I wrote before in my review of Revoltech's Getter 1 figure, that I had only a sparse memory of the Getter series as a child, but once I had reached a stage of maturity I had a chance to reconnect once more with Go Nagai's Getter Franchise by means of the Starvenger series of Jim Terry, which "Americanized" Getter Robo G.
In Getter Robo G the same characters are there except for Musashi. The pilot of Getter 3 perished at the end of the series and was replaced by Benkei. In Getter Robo G the 3 robots have names attached to them instead of just numbers. Ryoma had Getter Dragon, Hayato had Getter Liger while Benkei had Getter Poseidon. In Starvengers they were referred to as Star Dragon, Star Arrow and Star Poseidon.
In 2004 there was a retelling of the Getter Robot Franchise via 13 episode series titled Shin! Getter Robot. New designs were made for the 3 robots. Almost all the major characters return but in this story Musashi gets replaced by Benkei as the pilot of Getter 3. You can check out the video here.
Getter Robo 3 of this movie has been made into a toy by Kaiyodo in their Revoltech Series. The toy was sculpted by Katsuhisa Yamaguchi and uses the unique joint system found in Revoltech models that allow for extreme posing. The design of Getter 3 in New! Getter Robo (Shin! Getter Robo in Japanese) is different from the first Getter 3 but it carries the spirit of the original.
The new Getter 3 design still has no legs, but instead of a 2 Tank like caterpillar threads for propulsion, it uses 3 in a tricycle configuration. It however can increase its height a bit because of the tricycle configuration. Arms are still telescopic and 2 missiles still decorate its shoulders.
Box shots of the figure:
Like all other Revoltech figures, it comes packed in a 2 piece thin vacuum formed plastic case. The top piece is transparent while the back piece is colored black.
The figure stands between 60 ~ 100 mm tall depending on how you position its tricycle legs. Only the two caterpillar legs move while the back caterpillar, that looks like its tail, is fixed on the torso. Compared to the other Getter Robots, Getter 3 has wide shoulders which span about 70 mm in the toy. Getter 3 has always been known as the strongest of the 3 robots, hence the display of strength in the shoulder design.
Aside from the figure of Getter 3, the kit comes packaged with 2 spare hands and two spare arms which one can attach to the existing arms to make it longer. Unlike the others however, Getter 3 does not come with a stand. Quite logical because Getter 3 doesn't have the ability to fly.
A shot of the caterpillar thread attached to its butt.
Shot of the caterpillar thread that it has in place of two legs.
2 Spare arm extenders of the figure
2 Spare hands that comes with the kit
Additional shots of the Getter 3 figure of Shin Getter Robo Series.
Revoltech's take on Getter Robo 3 from the Shin Getter Robo 13 episode tv series is definitely a toy that I like based on poseability and beauty of the work. There are some paint missteps but it doesn't bother me a bit. Care has to be taken with regards to parts connected to the revoltech joints because they aren't fixed to the toy. The parts could pop out easily from the joint and you could lose it.
