If you couldn’t tell over the past few years, I love the Brave franchise. Like many others, GaoGaiGar was obviously my first, but once the other shows became accessible, I totally jumped on them. One that was of particular interest to me was Brave Police J-Decker, a series with, obviously, a police theme. I’ve always loved police/rescue robots, so I was hyped to watch it someday. As it would seem, it turned out to be my absolute favorite series in the franchise, at least of the ones I’ve seen. Of course, the old DX toys are starting to get expensive, but it looks like Bandai finally decided to give us one in the Super Robot Chogokin line…
Like the other Brave SRCs, J-Decker comes in his fully combined mode. Unlike the other Brave SRCs, he’s freaking huge!! I own 10+ Super Robot Chogokins and he’s taller than all of them, even GaoGaiGar. Shin Getter Robo might be the only one who tops his height, and he’s not even out yet.
J-Decker’s strengths lay not only with his height, but his sculpt as well. The design is incredibly stylized, matching his anime design flawlessly. It’s about time the Brave robots got this treatment. The earlier CM’s figures looked nice as well, but they were far from the most stable toys. With the exception of GaoGaiGar’s first issue, these figures have all been fantastically stable.
One of my favorite accessories on this figure is his backpack. Instead of being a pair of static wings, they’re able to swing backwards. This allows for both flying poses and the ability to move his arms behind him without any obstruction.
Speaking of obstruction, the two wings on his chest also move forward to allow for more fluid poses with his arms. This is a huge improvement over GaoGaiGar’s lion mane, which had to be switched out in order to use Hell and Heaven. It doesn’t move completely forward, but the extra joint in the shoulder helps with that.
His thigh joints use the same sliding mechanism that Might Gaine had, and once again it works fantastically. His kneecaps also have a locking mechanism in them that allow for his knee joints to be held into place, which also work pretty well.
But there is kind of an elephant in the room here, and that’s with his diecast content. He doesn’t have much, and what he does have seems to be concentrated in his chest, joints, and lower legs. Maybe Bandai is making the chogokins bigger now because it offsets in the low amount of diecast. Still, it’s not like it hurts the toy or anything.
His accessory compliment is a bit lacking unfortunately, but he never really had many to begin with. He comes with two guns, his stick, and a standard assortment of hands which includes a great pointing finger. Still, it works.
J-Decker is yet another great entry into the Super Robot Chogokin line, and as always, he comes with my highest recommendation. It’s a shame he’s probably the only SRC from his series that we’ll see, because I’d love to see Bandai do figures of the individual robots like in GaoGaiGar. But hey, if you want to BRAVE UP, make sure to look for J-Decker at FPNYC when he hits domestic retailers next month!