Figure Review: Robot Spirit - Atlas Destroyer - Pacific Rim: The Black

Loa, start up Atlas Destroyer
We have some Kaijuus to beat

Pacific Rim: The Black has finally ended this year. Well, it wasn’t a very spectacular series, but the Jaeger combat is very serviceable, which is one of the main points we watch Pacific Rim in the first place. While Polygon may suck at animating humans, they know how to make an 80-meter robots and monster punch each other really really hard. Well, not many Jaegers appear in The Black, so Bandai decided to only make the titular unit: the Atlas Destroyer.

+ Design: Atlas Destroyer is such a cool name, though. It sounds like an absolute war machine that can decimate any Kaijuus it come across. But in reality, it’s not that fancy-looking. It’s basically a Gipsy Danger with a different paintjob. First and foremost, this thing looks good and feel great. It looks anime-accurate and the overall built is as solid as a rock (if you had handled the uprising one you will understand why this is significant ) its a 9/10 and here are the reason why.

It is quite accurate to the anime 3d model. Proportionately speaking, the robot spirits version is a tad bit sleeker in the design. Such as the shoulders, they are smaller than the anime 3d model. The forearms armors are sleeker than the anime. For the time being, I have not found out any noticeable differences . The paint application is great, every necessary details are there. If you really want to nitpick, the figure doesn’t have warning signs , lights , etc… As shown in the anime. But generally the figure nailed the looks.
Note : i painted the chest lights and the top head light with gundam marker ex chrome plated sliver.

+ Articulation: The figure shares the same joint system with the old robot spirits Pacific Rim Uprising. Like double jointed elbows, knees; double ball-jointed shoulders and ankles, torso ball joint; double ball-jointed necks, ball-jointed wrist, pivoted ball jointed and 2 ball-jointed socket where you can turn to adjust the angle you want for more movement in the shoulders.

But the game changer here is they put a ball joint in the waist instead of the crotch like the older ones. Making it easier to do an ab-crunch. But another significant difference is the quality. It is better and way more solid than the Uprising ones (feels like they decided to give this one quality over quantity) Because of Atlas’s design, her neck has more room to move than usual, same goes for her ankles. The shoulders armor is interesting. Its your usual gundam shoulder armor clipped on with the additional ball joint on top, making it less hindering. Saber Chain arm also have standard articulation such as hinged ball joint, double jointed, and the claws are on ball joint (these will get loose over time so be a bit careful while handling them, a bit contradicting about the quality talk but I cant see how they could have improved it), palm of the claw can also spin.

+ Accessories: It comes with 2 closed fist and 2 open palm. But the main accessory of Atlas Destroyer is the Saber Chain. The Saber chain can deploy its chain by detaching the rubber intake in the center of its palm. The whip is hard plastic so breakage due to rough handling is possible. To attach the arm, you just simply pull out the right arm and attach the Saber Chain arm in. If you wondering if this will loosen up the joint, then I have good news for you. It won’t loosen up, simply because the arms themselves are not that tight from the beginning. The arms aren’t super tight, but they are tight enough to pose whatever poses you want. I have been handling the figure for months now, and its still fine.

+ Conclusion: In general, this is probably the most fun to handle pacific rim figure i ever have my hands on(trust me the Necas and the Uprising ones aint fun). Combine that with the 3mm peg hole underneath the figure for extra dynamic pose. The figure is solid and fun to play, its a shame Atlas Destroyer itself isn’t that packed with many stuff to play with. Overall, I extremely recommend this figure for anyone a fan of The Black or you just like pacific rim in general (consider it resemble Gipsy alot, you might have a soft spot for it).

P/S: Looking at how this figure came to be, if Bandai ever decided to make the first movie line ups(as for the time of this writing is May 2022). Oh boy they will be a blast to enjoy. Neca with its dry brush and all is cool, but they aren’t fun to play with. The Soul of Chogokin is just a display piece.

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