Wednesday 10 November 2010

Figma Black Rock Shooter review






This Black Rock Shooter Figma makes an interesting story. I remember it being mentioned in the pre-orders and online. It was popular and pre-orders sold out quickly. Odd I thought as I knewg nothing about it, but I liked the look of it. Why? Because it has a massively oversized gun. How could I resist?

Black Rock Shooter (BRS) must appeal to me in the same way that Guts from the Beserk series appeals to me. Guts has a massive sword, BRS a gun.

I have to admit, although I mostly have Revoltech figures, the Figma ones I have are quite good. They are a tad pricey, and don't seem to have a heap of accessories for the price that you pay but they are quite likeable. I don't know why they sell out all the time, but generally Figmas have a tendency to gain value on the second hand market (have a look at Figma Drossel).

What strikes me as most odd though is that this figure was announced and made before the cartoon came out. The figure come.s with a DVD of an OVA episode, which I haven't watched, not for lack of trying, but just a general lack of time as of late. One day I will get around to watching it and finding what this BRS shenanagins is all about. So far I have seen it involves some school girls (of course) and when they have grown up a little bit I when they have the super powers and big weapons.

This figure is really nice I have to say. The aesthetics are really good. The legs are thing and knees have the hinge joints of the Figmas. The boots are knee high and have nice detail moulded into them with the zippers and heels on the shoes. Her clothes I think are supposed to be plastic or at least shiny leather, and this is reflected well in her hipster shorts. They have a nice belt moulded into them and doesn't go into the detail that Queen's Blade figures have. I assume this is a good thing, as BRS doesn't seem to be based on a pervy looking anime. It's tasteful She has some good detail on the waist including the massive scars which have been badly sewn up. It looks fantastic!





Her jacket is the shiny plastic looking clothes, her coat tails have joints on them for flaring up and the zipper attached bits that are near the joints for the coat tails are soft plastic so you can move the back parts. She has a nice little star on the left breast of the jacket and one in the centre of the back. For some reason though, she seems to have decided that it would be a good move to make what looks like a bikini top as part of her clothing. Eeer, ok.It is well detailed though, with a nice bow in the middle and some good moulding of the straps over the shoulders and around the neck. The jacket has a folded down hood. The arms have a speed stripe of sorts down them, making the jacket look almost like a sports jacket of sorts.

The head is probably a tad plain. Just the usual anime styled face that rocks up on many anime characters. He hair though is nice, its nice blue with a darker colour sprayed on to produce a nice two tone effect. One pony tail is much longer than the other, lending a bit of character and has joints to allow for some posing. She has a bunch of optional hands, as per the usual Figma lineup, an angry face and a face with one eye closed, and an extra fringe with a glowing eye accessory, which can be put over all her extra faces.

Figma posing is quite good, ankles, knees, shoulders, elbows, neck, hair and coat tails all have Figma joints in them. There is a ball joint in her rib area, that actually broke on my first one when I was taking out a piece of protective plastic, luckily where I got it from was happy to replace the part. She has a set on interchangeable hands that are all hinge jointed, but can be rotated for heaps of movement options. Its a very dynamics looking and nice looking figure, even without any weapons. The coat tails really add to it as well.


She comes with a cool sword known as the Black Blade with some simple and well painted details on the handle and great paint to show the pointy end. Now onto the big fella. Holy crap! What a large cannon this kid is able to wield. It's longer than she is taller. My whinge about the lack of accessories is no longer valid with this particular Figma... The cannon known as the Rock Cannon is so large, Max Factory (the toy company) have seen fit to provide us with another stand and a handy dandy little claw to hold the cannon. Good because there is no way it can be held up by the figure alone. The cannon has good details on it, it has little chunks missing out of it and nice barrel details on it too. I am sure I will know more about bits of it once I watch the cartoon. As an added bonus, she also comes with a couple of nice chains, which from the limited bits of the cartoon I have seen feature fairly prominently on the action scenes. Hopefully they are hers. They are quite long and can be wrapped around quite large toys.



Now for the wrap up. BRS Figma is a very elegant figure. The faces available with the eyes closed and angry face as well as the weapons, extra hands and stands for the figure and gun make this probably my favourite of my limited Figma collection. Now I just hope the other BRS figures that coming out are just as cool. Waiting patiently for Dead Master and Gold Blade now. Wooooo!

Since I ahve been busy lately and haven't had time to finish writing this, it has been sitting in the draft section for over a week.  The good news about this is that time has given me the opportunity to play with the broken body of the first one, which I manage to glue back together quite effectively (much to my surprise).  I have been having quite a lot of fun with it, the poseability is really, really good.  I thought the small feet and balance might be an issue, but the coat tails can be flared out for some cool dynamic poses!  I am beginning to like this figure more and more.  Even the more boring 'walking down to the shops for some milk' type pose can be made quite cool by BRS.  Tets is impressed!






















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