Fewture Mazinger Z 1901

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Some 7 or 8 years ago, I was browsing through a local comic book store and saw this Franken Mazinger Z. Their take on the franchise was very unique, reminds me of the industrial revolution, and I like it enough to make the purchase. Since the arrival of Gundam, giant robot took a back seat and for the most part in the late 80's and 90's, they were not cool. This item, I believe, was the one that got my retro juices going and convinced me that there might still be giant robots in my future, the rest as they say is history.

This item was made by Fewture and is approximately the same size as the more recent Ex Gokin releases from Fewture/Artstorm. It is 9 inches tall and is made by the dreaded PVC vinyl stuff that I hate, but thankfully, it was well made and the plastic used was sturdy enough to stand up against the test of time.

I really dig the 'nasty' look on the face, this guy means business. A big difference in design from the normal Mazinger series is that the cockpit is actually inside the chest of this unit. There are three overlapping panels at the back where you opened to reveal the cockpit and the accompanying pilot (his seat can rotate backwards). He is wearing a rather lame vinyl tights or ballet dancer outfit, I guessed that's what they did in 1901...

It came with a decent amount of accessories, including alternate hands with individually movable fingers, and jet engine parts for the rocket punch attack - you open the lower arm panels and slot in either the jet engines or the jet engines with the double blade parts as shown above. There is also a jet pack that can be attached to the back of Mazinger Z, and all of these can be displayed on the custom stand that comes with the figure (not shown in these photos).

All in all, I am still very pleased with this item, I like the design, the aged paint job and a rather different paint scheme. Variations of the paint scheme do exist, I think there is the standard black silver red, blue silver red, and this one, dark blue silver gold. It's worth checking out.