Everyone’s favorite child Hunter is now a Figma!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a Figma review. I hadn’t really noticed it, but I guess my growing obsession with Nendoroids is showing. I’ll try to be a bit more diverse from here on out! Anyway, this month’s review covers a figure that I pre-ordered in a literal split-second, since orders for him opened right after he was announced. It’s Gon Freecss from
Hunter x Hunter, and he’s rapidly become one of my favorite characters since the premiere of the new anime season two years ago (it’s already been that long?). And he’s already one of my favorite Figmas for a very simple reason; he can stand on his own! My Miku Append Ver. is the only other Figma I have that can pull that off, and this time it’s due to Max Factory adding something that I’ve wanted in Figmas for a long time; articulated toes! This does wonders for balancing the weight of the figure, and I hope that it’s a regular feature in Figmas from now on.
Gon’s release is pretty sparse in the accessories department (which I’ll get into more below), but one of the better ones is his backpack. I was so excited about this that I forgot to take the usual front/back/left/right pictures until after I put it on. Gon does have a hole in his back like most Figmas, which is where the backpack attaches. You get the backpack on by removing at least one arm (the instructions suggest taking off both, though). I had an easy enough time getting his arm off, but it refused to go all the way back on, which is why his shoulder looks a bit dislocated in some shots. In other notes, Gon has a pretty solid paint job with just a little bit of paint bleeding on the shoes and some smudging along his hairline, but neither are noticeable from a distance. That’s not bad at all by mass-production standards.
Gon’s second main accessory is his fishing rod, which slips into the straps on the side of his backpack. This was a little difficult to do the first time, but now the straps are bent enough that it fits easily. Why they weren’t made in the right shape in the first place is beyond me, though.
There’s also an extended version of the fishing rod, which makes it look like Gon is swinging it through the air. However, if you want to use a dynamic pose with this accessory, you’ll have to break out the stand, which attaches to the bottom of the backpack since Gon won’t be able to support his own weight anymore. The results are nice enough, but I really dislike the non-optional extension for the stand. The hole in the bottom of the backpack goes straight up while the extension peg is always at an angle, meaning that it’ll never fit properly. This makes some of the crazier poses you might want to try with him more of a hassle than it should be, since he’ll be falling off the peg if so much as a breeze passes. I guess that this is my cue to finally get a generic Tamashi Nations stand…
You’ll also notice Gon’s alternate faceplate in the above picture, which is the only other one he has. His faceplates don’t work quite like other Figmas, perhaps because his hair is too anime. The fringe is not a separate piece; it’s attached to the rest of the expression. This is fine, except for the first time I took it off and I couldn’t figure out where exactly the hair on the expression ended and where the rest of the hair began. And with Gon’s hedgehog head, it was a prickly lesson. And I have to admit, I’m a bit sad that there isn’t a third expression of him laughing or something, since that seems more “Gon” to me than the expressions that were included.
Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve noticed in the pictures, Gon also comes with a wide array of hands mostly geared around recreating action poses and/or for holding his fishing rod. I liked some of the nuances here, like the difference between the open hand and the one where the fingers are flexed. They’ll be fun to play around with in pictures.
And his final accessory is…an extreme letdown. Given the Figma line’s obsession with extra effect parts, I thought that Max Factory would come with something nice to represent Gon’s Nen abilities. Nope. Instead, we get… a glass of water. Or rather, a cup and then a separate piece of plastic with the water sculpted that you can put into the glass. It’s supposed to represent the scene where Gon learns that he’s an Enhancer, but I don’t have a Figma-sized table, nor do I think that the
water was important enough to get its own accessory… As you can guess, this is my least favorite Figma accessory ever. I guess he can just…hold the glass? I really wanted some Nen parts to play with… Perhaps I’m just unaware and can’t see them?
Not like that’s gonna stop me, though.
Overall, there are some parts that I love about this release and others that I hate. Gon has amazing articulation, a great sculpt and paint job, and just by himself is very reflective of his character. However, the accessories (aside from the backpack and fishing rod) are a bit uninspired. And the glass is just lazy. Remembering how fast pre-orders opened after he was announced, I wonder if this was a bit of a rush job. If that’s the case, I’m glad that the figure itself didn’t suffer much for it. I will always be happy about his articulated toes.
A quick look around the internet shows that he is still available in some online shops, but I personally wouldn’t pay anything over SRP for him due to the smaller number of accessories and only having two exchangeable faceplates. He does make up for it with his playability though, and there is a Killua Figma already available, with Kurapika due out soon. The logical progression would be to add a Leorio, but we’ll have to wait and see!
