Getter Go

Review by JoshB
In the world of toys, Getter Go gets no respect. Precious few toys have been made of this Getter Robo design. Most of the toys were made by cheapie toy maker Yutaka. They made a regular and black DX set, a smaller plastic set, a Jumbo Machine, and maybe a few smaller crappy toys, but since that initial run of toys, that was it.
Until now.
Getter Go is available at Anime-Export.com!
But first, a little background. Getter Go was an anime and manga series that was out in Japan around 1991-1992. Although created by Go Nagai and Ken Ishakawa, it has no connections to other Getter Robo stories. In the US, Viz comics put out some of the Manga as "VENGER ROBO", but that's as much as we saw domestically. The anime ran for 50 episodes in Japan, but I have no idea if it was any good or not.
The toy is mostly great, I love the sculpt and the accessories. There are a few questionable joint choices, but overall it is a good release.
Overall articulation is good, but the front hips are too forward, as usual. Still, you can get a pretty decent neutral pose out of it.
Getter Go has 5 of those tiny peg joints in addition to the Revoltech joints. The downside of these is that they come out really easily. Good for parts that are supposed to come out, bad for those that aren't. The head, hands and knee plates all use this connection method.
There are two heads included with this set. One is the normal head, the other is an angry head with what looks like teeth for the faceplate. Trying to get the head peg back into the neck is a total pain in the ass.
Torso, shoulders and arms are all nicely detailed. This Getter is as much mecha as it is super robot.
The back of the robot has two large Jet Missiles. Each missile has a moveable rear section, and is connected to the back by a dual Revoltech joint. The undersides of the missiles are cut out so that he missiles can sit flush.
Shoulders are good, standard revo joints, elbows are the smaller type, hands are attached to the wrists by those tiny pegs. Each wrist is hinged. As usual, a bunch of variant hands are included.
There is a forearm part that attaches to each arm by a tiny peg. This section houses a cannon on each arm, which can be displayed or removed. These arm parts come off easily making it frustrating to pose. There are also variant arm armor parts which I will discuss later.
The chest has a Revoltech joint in it, as is the norm for this line.
Each hip has a rather pronounced Revoltech joint which seem a bit too much foreward, even for Yamaguchi standards. Knees are Revoltech joints, with the collapsible panels in the back of the legs, and small articulated kneepads, held in place with those tiny, loose peg joints. the feet have Revoltech ankles.
Getter Go has a huge arsenal at his disposal. First up is the sword.
The sword is large, sharp and solid. Getter Go can hold it with one or two hands.
In addition of the sword, Getter Go has this HUGE rifle. What is cool about this gun is that the barrel can actually open, and it comes with bullets that can really fit in the chamber. These bullets are stored on a variant arm part.
The other variant arm part for the other arm is a giant blade that folds out. This thing is armed like crazy.
Two different display stands are included. The first one is the explosion effect stand, which has been included with recent releases.
The second stand is the basic clear Revoltech stand, but this one comes with a special adapter to enable a sideways flying pose. It's a cool idea.
Getter Go is an underrepresented character in the world of Super Robots, and the Revoltech version is an inexpensive way of getting his likeness in your collection. It's mostly great, aside from a few of the peg joints that aren't as firm as I would like it to be, and the arm armor that can fall off.
Comments
16 comments postedLove the sword, and the gun gimmick is great.
"Although created by Go Nagai and Ken Ishakawa, it has no connections to other Getter Robo stories."
That's not true at all.
Ken Ishikawa created Getter Robo and Getter Robo Go is a sequel to the Getter Robo manga. The time line is a little weird, but it even has Hayato, Ryoma, and old Getter villains in it.
The cartoon is completely unconnected though.
It saddens me how CollectionDX rarely research the toys they review and often get the use of accessories wrong ;_;
Anyways, in the Manga Go started with the 'normal' Head and used the sword and Handhenld gun. Early on Go gets trashed pretty badly and then gets repaired, this time sporting the "Demon" face and armed with the wrist mounted cannons instead of the handheld one.
Interestingly I'm fairly sure the rifle was a machine gun in the manga, yet here it looks more like a rifle. Oh well. I'm pretty keen to grab one of these either way.
Look at the volume of things we cover. Do you think we have the time to watch or read each and every anime and manga out there for each character? While I would love to know each tiny detail of the backstories of every toy we cover, it's just not possible. My connection to Getter Go is the old Yutaka toys, which also lend no insight into the backstory.
Primarily I wanted to show you a cool looking toy. Getter Robo is a particularly onerous series to grab a hold of, with many re-tellings, re-imaginings, and it crosses a variety of media. Do we go by the TV series, Manga, or appearances in Games? I was under the impression Getter Go was out of Cannon, I stand corrected.
In regards to the accessories being wrong, well, like I said, I can't read the entire Manga to know the exact use of each one. But you, as a reader, can at least see all the accessories, see what they do, and judge if its the right toy for you. Then you can bring it home, and pose it in the most accurate way possible.
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CollectionDX Admin
Just do what Dan and Adam do and pester me because I'm a huge nerd :3
Yeah I understand that, granted it's fair enough. That's where these comments are handy I suppose, since then people can jump in and explain things about the figures.
Sure, he could have searched a little harder, but it's not the kind of thing one can just Google. If it was a major flaw about a Star Wars character it'd warrant a complaint, since there's one hell of a wiki devoted to it. Getter, not so much. Wikipedia doesn't have everything, you know. You can't really expect a guy to re-watch an entire show so he knows what each accessory is. And anyways, it's a review of the toy, not of the show.
Macross, Gunpla, Gunpla, Macross... Heck, let's go with both.
Considering that I could spend all day in Times Square asking strangers if they knew what Getter Rono was without getting a yes,I'll forgive Josh's unfamiliarity with one of it's spinoffs. :(
It's a review of a toy,not cliff notes of a manga.
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A master of mind control who hides inside a Ford Pickup
Well, HAVE you spent all day in Times Square asking strangers if they knew what Getter Robo was? I really think SOMEONE should try this, just to make sure.
It's probably also worth noting that the figure is based on the Manga character and not the anime one: you'll notice it's lacking the shoulder-mounted-spin-blade-things which the jumbo has. The Getter Robo Go anime had pretty well nothing to do with the manga, much like the original Getter Robo anime was a complete tonal shift from the manga it was based on.
The manga's a great read, I'd recommend it to everyone.
I actually had the first 5 episodes fan-subbed and well the art style definetly didnt have that 70's super robot look. I know it was showing in the early 90's, but it just didnt have the same type of "getter robo" feel to it. I mean it was pretty typical in formula, but I guess you get so used to seeing Getter Robo and Getter G that when you see Getter Go the design just doesnt stand up to its older predecessors.
Looks like it's a design flaw.
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"All the dogs in this sector have turned into red monsters!...don't tell me that it's impossible!"
The manga for Getter Go (based on raw scans, not translated), is crazy awesome. Lots of detailed mecha and action that even if it's not in english, you can still get what's going on. I hear the anime version isn't good (I like the OP's though). We'll miss you Ken Ishakawa. ;_;
Still hoping for a Getter Ark revoltech. A rough proto was shown years ago but I guess like the Scopedogs they planned to do, it got cancelled.
mangafox has the translated one
i think this guy is cool and all but i personally dont like the green hands and the green pants!
its weirding me out man!