Surprisingly, no one here had mentioned Figma King of Fighters characters yet. The King of Fighters - Yagami Iori - Figma - 1/12 (FREEing) The King of Fighters - Kusanagi Kyo - Figma - 1/12 (FREEing) Though they look kinda plain in the pictures, I am definitely looking forward to getting these. It's about time they receive proper figure treatment, I find it annoying when characters from SNK franchises get very little attention.
Indeed, though I would not be surprised if characters like D.va and Bastion end in the Good Smile Arms line. They just showed a planet robobot kirby under that label while the other kirby figures so far are nendos.
Not bad but from the sculpt, Revo's seems better but way too early to tell. Revo Deadpool is gonna be tough for anyone to beat that whole package but I won't complain if someone does even better.
Figma will be a far nicer figure to handle, though. Revoltechs always look great on display, but they are a bear and a half to actually handle. Although to be fair, once they pushed their scale closer to 6" compared to the older 5" offerings, the quality seemed to tick significantly upwards. I actually really liked the Trigun and Sengoku Basara figures. Pretty much every other Revoltech I owned though eventually ended up in the trash. Taking a bit of a gamble on Revoltech Spider-Man, because Venom looks so crazy amazing. I'm bracing myself for potential disappointment.
I only have one figure from each company and I'd say they are very close as far as handling. Revo has some odd joints but once you get their point in why, it works very well. My Figma Motoko looks fantastic but touch it slightly and the hair or face piece falls off. Not a big deal but nothing has fallen off my Revo Deadpool and I handle it a lot more. Bottom line is I'm very happy we have so many quality options for action figures these days.
That's just plastic tolerances in action, and it's always a bit hit or miss when you're dealing with softer plastic parts like the hair fringes. Generally a fixable problem. Meanwhile, with Revoltech, there's no real solution to ankle joints improperly keyed so that they always click too far back or too far forward for good balance, or the stubborn resistance to using a proper ball or universal joints in the hips for full freedom of movement. It comes down to freedom of movement and ease of use, for the most part. Figma have buttery smooth articulation and are generally extremely well-toleranced so they can hold any pose you put them in. Revoltech/Kaiyodo, on the other hand has their esoteric "dynamic articulation" system, where joints are restricted at odd angles, often using bizarre angle cut swivels, and nothing moves "intuitively". The upside is that the way they're designed forces crazy, dynamic, and over-the-top action poses. But sometimes you want to go more neutral and you find that the figure is permanently hip-thrusting, or shows off massive gaps in the joints, or something.
I'm not going to argue which is "better" here because I agree Figma makes a seemingly more refined figure but all I can say is no figure from any company has ever impressed me the way Revo's Deadpool does. I'm not even the biggest Deadpool fan but everything from the packaging, accessories and most importantly, the figure sculpt is so well thought out and executed.
I don't necessarily doubt that either. Again, despite my distaste for Revoltech figures in the past, the Vash the Stampede and Nicholas D. Wolfwood figures were excellent, and I also have Sanada Yukimura and Date Masamune from Sengoku Basara that were similarly good. But in a general sense, Figma typically "just work", while Revoltech kinda have a learning curve to them, and they can't do everything, but the thing's they're designed to do they do very well. And maybe things have improved over the years as well. I remember a big problem I had with the earlier Revoltech figures was the slightly gummy PVC they were build with. It usually resulted in mucky face sculpts, and in some cases, broken figures because the soft plastic could sometimes bind on smaller pegs and tear them clean off (my Lazengann lost the ability to attach its hands after trying to use the drill effect parts in that way). The shift to a larger 6-inch scale seemed to come with harder plastic as well, so if the line carried forward like that, then that's at least one major complaint of mine that was eventually dealt with.
So far, I have three Revo items, Deadpool, The Ghost in the Shell Tachikoma and the Chinese Dragon. I haven't opened the Dragon yet but the other two are excellent. I love how they have accessories like the magnets that come with the Tachikoma and the upcoming Spiderman. It just sems like they are fun toy lovers who really put in the effort to make fun toys. SHF and Figma packaging is boring and their accesories are usually not as fun and inventive as Revo's. Those things aren't that important but again, the whole package does make a difference, at least to me. From opening the package to messing with the figure and all the parts it comes with, just never had so much fun with an action figure before. Anyways, I buy from all three companies and many others. I like them all. Revo is just winning to me right now because I love comic style Marvel charaters and most companies don't do those except Hasbro and they are a joke in comparison to any Japanese company.
In fairness, Figma shifted their packaging style after no.200 (Hatsune Miku 2.0). The boxes used to be more colourful and personalized, but then they changed to a standardized black box which I don't like as much for sure - especially since the boxes feature punch-out insert cards for the DI:Stage stands. The old boxes had nice colour insert cards for the stands, and now they're mostly just mono-coloured plus the name tag. It sucks. I disagree about the "inventive accessory" bit, but it really varies from figure to figure. If your only real experience with the line is SAC Motoko, then she's pretty bare-bones comparatively, with just a couple of guns and a muzzle flair effect. But then you go to characters from more "special effects heavy" productions, like the Nanoha characters for instance, and you'll probably find yourself with all sorts of goodies at your disposal. Magical effects, sword slashing effects, large weapons arsenals, they're all available but it's all very character-dependant. I also highly disagree with your dismissal of Hasbro as a contender in the superhero market. Yes, the Japanese figures are "higher quality" in some regards, but not 2-5x better given their prices. Hasbro offers a far larger selection of characters, especially if you've got B and C-list characters you're a fan of, and while the figures are less embellished in terms of paint or high-fidelity sculpt work, they're also way more sturdy. Throw a Marvel Legend at a wall and you'll probably put a hole in your wall. Throw a Figuart at a wall and you'll probably snap a wrist or neck joint or something. They just occupy different market niches and have different end goals. Neither are "superior" to the other when you take all factors into consideration.
Just to throw my 2 cents in on the superior part...of course things are graded on a scale and that scale depends on what people are looking for. Obviously, a ton of collectors enjoy ML for the reasons stated this far (cost and character diversity, namely). That said, while SHF/figma/revo etc cost more, they're generally perceived to be better products in terms of accessories, paint apps, and often likeness (recent GotG And Netflix ML reveals being a welcome exception) and articulation (often without visible pins). Most are new molds as well, thus making them diverse in a different way to how ML achieve diversity. I see your argument that superior is observer/goal dependent, but I think most would agree they're better at meeting discriminating collector's wants and therefore the superior option. If, for instance, they had the breadth of characters seen in ML, I believe most who could afford to would go with them over ML. Either way - what a time to be a collector - truly spoiled by choice!
Yeah, I was looking forward to Haruko and Lisa Hayes. Also a little disappointed Lina and Misato weren't on the list. Especially since the idea of me ever being able to fund such a project is off the table. I'd just remind people getting excited over the Deadpool Figma that they run over $60 plus shipping even at the Japanese sites these days so they'll need to start saving their pennies now.
All good and there are definitely more accessories being character dependent. Figma just doesn't make many figures I care about. As for MLs...I buy tons of them and always say there is a definite place for them but I think other figures are absolutely 2, 3, 4 or more times better. Depends on how you want to judge them but MLs usually have tons of articulation points but a lot is unusable either due to the mold hindering it or the figure just looking bad when you use the articulation. I usually have to go through a whole stack of figures to find one with acceptable paint if that. And that's only if you are lucky enough to find what you want. I'll always go the route of paying more for products that had care put into making them than overpaying for some thrown together poop.
Agreed for the most part. I love GitS Tachikoma too and plan to put it on the cabinet over my desk at work using the magnet. Fun little guy; I like how they even included a motorized wheels base so Tachikoma can zoom across your table when you pull back and release it. Revos have gotten a bad rap over the years and I can understand some of the grievances against them, but I generally really like the Revos I've collected so far. I mean, they even gave us a complete Iron Man line-up with MK1 on through MK7 and beyond (I want to pick up Revo Mk 45 but haven't gotten around to it yet). Only now is Bandai giving us MKs 1-6 in the SHF line after playing catch up. The Transformers Revoltechs are a line I wished was continued (though third party Custom Robots are giving us more G1 inspired figures), and they kinda stopped after Optimus and Bee in the DOTM movieverse sub-line (their Jetwing Optimus is a beautiful figure though when he's fully armed up). Would've loved a Revo Barricade, DOTM Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave, and Sentinel Prime. Anyway, back to Figma, I'm glad that they're giving us a new and improved Samus Aran (armored) figure since I missed out of the first release.
Upcoming releases: figma Lina figma Akeno Misaki Winter Wonder Festival 2017 - New Figma Releases Revealed - The Toyark - News I hope the final release is this shiny .
