Saturday, November 16, 2019
Review: S.H.Figuarts Cyborg 009 Joe Shimamura
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Bandai |
| Origin Series: | Cyborg 009 (first appearance) 009 Re: Cyborg (version look) |
| Scale: | Non-scale (approx 1/12 scale) |
| Height: | Approximately 15cm tall |
| Original Price: | 4180 yen |
| Packaging: |
For a figuarts released back in 2013, 009 has a really decent box design, I love the color scheme and especially loved how the window is layered in a globe-fashion was something pretty creative to me. But anyway, the sides just contain the shf logo with the labels of Joe's cyborg number and his name while the back gives you some poses (awkward looking ones too) which should already tell you a lot about the figure.
| Details: |
The Re: Cyborg suit is pretty plain much like the original suit, and is pretty much just a bit modernized version of their old suits since Re:Cyborg does take place several years after the series, it still has that iconic feel to it overall just with minor differences but anyway, let's take a look at the head first.
By 2013, Anime faces still ain't SHF's strong suit but I guess they did capture how Joe looks like in the film pretty well and this probably is one of the strongest points of the figure.
Going to the suit the Re: Cyborg suit captures that classic feel and just retained enough of the details you'll notice from their old suits which would include the belt, the skirt flap and the four buttons on the chest. Probably the biggest deviation this has from the old suit would be the color as the re:cyborg suits for the males have a more darker red tone for it. One of the nice details I appreciate here is the amount of wrinkles they put in the mold of the suit which makes it more realistic rather than just leaving it straight up flat so kudos to bandai collector division for that.
Of course, the suit isn't complete without their big af scarf and this does lie down pretty neat and the scarf is indeed pretty long; it's also pretty light even if one of the scarfs included is hard plastic so this won't get in the way of balancing the figure.
Now going to the skirt section, that is made of soft plastic BUT it's not layered nor does it have any cuts so you just know it'll screw on the articulation later on.
Going down to the lower section of the body, it's pretty much the same thing, same color scheme, some wrinkles and of course, the old back boots which now looks more realistic as with the rest of suit now having more realistic elements in them more than anything.
| Accessories: |
Going forward with the review, it's now gonna be pretty slippery slope from here as the details is the only thing that's really good about this released, for the accessories, you basically get 2 extra pairs of hands, one open hand and one more splayed out hands which doesn't really help the figure get into more better poses. I really wished they could've at least given him gun holding hands as well as the 00 numbers' traditional blaster which we actually see them use in the film.
The next of the accessories is a soft plastic scarf tail which I really liked as you can use it for more dynamic poses due to its bendy nature but it doesn't really have an inner wire or anything so you'll have to force it to bend to certain directions when you use it.
| Articulation Points: |
Ok, following after the sad accessory count, we're now going into an even worse situation, which is his articulation. So let's tart with the head, shall we? For the most part you've got your typical head movements, he can look up to a degree and downwards a bit while having a full rotation on the neck which is pretty the only strong point in his articulation.
Going to the arms, you can weirdly raise the arms sideways to more than 90 degrees which, while weird, is also pretty neat; the arms also fully rotate but the shoulder part does get in the way so when you rotate it upwards, it'll also spread outward a little. There's also a bicep swivel in the connector which is great but going to the elbows, that's where it gets bad, really bad; it's a single hinge and it only bends to 90 degrees which is really questionable, Joe isn't even a female frame to merit the single hinge joint heck even single hinge joints from SHF Cures bend way further than that and, of course, one can't help but wonder why he didn't get the double joints that SHF Kamen Riders get, it's really just a questionable decision. Lastly for the arms, the hands are in a dumbell joint so both ends are on ball joints which works pretty well if you ask me.
The scarf does connect on a ball joint but it doesn't really do much aside from raising it upwards and downwards.
One of the other problems of Joe's articulation is the fact that he has no ab cut so there's literally no body crunching for this guy and the only movement you have would be from the waist which pretty much only allows you to rotate the upper body sideways and a little to none bend which I didn't even bother taking a photo of anymore.
Now to the lower portion of the body where things get even worse, remember that I mentioned in the details that the skirt doesn't have cuts and layers? That exactly becomes a core problem of 009's articulation as you can't really make full use of the good hip articulation due to how small the room is for the legs to move due to the skirt, you can barely split the legs nor can you move them forward, there's really just a small room for movement due to that design choice. Going to the knees, those are supposedly double jointed but again, to my disappointment, they just bend to a 90, the ankles retain your typical SHF where you can tilt it sidewards or move it forward and backwards both to satisfying degrees. Of course, the toe hinge is there as well.
| Size Comparison: |
As 009 was the inspiration for Kamen Rider's backstory (both were made by Ishinomori btw), I figured it was best to compare 009 with the non-Shinkocchou New-1 andddd he does fall short next to 009 but you can still make it work I guess.
| Gallery: |
The gallery for this one ain't gonna be a lot since if you've already reached this section, you'd already know the downsides of this figure already but I definitely did try my best to pose this guy around so hope you enjoy the gallery below.
| Final Thoughts: |
While this figure looks good from the box, he's pretty much almost a static figure in a sense; the stiff articulation and the very sad count for accessories ultimately lead to me disliking this figure a lot, but you're probably wondering why I still have it? It's because he's 009 and we really don't have a huge number of offerings available when it comes to Cyborg 009 figures so I'm keeping this one mainly because of that, if you definitely want a good posable Joe Shimamura figure, this just ain't it, I can't even recommend it to anyone unless you're a die hard 009 fan and to which by this review (6 years after its release), you probably already have this if you are indeed that kind of fan.
This really could've been a great figure of the character had it been put more care, but alas it met with a lot of problematic and questionable engineering so it really was a waste and the fact that this was a Tamashii Web Exclusive really doesn't help out its position as something I can even praise.
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