Toy Review – Pacific Rim Deluxe Kaiju Otachi from NECA

Otachi, Otachi, OTACHI!

That’s pretty much all I’ve been saying since I bought my first Pacific Rim action figures. 

Heck, since I wrote my review of the movie. I loved Otachi from the second she showed up on screen, and the reveal that she had wings was absolutely mind-blowing. Seeing that massive beast just carry Gipsy Danger up into the sky was crazy. Even without the wings, though, the monster design is fantastic. 

 

I never imagined that NECA’s Pacific Rim line would last this long. The movie has been out for almost two years now and the toys started hitting before then. After the sad death of their Prometheus line I really didn’t think this one had a much better chance, but it turns out we toy nerds just can’t get enough of giant monsters and giant robots. Plus, I think there’s a bit of a feeling that we had better buy as many of the figures as we can just to keep things going.

We’re at a turning point now, though. If you’ve bought every 6” scale release you now have six Gipsy Dangers. And two crappy undersized Knifeheads. I appreciate how well NECA is doing with making variants of the main Jaeger, but it does concern me. I want to support the line, but with the stiff competition in toy aisles these days I simply can’t buy the same thing over and over again, even if it is missing different arms sometimes. I even passed on Romeo Blue when I found it the other day because I liked it, but I just didn’t like it enough. Horizon Brave is awesome, though, and I’ll definitely pick that one up.

There’s also the fact that I now have my favorite Kaiju – today’s subject, Otachi. I’ll go ahead and say that I’m disappointed that there aren’t two sets of arms. I was hoping that with a toy this pricey we’d get both of her forms. I already knew when I bought it that that wasn’t the case and I have enough faith in NECA to believe that there was not a satisfying way to engineer the figure to convert into flying mode. But I don’t look forward to spending another sixty bucks on another Otachi.

Side Note: To be movie-accurate, a flying Otachi would have unfurled wings and a missing acid sac and tail. Gipsy Danger shattered Otachi’s tail and ripped out her acid sac. 

Additionally, the figure will need extensive battle damage. I’d imagine NECA will sculpt new hind feet that are capable of grasping a Jaeger, as well.

If we get that far. I feel like there are a lot more Gipsy Dangers between now and a potential flying Otachi and now that the line has gotten so close to giving me everything I want it’s going to be tough to make those “keep it going” purchases. Especially, like I said, with so many other great lines going.

First Glance

As with all of the other Kaiju, this toy reveals all kinds of details that I hadn’t really noticed in the movie. One of the most exciting things about buying these Pacific Rim toys is being able to examine the Jaegers and Kaiju up close. 

 

Not only is Otachi the largest Kaiju to be released at this scale so far, she is the most unique and visually compelling as well. There are so many more textures and moving parts than the other Kaiju – and that’s no knock on them. This is an impressive beast and one that NECA clearly put a lot of effort into. 

 

Packaging

Otachi comes in a large version of NECA’s new, sturdy Kaiju window boxes. The cardboard is super-thick and the graphics look great.

And... that’s about all there is to say. It’s a good box and I like it, but it’s fairly utilitarian. No bio to discuss or anything.

Looks

Otachi is almost twice as big as the other Deluxe Kaiju from the Pacific Rim line and about fifty times as big as that first Knifehead.

Okay, maybe not fifty times, but that first Knifehead was tiny.

Otachi’s bifurcated lower jaw is awesome and also creepy. NECA had a tough job here – to try to make it look good closed, opened, and separated. They designed the nubby teeth at the forward part of the split to sort of interlock in a way that keeps the lower portion relatively locked together. The seam isn’t perfect, but it couldn’t have been perfect without some sort of ugly device to hold the parts together. What’s behind the jaw is gruesome. That nodule-covered sack under Otachi’s tongue is disgusting. Once you get past the cool giant monster factor, these Kaiju really are unsettling.

I just want to take a second to once again point out how incredible the paint apps are on these toys. NECA has managed to make the luminescent parts look luminescent. Simply through a clever use of gradients, they make the various markings and body parts seem to glow as they did in the movie.

The rest of Otachi’s head is a Lovecraftian nightmare. It’s like a combination of a bat and an alligator. The maw full of teeth is topped by a bat-like nose and two bizarre protrusions that are somewhat reminiscent of a beetle. The two beady, yellow eyes are set in thick, ridged brows. The textures and detailing on the head are highlighted by precisely applied paint.

The back is made up of segmented plates similar to a crustacean with circular light nodes visible in the joints. 

The underbelly consists of two parts – a distended sack covered in more slightly nauseating nodules (this could be the creature’s womb) and a lower abdominal area with yellow and blue markings. The yellow patterns are the same sorts of markings that the rest of the Kaiju have. They aren’t sculpt, just paint. The bluish markings are actually ridges sculpted into the figure with more of the luminescent-appearing paint app. I believe these are wounds inflicted by my favorite of the Jaegers, Crimson Typhoon.

Otachi’s forelimbs feature the wings we saw in the Hong Kong fight, but folded up. The feet at the ends resemble the hind feet of bats with the knobby knuckles and oversized claws. The rear legs have similar feet with dew claws rather than thumbs and large plates over the knees. All four appendages are covered in sculpted scales and folds of skin. Dark washes bring out the details and the claws are a glossy, menacing black.

The tail is a multi-jointed piece with plates, scales, horns, luminescent (appearing) nodules, and a big ol’ pincer at the end. It’s awesome, but more on that in the “Fun” section. 

 

NECA has done an amazing job painting all of their Kaiju, but Otachi might even be a step above the rest. The apps are so uniform across the toy, with many disparate elements forming the whole. The glossy black of the talons, the green body with the dark wash, the glaring yellow eyes, the ivory fangs, and the eerily luminescent nodules and maw make for a stunning toy. The precision and vividness of the paint is fantastic.

Accessories

Otachi comes with a plasma blast effect and a baby Kaiju.

The box refers to the infant as a “Baby Otachi”. If that’s correct (and NECA is typically pretty thorough, so I’d imagine it is) then that suggests to me that the Kaiju names are actually species names for subspecies within the Kaiju family as opposed to specific Kaiju.

Of course, none of it really matters because these are just the names that Earthlings gave the Kaiju (which is also a name we gave them). Otachi means “big sword” in Japanese.

The baby Otachi is a delightful bonus. It’s a less developed version of the larger toy and has a great paint job for such a tiny thing. The head is on a joint that mostly just swivels and the umbilical cord is flexible enough to move around.

The plasma blast looks great. The sculpt has a liquid look to it and the paint captures the same luminescent quality as portions of the figure. Otachi’s tongue is removable and the blast effect plugs into the vacant spot. It takes a bit of effort to plug it in, but it stays securely in place once it’s there. This thing is sculpted to be in mid-blast, so it’s a bit short and it doesn’t terminate in a splash effect. I would’ve preferred that. As it is, if you display Otachi with this it will just sort of hang in mid-air for eternity, never eating holes in anything with its corrosive… corrosiveness.

Fun

The tail is incredible. So incredible that I felt a video was necessary:

First of all, the tail connects to the body via a ball-and-socket joint. I had to use a hair dryer on the socket for about thirty seconds to make it flexible enough to fit over the ball. Once it was attached and had cooled down the joint was tight and secure.

The rest of the tail is a series of ball joints with an articulated pincer at the end (not a snake pincher). As you can see in the video, the flexibility is great and this thing is a lot of fun to play with. There’s a three-way gear at the base of the pincer so that the three prongs move in unison. 

 

Otherwise Otachi has a similar range of articulation as the other Kaiju. The rear limbs are a bit limited, but the front ones have a pretty good range. The head is great fun just for the jaw alone.

Between the tail and the plasma blast there’s a lot to mess around with here. The figure itself is fun to move and pose, though you can’t really achieve a huge range of poses. All in all, though, Otachi feels more satisfying than the other Kaiju. 

 

Overall

This is a gorgeous monster. Make note – Otachi is another toy that I’m recommending for those outside of the specific fandom. Regardless of your feelings on Pacific Rim, this is a great monster toy. The design is top-notch, the paint is incredible, and there’s a lot to like about the way the creature moves and the options available.

As much as I would have liked it, there was just no way we were going to get ground-based Otachi and flying Otachi in the same figure and have them be screen accurate. This is the best non-flying Otachi we could have gotten for this price. Granted, that price is pretty high – around sixty bucks - but I have to admit that I feel like I got my money’s worth.

5 out of 5

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