OK, Context. Remember how I did a special article on BeastBox toys? Robot animals that compress into cubes? Right, so that company does a spin-off line where the play pattern is applied to non-animals and licenced properties. OK? Good.
While existing in anime and manga form since 1974, Getter Robo has very little presence in the UK, and if anybody knows it at all, it's probably due to the part it's characters play in Super Robot Wars 30. Or they imported something. This is kinda tragic as Getter Robo is hugely influential, as it popularised the combining super robot thing. Getter Robo the machine is a trio of jets, which depending on the sequence of combination produced one of three distinct robots. That's Getter-1 for brawling, Getter-2 for speed, and Getter-3 as the infrequently seen tank. It is possible to make a toy that does that 3 mode combination, but that's asking a lot of the designers, materials technology, and often your wallet. Narratively, it's an extremely hot blooded series that took on some cosmic horror elements and multiverse stuff as it went on. It was a pretty big influence on Gurren Lagann, especially its Spiral Power concept, and how its latter half played out. See also: the show within a show Gekigangar 3. I have a bit of a mountain here with summarising Getter Robo, so I'm just gonna do a slightly whimsical blurb on today's subject matter. The thing about Black Getter isn't that it's black on purpose. It's black because it base-jumped from the Moon and got all charred up on re-entry. Yes, its that kinda franchise.
Black Getter, or BG for shorthand purposes, exists mainly these days as a repaint/retool opportunity for Getter-1 merchandise, and that's what happened with this MegaBox release, 52Toys being quite happy to rework a design with a new head or different accessories. Now, painting something black is amongst the most obvious things to do for a variant, but BG is not merely that. Black Getter largely transcended the cliché with extremely memorable and quite gory appearances in the mini-series Getter Robo: Armageddon, a highly regarded 90’s anime, which I will be doing an article on shortly. The mecha is, more or less, what would happen if you asked Wolverine to fix up a giant robot during one of his more antisocial phases. It's a Getter-1 left abandoned for years only to be hurriedly repaired by series protagonist Ryoma Nagare. He was a martial artist by trade, a sociopath by nature, and not in the best headspace at the time, so BG is something of a rejection of the teamwork theme inherent to Getter Robo, seemingly loosing the combination thing in favour of more vicious weaponry. Pretty much the first thing it does, once back on Earth, is to traumatise the people it was rescuing. It's quite an aggressive design, but is a super-deformed take, as executed by 52toys with their box animal house style. The result captures the essence of Black Getter in a vaguely adorable package, like an angry goth puppy. That can also be a cube.
BG as a collectable looks great in the package, and feels pretty good in hand, but seems to be suffering a little from 52Toys B- quality control. There's a few places where the finish on the glossy black is marred, where the parts were cut from their sprue. It's a job for a black felt-tip pen, so no biggie, but black plastics are a well-known bugger for this, so it's somewhat disappointing. The box mode and related transformation is relatively straightforward, possibly due to limitations of the human form or licencing restrictions. The torso forms one face of the cube, with the limbs and head wrapping around the accessories. There's no significant surprises, aside from a robot mode element I'll come back to, but it does however expose a nice detail, the reactor picked out in almost luminous paint. Not something it would be especially healthy to see up close, but there we are. The robot form is of course where the action is, which is quite posable, with some details I really like. BG’s head is very characterful and the angry eyes are honestly startling. These are a layer of translucent plastic atop silver painted tech greeblies, with what seem to be tamopraphed irises. It's a fascinating three stage effect. The mecha is fecking glaring at you. The cape and scarf are also interesting, if one of the more beastboxy design elements. It reflects the machine's overall condition, and the murderhobo habits of its pilot. Yes, this mecha has a cape and scarf, just go with it. Getter-1 has simlar too, probably because it was designed in the 70’s; BG is merely exaggerating what was already there. These cloth elements are hard plastic here and have an angular, almost pixelart appearance. It's something that pleased me when I saw it in product photography, as it so easily have been dropped, but it's here with usable jointing and a red lining. It also serves as one of the major anchoring points for box form, which I will admit to double-checking the instructions about. Speaking of joints, BG is definitely on the posable side for what amounts to a super-deformed figure. It's mainly swivels and universal joints, but with rotation at the wrists, double-jointed knees and a toe joint thanks to its transformation. It's definitely enough to make good use of the two tomahawks it comes with. It also features two sets of flip-out forearm spikes, which look great, although the purist in me demands for me to say that it should really only have one. Odd choice, but not actually bad.
My point? Only that MegaBox Black Getter is something that exists. And I like it rather a lot. I continue to be entertained with these, and no doubt Black Getter is going to be one of many such additions to my collection. That having been said, I suspect the Getter-1 release have a slight edge over this toy, if only in accessories. It comes with a machine gun, and maybe that's more important to you. But if it isn't? I think this will please both box collectors and Getter fans alike.
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