ROY FOKKER

ROBOTECH (TOYNAMI)

I opened my last two most recent Robotech reviews with a remark that the site really could use more Robotech reviews…and that was four years ago.  Guess I didn’t really get better at that.  Or, you know, Robotech stuff isn’t super common domestically, and it’s very rare I actually actively seek things out anymore.  Could be that.  Thus far, all of my Robotech reviews have been pretty centralized, specifically on my favorite character from the series, Roy Fokker.  I’ve looked at three different versions of his Veritech, and one version of him.  Let’s even things out just a touch with another version of Roy, then.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Roy Fokker was released in 2018 as part of the first series of Toynami’s Robotech action figure series.  After some time focusing purely on the Veritechs, they finally decided to do the pilots, starting with the main cast from the “Macross” portion of the show.  The figures were first shown off in 2015, and they had a bit of a ways to go before going into production, with quite a few notable changes along the way.  Roy stands about 4 1/4 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  When the figures were first shown off, they sported a lot more articulation than the final product, which presents a rather stripped down version.  While the downgrading of the knees to single joints instead of doubles, and the removal of the bicep and ankle articulation isn’t too bad, the lack of elbow joints is pretty limiting.  It seems pretty crazy that they removed so much, and I’m not entirely sure what the goal was.  I guess they were just looking to keep things as inexpensive as possible, but it feels like it’s a little too compromised on the final product.  The sculpt is at least a fairly decent piece of work.  It’s a little bit rudimentary, but it’s certainly a far better recreation of his animation model than the old Matchbox figure.  There’s some pretty solid work on the jumpsuit, and they captured his most distinctive facial features and his hair pretty well.  The figure’s paint work is fairly decent.  It’s more on the basic side, but it does what it needs to and it matches pretty well with the on-screen colors, and the application is pretty clean and consistent.  Roy is packed with his helmet, and alternate partial hairpiece for going under the helmet, and a display stand.  Not a bad little selection of extras.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I like the Matchbox Roy well enough for what he is, but I was kind of looking for something a little bit more modernized.  I remember spotting these figures online back before they were released, but they sort of fell off my radar.  A few months ago, we got the Rick figure traded into All Time, and I was hopeful we might see Roy, who thankfully followed pretty shortly.  The figure isn’t perfect; the articulation definitely cuts some weird corners, but he’s a nifty enough little figure for what he is.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.