Revoltech Reycal Orichalcum

A review due over a month orz. I've mentioned before that I would review Kaiyodo Revoltech's Reycal Orichalcum after 1/100 Gundam Exia Roll Out Colour, and here it is (finally).

I've got it very shortly after its release, and have been playing with the figure itself for some time, but didn't do much to the mecha-looking Knight Eagle until I started doing the review. On the other hand, reviews for it are surprisingly scarce. I've found one English so far. This makes reviewing Reycal a bit harder as I have don't have much guidance about it, until I started looking for some reviews from random Japanese blogs. Anyway let's take a look at this not so well known figure from Revoltech then.


Released on 13th August (2 days earlier than its announced date), Reycal Orichalcum of Revoltech Yamaguchi line costs 2400 Yen for retail price. She is the protagonist from the manga series "Orichalcum Reycal", whose author does the "JINKI" manga series. She doesn't come with much parts as her partner Knight Eagle takes up the majority of it. She does have 2 extra pair of hands, 2 extra faces, a stand, as well as parts for combining Reycal with Knight Eagle to form Knight Reycal.


Other than that she has tiny feet, Reycal can still stand pretty well by herself.



As with other Revoltech figures, most of her joints use Revoltech joints. I've seen a picture where Reycal can raise her leg up even higher, but I can't haven't tried to do that with mine.

The neck actually has two joints, so Reycal can look up and down to a large degree, even more than that for figmas. I do have a small rant with the upper legs though. As the they do not use ball joints at all, the legs can either go forwards and backwards or sideways, depending on how you have positioned the Revoltech joint in the thigh. I had to remove and replaced the joint whenever I want to change the direction where the upper leg wants to bend. Thankfully each joint are easily removable (a feature of Revoltech), or else it'd be a nightmare to do so.



Hair has joints. Still find it kinda strange especially when viewed from behind, but they do add some dynamic touch to the figure when doing action poses.



The two extra faces are an angry face and an embarassed face. Great for having different kinds of poses showing different expressions.






Various action poses. It's great how figma stands are compatible with her, just like Airi's case too ^^


The original stand. The base has two pegs, and Reycal can stand on either or both of them as she has a hole just in front of her heels. The base's arm uses one of them too.

Just like Airi's stand it's a bit too short to do mid-air poses, and the Revoltech joints are not strong enough to hold Reycal up in midair anyway.


However, it can hold up the Knight Eagle just fine, seen her with Reycal standing next to it.


The Knight Eagle is a mecha eagle, which is supposed to be a support for Reycal. It was built primarily to combine with Reycal for a more powerful but temporary form - Knight Reycal.


Due to the seemingly complicated nature of Knight Reycal's tranformation, an instruction sheet is provided on doing the combination.


To start the combination, first the Knight Eagle has to be dissembled, almost entirely.


There are extra parts which are required to use for Knight Reycal, this includes a different hair piece, to elbows, two knee armours, and a spear handle.


Knight Reycal after combination. The claws of the eagle have become gauntlets, and the main body has become the body armour.


Leftover parts that are not used in Knight Reycal.


In order to hold the spear, there's a peg on the handle for a hole on either a left or a right holding hand. Here only the right hand is shown, but the left hand is mirrored and identical.


A side note - exchanging hands is a very easy and painless process. A long but simple peg to insert into the hole in the arm.





Various action poses in Knight Reycal form. Posability is slightly hindered on the hair and arms due to Eagle Knight's armour.


Again, the backpack of the armour fits well with the figma stand.


Size comparison with figma Haruhi - like Airi, Reycal appears a little shorter, but I'd say that she's about the same height as figma Shana. Btw Reycal is actually quite tiny in the manga - I'd say that she's about that size if she were to be in real life too.




A very overlooked action figure from the Revoltech Yamaguchi series, but the Yamaguchi series isn't known for bishoujo figurines in the first place (Fräulein too was under Revoltech but was a different line), and Orichalcum Reycal isn't a particularly well known manga series either. In terms of retail price Reycal costs only 100 yen cheaper than normal figmas, but the local shops tend to sell it much cheaper as it's not one of the hot mainstream stuff out there so far.

Compared to figmas, the paint job on Reycal isn't brill; there are some excess paints spotted here and there, and painting isn't always spot on on some edges. For some odd reasons the Revoltech joint on the left leg is slightly damaged in the first place (but it doesn't seem to cause troubles with articulations at all so far), and I've opened the box at least a week after I bought it, so I doubt I could bring it back to the shop and change for a new one anymore.

Despite the setbacks, I actually find Reycal Orichalcum quite fun to play with, as she actually has fairly good posability thanks to the Revoltech joints and um... Lack of excessive clothings (laughs). The Knight Eagle is okay by itself. Combining it with Reycal at first looks complicated, but it's not too hard to do, though there are quite a few parts to remove and reattach and there are a few leftover parts for Knight Reycal, or even keeping the two seperated.

Overall, Kaiyodo Revoltech's Reycal Orichalcum is not a bad start for the Yamaguchi line to go back on female action figurines. Sure, its overall quality, especially the paint job, could be improved, but there's a good level of playability with durable articulated joints. It's not a bad figurine at all, but you can't compared it too much to Max Factory's figma line. If you can get it lower than the retail price of 2400 yen, then you can give this one a try. Both Hobby Search and HLJ has her in stock.

Reviews from English blogs:

Synergetic Beans

Through the Looking Glass

Reviews from Japanese sites:

水芥

YOの玩具箱


Phew this has been one long review to make @_@ Hope this will give you some insights on this not-so-well-known figure.