Black Gold Saw, another cool figma

I was quite excited by this figure when I first saw it, the other figure from Black Rock Shooter have been pretty damn cool and I really like the aesthetics of these characters as well.  Although lacking colour, the black and white of all of them looks funky and I reckon they would look really good when displayed together.  The next one out is Strength, who comes with a couple of Popeye forearms to the extreeeeeme!  For now though, let’s have a look at Black Gold Saw (BGS).

A good way to start a review is with a squizz at the box, as you can see it’s a standard figma box.  BGS doesn’t come with as many extra hands as most figmas, for obvious reasons.  Her big man hands are different to all the other figma’s.    She does have two optional faces, a stand and her sword, appropriately named the ‘King Saw.’

BGS stands a bit taller than your average figma.  Her lanky limbs are where most of the height comes from.  The torso doesn’t seem much taller than saw Black Rock Shooter (BRS), but the legs definitely are.  Her hair is an interesting mix of products.  The front bangs bangs and piece that covers the back of her neck are flexible plastic and the long section down her back is normal plastic.  These are connected by a couple of hinge joins that can be twisted as well, for dynamic posing.    The hair does get in the way of the stand (or stand in the way of the hair) if you want to go for a pose where her hair just hangs.

They have done some nice shade painting on the hair as well.  I was most impressed.

The same subtle shading is used on her fringe as well.  Overall I am pretty impressed with the figure.  There are some sloppy applications of pain that let it down a little especially considering how little paint is used.  The greaves in particular have had a hard day by the looks of things.



Having her stand without the aid of the stand can be tricky as well.  Her long lanky legs, combined with her feet, which although cool looking have a slight curve on the sole make it hard to compensate for her high centre of balance.


I will admit, at this stage I was feeling a bit let down.  I was having trouble posing her and wasn’t quite feeling the love just yet.  Luckily the other details were making me go “Ooooo!”


Aside from shoddy paint, the legs are generally cool.  She has spikey knee protectors, some sort of sock brace thing that goes around her thigh to her knee  and knee high socks.

She also sports some soft plastic on her hips for her shorts that cover the joints rather well.  In other words, her ass looks pretty good.  For a toy.

The details on the body and coat of BGS are nice.  Better application of paint than the legs helps me feel better about the figure.


I particularly like the stars and stripes on her sleeves.  The flared sleeves help keep the hands from looing excessively ridiculous.  Just Like BRS, she seems to enjoy wearing bikini tops too, although BGS’s looks a little more robust with a belt clip.

Short shorts seem to be the theme for BRS figures.  The zipper is large, like her hands and the belt has enough detail to break up the black/white combo that is going on.  Her jacket is made of flexible plastic as well.  She has a nicely sculpted belly button too.  Maybe I spend too much time looking at toys…


Like Dead Master, she sports a lovely pair of horns, and they have a nice fade out to them, as well as some interesting texture patterns that show up nicely when backlit.



Since we are looking at the head, I want to comment on the face.  It is very nice.  Cool swirly red eyes and a good couple of expressions that look reasonably dis-interested in what’s going on.  Nice and aloof!  The one with her teeth showing the most I really like, as there is a faint line that you can see differentiating from top and lower teeth.

For some reason I really really like the profile of the faces too.

Can’t quite put my finger on why exactly, it’s just that I do.


Her big man hands are all skeletal and aside form the one designed to hold the King Saw, they have a little ball joint in the wrist that allows for a little movement.  The hands for holding the saw aren’t jointed as they need the strength to hold such a big weapon.  They hold fairly well, but still can occasionally drop out of the forearm at times.  The hands are sculpted well and are interesting to look at.  She has one as a fist and I think this might be designed to hold BRS’s sword as there is a small hole in them.  I think that would look quite cool actually, I will have to check it out when I whip out BRS next.

Of course, those large man hands are put to good use, using her name-sake, the King Saw (which happens to be Black and gold in colour).

I have had experience with smallish figures with oversized weapons.  My previous collecting obsession has had me chasing after the oversized sword that is borne by the already over-burdened Cattleya of Queen’s Blade fame.  The main issue I had with the figure was that the hands could not support the weight of the sword and they kept falling out of the wrists.  BGS suffers this problem occasionally, but it’s not terribly often.

In a clever bit of thinking, they have included in the other hands small ball joints allowing some movement of the wrists, however the sword hands are a solid piece of plastic with the pin and hand.  Movement is dropped somewhat, but the strength it adds is definitely required for holding the sword.  Even still the sword (or maybe saw I guess) can still pop out, but it’s nothing to make you rage about it. 

Onto the saw itself.



Is is black and gold painted.  Rather nicely I might add.  There is a roughness about it, with cool metallic flecks throughout both the gold and black.  As you can see from the picture, the sharp end is where most of the gold is, but the jagged bits on the other end are golden tipped as well.  I really like the scuffs and slices in it as well.  They even have different scratches on either side too.

Even the hilt is hard core!

Must’ve had to shrink that head before sticking their skull on the sword.  I was actually quite surprised by the detail on it.

There are a variety of ways she can hold the saw with just the one set of hands.  The fingers are slightly pliable which is good, as the hilt doesn’t separate from the blade, so you have to open the fingers a little bit to get it into her hand. 

This first picture also shows how much taller BGS is compared to BRS.

I ended up using the saw to help her balance when not using the stand for some of the poses.  the last one shows how well the hands hold the saw.  I think the sleeves add some support to the hand as well, which helps somewhat too.

Generally the hands work fine. 

Now that I have the stand connected, it’s time to play.  With the worry for balance lessened, ome cool stuff can be done!

The shoulders work really well, with the double joints in them, and the jacket’s soft plastic  comes into play very nicely as well.  I am usually happy with figures that can reach across their chests.


More playing with the stand and some flying!

MEGA PUNCH!

I have a sort of leg comparison shot with BRS and BGS. 



I did have some problems with the hips on mine, they went quite easily into a sort of wonky relaxed way.  I had to pull her legs off and sort out the hip joint.  Now they occasionally fall back, but it is less severe.

Aaar!  Where’s my Chiropractor????


Overall, this is another good figma.  The only real downers are the occasional hand coming off due to the saw size and the feet making it hard to stand by itself.  Luckily the aesthetics of the character and the exceptionally cool sword manage to make up for this.  Now to actually watch the show and see if she flies.

See also My Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master reviews.