Top Ten Robots #7...Unifive Banpresto Alteisen Review

The Alteisen is straight up a cool looking mech. Even if you discount gimmicks, die cast and any other features, the Alteisen is a mech that goes a long way on looks alone. It's a got a great design build and it's a fairly original overall. Originality is no small thing either. There are only about a thousand robot figures that look basically like a Gundam, several being SRW mecha, and many designs out there are merely modified clones of whatever.. This use of modified robot imitation is fine, but designs that are actually cool and original deserve a little extra credit. Alteisen falls very much into this category in my book.

I don't want to go too far into the Super Robot Wars (Taisen) game franchise, but Banpresto excels at producing cool looking mech designs, and Alteisen is right at the top. It was one of the first SRW mechs to have a figure and a model made from it, and in the case with the Alteisen figure, it was one of the first designs to be put into die cast.

Alteisen's die cast content is roughly 50%. He has multiple points of articulation in all the right places which includes his claymore missile bays being partially adjustable. Ratched joints are located in the arms and legs. Note that the degree of movement in the legs is somewhat limited because of the size and spacing between the joints, but it's still fairly substantial.


Alteisen's gimmicks are excellent! First, the claymore missile bays have springloaded doors with the release buttons on each side. The jump jets are also spring loaded and open by pushing the release buttons on the top of the missile bays. The revolver opens to reveal removable shells, which I have to say is a very cool detail that they could have easily left off. The spike on the revolver is also springloaded but sort of pointless because the spike doesn't actually shoot out, it only pops out maybe half a centimeter. My guess is that originally they were planning on having the spike shoot out, but then decided it was too dangerous. The spike is rather pointy I suppose. But as it is, the gimmick seems like a lot of work for very little results, unfortunately.

The accessories include a revolver reloader (for looks only), a docking bay, and the removable shells of course. Both the reloader and the docking bay are fine. Nothing particularly special, but useful for display purposes perhaps.

I do wish that Alteisen was bigger and I wish they had decided to use metallic paint instead of matte, or at least given him a glossy finish. His size is roughly six inches (maybe a little more), so not small by any means, just average and almost exactly the same height as the CM Patlabor. But regardless of size, and just like any great design, Alteisen still packs a lot of punch on the collection shelf. I should also mention that he is still relatively cheap. I've never seen him sell for more than about $70.00 and he's fairly easy to find currently, but I wouldn't wait around.

To wrap this up on a side note, now that SRW is getting some well deserved attention from the "big gun" of robot figure companies, Bandai, and in the Soul of Chogokin line no less(!), it's nice to finally know that Alteisen will not be the only die cast SRW figure on the shelf. Yes there were the Huckebeins.. granted, but Huckebeins were ever only marginal SRW figures, certainly not what makes the dozens of super cool and original SRW designs stand apart. And Huckebeins are sort of a "safe bet" from a sales point of view given that Huckebeins are as much a Gundam rip off as any design out there. But now that we have Dygenguar AND Aussenseiter coming, the rest of the toy shelf better look out because SRW means business!

REVIEW: SRW (SUPER ROBOT WARS (TAISEN)) OG DENGEKI MAGAZINE LIMITED EDITION FIGURES

(Note: These are scaled photos to show virtual size comparisons and not the actual sizes of the figures. Also note that many of the figures shown are scheduled to be released, but not yet available.)

SRW has traditionally been a 2nd tier video game franchise that's always seemed to fly under the radar of any serious collecting interest up until a couple of years ago when Dengeki magazine started to offer limited edition figures that weren't in SD format. But even so, the Dengeki Magazine figures have been elusive to find and can take some dedicated searching just to find any information about them, let alone trying to buy them. They almost never come up on eBay and unless you speak Japanese there is maybe one or two toy sellers that carry these figures, and often their selection is maybe four to five different figures at any given time. So why bother? The character designs are awesome.

In the last couple of years I've seen more people start to ask questions about these figures on collector sites such as www.robotjapan.com, but finding substantial information about them is uncommon (except in Japanese). So I thought I would offer up some info and a brief review of my Dengeki SRW collection.

First I would make everyone aware that these figures are not the same thing as the model kits made by Kotobukiya (which are excellent model kits BTW). The Dengeki SRW figures are appromximately 5-6 inches tall and made of all plastic. The license is through Banpresto (a subsidiary of Bandai) and the sculpts are done by Volks Inc., and the figures are issued as limited edition figures through Dengeki Hobby Magazine of Japan. There are about thirty different figures currently, with a new figure coming out every four to five months. The figures have to be ordered several months in advance before production and can only be ordered within Japan.


As I mentioned before, with such a difficult set of parameters to acquire these figures you might ask yourself why anyone would want to go through the hassle of finding them? I want to elaborate on the answer to this. First, there is no other line of action figures being made of the Super Robot Wars OG characters. There is the line of Kotobukiya models, but for a lot of people it takes too much time and hassle to build a model. A second reason is that it could be a long time (possibly never) that another set of SRW OG figures gets made. I'll talk about this in a second. And the last reason is almost certainly the most prominent answer, which is simply that the characters are really, really cool looking. With a huge variety of styles in the mecha character desgins, it makes for a very appealing line of collectible figures that look like a lot of fun, straight up.


But I'll digress for a minute back to my second reason listed above, which is that there may not be another full line of SRW figures ever made. I think if I explain a little bit more of where SRW is at currently and where they have come from this will make more sense. Super Robot Wars is a franchise that first originated about twenty years ago as a an average RPG console video game, but by putting out a new game addition once every couple of years or so, they managed to stay around. None of the SRW games has ever really been much of a cutting edge game, but the animation cut scenes have always been cool and the sense of adventure along with the cool mecha designs has kept it in some degree of popularity at least within Japan. Technically and playwise it's current game releases are somewhere along the lines of Final Fantasy IV. The result is that it's managed to stay afloat as a franchise, but stayed in Japan. Recently the franchise tried to branch out into a three part OVA anime series with average results. When it all boils down, it's the cool robot mecha designs that keep it going. The designs are among the most visually creative in the business and bring together a lot of intercrossed inspiration. Plus they have amassed a huge assortment of designs over the years. Maybe not as many individual mecha as a mega Franchise like Gundam, but the variety of SRW designs are visually much more interesting and dramatic than the relatively generic and over-cloned Gundams. Collectively SRW probably has the best design team for new, cool looking robots going today.


It's certainly possible that Bandai could opt to create a series of SRW figures with the intentions of real distribution vs. the limited edition mail in thing they have going now, but the way things look currently in the SRW world, I don't see anything that points towards the development of mass marketing potential and appeal. If it were up to me and I was the President of Bandai, I would faze out Gundam and faze in SRW as their new cash cow, starting with a well written and cohesive anime series.

Ok, so what about the figures.. All of the Dengeki figures are basically action figures with a fair amount of accessories and moving parts. The strongest point of this whole SRW line is the sculpts, followed by their expressive poseability. The sculpts are beautiful, and the paint jobs are excellent with vibrant colors. The size is 5-6 inches. Articulation is around 14 points (varies with some figures). The newer figures have ratchet joints in the elbows and knees, and the older figures have ratchet joints only in the knees. Ball joints are in the shoulders and upper legs, head and hands.

Here are specific problems I found with individual figures:
-Dygenguar's waist cloth piece is too delicate at the connection point and could easily snap off, so leg stances are limited.
-Altalion's transformation is not really a transformation. Instead you remove pieces and replace with other pieces in order to create his ship mode.
-Dygengaur and Sladegelmir don't have strong enough joints to hold up their huge swords. They should have put ratchet joints in the shoulders with these two.
-Wildwurger's claw is a mould. It does not open and close, but instead they give you two separate replaceable claws; one open and one closed.
-Gimmicks in general are basically none, but most figures do come with a number of accessories, replacable fists and weapons, but I should mention that many figures have "special" moving parts to give them added dynamics.

Because of the detail of some of the sculpted parts for these figures, there are pieces that are more delicate than they should be. Really the SRW figures aren't any more or any less than an average action figure. Just be aware of this before plopping down $100 dollars or more for one of these figures.

My personal favorite figures so far have been Koryuoh, Weibritter, and Granzon. Close seconds are Wildfalken and Alteisen Riese. All of these look great, are relatively sturdy and/or have lots of extra moving parts as in the case of Wildfalken and the Alteisen Riese.



If money is an issue, quite honestly these figures are not worth it compared to all the awesome die cast figures you can buy out there for almost the same price. But even with that said, they are worth it to me (and to perhaps yourself) being an avid collector of cool robot designs. I've said it many times, but I love the robot mecha designs in the SRW line up as much or more than any other designs I've seen.

Prices can be anywhere between $50-$350 depending on where, when and what figures you are trying to buy. Over the past year prices seem to have gone down as the initial fervor levelled off when people realized that these figures weren't going to instantly disappear overnight. The best option I've found for purchasing them is to get them through Yahoo Japan auctions with the help of a middleman service like www.celga.com., but if you want to pay the asking prices www.toy-wave.com also keeps some in stock. The two most expensive figures for the last two years have been Granzon and Dygenguar, and the least expensive are usually any of the Gespents or the Huckebeins. The figures I see the least of seems to be Altalion and Sladegelmir.

As and ending note, a much more cost effective way of getting SRW OG figures is to buy the Kotobukiya models. If you have the time to build them and don't mind the hassle of models, these are excellent models that I recommend highly.