Seems like Bandai is (finally) releasing some Naruto figures in S.H. Figuarts. Of course Naruto, as pictured above, will be the first release in the line. While I won't be picking up Naruto himself, or the inevitable Sauske, I am excitedly awaiting the announcment or release of a Kakashi at some point down the line. Hopefully the line proves to be popular, as I'm sure it will be, and we'll get a wide range of characters from the series released in Figuarts form!
Now THIS is what I call news. In what I personally find to be the most exciting announcement so far this year, Bandai has released images of their upcoming S.H. Figuarts Imperialdramon Fighter Mode figure. While many of you may remember that the previous Digimon releases were in the D-Arts line, Bandai has been slowly moving towards merging D-Arts with Figuarts, with other examples being their upcoming Mario and Lucario Figuarts releases.
The figure looks absolutly spectacular, and from what I understand, it seems like it will be released in July, with a retail price of around 6,800 yen. I know for sure that I will be the first in line for this guy once it goes up for pre-order (and I'll try to keep you guys updated whenever that happens too).
One of the most important things to me that this shows is that Bandai hasn't given up on releasing new high-quality figures of Digimon characters. We've been getting the re-releases of Wargreymon and Omnimon recently, and the new release of MetalGarurumon, but I had expected that those would be the last we saw - but now, here's Imperialdramon! I can only hope that this figure goes over well enough to warrant more new figures (and more frequent releases) of new Digimon Figuarts.
Check out the picture below for the full gallery released by Bandai:
I got this Gold Rapidmon Digi-Warrior figure in the mail the other day, and I must say that it looks GREAT. I bought it because it was very reasonably priced, and I don't own one. As someone who either owns or has owned almost every Digimon figure released in the US, I couldn't pass up the chance to get him, being an extrememly limited edition release figure.
I decided to go ahead and do a review of both Gold Rapidmon and the regular version of Rapidmon, as they both, just like all the other Digi-Warriors, are stunningly great figures in my own opinion. For being released around 2000, the quality of their paint, articulation, stability, and just overall design quality are extremely impressive to me. I honestly don't have a bad thing to say about them.
You can get the figure in almost any pose you want, as there are several points of articulation in each limb. At first it was a bit difficult to get a pse where the face of Rapidmon was showing, but with soe manipulation of the hip joints and torso joints, it worked out rather well in my opinion.
I'm hopeful to do some more Digimon reviews in the near future, as Digimon is a franchise very dear to my heart, and I'd love to get some more reviews out there of the figures. More awareness for the series is always great too, as I feel that this line is one of the overlooked gems in the recent history of toys.
Now that I've gushed over my love for these figures and the franchise, you can get a more comprehensive review of the two in my full video review below:
As you may have noticed in my haul post from Saturday, I got this Rodimus figure this weekend. I'd been looking for a Rodimus for quite some time, and was able to purchase this one because it is missing it's weapons that come with it. That's fine with me though, as I really just wanted a Rodimus to go in my collection.
The figure has a pretty good look in general, and looks nice on display, even when just standing there in a not-really-posed kind of way. The detail on the figure is quite good in my opinion, and the transformation is a lot of fun. In all honesty, the alt mode is a blast to play around with.
Unforunatly though I do have a decent amount of "cons" to talk about with this figure. My first few nitpicks are that he's a bit too bulky in spots. The lower legs are pretty huge comparted to everything else, and the red plates on the sides of his upper legs are pretty immobile, so they often look like the entire leg is one solid piece. Another area where the figure is pretty bulky is in the chest itself. My issue here is that it is at its thickest along the figures upper chest, so whenever you look at the figure from any kind of a downward angle, all you see is the block of red and you miss all the detail of the chest piece/hood because it is at an inward angle towards the torso.
My last issue with the figure is the lack of articulation in the arms. In the picture above you see the elbow at a 90 degree angle... and that is literally all the arm can do. There is no rotation at the elbow, no movement past 90 degrees, and no movement side to side at the elbow either. In other words, it's just pretty limited there.
Now I know that it seems as if I've listed more cons than pros to this figure, but in all honesty it isn't all that bad - I think I'm just nitpicking because it isn't the perfect Rodimus figure for me. I'll be on the lookout for a better one, (and hopefully a new generations one soon, but this will do for now.
In even more exciting news today, it's been officially confirmed that the next D-Arts figures is that of Zero from the GBA Mega Man Zero games! A release like this is very exciting to me personally, as I grew up playing those games (in addition to all of the other X games too). I have the Kotobukiya model kit of him from a few years back, but still haven't had the chance to build it. Hopefully I'll get him built soon and I'll be able to do a comparison between the two someday.
I'd love to see him come with lots of accesories, or at least more than just his sword and gun. I'd love to see the energy whip weapon, and the alternate energy blades he used in the third or fourth game.
