I'm a huge action figure collector. And by "collector" I mean dorky man-child who opens all his toys, messes around with the accessories and articulation and spends hours posing, configuring, and re-arranging my displays. When I was a kid, we didn't have super-poseable toys that could take realistic poses. Duke from G.I.Joe couldn't hold his rifle properly in both hands; same with Lion-O and Luke Skywalker with their respective swords. Transformers were usually blocky chunks of die-cast and plastic that your were lucky if they could raise their arms to try and point their blasters.
But no more--since the late 90's, articulation has been running rampant. Toys can move in any number of realistic, fluid ways, and domestic lines like Marvel Legends made articulation the norm. But the best--and often most expensive--articulated action figures (read: boy dollies) have always come from Japan.
Such is the case with Square Enix's Play Arts line: on-model, highly detailed, accessorized and articulated figures, usually from video games (Metal Gear, Devil May Cry) or Anime (Fullmetal Alchemist, Bleach). I've only dipped my toe in the pond with Dante from Devil May Cry 4, and for $40, he's a solid, cool toy. While I was tempted to get a couple of others (Ichigo from Bleach with his Hollow mask comes to mind), they're a little pricier than my current obsession, DC Universe Classics, and larger, to boot-- my shelf space is already at a minimum. But when they announced they were making these two from one of the Greatest Comic Book Games Ever, I couldn't pass them up and pre-ordered immediately.
And to my dismay they were $20 more apiece than Dante, which brings me to...
THE BAD:
I figure I'll get this category out of the way first. The first bad thing is the price: at $60 each, they're nowhere near a good value. A fair one, in my mind, but mileage varies and I have an obsession. For the casual collector, sixty bones for a toy may not be easy to swallow. They are, however 1. Imported from Japan, and 2. Have more articulation, accessories, detail, paint applications and a much higher quality control than most domestically-distributed toys (I'm talking about you, Hasbro and Mattel).
And that quality control can vary, as well. I've seen a few other reviews that haven't mentioned this problem, but two of the belt pouches on my Batman came off during initial handling and had to be glued back on. Adding to this problem is that another one of the pouches came glued on upside down, and is firmly in place, which means I can't fix it for fear of tearing the rubbery plastic that comprises Batman's trunks.
Another complaint some might have, and this doesn't bother me as much, is that the Joker's head sculpt is off. Something about it compared to the game portrait is missing. I think a wider, broader grin and thicker red on the lips probably would have looked better, but both figures, while faithful to the source material, are a little Anime-styled, so a little artistic license is unavoidable. But a stronger Joker portrait would have knocked this figure out of the park and made him seem like a bit better of a value compared to the heavier, cape- and -accessory-laden Batman. Extra hands are always welcome, but just a gun and the wind-up teeth make you feel like Joker should have been at least $10 less for what you get.
Discouraged yet? Don't be, because there's plenty more of this:
THE GOOD:
If you haven't noticed from the pictures yet, these two, especially Batman, scream awesome. The articulation and sculpt work together really, really well, and when you add in ratcheting joints (when you move the joints, there's little clicking sounds--ratchets in the joints keep them in place), you get all sorts of fun, awesome poses. Such as:
Batman is more stable, thanks to wider feet, and although the Joker takes some fiddling with, you can still get fun and stable poses out of him. The cape on Batman is particularly cool--there's two swappable pieces for the left-hand section, one wrapping around him and a second blowing to the side. But that's not the best part: the cape sections sit on joints that ratchet, so with the right amount of patience and posing, you can get him to stand with the cape blowing back or to the side, or-- ah, hell, just look at more pictures.
THE VERDICT:
These are fun, cool-looking toys. Whether or not you think they're a good value is a matter of opinion, but you can't deny how fucking cool they are, can you? You can? Then why have you been reading this for so long? My ranting isn't for people who have non-dorky interests, go somewhere else. We'll wait.
Are they gone? Good.
I highly recommend these. They're really fucking cool. Batman is by far a better value and has more cool factor, but for a dork like me, I can't have a Batman without a Joker. So I got the set, which set me back around $140 with shipping (bigbadtoystore.com sent them separately, since my dumb ass thought they'd arrive together from good ol' Japan, so getting 'em both at once might have been a tad cheaper). Is that a lot for two toys? Absolutely. Is it the most I've ever spent on toys? Let's not talk about that and look at more of my awful pictures...
Hopefully next time I'll have something worthwhile to say that doesn't involve Batman. But don't hold your breath.
-Swift
