EyelessMC
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
Alright! So I finally got a kit I was looking forward to, a Chinese knock-off of a metal build figure which was reworked by the bootlegers into a fully functional model kit.
Devolution Getter [Black]
If anybody wants the Devolution Getter manga I'll upload it along with the original Getter manga.
Also my phone is practically dusted at this point so I know the feeling lol. And Muslims have Ramadan so it's kinda fun for them, too, except for the bombings.
Merry Christmas, Syn. If I never get to see you into the new year then know that I'm glad you keep having fun despite life's troubles. Whether here or on other gunpla threads/forums, always share that creativity.
Devolution Getter [Black]
Right off the bat, this design is nuts. It's a combiner super robot from the 70's given a new design in a recent serialized manga series called "Getter Devolution", a sort of alternate universe(?) story taking inspiration from the late Ishikawa's great Getter Robo series (the first giant robot series to pioneer the concept of "combiners"--robots formed from multiple vehicles combining into one). Here's the Bandai HG kit of the original retro design:
(1/150th scale standing man not included)
You can find this kit nicely priced at Gundam Planet (don't mention that the torso is backwards, I know lol). The hands, feet and superhero underwear are of soft rubber. The whole kit can come apart easily but be put back together just as easy. It's a very kid friendly model kit once it's built--despite the manga being VERY NSFL for kids.
Back to Devolution:
This is meant to be the red Getter 1 (so named because the robot has three forms for combat) forced through artificial accelerated evolution with a plot point to spur on a plot point to kill the Will of the Universe before it kills all mankind. The story of the manga is dumb with it's constant rug-pulls and if you're a classic Getter fan then it could be a major insult to Ishikawa's legacy to you. However, it reintroduced the bloody and hardcore edge that Getter always had, the series basically feeling like "What if Devil Man...but a giant robot?", likely because Ishikawa began as a protege of the great Go Nagai, creator of Devilman and one of the epochs of giant mecha history: Mazinger.
To follow this hardcore and brutal super robot concept, the fresh-faced upstarts working on Devolution created the Devolution Getter. Much like its ancestor, it can fly by means of summoning a giant cape called the Getter Wing and has dual blades it wields in combat, the Getter Tomahawks:
Not really "tomahawks" though. More like...katars? I forget what they're called but you know what I mean. The HG red Getter 1 posted above has the tomahawks. This one has these things.
The Devolution Getter (hereafter called DG) is colossal in lore, much like most super robots. That little white peg at the bottom is what YOU would look like standing next to it IRL. The cockpit is in the head, just like the original Getter 1. The model kit itself is also fairly large, coming roughly a smidge taller than a MG RX-78-2. The color scheme for the DG is the exact same as the original Getter Robo, with mostly red, yellow and some accents of black. Of course this kit is colored differently, inspired by a unique version of that Getter found in "Getter Armageddon" OVA series where the robot fell through the atmosphere and thus was charred black. This color scheme is not found in the Devolution manga.
Above is an image of the original Devolution Getter (Black) figure created by Sentinel vs the bootleg I'm reviewing. Sold for upwards of $300 (these days going for far more), the original was, as I said, a Metal Build style figure. All the inner joints, silvery bits, etc. were die-cast metal. The grey pieces were matte and the black pieces were either matte or a high gloss. The bootleg company known as Dragon Momoko/MJH took the design documents and made it into a model kit. How'd it turn out? Well, it turned out amazing! The posability of this thing is astonishing despite it's bizarre proportions and tiny feet (the feet are small--that big front piece you see is just the foot guard). It's enormous thick legs can even do a complete bend!
However the kit does have flaws. It's a bootleg, after all, so that means certain parts wouldn't fit very well. Honestly, though, only the head piece is a problem. It's basically the size of a miniature (Getter heads started shrinking oddly until Getter Arc, Ishikawa's final manga which he sadly passed away before finishing, so the Devolution guys followed suit). There's an internal ball-joint for the base of the neck and a tiny one for the head but the head just doesn't fit. You get enough movement from the larger balljoint so you might as well glue the head at a proper angle and just swap the faces.
The faces leads us to the next point of contention, though: paintwork. If you buy this kit know that it won't look exactly like the above. The accents of red throughout the kit were added by me, as was the gun metal coloring of the inner frame, the gold color of the spikes and elsewhere (I lost a spike dammit) and the silver for the arm blades and weapons. The original out of box color scheme is more true to the original Sentinel metal build figure despite not having gold (it's yellowish orange instead) or tiny red accents (those are just black, but you get three different pairs of horns and one of them is red). Still, I wanted to change it up a bit.
My paintwork was coming along nicely until I tried to repaint the eyes to look better, and...well:
The head is pre-ainted so it looks good enough. Maybe some very light panel lining to decrease the overabundant orange on the eyes. However I tried to redo it all and...man, that's not happening. Unless you paint Games Workshop stuff like Warhammer figures don't even bother. Seriously. It's just too small. This is what I got after two hours and a cramped hand.
The accessories are phenomenal, though. You get six pairs of hands (open, two types of weapon holding hands and closed fists). You get two types of arm blades (one short type and one for when the blades are extended to attack). You get the two "tomahawks" shown previously and you get this:
This is the Getter Battle Axe Ass Blaster (patent pending). No actually I don't recall it's name but it's a massive battle axe and it's awesome. Literally. Remember, that little white peg is a 5'9'' human. This kit is therefore roughly 1/220 scale of the actual robot's size, meaning this giant axe--which, for the kit, is just over a foot long or so--would cleave an Evangelion in half. I took a pic back when I thought it was a 1/100 scale (hence the pilot figure below) and it was still enormous:
As you saw, the figure comes with a stand. Three, in fact, and as you also saw it needs all three to be propped up securely. Even then it's a pain in the ass to configure it right, though that might be because of how my paintwork added to everything's girth a bit. If you built this out of box then it'd likely be easier. Maybe.
The Devolution Getter also has hidden gimmicks. You already saw that it has an opening mouth to shoot beams from (you change the faces on the model kit) but the weird tire-like shoulders also have GIANT beam emitters:
The translucent forest green plastic comes with an extra pair for the chest and shoulder bits. Also a pair of green horns and some extra detail pieces for the leg vents (which aren't canonical but who cares?). What's weird is that the signature Getter Beam attack comes from the center of the chest or navel and somehow...this kit can't do it. The Sentinel figure it's modeled after can but you only get one piece for the center-chest, this white cap piece. No alternate green piece for when it's blasting away.
But of course you'll have noticed that this kit isn't 1-1 with the original Sentinel figure's design. Just look at the arms in the previous comparison for proof. Still, it's very accurate to the manga and works well enough. It's overall a great kit, one made even better by the inclusion of something that DID come with the Sentinel figure.
See, every Getter Robo has something unique to them, and this DG is no different. Although it has the Getter Wing superhero cape (all tattered because it's Ow the Edge), you also get the DG's signature wings and tail:
It's massive! However, the wings don't move very much. They can pivot left-right, up-down at the connecting joint and that's it really. A few moving parts but nothing to let it do the poses it can in the manga. Also technically the Shin Getter had wings first. No one had a tail, though! This tail is wonderfully secure with all of its many ball joints and capable of doing anything you can think of, really. Honestly all the joints are nicely tight, every part fitting flush--which is why this kit was a colossal pain in the ass after I had painted everything and needed to put it together.
All the pegs are thick, too, so you're not likely to break something too easily (unless it falls) unlike the Kotobukiya kits I'd reviewed. It has an upper and lower hinge joint to give it a great ab crunch and the base of the hips let it swivel side-to-side with a waist turn as well. The arms have a full bend with a secondary 360 twist at the forarms, which can also hinge inward for a pseudo wrist joint. The hands are pegged in securely and pivot side-to-side as well. The feet hinge forward and back, pivot side-to-side, and the foot shield thing is on a balljoint to give you added security when standing it up or posing it. Overall, it's really nifty.
Again, you can see how all the above would be a curse rather than a blessing if you paint every single piece before trying to fit it together.
Don't be me. Don't be dumb.
You can get the model kit of this for just over $74 with shipping and tax from local sellers. Final word of warning though:
The Devolution Getter manga wasn't created by Ishikawa, as I've mentioned. It was actually created by someone else, a duo who had created another super robot whose kit I had enjoyed...and then boiled.
Yes, it's the Linebarrels duo. You know what that means! SHARP! THE KIT IS SO SHARP! I CUT MYSELF ON TH EDGE, LITERALLY! PLEASE BE CAREFUL IT'S SO SHARP YOU HAVE NO IDEA! It's like the kit hates you and wants you to suffer as you try to bring it to life. It's literally the exact experience I had with the Kotobukiya Linebarrels kit. At least this one was much bigger so it wasn't cramping my hands (only slicing them).
You can find this kit nicely priced at Gundam Planet (don't mention that the torso is backwards, I know lol). The hands, feet and superhero underwear are of soft rubber. The whole kit can come apart easily but be put back together just as easy. It's a very kid friendly model kit once it's built--despite the manga being VERY NSFL for kids.
Back to Devolution:
This is meant to be the red Getter 1 (so named because the robot has three forms for combat) forced through artificial accelerated evolution with a plot point to spur on a plot point to kill the Will of the Universe before it kills all mankind. The story of the manga is dumb with it's constant rug-pulls and if you're a classic Getter fan then it could be a major insult to Ishikawa's legacy to you. However, it reintroduced the bloody and hardcore edge that Getter always had, the series basically feeling like "What if Devil Man...but a giant robot?", likely because Ishikawa began as a protege of the great Go Nagai, creator of Devilman and one of the epochs of giant mecha history: Mazinger.
To follow this hardcore and brutal super robot concept, the fresh-faced upstarts working on Devolution created the Devolution Getter. Much like its ancestor, it can fly by means of summoning a giant cape called the Getter Wing and has dual blades it wields in combat, the Getter Tomahawks:
Not really "tomahawks" though. More like...katars? I forget what they're called but you know what I mean. The HG red Getter 1 posted above has the tomahawks. This one has these things.
The Devolution Getter (hereafter called DG) is colossal in lore, much like most super robots. That little white peg at the bottom is what YOU would look like standing next to it IRL. The cockpit is in the head, just like the original Getter 1. The model kit itself is also fairly large, coming roughly a smidge taller than a MG RX-78-2. The color scheme for the DG is the exact same as the original Getter Robo, with mostly red, yellow and some accents of black. Of course this kit is colored differently, inspired by a unique version of that Getter found in "Getter Armageddon" OVA series where the robot fell through the atmosphere and thus was charred black. This color scheme is not found in the Devolution manga.
Above is an image of the original Devolution Getter (Black) figure created by Sentinel vs the bootleg I'm reviewing. Sold for upwards of $300 (these days going for far more), the original was, as I said, a Metal Build style figure. All the inner joints, silvery bits, etc. were die-cast metal. The grey pieces were matte and the black pieces were either matte or a high gloss. The bootleg company known as Dragon Momoko/MJH took the design documents and made it into a model kit. How'd it turn out? Well, it turned out amazing! The posability of this thing is astonishing despite it's bizarre proportions and tiny feet (the feet are small--that big front piece you see is just the foot guard). It's enormous thick legs can even do a complete bend!
However the kit does have flaws. It's a bootleg, after all, so that means certain parts wouldn't fit very well. Honestly, though, only the head piece is a problem. It's basically the size of a miniature (Getter heads started shrinking oddly until Getter Arc, Ishikawa's final manga which he sadly passed away before finishing, so the Devolution guys followed suit). There's an internal ball-joint for the base of the neck and a tiny one for the head but the head just doesn't fit. You get enough movement from the larger balljoint so you might as well glue the head at a proper angle and just swap the faces.
The faces leads us to the next point of contention, though: paintwork. If you buy this kit know that it won't look exactly like the above. The accents of red throughout the kit were added by me, as was the gun metal coloring of the inner frame, the gold color of the spikes and elsewhere (I lost a spike dammit) and the silver for the arm blades and weapons. The original out of box color scheme is more true to the original Sentinel metal build figure despite not having gold (it's yellowish orange instead) or tiny red accents (those are just black, but you get three different pairs of horns and one of them is red). Still, I wanted to change it up a bit.
My paintwork was coming along nicely until I tried to repaint the eyes to look better, and...well:
The head is pre-ainted so it looks good enough. Maybe some very light panel lining to decrease the overabundant orange on the eyes. However I tried to redo it all and...man, that's not happening. Unless you paint Games Workshop stuff like Warhammer figures don't even bother. Seriously. It's just too small. This is what I got after two hours and a cramped hand.
The accessories are phenomenal, though. You get six pairs of hands (open, two types of weapon holding hands and closed fists). You get two types of arm blades (one short type and one for when the blades are extended to attack). You get the two "tomahawks" shown previously and you get this:
This is the Getter Battle Axe Ass Blaster (patent pending). No actually I don't recall it's name but it's a massive battle axe and it's awesome. Literally. Remember, that little white peg is a 5'9'' human. This kit is therefore roughly 1/220 scale of the actual robot's size, meaning this giant axe--which, for the kit, is just over a foot long or so--would cleave an Evangelion in half. I took a pic back when I thought it was a 1/100 scale (hence the pilot figure below) and it was still enormous:
As you saw, the figure comes with a stand. Three, in fact, and as you also saw it needs all three to be propped up securely. Even then it's a pain in the ass to configure it right, though that might be because of how my paintwork added to everything's girth a bit. If you built this out of box then it'd likely be easier. Maybe.
The Devolution Getter also has hidden gimmicks. You already saw that it has an opening mouth to shoot beams from (you change the faces on the model kit) but the weird tire-like shoulders also have GIANT beam emitters:
The translucent forest green plastic comes with an extra pair for the chest and shoulder bits. Also a pair of green horns and some extra detail pieces for the leg vents (which aren't canonical but who cares?). What's weird is that the signature Getter Beam attack comes from the center of the chest or navel and somehow...this kit can't do it. The Sentinel figure it's modeled after can but you only get one piece for the center-chest, this white cap piece. No alternate green piece for when it's blasting away.
But of course you'll have noticed that this kit isn't 1-1 with the original Sentinel figure's design. Just look at the arms in the previous comparison for proof. Still, it's very accurate to the manga and works well enough. It's overall a great kit, one made even better by the inclusion of something that DID come with the Sentinel figure.
See, every Getter Robo has something unique to them, and this DG is no different. Although it has the Getter Wing superhero cape (all tattered because it's Ow the Edge), you also get the DG's signature wings and tail:
It's massive! However, the wings don't move very much. They can pivot left-right, up-down at the connecting joint and that's it really. A few moving parts but nothing to let it do the poses it can in the manga. Also technically the Shin Getter had wings first. No one had a tail, though! This tail is wonderfully secure with all of its many ball joints and capable of doing anything you can think of, really. Honestly all the joints are nicely tight, every part fitting flush--which is why this kit was a colossal pain in the ass after I had painted everything and needed to put it together.
All the pegs are thick, too, so you're not likely to break something too easily (unless it falls) unlike the Kotobukiya kits I'd reviewed. It has an upper and lower hinge joint to give it a great ab crunch and the base of the hips let it swivel side-to-side with a waist turn as well. The arms have a full bend with a secondary 360 twist at the forarms, which can also hinge inward for a pseudo wrist joint. The hands are pegged in securely and pivot side-to-side as well. The feet hinge forward and back, pivot side-to-side, and the foot shield thing is on a balljoint to give you added security when standing it up or posing it. Overall, it's really nifty.
Again, you can see how all the above would be a curse rather than a blessing if you paint every single piece before trying to fit it together.
Don't be me. Don't be dumb.
You can get the model kit of this for just over $74 with shipping and tax from local sellers. Final word of warning though:
The Devolution Getter manga wasn't created by Ishikawa, as I've mentioned. It was actually created by someone else, a duo who had created another super robot whose kit I had enjoyed...and then boiled.
Yes, it's the Linebarrels duo. You know what that means! SHARP! THE KIT IS SO SHARP! I CUT MYSELF ON TH EDGE, LITERALLY! PLEASE BE CAREFUL IT'S SO SHARP YOU HAVE NO IDEA! It's like the kit hates you and wants you to suffer as you try to bring it to life. It's literally the exact experience I had with the Kotobukiya Linebarrels kit. At least this one was much bigger so it wasn't cramping my hands (only slicing them).
You could absolutely do up the inner frame without the armor, add a few of the armor pieces and just keep it like that. Honestly it looks better partially built than fully built because of that gorgeous head and cool inner frame design. Those pistons are fantastic, too.
Same. I'm always in the Covid thread or just browsing the site. Running low on patience for painting these days myself so I can really appreciate the extra effort here. Kit looks fun, man. Kinda like the Heavy Arms's younger brother. lol But really you did a nice job. Definitely better than leaving it plasticy blue.
Also my phone is practically dusted at this point so I know the feeling lol. And Muslims have Ramadan so it's kinda fun for them, too, except for the bombings.
Merry Christmas, Syn. If I never get to see you into the new year then know that I'm glad you keep having fun despite life's troubles. Whether here or on other gunpla threads/forums, always share that creativity.
