsuhisa Yamaguchi.

Giant Robo stands 5 inches tall and features a whopping 14 Revoltech joints. There are NO monoshaft joints on this figure. Each point of articulation is a Revoltech joint, which in my opinion, is pretty sweet.

The sculpt on this toy is absolutely astounding. The toy is molded in a grey-blue plastic with red and gold paint highlights. The detail is sharp and the finish is even. Kaiyodo has really refined the Revoltech process since the line began.

The figure comes with 2 variant hands - that's it. No stand, no extra weapons. I initially thought "How Boring!". But then as I looked closer I realized that it had missile banks! They are hidden by a unique system of panel swapping. You can pry out the red panels on the shoulders and chest and reverse them to reveal the missile launchers! That is very cool, and unexpected.

Giant Robo's Jetpack is articulated by 2 Revoltech joints on the back, and is removable. In the anime, Giant Robo had the ability to turn his Jetpack into a giant cannon. This cannon is not included with this release. Instead, Kaiyodo is packing the cannon parts in with the upcoming GR-2, Giant Robo's Nemesis. I suppose most people who are buying Giant Robo will get GR-2, but it still stinks that you have to buy both figures to get those parts.

One other gripe I have is the use of the new elbow joints. I addressed this issue in the Convoy review, but to sum it up, the ends of the Revoltech joints stick out of the forearm and look ugly.

Otherwise, this is an awesome figure - I love the character choices Kaiyodo has been making for this line, and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us.

Giant Robo is available from Hobby Link Japan.