The new Overwatch figures are popping on and off “Shipping Now” status on Amazon lately and I was able to put an order in for this Chrome skin variant of the Cyborg Ninja Genji. Now, I don’t play Overwatch, and I’ve had mixed feelings about the previous figures from the line, but you got me at Cyborg Ninja action figure. Let’s take a look!
Genji comes in packaging similar to the first wave of the Overwatch figures with a mostly white box that features a large window that shows off the figure well and a flashy illustration of the character that wraps around the front and right side.
Genji comes with two swords and two alternate hands. There is one larger sword that has a lot of yellow triangles painted along the blade that I think are supposed to give the impression that it’s glowing with energy. I don’t think it quite works.
The shorter blade is less detailed and cast in a silver plastic. It’s the typical weapons grade plastic you see in Marvel Legends. Not terribly convincing as metal, but I guess I’m resigned to it at this point.
One extra hand has three throwing stars attached to simulate one of Genji’s game moves. The part is cast in translucent greenish yellow and the hand details are painted on so there is a neat green energy swoosh effect coming off his hands.
The other alternate hand is a two finger salute that matches some of his win pose animations. The hand swap on this guy is fairly tight, so I’d be careful with those pegs.
The sculpture looks like a good representation of the character as he’s got a lot of intricate detail across his robotic body. I find the soles of his boots especially interesting as they have these tiny little cleets. It makes balance on flat surfaces a little tricky, but I found it worked well with finding balance on uneven surfaces.
To my eye, the head seems a tad small and the waist a little too slim to match the proportions of the game model, but it’s close.
I did notice that the hips seem to be set very wide apart and there’s a fairly large gap visible where you can clearly see the peg connecting the crotch piece to the leg. This does allow for more movement on the leg, so I think it might be intentional. It sort of reminds me of a Figuarts drop-down hip without the drop down.
Otherwise the articulation is similar to the other Overwatch figures we’ve received so far with:
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Ball and socket upper torso
- Single hinged lower torso
- Butterfly hinged pectorals
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel biceps and thighs
The neck has good range looking down, but doesn’t look up very well. The wrists and ankles also feel a little limited by the surrounding armor sculpt, though I like that the right sword wrist has an up/down hinge for sword pointing. The butterfly hinges unfortunately don’t help get the arm to reach across the body very well due to the shape of the armor.
I would say paint is probably the biggest weakness on this figure. For a chrome variant, he doesn’t seem all that metallic.
It looks to me like they skipped the detail painting on the hands, but I’m used to that. He feels a little plain. I think the white sections could all use a wash and the metal parts could stand to be a little darker and more reflective metallic paint. The character also has glowing parts on the sockets along his torso and arms and the color would help the figure a bit.
Overall, this figure is a little disappointing. I like the overall design, but the lackluster paint hurts it. I do think there is potential for the upcoming two-pack release to address some of my issues with the figure.
