I just finished watching Pacific Rim:Uprising weeks ago, and out of all the mech designs, this is the one that stands out. And also I was glad that we got more merch other than the horrible NECA ones from the OG. Model kits no less! Anyway here's a review of the mysterious mech in the Uprising movie: Obsidian Fury.
The mechs of Pacific Rim was a mixed bag. The Kaiju's were all cool but the mech design lacks something. Cherno Alpha looks cool and industrial, Crimson Typhoon is unique with 3 arms and an overall insectoid feel. Gypsy Danger was a football player. Striker Eureka is... ok. Seeing as all the new Jaegers are mark V and up, it makes sense for them to be all smooth, sleek and unfortunately, uniform. So out of all the designs, I pick this as my favourite. Also before we start, the manual cover looks ace.
This kit is a HG rendition of Obsidian Fury. As a kit, that means it renders most of the details from the CG mech in a smaller 6 inch package. This kit, as far as I know, is non-scale as well so if you're looking to stand these along side Gundams, do note that Jaegers tower over everything else.
The kit only has 2 colors: A very dark grey for the joints and black. Even the painting guide says use 100% black. It has Obsidian as part of it's name after all... Unlike the "Black" Unicorn.
The overall look of the suit is sleek, if a bit lanky. It puts out an Eva 03 vibe, even down to the plot details. I love the spin of it. It actually looks like the black pilot suit from the 1st movie
The orange visor is molded as a separate clear piece (thank god it's no sticker) and catches the light quite well. The smooth surface is actually riddled with panel lines and spots for lights.
The area around the neck is full of details. Majority of it is hidden by the color though. Also I find the elbow joints a bit out of place design wise as the CGI has these designed sleeker.
The overall assembly is pretty simple and standard. The only mildly unique thing is the torso and the feet/ankles.
If you notice, the kit is molded in some semigloss black. That makes all the nub marks stand out. The joints have smaller nubs but the outer armor has giant ones. Look at the ones on the shoulder pads! Holy shit that's bad...
At least most of the seams are hidden. They are only visible from the back mostly.
The feet is interesting as it looks like a Ninja tabi. The underneath of the feet is also full of details.
Overall, the look at 1st glance is simple and sleek. As it is, it looks exactly the same as the Robot Damashii release. Look closer and you see all the tiny details waiting to be picked up by silver drybrushing. Also you're given a little sticker sheet for all the orange glowy details. You'll need to put a little work for it to look nice.
Unlike Gundams, Jaegers motsly rely on melee combat. And as such they need to have some decent amount of articulation. So how does this kit hold up? Let's start by me saying that this kit as NO POLYCAPS. It'll mostly be soft polystyrene-ish plastic for the joints and there are some parts that are super tight. Let's start with...
...The head. the head is on a single ball joint and the base of the neck can swivel. it can look up and down decently enough.
The position of the ball joint and the head design (it has no helmet mullet) means it can actually move quite a lot further than I initially thought.
The torso is mounted to the belly area by way of a super tight ball joint. Mine has stress marks already by twisting it. I highly suggest you check the fitment and sand the ball joint as necessary. The waist is connected via balljoint as well. The ball joint socket swivels a little bit to give it more range.
Since the torso and wait are on ball joints, you can slightly pull them out to give the wasit rotatin extra range. It's not much though.
The shoulder is interesting. To facilitate a wider range of motion, there's a series of joints inside the shoulder. The tiny flap at the top of the shoulder can move slightly up and swivel slightly out.
The shoulder pads themselves are mounted on a rail (like RG wing zero). This allows you to pull the armor out a little bit more. There shoulder can also swivel up and down.
These allow the kit to move the arm out further than if they didn't have these. For comparison, here's the kit using all the joints vs a re-imagining if the shoulder armor didn't have the track.
Arms are standard with double-jointed elbows, bicep swivels and ball wrist. What I do wish it had was a forearm swivel so it can look better when punching. It does not have the shoulder pullout joint as well so it can't quite reach across it's chest.
There are no waist skirts so the hips are relatively unhindered. It doesn't have that swivelling crotch though which I think the Damashii has. Pretty sure they can fit one in there...
There's flaps at the back of the legs that can flip out. It has no details and only serves as a flap cover for the lower part of the knee joint.
Leg range is pretty good. Balance is a little off since the legs are hollow and the kit is top heavy.
The ankles are unique as there's a separate swivel at the top bit. the peg alslo means the foot swivels as well. so you get 2 swivels, but no rotation. It's fine for now though.
Overall it's pretty decent. Since it's plastic on plastic, some of the joints are a bit squeeky. Also some the joint decision are weird like the double ankle swivel that eliminates rotation, the missing crotch swivel and the super tight torso. But if it can pull a decent crouch then I'm good.
Also the forearm swivel. It just looks weird when it punches.
Most of the weaponry for Jaegers are built in, which makes sense. So what accessories does this kit have?
You get an extra pair of open hands. It's so slender that it might break.
You also get 4 chainsaws: 2 plain black one, and 2 "activated" orange one. You mount it by removing the black outer forearm armor...
And plugging the plasma chainsaw on the exposed T pegs and then mounting the armor on the saw. It looks nice but you need to paint it, especially the orange chainsaw as it's suppose to have the middle bit still be black.
That's it. And I'm annoyed that there are no shoulder missile option. That was literally the 1st thing it did in the movies which is fire it's shoulder missile! Sigh....
Since this kit is non-scale, you can't really say reliably how tall this should be. It's the tallest out of all the Jaegers in Uprising but it's also quite lanky. So when handling it, it doesn't feel substantial compared to other Gunpla. It's a head taller than the HG Unicorn
It towers over standard 18 meter suits.
And just for fun, here it is next to Batman and Thanos.
The kit overall has it's fair share of problems. It's not that tall, you don't get much for 2300 yen, the nub placement is horrible and it requires some painting. On the plus side, since it's a kit you can detail and modify it to your hearts content. It's poseable and very detailed. There are a few details where this is better than the Damashii as well such as the joint details and the stickers for the glowy bits. And it's cheaper. If you plan to have a screen accurate Obsidian Fury, place it in a pose and occasionaly change said pose and if you're a fan of the movie, then it's a must buy. If you're looking at a fiddle/desk toy then get the Damashii as it's an actual action figure built for play. If you're not a Pacific Rim fan then you have no inner child
Good:
- Looks good. Will look even better than with paint
- Better looking joints vs Damashii
- Decently poseable
Bad:
- Nub placement and size are terrible
- feels hollow and squeeky
- where are the missiles? I would gladly trade the extra 2 pairs of chain blades for a swappable detail for the shoulder armor
 |
| Spoilers Alert!! |
The mechs of Pacific Rim was a mixed bag. The Kaiju's were all cool but the mech design lacks something. Cherno Alpha looks cool and industrial, Crimson Typhoon is unique with 3 arms and an overall insectoid feel. Gypsy Danger was a football player. Striker Eureka is... ok. Seeing as all the new Jaegers are mark V and up, it makes sense for them to be all smooth, sleek and unfortunately, uniform. So out of all the designs, I pick this as my favourite. Also before we start, the manual cover looks ace.
Aesthetics
This kit is a HG rendition of Obsidian Fury. As a kit, that means it renders most of the details from the CG mech in a smaller 6 inch package. This kit, as far as I know, is non-scale as well so if you're looking to stand these along side Gundams, do note that Jaegers tower over everything else.
 |
| He could have used a white background... |
The overall look of the suit is sleek, if a bit lanky. It puts out an Eva 03 vibe, even down to the plot details. I love the spin of it. It actually looks like the black pilot suit from the 1st movie
The orange visor is molded as a separate clear piece (thank god it's no sticker) and catches the light quite well. The smooth surface is actually riddled with panel lines and spots for lights.
The area around the neck is full of details. Majority of it is hidden by the color though. Also I find the elbow joints a bit out of place design wise as the CGI has these designed sleeker.
 |
| he hasn't mentioned nubs yet... |
If you notice, the kit is molded in some semigloss black. That makes all the nub marks stand out. The joints have smaller nubs but the outer armor has giant ones. Look at the ones on the shoulder pads! Holy shit that's bad...
 |
| yep, he almost threw his nipper when he saw how the shoulder pads were placed on the runner |
At least most of the seams are hidden. They are only visible from the back mostly.
 |
| See the leg pistons? Why did he no compliment that? |
The feet is interesting as it looks like a Ninja tabi. The underneath of the feet is also full of details.
Overall, the look at 1st glance is simple and sleek. As it is, it looks exactly the same as the Robot Damashii release. Look closer and you see all the tiny details waiting to be picked up by silver drybrushing. Also you're given a little sticker sheet for all the orange glowy details. You'll need to put a little work for it to look nice.
Articulation
Unlike Gundams, Jaegers motsly rely on melee combat. And as such they need to have some decent amount of articulation. So how does this kit hold up? Let's start by me saying that this kit as NO POLYCAPS. It'll mostly be soft polystyrene-ish plastic for the joints and there are some parts that are super tight. Let's start with...
...The head. the head is on a single ball joint and the base of the neck can swivel. it can look up and down decently enough.
The position of the ball joint and the head design (it has no helmet mullet) means it can actually move quite a lot further than I initially thought.
The torso is mounted to the belly area by way of a super tight ball joint. Mine has stress marks already by twisting it. I highly suggest you check the fitment and sand the ball joint as necessary. The waist is connected via balljoint as well. The ball joint socket swivels a little bit to give it more range.
 |
| it can crunch further than this actually. He does not want to break the ball joint peg |
Since the torso and wait are on ball joints, you can slightly pull them out to give the wasit rotatin extra range. It's not much though.
The shoulder is interesting. To facilitate a wider range of motion, there's a series of joints inside the shoulder. The tiny flap at the top of the shoulder can move slightly up and swivel slightly out.
 |
| yet... this view sure demonstrates that swivel |
These allow the kit to move the arm out further than if they didn't have these. For comparison, here's the kit using all the joints vs a re-imagining if the shoulder armor didn't have the track.
 |
| it's a bit gappy but it checks out fine |
There are no waist skirts so the hips are relatively unhindered. It doesn't have that swivelling crotch though which I think the Damashii has. Pretty sure they can fit one in there...
 |
| maybe you should have bought the damashii then |
Leg range is pretty good. Balance is a little off since the legs are hollow and the kit is top heavy.
The ankles are unique as there's a separate swivel at the top bit. the peg alslo means the foot swivels as well. so you get 2 swivels, but no rotation. It's fine for now though.
Overall it's pretty decent. Since it's plastic on plastic, some of the joints are a bit squeeky. Also some the joint decision are weird like the double ankle swivel that eliminates rotation, the missing crotch swivel and the super tight torso. But if it can pull a decent crouch then I'm good.
Also the forearm swivel. It just looks weird when it punches.
 |
| You just suck at posing |
Weapons and Extras
Most of the weaponry for Jaegers are built in, which makes sense. So what accessories does this kit have?
You get an extra pair of open hands. It's so slender that it might break.
You also get 4 chainsaws: 2 plain black one, and 2 "activated" orange one. You mount it by removing the black outer forearm armor...
And plugging the plasma chainsaw on the exposed T pegs and then mounting the armor on the saw. It looks nice but you need to paint it, especially the orange chainsaw as it's suppose to have the middle bit still be black.
That's it. And I'm annoyed that there are no shoulder missile option. That was literally the 1st thing it did in the movies which is fire it's shoulder missile! Sigh....
Size Comparison and Other Comparison
Since this kit is non-scale, you can't really say reliably how tall this should be. It's the tallest out of all the Jaegers in Uprising but it's also quite lanky. So when handling it, it doesn't feel substantial compared to other Gunpla. It's a head taller than the HG Unicorn
 |
| He's comparing it to a fully armed unicorn... how fair is that? |
And just for fun, here it is next to Batman and Thanos.
 |
| Infinity War here we come!!!! |
Summary
The kit overall has it's fair share of problems. It's not that tall, you don't get much for 2300 yen, the nub placement is horrible and it requires some painting. On the plus side, since it's a kit you can detail and modify it to your hearts content. It's poseable and very detailed. There are a few details where this is better than the Damashii as well such as the joint details and the stickers for the glowy bits. And it's cheaper. If you plan to have a screen accurate Obsidian Fury, place it in a pose and occasionaly change said pose and if you're a fan of the movie, then it's a must buy. If you're looking at a fiddle/desk toy then get the Damashii as it's an actual action figure built for play. If you're not a Pacific Rim fan then you have no inner child
Good:
- Looks good. Will look even better than with paint
- Better looking joints vs Damashii
- Decently poseable
Bad:
- Nub placement and size are terrible
- feels hollow and squeeky
- where are the missiles? I would gladly trade the extra 2 pairs of chain blades for a swappable detail for the shoulder armor
If you have a small kitchen and want the countertop to look nice, desk toy is not recommended that you purchase a machine that will take up more floor space than is needed.
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