Saturday 1 September 2012

Toybox REVIEW: S.H. Figuarts Akiba Yellow

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow Headshot

Rounding off the Akibaranger team is cosplaying fanatic Yumeria Moegi, aka Akiba Yellow! Like her blue team mate, Akiba Yellow was surprisingly a mass release Figuart, making these two the only Sentai heroines to escape the clutches of Tamashii web...and they aren't even official!

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow Box Front

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow Box BackSH Figuarts Akiba Yellow Tray

The box is more of the same, with anime rainbows and a yellow "unofficial" stamp on the clear window section. Like Blue there's no reference to the inordinate powers included with the reds of Jetman, Dekaranger and Boukenger, the three pictures instead showing off the figure posed with all the accessories included. Making it three for three, the "simple style and HIROIC action" slogan still remains. At this stage I wouldn't want it any other way really.

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 01

Akiba Yellow shares an almost identical body to Blue, but with a different all-around skirt much more akin to official Sentai girls (well, it would be if not for the creases). The headsculpt is perfectly recreated in this scale,   even down to the panel lining detail on the individual ponytails. Thankfully the ponytails feel much less fragile than the one on Blue, but are still held on in a way that makes me wonder how well they could survive a tumble off the shelf. The translucent plastic detailing on the breasts looks just as good as it does on Red and Blue, if not better because the yellow colour lets the sculpted detailing stand out more.

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 02

While the official Sentai heroine figures get around a restrictive skirt by having alternate pieces to allow more leg articulation, this addition is missing on Yellow. The puffier skirt does make things a lot better, but it is still noticeable if you're trying to pull off some more elaborate poses.

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 03

One problem I noticed with my figure that I haven't ever encountered on a Figuart before was just how awkward it was to alternate the hands and mufflers. The hole on the muffler pieces just didn't want to cover the ball on the back, and the hands took a reasonable amount of pressure to pop on and off too. It doesn't affect the figure too much since once they're on they look and stay firm, but admittedly its not the usual quality I've come to expect from the line. Of course this could be a one off thing and every other Akiba Yellow out there is fine, but you never know.

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 04

Accessories include nine hands (a pair of closed fists, a pair of gripping hands, two different open pairs and a single V-sign left hand), three alternate mufflers and the MMZ-01 in gun mode. Though sporting slightly few hands than the other two, Yellow's feel far more relevant to her character and help make her the most expressive of the three. This doesn't however change that the accessory count does feel a little on the meagre side, and I'm still of the opinion that even a tiny MMZ-01 in figure mode wouldn't have gone amiss.

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 05

Akiba Yellow is a better figure overall than Akiba Blue, but doesn't really reach the heights of Akiba Red. The joy of her being a really expressive character is that there's plenty of fun posing opportunity to be had with her, but the restrictive skirt doesn't help what was already a reasonably simple design. But like I said when I reviewed Blue - she's a mass release female and that's a pretty awesome reason alone to get her. Getting the whole team isn't as costly as completing something like the Shinkengers or Gokaigers, yet together they look just as satisfying on a shelf as a five or six piece team. Hikōnin Sentai Akibaranger was a series that both Toei and Bandai clearly put their hearts and resources into, and thankfully it shows with the toys just as much as it did with the show.


SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 06

SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 07SH Figuarts Akiba Yellow 08

SH Figuarts Akibarangers

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