24 September 2009

Revoltech Reycal Orichalcum

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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Leftover parts that are not used in Knight Reycal.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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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.
  • 12 comments:

    1. Hmm, think I'm gonna give Reycal a miss; she doesn't really hold up to the figmas, and I definitely wasn't a fan of the manga -_-;

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    2. Good Job Q!
      A very nice and long review!

      Its good to see that Kaiyodo is improving their Yamaguchi line.Its been a long time since my Revoltech Revy and she looks so bad compared to this one.

      On another note: You actually pulled of some nice poses there! It takes me ages to get a nice pose im satisfied with ^^;;

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    3. DAMN YOU!!!

      I'm still waiting for mine to arrive (along with my megahouse sheryl nome)

      I'm doing evil monkey pointing at you right now!!!

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    4. Haha, Im planning to get this sometime this year, also Im too lazy to make my own mecha musunume^^;

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    5. Really nice poses. And I don't think your review was that long at all. Good job. ^^

      I haven't bought a revoltech since Reina, but it's great to see the improvements they've made to their bishoujo figures. Pity that they stopped the Fraulein line.

      I'm not sure who she is, but I like the idea of her transforming into a mecha girl...we need more mecha girls.

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    6. @ Snark:
      Reycal really isn't your kind of thiing in terms of character design (as well as the manga), so I understand.

      The introduction of figmas has caused consumers to have higher expectations of action figures. I think we should give the other lines more of a chance, as they do have some good things out there too.

      @ Blowfish:
      Kaiyodo surely is trying hard on something new. It has come a long way since Revy, and I am glad to see the improvements over the time. Reycal is a nice debut of the bishoujo figures. 'Though not perfect, it's not a bad start I'd say.

      Glad that you like the poses; I personally can't take all the credits as some of them are inspired from the Japanese reviews, but I am happy to have pulled them off at the end (after many tries) ^^

      @ gundamjehutykai:
      At least you have a foresight so you know what to expect from the figure ^^;

      Hope your Reycal and Sheryl Nome will arrive soon!

      @ GunStray:
      Reycal is worth trying out if you don't criticise the flaws too much, but hey perhaps it's a more economically favourable way to get a sound mecha girl for you ^^;

      @ Tommy:
      You don't find it too long? Maybe I'm just not used to writing something long :o

      Given that Reycal is released on the Yamaguchi line, it may be true that Kaiyodo has moved on and stopped the Fräulein line since the birth of the 3rd generation "Neo Revoltech" in June.

      I only know about this figure after Ngee Khiong has mentioned it in his blog. I personally like her without the armour (more posability), but she still looks nice as Knight Reycal~ ^^

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    7. Hello, Q! Great review!

      I really like Reycal and she's my first Revoltech Yamaguchi. Although she has some minor issues of production, I think the price is right. Actually, I think she has a great cost-benefit ratio given the number of parts (Knight Eagle included) and the enjoyment.

      I hope the other characters also get a Revoltech treatment.

      Oh, and if I'm not mistaken, I've seen somewhere some rumors about a new Fräulein coming soon (or not).

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    8. @ fiwasaki:
      It's great to see someone who has Reycal too~ ^^

      Reycal is my second Revoltech figure and my first from the Yamaguchi line. It doesn't shine as much compared to figma, but is sure fun to play with. Knight Eagle is a large accessory in addition with the ability to combine with Reycal, so that makes up a lot for the accessories. In fact that makes Reycal having more accessories with some figmas of similar price already.

      Revoltech has not gone much into bishoujo/female character figures. Other than Reycal, the only other figure released from Yamaguchi line was Revy IIRC (which was a long, long time ago). I'm not sure whether Yamaguchi will release anymore for the time being and Fräulein has been very quiet lately. So far the only line being active is the Queen's Blade one.

      Ah yes I did hear about the rumours of the new Fräulein recently, which is Mari Illustrious Makinami from the new Evangelion movie, but I can't clarify on its validity.

      Btw thanks for stopping by!

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    9. Hi... it's good to see that there's a Reycal review. I'm planning to get a girl action/poseable figure but I'm still torn between this, Fraulein series and Figma. Just wondering if any of you can give me a "deeper" insight on the pros and cons of each line (I don't have any of these yet). Thank you very much.

      BTW, yes, there are new Fraulein coming up... and they are Mari and Asuka (Evangelion 2.0 version, IIRC).

      ReplyDelete
    10. @ Anonymous:
      Reycal reviews are not common to get by, but I am glad that you have come across mine!

      As for female poseable figures, figma is currently one of the most popular and dominating one in the market. Revoltech's Yamaguchi normally does robots, so Reycal is quite an exception here. On the other hand, there's also the Queen's Blade line (which is active and still running), as well as the Fräulein line you've mentioned, which will resume with the EVA girls in Spring next year. Griffon Enterprises is also making a new poseable figure line called Figutto. You can read more about it here.

      If you want good insight for figma and Fräulein, I can refer you to The Inferno Project's detailed posts on them:

      - Fräulein Revoltech
      - figma

      Hope that helps!

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    11. Hi, I'm the previous Anonymous (didn't realize that I can put my own name without needing an account). Thank you for the details and links, Q. I didn't know about the Figutto until you told me =D. Great news indeed.

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    12. @ SC:
      Glad to know that the links helped! Figutto is really new; it was only announced several weeks ago. I hope it is a good competitor to the current market as it looks promising to me!

      ReplyDelete

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