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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Toy Review: NECA Pacific Rim 7" Hong Kong Brawl Gipsy Danger (Gipsy Danger 2.0)


Review:  #239
Name:  Hong Kong Brawl Gipsy Danger
Brand:  Pacific Rim (NECA)
Allegiance:  Jaeger
Year of Release:  2014
Size Class:  7" figure (Series 4)
Variations:  retooled into Series 5 Anchorage Gipsy Danger and Series 6 Reactor Blast Gipsy Danger

FIGURE:


Hong Kong Brawl Gipsy Danger, as his packaging states, or otherwise more commonly known as Gipsy Danger 2.0, is an all-new mold compared to the Series 1 figure, being slightly larger and taller.


Gipsy Danger is predominantly blue with some metallic highlights and some painted details here and there.


The headsculpt is good but I find that they could be sharper and more detailed, especially compared to how well the rest of the figure is.  Nonetheless, it is still recognizable.


The amazing sculpting on this line continues on here, with the back of the figure being more impressive.


There's a fantastic amount of detailing, above and beyond what you would expect.  It is this sort of sculpting that sells the figure and makes Gipsy Danger look like a proper giant robot.


If you haven't realized already, Gipsy Danger is based upon the main character's Jaeger (i.e. giant robot) in the film Pacific Rim.  The figure is designed after the character model used in the movie.


His nuclear reactor in his chest is painted a yellowy orange and is basically the brightest color piece on the figure.  He has "34" tampographed on his shoulders and sports white and red stripes across his body.


Gipsy Danger is roughly 7.25" tall and in Transformers terms, he's approximately the size of a Voyager but much more dense and heavier than you'd expect of something this size.


In comparison to the main cast of Pacific Rim, Gispy Danger is the second tallest, behind Cherno Alpha.


You might notice that Gipsy Danger is also a bit more slim and athletic looking than the rest of the cast.  He makes up for it with additional accessories.  Now, all the stock photos shows him with the boat but what's surprising is that he includes an additional pair of hands (to hold the boat) and a sword.


With the boat, it's based upon the iconic scene seen in the movie and trailers in which Gipsy Danger drags the boat to fight a Kaiju.  Surprisingly, there is a lot of paint applications on this piece of accessory, although the front is warped.


Gipsy Danger can drag the boat behind him to recreate the iconic scene but it is a loose grip.


The warped section of the ship is molded such that the open palms slot in perfectly to grip.  However, this is still a loose grip.


Gipsy Danger can hold it with both hands, which is more secure.  The other hands also slot into the molded grips on the boat.


The hands are on balljoints, so to swap hands you can pull them out and pop them back in.  Sounds good in theory but the actual size of the balljoints are slightly different so once you stretch the slot, one pair of hands will also seem a bit loose.


Next is his sword, which pegs into a slot into the forearm of either hand.  I find that the fists make for a tighter fit, although this isn't to say that pegging it while having the open palm hand was easy either.


The sword is made from a soft rubbery plastic, so you can be rest assured it won't snap easily.


Speaking of plastic, Gipsy Danger himself is made from a type of plastic that's somewhat soft and rubbery to the touch.  I would have preferred a harder smoother type of plastic.


Now, poseability.  The whole point of this line is the touted articulation, which provides the majority of play value.


It boasts something like over 15 points of articulation or something but I find Gipsy Danger to be somewhat lacking.  It's no worse than the other Pacific Rim figures in this line though.


He has a head joint, an upper waist, shoulder joints, elbow joints (including swivels), wrist swivels, hips, double-jointed knees and some ankle tilts.


While this sounds good, in effect they are limited in their range.  The head is hard to turn and the most disappointing of all was the hips which cannot be moved outwards for more than a few degrees.  Considering that it was similar in the Series 1 version, you would have thought they'd improve this.


Despite this, Gipsy Danger can still pull off some decent poses.  Frankly speaking, most of the value of this figure comes from the display angle.


The build of the figure was good and joints were tight.


A great rendition of Gipsy Danger from the movie.

OVERALL:

Considering the skyrocketed price of the Series 1 version, Hong Kong Gipsy Danger is a fantastic and pretty much a superior substitute.  He looks fantastic, carrying immaculate and painstaking detail.  His articulation is average but Gipsy Danger is a superb action figure that'll look great next to all your other Pacific Rim figures.

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For other Pacific Rim toy reviews, check out this page.

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