The shine may be wearing off my S.H. Figuarts obsession. I’m starting to find little faults with each figure I get lately, including a few on the Avengers: Age of Ultron Black Widow. Either Bandai is slipping or I’m getting older and crankier. Or both. Probably both.
But it’s not like it a huge drop in quality with Natasha. Articulation hindered a little, some odd decisions, but she still looks and moves great.
The package is a standard S.H. Figuarts box. It’s rectangle shaped and made of cardboard. Clear window. Figure inside. It’s weird how we reviewers try to come up with something new to describe the same thing over and over. After this many years I still attempt it. In a few years I’ll just type “Package” and post the pictures. Probably to the same effect.
Even in the box I knew Widow would look great. It’s all in the face with Figuarts and they pulled it off again. And the proportions and body are pretty good too.
But without sounding too lewd, it’s all about the head. I tried several different ways of wording that but I can’t help it. Short and sweet. The head makes this figure. The face itself because of Bandai’s printing technology, but even the hair is lifelike. The gradations in color makes it pop, and the use of metallic red here is much more successful than the shiny gold of Luke Skywalker’s hair.
Okay, the likeness isn’t perfect, but from a lot of angles it’s damn close. As always, in close-up pics the details of the eyes and such look weird but in person, tiny person. Just a shrunken human running around on your toy shelf.
The sculpt on the body is fantastic with all kinds of little details and textures, but I feel like it’s not perfect for Scarlett Johansson’s body as seen in the movies. The figure is a little more lithe and streamlined.
For accessories I’m going to list some things that can be separate but aren’t packed as such. The doodads and thingamabobs on the belt.
These are all little separate pieces attached to the belt by ball joints. They can be tilted, turned, and removed. Which makes them a little troublesome. They tend to drift around while posing and my big fear is that I’m going to lose them somewhere in carpet purgatory.
For other accessories, the figure has Black Widow’s pistols:
And her batons:
Finally, she has the usual hand options. Fists, grip, trigger, and splayed open.
Articulation is another sticking point for me. There are a lot of joints and they work great for the most part, but the biggest downfall is her inability to point both guns straight forward. The other trouble joint is the ankle, or, more specifically, the shape of the foot. It cause stability issues and the ankle doesn’t help things. You can get poses, it just takes a little longer than a lot of other figures. You can see all the points of articulation and range of movement in my video review.
Comparing the S.H. Figuarts to Marvel Legends Captain Marvel, you can see that she isn’t going to fit in on you comic shelf.
She will fit in a little better with your Marvel Legends MCU figures. It’s not perfect but with some creative posing it can be fudged.
Where this figure really shines is with other Figuarts Marvel movie characters.
Now here comes a little more negativity. The price. I understand that Widow is a Tamashii Web exclusive, but it seems like prices are going up all over. I pre-ordered Age of Ultron Hawkeye and it cost over $85 after shipping. I paid for Widow in March and I think it was over $60. The whole price situation made me pass on War Machine. It’s sad because I really like the Black Widow figure; the likeness is awesome and she’s a great presence on my shelf, but if it’s a trend trend for Bandai to raise the price on each release in the Marvel S.H. Figuarts line, I may just have to pass on more in the future, no matter how fantastic they look.
S.H. Figuarts Black Widow is currently available on BBTS.
