Teknoman Blade with Pegas (Soul Spec) Review

Didn’t realise but as of today, my Blog is 1 Year Old. Wow, time goes fast. In celebration, I’ll review a figure / toy I got this week of one of my favourite shows of all time whilst I was in my teens, Teknoman (as it was called here in Australia anyway). Be warned, when you click “More” there’s almost a hundred images in this post ^_^;;

 

 

 

 

 

 

What could be better than Teknoman Blade? Well, Teknoman Tsukasa!

Anyways, time to get to the meat of this review. I really came across this figure by accident. Was browsing Hobby Search in the mecha section looking for Code Geass mecha, when suddenly I spotted Soul Spec Robot Temashii Tekkaman Blade with Pegas on Pre-Order. ZOMG, had to have it! BUT it was already pre-ordered out, and on waiting list >_>. Well, needless to say, I put myself on waiting list, and when I got that email, that was the fastest online purchase I ever did, lolz.

Teknoman came out in Australia around 1994, if I remember correctly. Even though I was in High School, I made sure I taped the show every morning on Cheez TV. I didn’t even get to watch it from the start, I think I started somewhere in the middle of the run, but damn it was a good show.

In case you aren’t as old as me, and don’t know what this show is, basically it’s about an Alien Invasion on Earth. Aliens called “Venomoids” which kind of look like massive crab spider things, started raining down on Earth with no warning, and wiped out most of the human race. Once the aliens reached earth, they started growing alien spore plants all over the surface, which pretty much wiped out most of the human infrastructure.

The hero of the story is an amnesiac man who lost most of his memories, who only know his name as Blade, and that he is the only one who can stop the aliens. For some reason, with the use of a green crystal, he can transform himself into bio-armor, called “Teknoman” with super human abilities.

For a “kids” show, it has surprisingly mature themes and violence. As Blade fights the aliens, along with an Earth Defence Force called the Space Knights, he learns more and more about his past, how he came to be the way he is, and sadly, who he is actually fighting against. I won’t spoil the story if you haven’t seen it, but if you haven’t I recommend you jump on Youtube and search for Teknoman (or Tekkaman as it was known in Japan) and watch a few of the episodes. Even if it is a bit old, and the animation is retro, I still think the Teknoman designs are pretty flash, they actually kind of look like modern Gundams, but human-sized ones ^_^;;

In any case, back to the Figure. Speaking of Gundams, Bandai actually made this figure as well. I was a bit disappointed in the size (Blade is a bit shorter than a Figma). I guess that’s the fault of Pegas, the Robot he uses to transform into Teknoman (once his crystal gets shattered). Pegas is pretty big, and a bit hefty, and I think takes up the weight of most of the box.

Back of the box shows Blade and Pegas, and various features. Yes, Pegas can transform into Blade’s Surfboard mode ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

Yep, for the price of this Figure, I think most of it is taken up by Pegas ^_^;;. I wish they spent a bit more of the budget on Blade himself…

The various bits and pieces you get apart from the Figures. I really like the clear green stand that is made in the shape of Blade’s Tekno-crystal

And here is the actual Blade Figure. He stands about 4 or 5 inches high, and is made of pretty much all plastic.

Although he is faithful to the show, he is lacking a bit of detail. For my Teknoman Tsukasa Story, I panel-lined his head with Gundam Marker. Here is what he looked like before I did that.

I’m thinking about panel-lining the rest of his body, and then coating him with matte top coat. Just like a Gundam Model. He would probably look a lot better, and less plasticy

Blade’s back. The Ass Shield is detachable and can be fitted to his arm. For the price it cost, they could have done a bit more work on Blade. A bit disappointed about that. With a bit of work he should look pretty good though. Oh well, no matter what, it’s a Teknoman Figure, so gots to have!!!

Blade comes with his lance weapon, actually 2 types. One which is joined together, and the other in its 2 separate pieces. It was a pretty big battle to fit the joined version into Blade’s hand. The opening is way too tight

Blade has pretty good articulation. It’s about on par with Figma articulation. Plus he has a few gimmicks which I’ll show in a bit

Differences from a Figma: Hands are only a ball joint, Feet can’t tilt side to side, but they have much better vertical movement. He can look up, and his chest can bend back pretty far for his “superman mode.”

I should note that he doesn’t actually have a hole in his back where my Gundam Stand could fit. He is just sort of balancing on the Gundam stand ^_^;;

Of course his shoulders can open up for his Tekno Blaster Mode. Can’t remember what it was exactly called, but that sounds about right. Forgot to mention that the shoulder pads are also articulated and can be tilted left and right, and up and down

In the show, Blade uses this move to kameha-meha the Venomoids. He also uses it as the obligatory beam VS beam canceller when he fights the enemy Teknomen

Superman mode. In the show, Blade would use this to become some sort of human fireball. It was pretty cool, apart from the fact it wasn’t really much of a transformation. Basically his feet tuck in, his shoulder pads tilt down, his chest bends back (in a painful, awkward looking position) and little thruster things come out of his arm-pits

Basically Blade would fly through all the enemies, blowing them up. Makes me wonder why he didn’t just do this all the time, instead of cutting them with his lance

I suppose he would get tired though. The show’s producers actually thought of some pretty damn good weaknesses for him. He has to eat heaps of food because “his Tekno form burns up lots of calories.” I especially like the time-limit of 30 minutes, or he turns into an “Evil” Teknoman

Now enough about Blade. On to his “Tekno-bot” Pegas

Pegas is where all of Bandai’s funding went when it created Pegas >_>. He is pretty hefty with a decent amount of die-cast, and transformation ability

Early on in the show, Blade’s Tekno-crystal that he uses to transform was shattered. The Space Knight engineers studied the crystal and found they could aritficially fix it by boosting it with power. So they fixed the shards into a robot, which they later named “Pegas.”

To transform, the back of Pegas opens and Blade goes inside, where the cystal energies are focused on him while in its chamber. I forgot to actually show this gimmick, but Teknoman Tsukasa illustrated it pretty well anyway ^_^

Pegas is about twice the size of Blade, and is quite hefty. He has OK articulation. Head up and down, left and right. Arms in and out, back and forward. Legs in and out, but NOT back and forward (due to the transformation). Knees can bend though, and the feet can be tilted about in any direction

Poor Blade, shown up by his side-kick. Oh well, like I already mentioned, there’s always Gundam Marker and Top Coat

Pegas is quite acurate to the show. Note the Blade’s Tekno Crystal afixed to his chest. He also comes with alternate open hands instead of the default fists

And of course … here is the main reason you get a Pegus. The absolutely AWESOME surfboard mode

Pegas Transformation isn’t too complex, though it is harder than a G1 Transformer

In the show, the enemy Teknomen had venemoid surfboards to fly around on. Blade’s is infinitely cooler. They probably purposely made Blade’s crystal shatter so that they could work this into the plot

Actually mis-transformed this. You can see Pegas head peeking out there. You can peg the head down so that the neck is horizontal

The one flaw about this mode is that Blade isn’t secured to Pegas back in any way. A strong gust of wind will blow him off

Pegas has a 3rd Form, where the arms come up, and the wings tilt back, whilst Blade goes into his Tekno-blaster mode. Was too lazy to take the pics right now though. Perhaps in a later post

In conclusion, a pretty solid Figure / Toy. It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the best Teknoman figure out there (the rest are all dodgy models). Like I said, Blade is a bit on the small side (though that’s the fault of Pegas having to stay in scale) and a bit lacking in detail. So I give it about an 8 out of 10

If you’re a fan of Teknoman / Tekkaman, this is a must-get. If you’re not … you could probably take or leave him. I’ve started watching the Japanese version of Tekkaman recently, and nostaligia is bliss. It’s actually a bit different because the Aussie / Internation dub had some bits cut out, and the soundtrack isn’t as good. But the story seems to be a lot more detailed; or maybe because my adolescent self at the time was only interested in spider grabs and Teknomen going boom. Despite that though, I think I liked the dub version a lot better. The main sountrack theme of the dub was actually awesome. In any case, hope you liked the review – I can do a lot more pics now because I finally learned how to macro with Photoshop ^_^;; Sayanara till next time!