The Figuarts Darth Maul is super cool, and you should find some way to procure him. Even if you already have the Black Series Darth Maul, which is widely believed to be one of the best of that line, because if you’re into cool action figures, this is absolutely worth the purchase.
Okay, that’s it.
Review over.
…
Seriously, we’re done. Awesome toy.
Wait, you wanted more?
Well, okay. 
I guess if you need more info, I could tell you how Darth Maul solves that pesky “I don’t like ‘soft goods'” problem that a lot of collectors seem to have with their toys, especially certain Black Series figures. Figuarts hasn’t used any fabric for this figure. Despite that, Maul still retains an extremely wide amount of poseability and flexibility in all of his articulation points. This extreme poseability carries on throughout the figure. Like I’ve come to expect with Figuarts, Maul has a ton of usable, serviceable articulation that, due to his design, is very well-hidden and works well. Maul gets a nice, wide-leg spread and can do some decent Rockette kicks, even with all that plastic hanging down over his crotch zone.
Maul gets a bit more than 90 degrees in his arms, which is a decent amount considering the blousy sleeves at his elbow joints. He has bicep swivels, shoulder balls, and a hinge that allows for some front and back motion. The neck is jointed at the top and bottom, which means his head has a huge range of motion, but the addition of the lower neck joint adds an entirely new dimension to the amount of badass stares he can give.
His torso is jointed near the waist, which gives him some motion there, but he doesn’t have any upper torso articulation. The range is wide enough at the waist so that it’s not too damaging, but there are some crunched or hunched-over poses that he won’t be able to pull off. The Black Series Maul does come out slightly ahead in this articulation zone.
RoboKillah demonstrates all of the articulation in his video review.
One of the things I’ve come to love about Figuarts is that they dump a ton of accessories into their packages. Whether it’s extra hands, heads, or weapons, the characters don’t have to remain in a static, fixed state. Maul came loaded with a large assortment of extra hands. He has a pair of fists, a pair of closed-grip hands (for the two separated blades), a pair of slightly opened grip hands (for the double bladed saber), and a pair of open hands that can either double as force-using hands or expressive hands for doing those funky Jedi-Fu gymnastics that Maul is famous for.
Maul comes with the single, double-bladed lightsaber hilts and two separate lightsaber hilts that represent the single blade split into two. While I understand that it isn’t movie canon that the double bladed saber could be split into two separate, working blades — who cares? Having Darth Maul wield two blades simultaneously is pretty much the dictionary definition of cool, and just because it wasn’t done in the movie doesn’t mean that his blade didn’t have that capability anyway. It is canonical that the blade was sliced in two, and he was still able to use the half blade that was left, so that can be represented with at least one half of the blade. The lightsaber blades plug into all the various holes snugly and won’t fall out, so you can have a double-ignited double blade, a single-ignited double blade, or any variation you want of the two single blades. Plus, the hilts all look like they’re actual metal, so there’s no flat gray plastic like with the Black Series Maul. Win win win win.
Lightsabers and ball-jointed wrists go together like peanut butter and jelly, and since Figuarts use ball-jointed wrists, the posing options go through the roof. Pair off the various hands and you can get a ton of great poses.
Finally, Maul comes with two heads. One stoic and one angry with gritted teeth. There’s a wetness to the teeth and eyes that makes him come alive. I’m assuming they used that strange new facial printing technology that they used on the Figuarts Luke on Maul as well because his eyes are scary alive and look great. The red is a deep red, and his head-horns are sharp as hell. Seriously, be careful when switching heads because those sumbitches are sharp on the ends.
The paint all over is minimal because Maul is totally goth and stuff and loves black, but there are various degrees to the black hues, and there’s a nice realistic matte to them, so you get some blacks that have a bit of grey tone to them along with some deeper blacks for the boots and gloves.
As I said at the start of the review, the Black Series Darth Maul from Hasbro’s first wave was strong right out of the gate and is held up as what Hasbro should be striving for in their line. It is true that quality of Hasbro line has been very up or down. While it’s not particularly fair to draw comparisons given that the Black Series is a mass market line with mass market prices and the Figuarts line is a slightly higher-end line with prices to match, I think it would be disingenuous to ignore the fact that many 6-inch Star Wars collectors are looking at Figuarts figures as either replacements or stand-ins. The Black Series Maul is long gone and commands a decent premium on the aftermarket, so this might be many collectors first chance at a Maul. If you’re looking for a supreme stand-in, or even a replacement, track this one down.
He seems to be out of stock at all the import stores, but he is available for preorder at BBTS