Thursday, June 19, 2014
Review: Figma Spider-Man
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Max Factory |
| Figure Number: | 199 |
| Origin Series: | The Amazing Spider-Man |
| Scale: | Non-scale |
| Height: | Approximately 14.5cm tall |
| Original Price: | 4,571 Yen |
| Packaging: |
Spider-man just makes it to a cut being numbered as 199 just before figma decided to make their packaging style generic and boring, his box design takes on a city background while sporting some spider webs on it, and to top it off, the main window gets a big spider symbol printed on it.
On one side, you get to see formulas and a claw mark near the big figma label showing Lizard behind those scratch marks, so, am hoping that they'd make a figma of Lizard as well. And on the other side, you get to see a dynamically posed Spidey to hype up that this figma can indeed be posed in dynamic ways. Lastly, the back features your usual (and boring looking) white space filled with a dozens of product shots as well as some highlights.
And like most figmas, Spidey comes with a di:stage cut off patterned off a web nest with the movie logo printed on it.
| Details: |
Now with the Spider-Man japanese articulated figure war on the smaller scale (regardless of the version), I believe figma has got the best representation (Medicom's MAFEX had TASM version as well and Kiayodo's Revoltech had the Spider-Man 3 produced); though not by any means perfect, I just think the proportions on the figma look the best. Granted that he's slightly thinner than the actual and looks a bit cartoon-y in a sense, I seriously love that the mold doesn't have any major mold issues that made it look awkward when displayed up front.
Now going to the details, I actually though they'd go for the white eyes since that's how it looked like when they were showing the prototypes before but they're actually yellowish like the film, just not shiny enough. The spider logos are molded in quite nicely as well while lying down a chunk full of scaly suit goodness. The metallic paint finish on the figure also makes it look really nice though for some complaints I have, you can see cuts and gaps in certain places of the figure that really breaks the solid look of the suit such as the back of the neck and head, the shoulders and the placements of the figma joints on the elbows and the knees; but hey, it's not enough to actually make the figure a bad release.
Speaking of joints, the only major awkward aesthetic of figma Spidey is that he uses really BIG figma joints for the knees, so viewing it from the side of a standing pose actually makes it a real bummer to look at; the reason for the big joints is to allow it to have really delicious bending ability which you'll see later on in the articulation points section.
Another neat thing to mention is that they actually molded in his web shooters which is pretty well received by me at the very least.
Granted the official info of Spidey mentions that he is around 14.5cm tall, when standing next to a Shocker Combatman, they actually are almost the same height which probably boosts Spidey's height to around 15.5 cm?
| Accessories: |
Accessory department gives me a mixture of disappointment and contentment, while I think the usual figma stand, hand sets (with a pair of web shooting hands, open hands, fists and gripping hands) along with the backpack and right hand with the smartphone are very much likeable, I just find the disappointment on the web effects, they're just made on a launching manner and they don't even look like webs tbh. I really wish, they included something longer to recreate Spidey's web swinging poses.
| Articulation Points: |
In general, articulation points on Spidey is top notch and isn't something I would really expect from figmas since they usually have some restrictions with them. Though one thing that will be certain is that some of the details will break when he is posed in dynamic manners.
Spidey's head runs on a ball joint: one on top of the neck and one in the bottom; this does give you a full rotation and a really superb looking upwards/downwards when you make use of both ball joints which will help big time for his web slinging antics.
Going to the arm points, his shoulders can be raised to a 90 sideways while the rotation does allow you a neat full rotation with minor swiveling due to mold limitations. Your standard figma joints are implemented in his elbows which gives a satisfying arm bend while also allowing you to use the connectors to swivel his forearms. The wrist retains your usual figma hand sets which can swivel on the socket and only bend upwards or downwards depending on where the hinge point is.
His body has can be moved with articulation points on his torso/ab and the waist, both of which can be swiveled sideways for a bit but mainly serve as points to help the web-head a decent inner bend as stretching it outwards doesn't do pretty much, almost non-existent actually.
His hips run on a ball joint so the regular raise can only give you to as much as around 90 but since Spidey has a special engineering, the ball actually connects to the pelvic piece using a peg, by pulling it out gradually, Spidey's range also adjusts allowing him to do his acrobatic poses. The thigh cuts are pretty obvious and they rotate with ease. Now, as I mentioned in the details section, the big knee joints were made so that Spidey can actually bend like he has double jointed knees, which is pretty neat. Lastly, his ankles use the usual figma joints as well, allowing you a good upwards/downwards movement while also swiveling/tilting the feet though sideways swivel can be a bit limited due to the molding on his legs' lower half; the figma also features a neat SHF-ish toe hinge to allow you to bend it if needed for certain poses.
| Poseability: |
Figma Spider-man can definitely do most (if not all) of his acrobatic feats seen in the movie and I actually learned to appreciate the web effects a little bit when I was doing his action poses though still not enough to give a satisfying Spidey experience.
I really love on how poseable this figma can get as he is probably the most poseable figma to date IMO. The joints really work around with ease and you can get him to do Spider-man stuff with ease; seriously speaking, inclusion of longer web threads could've made this release perfect.
The smartphone hand and the backpack certainly adds a lot of fun factor as you can recreate even more scenes from the movie or just literally have fun with them!
And since we all know Spidey's bound to be a photographer, you can even use the smartphone hand and have Spidey take selfies with other heroes, hahaha!
As another bonus, since this articulated Spider-man is made by a japan manufacturer, I figured it'd be a good nod to make some 1978 Supaidaman references (yes, the Toei japanese Spider-man with the super robot and race car).
The Iron cross killer with updated suit, SUPAIDAMAN!
And finally a reference to the magazine feature I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) wherein it shows Supaidaman and Kamen Rider V3 working together to take down evil doers.
And finally for a bonus, here's Spidey fighting an evil organization grunt.
"You've found my weakness... It's small knives..."
| Final Thoughts: |
Clearly, figma's rendition of The Amazing Spider-Man suit is not perfect by all means but it certainly is a good release. Though the details break when you play with the joints, it still doesn't remove the fact that the figure is nicely detailed and that probably is the reason why he has higher pricepoint than other figmas during the time his pre-orders went up. I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a well-articulated Spider-Man figure or if you are simply a fan of the film (and I certainly am one!) Once again, another figure I got through pre-order back then from CWToys!
I give our friendly neighborhood an amazing 4 out of 5!
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nice! 👍 bought this figure after read your review! Love It!!! ✌😍
ReplyDeleteThanks! Hope you find figma Spidey as fun as I did! :D
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