I preordered this a number of months ago from Big Bad Toy Store, and then after having second thoughts, I tried to unsuccessfully get rid of it. Unlike the Figma Archetype: She (flesh color version) exclusive figure, He was not in demand. She was unloaded quickly. After two failed attempts to unload He, I decided He needed to be released from his plastic prison and shown to the world.
This is not my first Figma figure — I was about to start on this line when I bought Kanu from Ikki Tousen, but then got completely sidetracked with other purchases. Plus, these are small, about five inches tall — too short for my collections of either four-inch or six-inch figures. Size aside, these are sharp figures.
He is a basic blank buck with no painting or sculpting beyond the “naked” details. They are very similar to the Art S Buck figures from Sideshow a few years ago (can still be purchased on Amazon.com). There are no add-on parts besides extra hands and a base for poses.
Figma figures are designed by Max Factor, a Japanese design company headed by Max Watanabe. My introduction to Watanabe was through his works in the Hobby Japan magazine in the late ’80s and early ’90s when I was subscribing. At the time his work was related to Gundam painting and modelling, but these days he’s graduated to figures. Figma makes figures for many different licenses: TV, movie, and manga, and most are Japanese. They did make a Robocop figure, however, and I’m certain there are other Western properties coming from the in the future.
He, sadly, has no licence to mention. He is a blank figure with no relation to anything other than being a cool sculpt with lots of articulation. And Figma figures can pose. They do not have any double joints, but they have a great range in the areas where they have joints. The joint is more of a circular flat disc with two pegs. The range of motion is excellent since the sculpt is designed to allow for extreme movement. For example, the back of the calf can rest against the the back of thigh. The arms are just as poseable. The only negative here is the the elbow joint sticks out on the front a bit and sticks out a lot on the knee. Small sacrifice.
The shoulders and the hips have a great range of motion: double ball-jointed to allow for maximum movement. The “shoulder” part of the double ball is a hinge joint and the bicep and deltoid wrap around the joint. Bandai uses the same technique in their S. H. Figuarts line; it gives the figure a bicep swivel while covering the joint, making it less mechanical looking. The other part of the shoulder joint is a ball that fits into the chest and allows the shoulder to move up or down or back or forward.
The hips/pelvis area is also an interesting design. The crotch is a hinged T-Joint, with the stem of the T attaching to the lower abdomen and the branched ending in two balls that connect into a socket in the thigh. The socket connects into the sculpted thigh and swivels “invisibly.” The hinged T-Joint in the crotch allows one hip to sit higher than the other for extra posing possibilities. And all of this is covered by a thin, soft plastic “underwear.” This allows the thigh to lift to above 90 degrees.
The ball-and-socket joint in the crotch allows the lower ab to roll forward and backward with an excellent range of motion; however, the mid torso joint isn’t great. On the figure reviewed, the range of motion is a glorified swivel, with only slight ball and socket movement.
The wrists and ankles are nothing special — standard fare for action figures. The neck is also standard hinged fare.
The sculpt on the figure is decent. It isn’t an overly muscular or detailed sculpt; it is very anime. The pecs leave a little to be desired, but if they had been sculpted any differently, the arms would lose the complete range of motion. Don’t misunderstand me, the sculpt is perfect for a figure designed to have as much range of motion as possible.
I’m certain if I were still customizing five-inch figures, this would be the perfect solution. If you were looking for a teenage-scaled figure for customizing in your Marvel Legends, DC Universe Classics, or ThreeA Toys collections, then this would be perfect. Or if you want a “large” character for your Marvel Universe or DC Injustice or GI Joe figures. Of course, if you customize Figma or five-inch figures, then you are golden.
You can still pick this figure up on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Figma-Archetype-Version-Exclusive-Figure/dp/B00B5CUT8A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366568978&sr=8-1&keywords=figma+he
And as always you can talk about this figure on the Fwoosh forums: https://thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=85357
