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S.H. Figuarts – Mace Windu

I have a sort of general philosophy I like to follow when writing reviews. I like to give good points and bad points and let the reader sort of make the final conclusion on if something seems good or not.  There are really too many subjective factors to give a definite yay or nay on most things.

SH Figuarts Mace Windu

Unfortunately, I don’t really have much to say about Figuarts Mace Window that is negative.  I really just don’t, the figure is damn near perfect and it’s definitely the best toy Mace Windu us ever going to get.  I suppose that, as a Star Wars Figuarts, he’s a little pricey than some people might want to pay.  Also the cuts for his joints are a little ugly looking in some poses.  But these are kind of nitpicky level complaints.

SH Figuarts Mace Windu

Mace Windu includes 6 sets of hands, and 2 heads, one angry and one more smug/neutral.  He also includes 2 light sabers, one with a peg to hang off of his belt and the other to be held, with or without the blade.

SH Figuarts Mace Windu

The sculpt on everything is amazing, which is helped by the fantastic paint job.  The heads do a spot on job of capturing Samuel L. Jackson down to little wrinkles in his forehead.

SH Figuarts Mace Windu

He pose ability and stability are also great for a lot of really exceptional dynamic posing.  His open hands are great for “force action”.  He can perfectly wield his light saber in one or two hands.  The details on the head and expression work great for attacks and neutral poses.

SH Figuarts Mace Windu

Basically what I’m saying is, if this figure interests you, he’s great and well worth picking up.  It’s every bit as awesome as it looks, probably more so.

Figma – Stand Alone Complex Motoko Kusanagi

Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko Kusanagi is kind of a hard one to pin down for a real “definitive look”.  Unlike a lot of anime, cartoon, or even comic characters, she has had a pretty wide array of styles over her various movies and shows.  There is a general theme of “tough” and “short purple hair”.  Aside from that there have been a variety of tactical suits, jackets, and various spandex sort of outfits.  This particular figure is based on the Stand Alone Complex Anime series.  Stand Alone complex is an alternate timeline version of the story from the popular movie and manga, Ghost in the Shell.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

There aren’t any particularly great figures of Motoko from the original series from what I can tell.  I haven’t really seen any of Stand Alone complex though I like the original movie and have read some of the manga.  Of the various versions of Motoko available, I felt this one more capture the essence of what I personally think of as the character, though this design feels “younger” and a bit more, anime, for lack of a better term, than I’d really prefer.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

It’s a decent design though and the sculpt and articulations are pretty clean.  There’s something a little funny going on with the articulation I can’t quite place though.  It works well enough for posing, but she kind of looks a little wonkey in some poses, like things don’t quite line up naturally.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

Motoko includes 5 sets of hands in various poses, a Figma stand, three faces (smiling, frowning, yelling), two hairs (one is “windswept”), a pistol, an assault rifle, and an extra set of boobs.  I’m not entirely sure about the boobs, I think one is slightly larger but they look really the same.  Several of the hands are pretty specialized around holding the weapons, in particular the special right hands for holding each gun.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

Figma Motoko has a problem I’ve encountered with the few Figma toys that I do have.  Her hair falls off way to easily.  If you lean her forward at all the hair has a good chance of slipping right off her face.  It’s a good sized chunk, so it’s easy to find if it falls, but it’s kind of a nuisance.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

So overall verdict, it’s an alright figure, like a lot of the line, but it’s not quite the version of The Major I wish I had.  I’m kind of hoping that the live action Ghost in the Shell movie will see a bit of a resurgence in merchandise and some more, better figures.  I’d love to get a Batou to go with Motko.  I am also kind of surprised there aren’t more SH Figuarts from Ghost in the Shell, considering Bandai makes Figuarts and owns the rights to GitS.  That’s probably one of those screwy “The media company is different than the products company” deals.

Figma Motoko Kusanagi

S.H. Figuarts – Sailor Mars

Coming in as the third member of the team, Sailor Mars adds some fire power, literally, to the Sailor Senshi mix.  Rei and her fire attacks make her a pretty heavy hitter on the team, and as a Shrine Priestess when she’s not Sailor Mars, she is one of the more capable members of the group even without her powers.

Figuarts Sailor Mars is much more of a departure in design than Mercury was to the original Sailor Moon. The core Fuku outfit is still there but she wears slippers instead of long boots.  She also has longer hair, which includes some neat articulated bits that allow it to “flare out” for dramatic effect.

She does start to get into a bit of reuse on the hands from Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury, though there are also several new unique hands.  Aside from hands and faces, her only other accessory is a tiny Ofuda paper charm.  It’s not actually made from paper, it’s plastic, but it’s a depiction of her paper slip she uses for some of her attacks.  She also includes a special hand to allow her to hold the paper between two fingers as she does in the media.

While it’s not an included accessory, the Flame Effects parts set which is a separate item from Bandai, makers of S.H. Figuarts, works extremely well with Sailor Mars.   Considering how little accessories these figures have outside of Sailor Moon, and how much parts reuse there is between them, it’s a bit disappointing they don’t come with even a single attack effect or weapon of any kind.  I imagine they are saving that for the eventual “Super Sailor Senshi” releases.

If Moon and Mercury were tricky to stand on their tiny feet, Mars’s actual heels make her almost impossible without the stand.  It’s doable, but it’s tricky and the ankles have a tendency to splay outwards when doing so.

Of all of the five core Sailor Senshi Figuarts, Mars is definitely the lightest.  She has the least amount of accessories at least.  I guess the budget all went into her hair, though Venus does a similar trick.  That’s not to say she is a bad figure, it just would have been nice to see a bit more, some sort of fireball part maybe.  Or better yet, Sailor Moon has her cat Luna, Venus has Artemis, why couldn’t Sailor Mars have come with her two crows Phobos and Deimos?  Even in a static pose they would have helped make her feel a bit less bland.

S.H. Figuarts – Ranma (Female)

Getting Sailor Moon Figuarts was a surprise.  But not a huge surprise when you consider there was a new redesigned series put out recently.  Getting Ranma 1/2 Figuarts was the real surprise.  For the most part the anime Figuarts I see tend to be based on newer anime and manga that I’ve never heard of.  But here we are, with Ranma 1/2 in glorious highly articulated plastic form.  Sadly it kind of seems like we’ll never actually get Panda Genma who was featured when these were announced.

The first release is the female version of Ranma.  In case you are unfamiliar with the premise, Ranma is a harem comedy anime series and manga, which follows the various romantic relationships surrounding Ranma and his crazy pack of friends and enemies.  The gimmick of the show, is that a lot of the characters carry some sort of curse, generally originating from the Jusenkyo Springs where they change into a different form and back when exposed to hot or cold water.  In the case of the title character, Ranma transforms between a boy and girl due to Ranma falling into the Spring of Drowned Girl.

That’s a pretty gross oversimplification, but that’s the general idea.  Originally shown in the announcement were both male and female Ranma as well as a giant Panda Genma, Ranma’s father.  Ranma here is pretty awesome, probably my favorite Figuarts of all of the ones I own (though Tuxedo Mask is a close second).

A lot of what I like is just how well balanced she is, which is really essential given the martial arts nature of the series.  Part of the plot of Ranma is that everyone has some sort of crazy martial arts fighting style.  Being able to pose Ranma doing martial arts moves really helps sell the figure.

She also has a great selection of alternate faces.  There’s a big smile, a small smile, a frowny serious face and the embarrassed face.  That last one is a lot of fun since as one might imagine, a dude turning into a girl could result in a lot of embarrassing situations.

There is also a good assortment of accessories and alternative hands.  The female version of Ranma also includes a hot kettle, which compliments the cold water bucket included with the male counterpart.

In case you can’t tell, I really like this figure.  Probably the biggest downside is that she’s a little boring without some of the other Ranma Figuarts to go with her.  Also, if you’re not a fan of the source material, there really isn’t a lot of incentive to pick her up.  This is definitely the best Ranma figure available, since it both looks good and is loaded with articulation and parts, in traditional Figuarts style.

Mafex – The Dark Knight Joker

I’m not a huge fan of the “Nolan Batman” films as a whole, but The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies in the broad sense.  Batman Begins, The Dark Knight Rises, both are kind of mediocre, The Dark Knight is so good though.  A lot of this is because of the Joker as the villain.  Loving Heath Ledger’s Joker isn’t an uncommon opinion at all for sure.  Unfortunately, in the US, Mattel has the license for DC figures, and produces most of them.  Mattel, honestly, isn’t the greatest toy company, mostly because they tend to have wonky articulation and really spotty assortments.  The Dark Knight Rises 4″ line had cases of like 23 Batmans and 1 Bane or something ridiculous.  There was a version of The Joker released in the US, but I really wanted something nicer.

Enter Medicom and Mafex, and their Dark Knight Joker.  This isn’t Mafex’s first figure, though they don’t put out a ton of product.  Actually, especially previous to this Joker, Mafex has had a really awful reputation for releasing really crappy figures.  Not so much from a design standpoint but from a quality standpoint.

I’d heard that they had gotten better with this release, and I opted to go ahead and pick up the Joker here as my first figure from their releases.  I have to say I was not disappointed.  Though I also need to say, there are still some quality issues, particularly in the joints on these figures.  As of writing this review, I’ve picked up three figures from the Mafex line, and all of them have had joint issues of some kind, most often in the neck.  My Joker sometimes has problems with his arm falling off.

Aside from this issue, I’m really satisfied by this figure.  The sculpt is great, the weapon assortment is great.  The smiling head is a little too happy, which is kind of weird, but the normal glowering head is spot on great, and it’s really the onle that would be used most of the time anyway.

There’s a bit of hindrance to articulation by his coat, though the Joker, especially this iteration of the Joker, is pretty slow and shuffling in his movements anyway.  He’s not exactly an athlete or a ninja on any level.

So the question is, is it recommended?  It’s probably the best Heath Ledger Joker available in this scale.  That said, the join issues could be a turn off.  I’d recommend him, but not for a tremendous mark up, unless you’re a huge fan of this Joker.  I add the last part because now that we’ve moved on to the DC Cinematic Universe and the Suicide Squad Joker, this Joker probably isn’t going to get any sort of future release in a better line (Figuarts).