Toy Review: Sentinel Riobot R-17 Shin Getter 1

Thank you Sentinel for this definitive Shin Getter homage.

Producer: Sentinel

Price: Approx. $345 USD

Release Date: Feb. 2018

Item Height: Approx. 8.25″

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: N/A

WHERE TO BUY: amiAmi (Sold Out)

Sentinel really gave us as fans doozy with the latest in their Riobot line with Shin Getter 1. This insanely popular mecha gets some well-deserved love with this piece. Check it out in motion above as well as my thoughts and gallery below and let me know what you think in the comments!

Presentation: Honestly, the box for Shin Getter is an outright disappointment. It’s an extremely thin cardboard to the point where it feels like it could rip at the slightest mishap, and it consists of a large, scanlined picture of the face on one side, and cut-out areas to see the figure and some of its weapons on the other. It’s just poorly made and not in any way appealing to look at to me. The figure itself and the accessories are packaged very well into the plastic clam shells and everything about the piece itself is well done. Lovely colors, beautiful finish, and absolutely perfect paint applications. In my opinion, its definitely not one that you’d want to keep sealed in the box!

Build: Shin Getter is a mixture of strong plastics and diecast throughout. The joints are incredibly strong and It’s able to maintain balance in poses that it visibly shouldn’t!

Accessories: the accessories for Shin Getter are pretty standard in a variety of hands and then an extremely long, metal handle bar that you can attach the included tomahawk, scythe, or drill ends to. The tomahawk is especially neat because the blades can come off and handles flip out for separate ax weapons. The included stand also holds him well, even in flight poses.

Articulation: Shin Getter definitely doesn’t disappoint in this area which is great considering Sentinel’s penchant for literal excellence in this area. The additional “butterfuly” balljoint for the shoulders is excellent, and even though Shin Getter isn’t a sword-wielding mecha, it’s nice to be able to be able to put him into some of those duel-weilding, Obari styled poses with his Scythe, even. His general ranges of articulation are just incredible but I do wish it had a pure waist swivel (meaning at the waist itself.) It does have some swivel where the chest meets the abdominal area, it’s limited and doesn’t have the same visual effect of actually twisting at the waist. This is the same issue that existed with Mazinkaiser and I do not understand why it hasn’t been resolved at this point but hopefully it won’t continue. Also,
while Shin Getter does have a great range of motion in the hips, his “underwear” make for a wide stance and having to swing more widely than normal when swing the hips forward or backwards.

Overall Score: 8.0/10 – Shin Getter is an exemplary piece in terms of over all fit and finish. I’m really impressed by not only the look but honestly the sheer durability of it. It having more colored plastic vs. painted not only looks very good but helps in the durability aspect because there’s less paint to chip and the like (or having problems like their Bainkanfu to where there were reports of the red paint itself going bad and starting to deteriorate underneath the finish.) It’s not only well-built in terms of very strong joints but the balance is absolutely incredibly with it not having any sort of detriment in terms of stability with the giant wings attached. What keeps this from being a 10 are the lack of true waist swivel andthe hips not being engineered to stay more inwards when swing forwards or backwards. The more wide stance is fine for things like standing and most action poses but simpler things like emulating walking are really thrown off with it. Even though it’s not indicative of the figure itself, I wish the box were also more well done with an opening flap and the like; it just doesn’t fit the “big time, high-end” theme of what this release actually is. Overall, this is one of Sentinel’s best and I highly recommend it as it’s what I truly consider the definitive Shin Getter collectible.