With just a month between releases, it didn’t take long for the Revoltech C-3P0’s counterpart to join him, meaning Kaiyodo is the first to bring together everyone’s favorite droid duo in 6 inch scale. They beat Hasbro—go figure.
R2-D2 is a very basic figure that delivers a clean, impressive presentation. Unlike other Artoo figures, there are very few frills here. In a somewhat surprising move, Artoo doesn’t come with any of the usual attachable accessories of any kind. So you get no lightsaber for Luke, no sensors, no attachments like his claw or comm device, nothing.
He does come with a detachable third leg and a detachable propulsion unit that gives you a very retroesque pull-back-and-release feature that allows Artoo to zip forward under his own power…until his own power runs out of zip. It’s a neat addition and I’m assuming it took the place of random things to plug into him. I’m ambivalent about the loss of those doohickeys, because with so many R2 figures they start piling up, but if you want this figure to come fully stocked you’ll be disappointed.
While a healthy portion of collectors are picking up these figures on their own merit, there’s another subset looking to suplement their Black Series figures with better versions of already released figures. The Black Series Artoo debuted in the very first series and many had issues with his height and his third leg. This Artoo is definitely a larger one, but how well he integrates into the Hasbro line is up to interpretation. While he fits perfectly with the previously released C-3P0, he may be a tad oversized when put up against the Black Series Luke, who he would be teamed with the most often when he’s not with Threepio. However, I’m not sure if that’s due to scale issue with Luke or if he’s truly too tall. You’ll have to look at the pictures and judge for yourself, because I’m growing increasingly flummoxed by all the various scales. What looks good at one point seems off in another. So it’s best to just judge the toy on its own merits.
With that said, I like this little guy a lot. I had some initial problems with his right foot falling off, but that was cured by pulling the Revoltech joint out and flipping it. The fit is much tighter now due to the fussiness of plastic holes. While I am an articulation guy and Threepio got a few dings due to the lack of motion in his hips, it’s really hard to poop on an Artoo figure as long as he’s got the basic points. As long as the dome spins and the “shoulders” and “ankles” move, then you’ve got Artoo. Artoo is the one figure among pretty much any figure ever made where the terms “he’s not Spider-man” and “he’s not a ninja” is actually appropriate.
But the fact of his Revoltech joints means he does get side to side as well as forward and backward in his “ankle” joints, so we’ve got an Artoo that can do this:
Ninja Artoo is a go! Wakkachow!
Unlike the Hasbro version, this Artoo has a better paintjob, with some detailed lines that make it feel more like a higher end version. He’s still immaculately clean, so if you need a bit of dirt on your Artoo for that lived in feel you’re still going to have to do that yourself.
His third leg is also Revoltech-jointed and pops in easily to his undercarriage, so you can tweak until he looks just right.
As I said, he comes with a pull-back attachment. It’s larger and cumbersome so it’s not meant to be screen accurate, so this is only for the fun of having him zip along. Watch him go:
Whee!
While the light on his dome doesn’t light up nor does it seem to feature any light-piping of any kind, there’s some kind of whatchamacallit inside that moves when you spin his dome, so the light disappears and reappears, and it actually looks like it’s lit from within.
Overall, this is a good 6-inch scale Artoo and a nice partner to the Revoltech Threepio.
He’s available at BBTS, HobbylinkJapan and AmiAmi
