Despite being a popular fixture in the Vocaloid fan community, there are not a lot of figures of Kaito to speak of outside of the various Nendoroids and garage kits. When a Figma was announced at Winter WonFest earlier this year, I was immediately excited. I love my Cheerful Nendoroid Version, but I was happy to see that he’d get a more articulated figure as well. When he finally got here, I couldn’t wait to see how he’d turned out!
And to be honest, I’m more than a little disappointed. To start, his paint job isn’t great by Figma standards; despite having a pretty simple design, the lines are not straight, the paint bleeds are pretty obvious, and the coloring just feels off. I’m talking about the paint on his jacket in particular for the last one. The promo photos made me think that it would be a kind of pearl similar to what was used on the Ultimate Madoka Nendoroid, but instead they used something that lost its shine really quickly after being taken out of the box and attracted dust particles like no tomorrow. This hasn’t happened since my review of the anime version of the
Black Rock Shooter Figma, and I’m not sure why they went back to that material.
He also has strange problems with his joints. The hips are very loose, yet the rest of the joints are a bit stiffer than the norm. Also, the stand is horrible. For whatever reason, they’re continuing the strange arm thing that they used with Gon, so he’s not secure on it at all; it’s more like he’s leaning on it at an awkward angle. Also getting back a bit to the paint issue, a lot of the joints (especially the ones in his arms) tend to scrape against parts with dark coloring, so the risk of paint transfer is high. His default expression already had paint transfer on it right out of the box from his bangs. Thankfully it’s easily covered up, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place and Max Factory is usually pretty good about this.
But let’s keep moving. Kaito’s main accessory, of course, is his scarf. There’s a short one and a much longer one, which I’ll cover a bit later. It does have some articulation and holds its place well, but it feels so flimsy that I got really paranoid every time I moved it. I’ve heard reports of people breaking theirs pretty quickly, so watch out for that if you’re planning on getting him. Also, this scarf refuses to sit neatly on Kaito’s shoulders, so there’s not much room to turn the head unless you want to snap off his microphone along with it. The promo pictures promised a fair range of mobility, but it doesn’t seem to work in practice…
Anyway, the default face is kind of boring, isn’t it? Let’s try the singing face! I was pretty excited about this one, since the promo pictures showed him with a more serious expression and–Wait a minute… Something’s off here… Let’s look at the box.
Oh. That’s why. They changed the angle of the eyebrows but went ahead and used the same promo images anyway. That’s…just…
great. This doesn’t even look like a singing face to me anymore. It looks like he’s surprised at something, or yodeling. Or about to make a sassy remark.
Oh no you didn’t! *z-snap*
You’ll have to forgive my frustration here, since this is the first time that I’ve been straight-up lied to by pre-order promo pictures about the final product. The scarf is one thing, but making a change to a faceplate with no announcement before the release bothers me on a whole different level for some reason. Oh well. At least I can get some unintentional amusement out of this faceplate regardless.
Moving on…Kaito’s other, longer scarf does sit better on his shoulders, but I still ran into the headset problem. It also has the same flimsy joints, so I don’t think I’ll be touching them ever again out of fear of breaking them. This picture also shows off his final accessory, an ice cream! This is probably my favorite accessory of his, but when I put one in his hand it immediately snapped because the grip for it was too small. Good thing he came with two of them, otherwise I’d be extremely mad about that too. So much for sharing one with the other Figmas, though.
OTL
So overall, I’m pretty disappointed in this release. A lot of people were waiting for a long time for this figure, and I think that Max Factory did a sub-par job of it, especially since they were asking for a higher price than usual when pre-orders went up. Just trying to replicate the poses on the box brought up a whole host of problems, not to mention accessories breaking or coming close to doing so with minimal use. The paint job leaves a lot to be desired, and I don’t want to talk about the faceplate change anymore.
If any of these problems crop up with the Attack on Titan Figmas, I don’t think my heart can take it.
And yet, with all of that said… It’s still a Kaito Figma. He’s still readily available (probably because of the above problems) at a price closer to what he’s actually worth. And if you like the character enough to be interested in this figure, then go for it. At the end of the day, I think that figure collecting is partially about bringing your favorite characters to life in some way. And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t buy him solely because I didn’t want my Append Miku to be alone anymore.
They complement each other well, don’t you think?
