You can almost hear him say “Gorsh!”
Goofy’s transition into the Kingdom Hearts action figure aesthetic is by far the most successful of the three I’ve reviewed, owing to his slightly more humanized proportions. Where Mickey’s costume dictated some of his limitations, and Donald Duck’s duckness dictated his, Goofy succeeds at pure hand candy in the areas they were hindered.
In the Kingdom hearts world, Goofy is Captain of King Mickey’s Royal Knights. Truthfully, I am surprised that he wasn’t some type of court jester. I’m hoping in the game he still manages to trip over things at regular intervals.
Like Donald, Goofy is dressed in medieval-styled clothes that pay homage to his more traditional Disney outfit, keeping the hat, vest and color orange, this time on the pants instead of his shirt. Figuarts managed to shove in a ton of very useful articulation, allowing him a wide array of dynamically expressive poses. He has the requisite ball-jointed shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, neck, ankles wrists and torso. Everything moves, and moves well.
His vest and belt are both a flexible plastic, and neither one is permanently attached, so they’ll float around as you move them, but it allows all of his articulation to breathe nicely. The crotch is also a quasi-floating piece that allows you to raise his legs up; it will move up with them.
His oversized bottom half and those oversized shoes of his allow him to stay well-balanced in different poses as well. The joints on my figure were all nice and tight, so there was no flipping and flopping around. Put him in a pose, bam, he stands. I’ve had some figures that were fiddly as hell and didn’t want to stand still for the half-second it takes to take a picture, but Goofy didn’t have that problem in any pose. Nothing beats a cooperative toy during the photo sessions.
The sculpting overall is razor sharp, and the paint is clean and crisp. There’s a nice silver on the belt-buckles, zippers, buttons and steel-toed shoes that accent everything nicely. The colors look dead-on to the Kingdom Hearts animation model.
I’ve watched pretty much every animated Goofy short, and every inch of this figure evokes his gawky, gangly form. He comes with three face-plates that peg on and off easily: open-mouthed happy, closed-mouth happy and open-mouth determined. Each expression does a great job at nailing Goofy, from the long snout to the buck teeth. The ears on the head are even articulated, so they can swing 360 degrees.
While it might not be germane to the Kingdom hearts aesthetic, the only expression I’m really missing is a confused one. Goofy has a tendency to be confused. But that’s just me being way too greedy. Of the faces available I’ve got a wide variety of options for most occasions.
Goofy comes with two open hands, two gripping hands and a thumb’s up hand. While heavy on optional parts, he’s light on accessories; all he has is a shield. In the KH canon, Goofy doesn’t care much for weapons, choosing to arm himself only with a shield. That’s a shame, because a good sword would have been a nice addition for him to flail around with, but the shield does the job. It’s a nice shield with a god heft to it. The handle comes apart and slots into his gripping hand, and then attaches back to the shield. I think I’m going to keep them permanently connected and just swap out both shield and hand if I need to. Hell, I might leave the shield on him; I like the look.
I don’t know how deep Figuarts will be heading into the Kingdom Hearts character roster, or if there are any more coming up, but I’m glad to have gotten representations of Mickey, Donald and Goofy, with Goofy being my favorite by far. It has definitely made me pine for Figuarts to make a series of classic Disney versions of all three of them…followed up by the rest of the Disney mainstays. But if this is where it ends, then it’s a satisfying run, and they left the best for last.
