Revoltech Arbalest: No it has nothing to do with revolting technology

I've been in the process of reorganizing my hobby room, (no reason to have a computer desk if I only use a laptop, and can't stand to stay in an upright sitting position for more than 30 minutes) and just this last weekend, I finally go to a point where I have space to take pictures again!

Today we've got Full Metal Panic's Arbalest mech, as represented by the Revoltech line.

A little background on Full Metal Panic, it's an anime/manga about an independent military force, not officially tied to any government that runs around keeping the peace through highly advanced and superior firepower. The core piece of equipment used in warfare in the world are Armslaves, large humanoid piloted mechs. The Arbalest is their most advanced Armslave, equipped with an experimental and not fully understood weapon, called the Lambda Drive. The Lambda Drive allows the pilot to do all kinds of crazy stuff, like creating forcefields, and weird invisible attacks that just crush opponents.

This is actually my first Revoltech toy. The Revoltech line is a toyline from the company Kaiyodo, made up of many different properties, and all using the same "Revoltech" joint system. The line has done well with Japanese toy enthusiasts, so I thought I should get one to check it out and see what all of the fuss was about.

As I mentioned before, the unique thing about the toys is the Revoltech joints, it seems that every toy from the line comes with a couple of the joints just out and about, so you can see what they are. The joints are made up of two hemispheres with a peg sticking out of them, the hemispheres are joined together, and given a ratcheting mechanism to allow you to bend them and have them lock in place. It's kind of hard to explain, and it's a little different, but as an alternative to ball joints, it's pretty nice. You about the same range of motion, while also having a joint that can actually be locked in place.

So the bot itself, I've been a big fan of Full Metal Panic since I first started watching the anime, which includes the mechs. At first look, Arbalest doesn't seem particularly interesting, it's interesting, but nothing really stands out from all of the other anime mechs out there. It does have some standout features that aren't immediately evident, which I'll go into once I start talking about accessories.

So there he is, I have the same criticisms of the Revoltech line as I do of the Marvel Legends line: While the range of motion afforded by the design technically means that it can be posed just about anyway you could think of, in reality it's just really hard to get it to do what you want it to.

Arbalest comes with enough bits and accessories to do a Soul Of Chogokin proud:

We've got a short sword with a sheath, and here is the standout feature I was talking about. The Arbalest has a number of point at which gear can be attached, and it all uses the same sized peg. So the sheath for the short sword can be attach to either hip, either shoulder blade, or on the back of the waist:

Like I said, it's unversal, so the same can be done with the shotgun:

Now it actually comes with two shotguns, one is the stowed form above, and the other is the one to actually be using, with the stock folded out, and the ability to load a clip into it.

It actually has left hands designed to specifically show it about to load a clip:

Or, much cooler in my opinion, loading multiple shells in:

Also to be attached to the various mounting points are extra clips:

Or a strip of shotgun shells (these are tiny, and you have to actually load them in there)

Here we have the Lamda Drive heat sinks deployed:

and either forearm has a section the folds out, which can then be replaced with an alternate panel simulating the grappling hook stored in there.

There is then a string with the hook attached, as well as a hand designed for specifically holding the rope. You can tie the string around the peg that holds the flip out panel, and simulate Arbalest hanging from the line. It looks pretty cool, but I didn't have anything handy to hang it from and take a picture.

The last thing that I always thought was just hilariously awesome about Arbalest, was the novel way it could store it's small knife:

Yes, that's a mech holding a knife in it's "teeth" small clamps would slide out of the face plate to hold the knife there whenever it wasn't in use. On the toy this is accomplished by removing the head, and swapping out a different face plate.

For size comparison next to a GI Joe.

One thing I really liked is that it comes with a small box/crate which can hold most of it's accessories. I gotta say that it's almost preferable to some of the elaborate ornate stands that more expensive toys sometimes use.

So, in closing, I like Arbalest, but I'm not particularly fond of the Revoltech line. It lacks that feeling of flawless engineering that I get from a lot of import toys. They pretty much just feel like the Japanese import version of Marvel Legends, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if these were mass produced and available as a standard retail item in the states, I could see myself buying quite a few of them at fifteen to twenty dollars a pop, but at the thirty to forty, plus shipping that have to pay to import them, I gotta say there are a lot better ways to spend your money, unless there's a particular character that you absolutely have to have, and it's only available in this line.

Now that I've tried out the Revoltech line, I'm determined to find an Arbalest figure that I like more, up next: Robot Damashii!