3A Toys Microman String Divers saw a special Asian exclusive release in SD05 Julian, a clear nod to the 1974 Microman Zone Clear figure. There is no cloth suit, no utility belt, just a straight plastic figure molded in clear colors with a vac-metal head! And it’s a beautiful piece of work. It’s perfect as far as tribute figures go, perfectly placed between Neo Henshin Cyborg and Microman. 3A’s done an incredible job in getting this figure to market and while I love the rest of the String Divers a part of me would love to see them all produced like this figure.
The figure is using the same buck as the other String Divers and it’s a great body for the figure. The sculpt is nice and thin, nothing overly muscled and over powered channeling that “average” guy look you associate with Microman. The hands are very vanilla and I know that these guys are “divers” and they have “swimming” hands, but it would be great to see some other hands included, a fist or better a gripping hand. Size wise the hands are perfect, they are very proportionate to the rest of the figure and I’d love to see them on other 3A figure types. The feet are “typical” 3A Toys feet and I’m on the fence with them. structurally they are great, they are long and wide and provide great stability for the figure, but they are wide and long and can look Mickey Mouse-y at times. The final part of the sculpt, the head is great. I really love the look of the head, not just as a Microman head, but as a generic 3A Toys head for their portable figure. It’s much more generic than anything they’ve done before and leaves the door open for some serious customizing. I need to test the head on a de Plume and Tomorrow King base to be certain of the fit, but I think I might have a winner for some casts to customize.
the articulation is amazing as usual, 3A knocks it out with their points of articulation. There are 3 nit-picks that I have. The first is the vac-metal chest piece locks the waist swivel and ab-joints from moving; I found this annoying when trying to make any dynamic poses that required twisting at the waist or crunching in the abs. The other joint that baffles me a bit is the double jointed knee; while it is double jointed the range of motion isn’t much better than 90 degrees. I haven’t taken the joint apart to see why there isn’t a better range of motion but it’s something I’ll look at before the final review. I’m not certain I can count every joint on the figure, there’s a ton but I’ll do my best:
Ball Feet
Ball Ankles
Double Hinged Knees
Thigh Swivels
Ball Hips
Ball Waist
Ball Abs
Rocker Shoulders
Ball Shoulders
Swivel Biceps
Double Hinged Elbows
Ball Wrists
Ball Head
As mentioned before the figure doesn’t come with any accessories, clothes, etc. He’s just a plain figure. One might question such a high cost for a figure, but truth is, he’s worth every penny for the nostalgia. You can still pick him up today at Hobby Search or your favorite online Asian retailer.
