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12-8-00 Gunbuster-Kaiyodo Meat and Potatoes; 3.5 Perks; 3.5 Homer Factor; 4.0
						Sorry, No Image
	Ok, Gunbuster is one of SILLIEST tites for an anime piece.(Bubblegum Crisis isn't alone.)  However, it is also one of the best pieces of super-robot animation around.  Take Voltron, Starblazers, and throw in nasty aliens the size of Nebraska, and you have an anime OVA of epic proportions.  Gunbuster takes place in the distant future with Earthlings exploring the stars and, of course, run into a bunch of nasty crab aliens who would like nothing better then to smoosh us out of existence.  Naturally, we strike back with robots, more robots, ships Derek Wildstar of 'Starblazers' would swoon over, and the largest robot in anime so far, the 200 m tall Gunbuster!  Of course toys are called for, and Kaiyodo created a 7" Gunbuster figure.  Considering Kaiyodo also created the wonderful Neon Genesis Evangelion pieces, I was expecting a masterpiece.  Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out... The meat and potatoes of this figures are... ok.  The sculpting and painting on the piece are well done.  There is a large amount of detail in capturing items like the manueuvering engines, vents, panel lines, even the tank-treads in Gunbuster's feet.  Unfortunately, the articulation on this piece is horrible.  The arms of the figure are designed to pop off and be replaced with a pair of arms which cross over the chest, reminiscent of a pose from the OVA.  Although the differing poses are a cute touch, the connections of the arms to the shoulders are very, very loose.  It doesn't take much for the arms to just pop off.  In addition, the hips don't bend in the usual back and forth kicking motion, although the shins do rotate.  The perks for this figure also could have been much better.  The figure comes with a set of interchangable hands, the aforementioned replacement arms, and a hatchet and baseball bat.(Although these aren't used in the OVA, I vaguely remember a review of a Japanese computer game with Gunbuster that had it use these as melee weapons.   Go figure.)  Not horrible, but considering Kaiyodo's experience with Evangelion pieces, I expected a bit more.  One other major perk missing is the robots ability to transform.  In the later episodes, Gunbuster shows the ability to split into two large rockets.  If the piece was very exceptional, I wouldn't miss the transformation, especially since it's used only twice.  However, considering the other problems, e.g. the lack of articulation, a transformation would have made up for these short-comings. The Homer factor for this figure was high, but should have been higher.  As you noticed, I love the OVA and I was very excited when I heard this piece was available.  Unfortunately, upon further review, the piece isn't all it's cracked up to be. In the end the Gunbuster piece isn't horrible, but it's not great either. Since the piece was by Kaiyodo, I was expecting something besides a well crafted statue with limited articulation.  Oh well, even Spielberg has to live with making '1941.'