Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Review: [Bandai] S.H.Figuarts Cure Moonlight
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Bandai |
| Origin Series: | Heartcatch Precure! |
| Scale: | Non-Scale |
| Height: | Approximately 15cm tall |
| Original Price: | 3,990 Yen |
| Figure Packaging: |
Similar to the 3 previous Heartcatch SHFs, Moonlight has her flower symbol (found in the opening theme iirc) in the box while the other end has the official shot of a figure in a certain pose. Again like most boxes of Figuarts, they aren't very appealing in my eyes but it is quite nice to look at the overall design for Moonlight's box. Like most of them SHF boxes, the box features her gimmicks and whatnot. It's pretty catchy to note that moonlight's box background is made of tiny hearts (I just noticed it now lol) But anyway, this will be enough of almost needless packaging discussions~
| Figure Detail: |
Before I get into the juicy bits of Moonlight's details and whatnot, first of all, I have to say that Moonlight's frame is extremely thin, I know she's thin but really bandai, she's way too thin for her body and it kinda bugged me for a while but eventually grew on me sooo lol. XD
But anyway, I guess as a way to counter this somewhat minor nitpicking for me, to be in scale with the rest of the team, Moonlight does stand a lot taller than Blossom and the others since she is after all the only 17 year old cure to date. Apologies as there won't be a size comparison since it slipped my mind back when I had a shot with Moonlight. (He was also lazy to bring out the other Cures so no pic with the others, boo you, Murakami, booo!)
But anyway, I guess as a way to counter this somewhat minor nitpicking for me, to be in scale with the rest of the team, Moonlight does stand a lot taller than Blossom and the others since she is after all the only 17 year old cure to date. Apologies as there won't be a size comparison since it slipped my mind back when I had a shot with Moonlight. (He was also lazy to bring out the other Cures so no pic with the others, boo you, Murakami, booo!)
Anyway, heading on to the more juicy bits of details, Moonlight has a fare share when it comes to details, practically every important detail are there: the three roses(?) above her crescent hairstyle (and I didn't actually there were 3 in there!) Her brooch on her left shoulder and the difference between her arms as the right has a mitten in it.
Her long skirt also has fine detailing in terms of layers and color depth in them, which really makes it quite gorgeous to look; her default face, though at first somewhat disappointed me, looks actually really beautiful and does quite capture our tragic heroine's calm appearance.
Additionally to the previous negativity, I'm not quite sure if it is only with my Moonlight piece, but her legs are too far from each other, even squeezing them towards one another doesn't seem too effective in closing the said gap.
| Accessories: |
Pretty much like Sunshine, Moonlight is in no way lacking hands, she has quite around everything she needs to recreate her signature poses including the one she uses to instantly fix her hair in the crescent style. Moonlight also has 3 additional faces: an angry expression, a serious expression and a closed eyes expression.
Similarly to all heartcatch cures, she comes with her weapon, the Moon Tact, a special heart-shaped base, an extra neck joint and her dead fairy partner, Cologne. Pretty much contented with Moonlight's accessories as they are just complete in a sense!
Similarly to all heartcatch cures, she comes with her weapon, the Moon Tact, a special heart-shaped base, an extra neck joint and her dead fairy partner, Cologne. Pretty much contented with Moonlight's accessories as they are just complete in a sense!
| Articulation: |
Once again powered by mostly hinges with pegs that allow swiveling, Moonlight proves to have a decent overall articulation but let's get into more details shall we?
While the head has pretty good motion, there are quite a number of flaws here, one of them is because of her hair, since the whole bunch ain't fully articulation except two small strands at the back, Moonlight can only look to the side to a certain degree only; while she can fully look down, it doesn't prove so when looking upwards since that movement is way too limited for her.
Now probably the most free and the almost perfect part of the articulation points would be on her arms, as her shoulder pads are just attached to the joint itself, the whole arm rotates freely at the shoulder joint, there are also some good bicep swivels and the arms bend quite well in the elbow while maintaining a wonderful proportion and look.
The torso joint doesn't do pretty well, it's mostly for swiveling rather than hinging IMO since adjusting it from hinge would really do much.
Now for the leg, this is probably Moonlight's biggest problem; while it remains the same as the arms in terms of joints, her skirt just messes up her hip joints in a major way. The skirts, divided into layers, are actually ball jointed but again, they don't have great movement and as for my piece, one skirt layer even pops up ridiculously fast. Thus limiting her hip joint movement by a certain noticeable point. The ankles are also using the general joint so it's pretty much fine.
| Poseability: |
Playing around with Moonlight was both fun and annoying at the same time; while she does capture his signature poses quite well, it really is a pain to adjust her legs from time to time for more dynamic poses. But,I guess, it just takes patience to pull them off.
As you can see in the images above, her face plates does come in handy in different poses and also the number of hands available makes it even more the worthwhile posing Moonlight but again, as I've stated in the details, on overall look her legs would look too much far apart from each other and you can see an example of it below.
And as for additional fun, here she is with some other figures, namely SHF Dark Precure and Marvel Universe AIM Soldier (the usual goon and punching bag, lolol!)
| Final Thoughts |
Even with some disappointments with her articulation and them weird legs, I have to say she is still one good figure for the character; admitted she's not the best (coz' apparently, Sunshine is) of the 4, I could say she's still way better than how bandai made it for Blossom and Marine. Though some people might get off with her price point since she is more expensive than the previous 3, I still think she's worth the money especially if you can find her on a good deal. Moonlight might have flaws but her wonderful array of accessories does make up a bit for her loss.
I'd give SHF Moonlight a 3.5 out of 5
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I heard that interchanging the hands or the face is a real pain, is that true?
ReplyDeleteit may depend on the piece or rather it might just be me used to hand swapping with Cure SHFs at this point but definitely not as much pain as swapping out the older Cure SHFs' faceplates.
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