Tag Archives: bandai

February 19, 2024

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Event Exclusive Raditz and Son Gohan

By Joe
The beloved nephew and uncle duo.

I’ve been getting a little taste of July of late in the dead of winter as not one, not two, but three action figure exclusives from San Diego Comic Con have arrived at my door. That’s because the nature of the exclusive has changed over the years. Why make a limited number of something and sell it at one location when it’s something a lot of people want? As a company, you’re just denying yourselves more sales and letting resellers reap the rewards. That is why Bandai has been making its event exclusives available to non-attendees when it comes to most conventions. The lone exception thus far as been last year’s World Tour version of Son Goku Awakening Super Saiyan, a re-release of Super Saiyan Goku from the moment where he first transformed. And I think the only reason why that one was kept exclusive to the events and store fronts it was sold at is because shortly after a similar, but new, version of Super Saiyan Goku was put up for preorder (we’ll be talking about that one in due time).

Vegeta: ”I’m surrounded by idiots.”

When I first got into Dragon Ball action figure collecting I intended to only get my favorite characters. This was back in the early 2000s when Irwin Toys had the license. One of their earliest figures was Raditz, and since he wasn’t a favorite of mine on par with the likes of Vegeta and Piccolo, I passed. Then as more figures came along I got caught up in the frenzy and just started buying everything and only passing on the figures I felt turned out exceptionally poor. I regretted not getting that Raditz in the end and for some reason I didn’t consider that when it came time for Bandai, via the Premium Bandai route, to do its own Raditz. I hemmed and hawed, but at the time I was (stop me if you’ve heard this) just getting my favorites. Fast forward a few years and my collection is bigger than I intended. While I have never gone full completist or anything, I do have my favorite arcs and such from the manga/anime and Raditz represents a hole. The same was true of Nappa and thankfully he got a re-release via the convention route. Now, it’s Raditz’s turn.

Raditz is a pretty big boy. Here he is between some Piccolos.

Raditz comes in the event exclusive packaging which is just the standard package, but with a two-tone approach. In this case, it’s orange on black. This version also comes with a buddy, or rather a foe, in nephew Gohan (more on him when we get to the accessories since that’s essentially what he is) though it isn’t a moment specific release since at that point in the fight Raditz had some battle damage. And since Premium Bandai is intended to be a one and done affair, Bandai couldn’t just re-release Raditz with some new accessories. No, he necessitated a new color scheme. In both the manga and anime, Raditz had black armor with dark brown shoulder pads. When Bandai made its first Nappa figure, it featured the same color scheme as that’s how he appeared in the manga and his first appearance in the anime. When the event version came around, it meant Nappa could have his anime colors from when the Saiyans land on Earth. Raditz, unfortunately, has no real other look so he’s recolored to have light brown shoulder pads. It’s not accurate to the show or manga, but beggars (i.e. me) can’t be choosers.

Raditz could really mess with some folks if he dyed his hair blond.

Raditz stands a tick over 6″ to the top of his portrait and considerably taller when you factor in that giant mass of hair he’s got going on. He has his scouter, which features a blue lens now, and the muted brown shoulder pads and other plating over dark navy, almost black, armor. The scouter is removable, but only so you can swap the faces. There’s no replacement ear if you want to go without the Scouter look since Raditz never took it off. The hair is pretty damn huge, as expected, but done in a more simpler manner when compared with Super Saiyan 3 Goku. It’s thinner and lighter so it isn’t the impediment to standing that it is with Goku, which I guess is why we don’t get a flight stand for Raditz. In addition to the color change on the armor, the bands Raditz wears on his left arm and left thigh are now silver instead of red. It does pair well with the white piping of the armor, though I wish they had just left it red. One advantage this release has over the original is that the faces are using the new printing process recent DBZ figures have featured so they look very nice. My lone complaint is that they didn’t do the portraits in the same manner as they’re done for Vegeta with much of the front hair part of the face. This means there is an unsightly gap between the hair and sideburns. It’s a small thing, but we are talking about an $85 figure.

I think this cocky expression is going to wind up being my preferred look.

As is customary with S.H.Figuarts releases, there isn’t a ton of paint on Raditz. There’s basically no shading and the paint is reserved for the trim work on the armor and the bands on his arm and leg. What’s there is pretty clean. His skin tone is on the pale side, but I think that is to differentiate it once more from the first run of the figure. It looks good, but it’s also a bit of a shame for those with the old one since I think these faces are a slight improvement, but probably would look off when placed on the old figure. The joints are colored pretty well and don’t feature any extreme differences from the softer parts, a problem we’ll be talking about on another SHF release in the not too distance future.

This face, on the other hand, is definitely the worst.

For accessories, Raditz gets a solid complement of faces. We have a stoic/grumpy face, a smirk where he’s giving a side eye, a yelling face for when he’s angry, and a perplexed/surprised face for when he spies an unexpected power level on his scouter. Unfortunately, my stoic face is not aligned properly and his eyes (in particular, his left eye) is printed partially over his eyebrow which makes his pupil all but disappear. I reached out to Bandai about a potential replacement, but they send the error essentially wasn’t “bad enough” to warrant any action on their part. I guess they don’t take the “Premium” part of their store too seriously. For hands, he’s got a set of fists, open, and clenching. His left hand was a bear to swap as the joint kept coming apart at the forearm, not the wrist, so I had to hit just the fist to get it off. The other hands are also tough to get one snug and may need some heating up.

I like the idea behind the crossed-arms piece, but it just doesn’t work with this figure.

We get two versions of his tail. There’s the “belted” version that goes around his waist and an extended version. The extended version has a bend to it and I suspect that’s so Goku can grab it, provided you have a Goku with gripping hands (I don’t think I do). He also has a crossed-arms piece like many a cocky fighter before him. The arms can disconnect at the bicep and the crossed arms piece can be inserted. It’s a piece that’s never fun to put on, and with Raditz the shoulder pads and his incredibly spiky hair cause some issues. I mentioned that Raditz is easier to stand than Super Saiyan 3 Goku, but he’s still not as easy to stand as other figures in the line. For that reason, he actually has a panel on his back that can pop off and there’s a replacement part that features a port for a stand. We saw something similar with Piccolo, though Raditz required the adapter so it can get around the hair. You basically take any stand, remove the claw, and it can slot into that for easy posing.

This is easily the most paint I’ve ever seen on a SHF figure.

The big accessory Raditz comes with is, of course, his nephew Gohan. Gohan is a mostly static figure and it’s depicting him when he emerges from the Saiyan pod to confront his dear uncle. Unlike Raditz, this little guy is fully painted because he’s basically a slug figure. The paint is done quite well as the emblem on his shirt is clean and there’s even little tears under his eyes. Gohan has an angry expression, but he also has a second faceplate which features his eyes closed like he’s smacking into Raditz. There is a tiny bit of articulation at the head which is on a ball and the ponytail is as well. Now, I lamented that Raditz doesn’t come with a flight stand like Super Saiyan 3 Goku, but there is one in the box. It’s here for Gohan though. Yeah, it probably would have been a little greedy to expect two, but it is what it is. Gohan needs the stand because he literally can’t stand on his own given the sculpt. It would have been cool if he was supplied with a second lower half that you could pop out so he could stand, but if such a thing were at the expense of the stand then I guess I’m fine. If you don’t value the Gohan much, you can just leave him in the box and give the stand to Raditz, but I personally can’t see myself doing that.

Take that, you mean old space man!

Raditz being a bulky character in Saiyan armor isn’t the most poseable of figures. He’s pretty similar to Nappa when it comes to restrictions, only now you have to deal with that big mass of hair. The head is, like SS# Goku, on a hinged ball peg and there’s another ball joint at the base of the neck. This gives the figure solid range at the head looking in all directions, and since the hinge is behind the face plate, you’ll always know which war it’s oriented. The hair curves away from the body in such a way that it provides for more clearance than one might have expected. There’s also a joint maybe a third of the way down the hair to give it a little nuance. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs and they lift out to the side beyond 90 degrees as the shoulder pads are on hinges and lift out of the way. Those shoulder pads are a nuisance with the crossed-arms piece though and getting them to stay flush with the chest armor is damn near impossible (even the glamour shots feature a gap). The biceps swivel and that’s all good while the double-jointed arms are a bit too beefy to go much past 90 degrees. The hinged ball joints in the wrists are pretty standard, but the design of the Saiyan armor restricts the range pretty severely.

If you switch to the extended tail you technically gain another point of articulation.

In the torso, we get a ball joint. I’m not detecting a hinge in there so it just goes forward and back a bit. There’s some rotation and tilt, but do be mindful of paint rub on the abdomen when doing so. The waist does rotate a little bit, but it’s pretty minimal, while the armor bits down here are all hinged as well. There’s a decent chance they’ll pop off repeatedly when fiddling with this guy, but try not to get too frustrated. The hips go out to the side maybe 45 degrees, so no splits for Raditz. They kick forward nearly 90, and go back a bit. There is a thigh swivel and it’s incorporated into the sculpt rather well and the double-jointed knees, like the elbows, only go a little past 90 because of the chunky anatomy. It’s one of the better looking knee joints as a result since there’s no gapping present. The ankles are restricted like the wrists, but you get a bit of a rocker and they’ll move forward, but not much back. There’s also a toe hinge, if that’s something you value. It’s not a good one though as it doesn’t stay flush with the sole of the boot.

“Ah hahahaha! Need a hand, green man!”

Raditz is a bulky figure and mostly moves like one. His biggest issues from an articulation standpoint stem from the design of the Saiyan armor. Bandai hasn’t really come up with a good way of doing it as the hinges just don’t work very well. Yes, they’ll get out of the way for certain poses, but it looks stupid when there’s this big gap between the chest and shoulder. They almost need to be on a track instead so then can slide back and create the illusion that the armor is bending. Or, Bandai should just supply different shapes that plug in. That would probably be the most aesthetically pleasing approach, but it would probably be more expensive. Though given the amount of characters that wear this style of armor, I think they’d be able to make their money back. It would also provide for a reasonable excuse to reissue the Ginyu Force, and since they’d be a little different from the original P-Bandai releases, it’s something they could do without betraying the intent of that service. My figure did have a fairly loose left hip joint. I popped the leg off and found it was drowning in some kind of a lubricant. It wasn’t a clear oil, but more like Crisco as it was a milky color. I ran some dry Q-Tips through the hip and leg and it’s much better now. If yours is loose you may want to take a look for yourself.

“What?! His power level is rising?!”

Despite some qualms I have with this figure, I do mostly like it and I think it’s a great representation of Raditz. Yes, the colors are no longer anime accurate, but they’re close enough. If the armor had been a carbon copy of Nappa’s then it would bother me more, and really the only thing that bothers me are the red bands now being silver. Everything else looks great and the little, in-scale, Gohan is a fun inclusion. I wish we could get more of these slug style figures for the various kids and little guys in the show because the articulated figures of Kid Goku, Krillin, and others are way too big. The bad portrait is a definitely a bummer though. Some could wave it off as not a big deal since he has other display options, but we’re talking about an $85 release. That shouldn’t happen, and for a company in this business to just throw their hands in the air over it does not engender much consumer loyalty. For whatever reason, I’ve always been drawn to the design of Raditz so I’m glad I finally gave in to my own wants and picked up a figure of the character. Maybe this means we’ll now get a new Goku from this fight with a special, snap-on, Special Beam Canon to reenact one of the most iconic shots from the anime? I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t happened yet, but we also still haven’t received a Kamehameha Goku vs Vegeta’s Galick Gun style of release so there’s still plenty of iconic moments left wanting and it wouldn’t shock me if Bandai gets to them all some day.

If you’re interested in more S.H.Figuarts releases then I got you covered:

S.H.Figuarts Piccolo: The Proud Namekian

When the S.H.Figuarts line was launched years ago and Dragon Ball Z was at the forefront, it wasn’t Goku who got to be the first figure out of the gate. Nope, it was Piccolo. That figure caught my attention when it was announced even though I had not purchased a Dragon Ball figure in quite…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Nappa – Event Exclusive Color Edition

When it comes to my S.H.Figuarts collection, I’ve been able to largely keep to just Dragon Ball. And by Dragon Ball, I mean the original anime and manga that centered on a young boy named Goku. Even though that’s my favorite edition of the venerable series, it doesn’t mean my favorite is the one shared…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan 3 Son Goku

I believe I have touched on it before, and it’s also probably common knowledge among fans of Dragon Ball, that the story was supposed to end with Gohan’s triumph over Perfect Cell. Goku was dead and gone having sacrificed himself to save the world, but his son would carry on his legacy in his own…

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by Joe

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February 7, 2024

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan 3 Son Goku

By Joe
He’s one cocky son of a monkey.

I believe I have touched on it before, and it’s also probably common knowledge among fans of Dragon Ball, that the story was supposed to end with Gohan’s triumph over Perfect Cell. Goku was dead and gone having sacrificed himself to save the world, but his son would carry on his legacy in his own way. Or at least that was one possible ending. Series creator Akira Toriyama has said to have had many endings in mind, some even before the Z era began. The thing is, Dragon Ball was really popular and when something is really popular there are a lot of people that don’t want it to end for purely artistic reasons. No, they want to run that thing into the ground! Squeeze every last coin from its corpse before it gets put away to be rebooted in 10 years. Whether it was supposed to end or not with Gohan’s triumph, it did not. And if you’re going to keep the story going, well you have to bring Goku back and give him an awesome new power-up.

Goku was able to power-up while dead and it did wonders for his hair. Not so much his eyebrows.

When Gohan beat Cell he broke through the Super Saiyan barrier to reach an awesome new height. It was basically the goal of all of the Saiyan characters during that arc and it was accomplished by the youngest of them all fulfilling his own character arc which essentially began in the first episode of Dragon Ball Z. Gohan’s Super Saiyan hair was sort of the least impressive of the four Super Saiyans as it kind of just looked like Goku’s base form hair, only blond. When he breaks past that it shoots up and looks pretty cool and is more like the other characters. He’s also given an aura that crackles with blue lightning which would become the defining feature of what is now called Super Saiyan 2 because when the form was applied to Goku and Vegeta there was really little room for their hair to shoot higher. Maybe that’s why when it came time to design Super Saiyan 3 Toriyama made sure it was quite distinct. It keeps the blue lightning, but the hair goes way beyond big. For Goku, his hair is almost as long as he is tall. For Gotenks, it might be even more. The characters also lose their eyebrows, for some reason, which are replaced by a Piccolo-like ridge for their brow. They eyes also turn teal, but pick-up a black iris too.

Even Sonic is jealous of this flow.

I’ve talked to a lot of fans who state that Super Saiyan 3 is their favorite look of them all (and at this point, there are a lot of Saiyan transformations). For me, it’s never been that high on my list. I don’t dislike it or anything, but its presence in the anime was much smaller than the standard Super Saiyan look. It doesn’t even have a victory under its belt, though when Goku debuts the form against Majin Buu, it’s noted by Piccolo that he felt Goku could have won the battle and Goku more or less confirms that he could have. He opted not to as, at the time of the fight, he was technically dead and felt that a dead guy shouldn’t be the one to save the world. It’s an interesting thought, though since your family inhabits that world still you may want to just do them a solid, Goku. Goku does tackle Kid Buu in the form, but he basically runs out of gas as by then he’s alive (just go with it) and finding the form hard to maintain. That’s a feature of the form that basically sticks to it as much later in Dragon Ball Super when Goku shows the returning Future Trunks the form, Vegeta dismisses it as being too costly in energy to wield. I do think some of that stems from Vegeta being just a wee bit jealous that Goku cracked yet another barrier he failed to.

I call this his cave man face.

Because Dragon Ball Z originally ended with the battle against Kid Buu, Super Saiyan 3 didn’t get a lot of screentime. When the series returned with the film Battle of Gods, the form was essentially replaced by Super Saiyan God and the forms that followed that. I also personally only ever watched the Buu Saga once. By then, I was burned out by the slow drip on Toonami and I was just buying the VHS releases of the show as they came out. I think they were 25 bucks a pop for 3 episodes, a terrible value, but apparently I had enough cash laying around. I basically watched them all once, then never again, where as I saw the earlier sagas repeatedly on television. I don’t even have all of those tapes anymore as some of them got damaged from water in my garage so I just tossed all of them. Part of me regrets doing that as VHS nostalgia is on the rise and who knows where it will take us? What motivated me to finally pick up this figure (yes, I swear this post is an action figure review) is that I’ve been doing a rewatch of the series (well, Dragon Ball Z Kai technically as I don’t have the time for the original) with my kids and we recently got to the Super Saiyan 3 episode and my daughter pointed out to me that I don’t have a Super Saiyan 3 Goku in my collection. When a kid throws shade at your toys, you have to respond. I was considering picking up the 2021 reissue of the figure as it’s still in stock on Big Bad Toy Store, but it’s 70 bucks. That’s pretty steep for a figure I don’t know how badly I need.

He pairs pretty well with the standard Tamashii Nations yellow aura.

As luck would have it, YouTuber Toy Bro (real name Jared) recently decided to clear out some stuff he no longer wanted. I follow him on Twitter (or whatever it’s called) and happened to be scrolling through my feed when one of his for sale posts popped up containing a Super Saiyan 3 Goku for a great price. I immediately sent him a DM, and because I apparently haven’t bought anything off of Twitter in quite some time, my account immediately got locked for suspicious behavior. Thanks, Elon! I unlocked it pretty quickly and once I sent the DM he got back to me right away. We exchanged PayPal info, and Goku was on his way the next day. If you’re thinking of buying off of Toy Bro, I certainly recommend it so thanks to Jared for the hook-up which saved me about 30 bucks. If you’re curious what he had to say about this figure (I don’t think it’s this exact figure, I’m guessing the one he sold me was an extra) you can check out his video review here. I’ll probably watch it when I’m done typing this to see if his thoughts align with mine.

He unfortunately does not pair well with the Super Saiyan 2 aura as the giant hair prevents him from being able to get in close to have the lightning parts surround him.

This is definitely the longest intro to a figure review I’ve done, but part of that is because there isn’t a ton here for me to talk about. This figure is pretty old and I’m not sure if this is the first version released in 2017 or the reissue, but we’re essentially dealing with the same Goku body Bandai has released several times at this point, but with crazy Super Saiyan 3 hair. That’s why it’s a bit of a surprise to me the reissue is so expensive, but with the hair being what it is, it requires a larger box which takes up more room, it’s heavier, and maybe all of that is enough to drive the costs up. Or maybe BBTS has just slapped their own surcharge on the thing and it was originally less in 2021 (the other outlets that still have it in stock have it priced similarly, so it isn’t just BBTS).

A Goku like other Gokus, and yet not.

Goku stands about 5.5″ to the top of his face, taller if you include the hair. The hair sticks out about 3.5″ from his head so it’s pretty damn big. It’s cast in yellow, but has a top coat of a pearlescent paint to give it a shiny, sparkly, finish. There’s some orange where the hair meets the head for shading and it looks pretty sharp. The facial details are in place, though this figure predates what Bandai has been doing the past year or so with the faces on its figures so it has a softer, less-detailed, look compared with the more recent offerings. There’s still a noticeable outline around the eyes, and for some reason there’s some shading in the ear, so it’s not as if the face looks bad or anything. I just currently have him next to the newest version of Super Saiyan Vegeta and I’m missing the extra paint for the brow lines and creases around the eyes.

Some of the forms that followed Super Saiyan 3.

After that, the body is mostly unpainted plastic. The exposed flesh on the chest as well as the blue undershirt is painted as are the boots and wrist straps. The rest is bare plastic. There’s a very light application of shading around the crotch which is probably unnecessary. It’s at least not as heavy as some other figures which make it appear as if the character wet its pants. The lack of paint gives the figure a very clean look, just not exactly flashy. At least for the body as the hair is very flashy. And since this body is exactly the same as other Goku figures I’ve looked at, I don’t feel a need to rundown the articulation again. This figure does feature articulated hair as it’s connected to itself at two different points. They don’t really offer much as the hair is pretty firm and also really spiky. You actually have to be pretty careful handling it because it hurts! The head is also connected to the neck in a slightly different manner than usual and I think it’s basically a hinge. This means no nuance posing, but he can look down just fine and the rotation is there as long as you’re willing to work with that hair. And the hair obviously adds substantial weight to the figure and it does make the figure more difficult to stand than most, but it’s still doable. It needs a lot of shelf space though since the hair does extend beyond the figure quite a bit. The other joints feel a bit tighter than usual and I’m curious if that is deliberate to help offset the weight of the hair or just coincidence? Nothing is so tight I had to worry about breaking anything, but he’s tighter than my other Goku figures. And since he’s like those other figures, he also has the flesh-colored plastic inside the torso for the butterfly joint which looks silly from behind when that arms are as far as they’ll go. The plastic should be orange as it’s continuing his shirt, but it’s not.

No effect part, but at least he comes with a flight stand.
He does have a removable halo, which I guess is like an effect part?

The accessories for Super Saiyan 3 Goku are also mostly the same as other Goku figures with only one exception. For hands, we get a pair of fists, the martial arts pose hands, clenchy hands, instant transmission hands, chops, and splayed open. Pretty standard stuff, though I think a lot of Goku figures only bother to provide one instant transmission hand. Interestingly, I never noticed until now that the newer figures have a slightly thicker wrist peg. This means the hands for Super Hero Goku won’t fit on this figure. Goku also has four different expressions to swap between: smirk, teeth-gritting, yelling, and stoic with a side eye. They’re appropriate for the character and the only negative is that they’re just not as well-painted as current figures. Swapping hands and faces is a lot harder than is typical of this line. You may even need to use heat for some of them and I had the wrist hinge come apart on me when swapping one of the hands which is annoying (it’s easily fixed, at least). Goku also comes with an acrylic halo on a post which comes plugged into his hair by default, but can be removed. The actual halo is only slightly frosted rather than yellow like the one that came with Frieza or Super Saiyan 2 Goku. It looks fine, but there’s no way to hide the post so it always looks a little silly to me. Lastly, Goku comes with a standard Tamashii Nations stand. I’m guessing because he’s a bit harder to stand than usual the stand is intended to remedy that. It has the standard claw attachment without the crotch hook and it works well if you just want some added stability or want to put Goku in a flying pose. While I would have loved an actual effect part, I do always like getting another flight stand.

“What?! Just because you grew your hair out doesn’t give you an excuse to get so smug. Bow to me, monkey!”
“Yeah, there won’t be any bowing from me, Frieza.”

Super Saiyan 3 Goku is here to satisfy the urge of DBZ collectors to add this specific version of Goku to their collection. It’s perfectly fine for this line and I really like how the hair turned out. While the body is mostly unpainted, at least it has a pretty matte appearance and I like the shades of orange and blue in use here versus most of the other Goku figures I have. I guess the real question is if I had spent 70 or more dollars on this figure would I be just as content? Probably not. I don’t think I’d have regretted the buy, but I definitely would have felt like I paid too much. It would have been a lot of money for basically just a new head and generic stand. In an era where we’re getting some pretty nice looking reissues for $35, a $70 Super Saiyan 3 Goku reissue is a hard sell.

Feel like there aren’t enough Gokus? There are never enough Gokus!:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super Son Goku Super Hero

Back in the early 2000s I was a collector of Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line of action figures. When I started collecting that line, I just focused on my favorite characters which were primarily Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo. Gradually, the collector impulse took over and I started buying entire waves as they came out…

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by Joe

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January 24, 2024

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Trunks: Infinite Latent Super Power

By Joe
It’s Trunks with a new hairstyle!

In the waning days of Toys ‘R Us, I found myself at one of the nearby stores in need of something. What that something was, I don’t recall, but since everything was hitting clearance I had a look around the store. TRU had started carrying the Bandai/Tamashii Nations S.H.Figuarts line of action figures which, at that point, was a rarity. That brand was mostly an online only thing for US buyers, though GameStop was stocking them as well. And on that day, they had finally started marking them down. TRU marked them up to start with, so it wasn’t until the clearance price hit 40% off that it even seemed inviting to me to grab the Super Saiyan Trunks figure. I had recently purchased Vegeta, but I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to get sucked into an expensive toy line. This Trunks, depicted with his hair tied back and in his Saiyan battle armor, was in the neighborhood of 45 bucks after the discount. It was certainly better than the 70 or 75 they had wanted initially, but did I really want this version of Trunks?

It turned out, on that day, the answer was, “No.” I carried it up to the register, but while waiting in line I thought better of it and set the figure down and carried on with the purchase I had intended to make. I wouldn’t say I regretted that decision, but as I’ve gone much further down the rabbit hole that is DBZ figures I have questioned if I want that particular version of Trunks on my shelf. It turns out, my decision that day ended up being a very good one as Bandai decided to release that very same Trunks in 2023 with a revamped color scheme and at the budget price of $35. By waiting these years, I saved some money and got a better looking figure – not bad! I obviously didn’t plan it that way, but what really changed between now and then to make me want this figure? Basically, not a whole lot, it’s just harder to pass up at $35.

The first release of this figure featured colors like the Vegeta on the right. This new one matches the new Vegeta (left).

Super Saiyan Trunks is just a reissue of that older figure, but with a really exaggerated subtitle. I don’t really know what they’re going for with “Infinite Latent Power” since that’s not how I’d describe Trunks at all. I guess it’s a nod to the point in the story where Trunks was concealing what he felt was his true power, but in reality, it was the fan-named Ultra Super Saiyan form that’s similar in power to Super Saiyan 2, but is so slow that it’s all but useless in a fight. Though I did kind of wonder why Trunks couldn’t just boost his power and then, rather than engage in a fist fight, just channel it into a massive energy attack? I guess I shouldn’t be putting that much thought into it since that isn’t really the DBZ way, but I will say that Trunks sure did look pretty bad ass in that form. It’s one I’ve always wanted a good action figure of, but this figure is not that. It’s him before that moment when he’s just standing and watching Vegeta take-on Cell. The ponytail look is at least unique to Trunks and it’s fun to see the Super Saiyan hair restrained to some degree, but it does stink he has no signature moment in this look other than getting punked by Vegeta.

Scream for me, Trunks!

As for the figure itself, it’s Trunks in the Cell Saga battle armor. As I mentioned going in, I didn’t get that original release, but I had the Vegeta who followed the same color pattern so I can at least compare this figure to that. This figure is a much richer shade of blue while the previous one was more pale. The powder blue is probably more accurate, but I love this darker shade. It’s probably my favorite shade of blue and blue happens to be my favorite color. The other main difference is the hair which has a shiny, pearl, finish to it. It’s still more yellow than gold, but it has some gold shading in the center part and it looks really nice. Bandai has tackled Super Saiyan hair in a few different ways over the years and this might be the best. Like the blue, it’s not necessarily the most accurate look, but it’s the flashiest. It gives it that impression that it’s glowing and it’s definitely a great hair color for powering-up poses and the like.

I probably prefer the more unique look of Trunks’ debut outfit, but I do enjoy this era of Saiyan battle armor too.

Because this is a figure releases in 2023, that also means the face is improved. Bandai has changed-up how they print/paint the facial details on its figures which really helps to sell these reissues even if you have the original. The hair and suit color are more subjective and even if you prefer the new to the old, I can still see being happy enough with the original to pass, but the face? It looks so good as the details are so much sharper and less soft. Trunks is sporting his stoic look by default and the likeness is terrific. He also has a teeth-gritting face and a yelling face and both look equally great. The hair sculpt features one, thick, bang hanging over his face which looks fine, but I do wish we had an alternate set of banges for the yelling head that has this piece turned upward or something.

Those are what’s new and improved, what isn’t likely any better is the overall paint job. Maybe it’s the budget price on display, but the paint is a lot sloppier than usual. Not so bad that you’ll see it from a shelf, but unusual for an SHF release. The neckline is not smooth at all and pretty fuzzy. The gold paint for the straps and the abdomen and back armor isn’t any better. The straps stop short before they meet the chest plate and the right side of the abdomen piece doesn’t see the paint continue as far as it needs to. The same issue is repeated on the back of the figure at the upper limit of that gold section. Trunks comes with a crossed-arms piece that can connect to his shoulders and that isn’t painted very well either. It’s a shame, because yeah, even though this is a cheaper figure than usual these areas still had to be painted. It doesn’t cost anymore to make sure it’s done right. I don’t think Bandai should be lowering its standards to offer consumers a more budget-friendly option when we’re still dealing with old tools.

Everybody looks pissed.

I already mentioned the three face plates and the crossed arms piece, the only other accessories are some optional hands. Trunks has fists, clenchy hands, and open hands. What he doesn’t have is a non-Super Saiyan head which the original release came with. That’s a bit of a bummer as it would have been cool if we got that here still, but with something other than a neutral portrait so we could mix and match with the Boy From the Future release from earlier in the year. I know, budget price and all that, but still a bummer to see that accessory cut even though I probably wouldn’t have used it.

Trunks doesn’t have any surprises when it comes to articulation, though I was surprised he’s not a lot of reuse from the Super Saiyan Vegeta. Thankfully, Bandai cares about scale to some degree so Trunks and Vegeta are almost entirely unique. Some stuff, like the feet and hands, are almost certainly the same, but just about everything else looks different as Trunks is both taller and leaner than his father. Even with the differences, they move the same. You get the double-ball jointed head which works okay, but the ponytail will get in the way. The neck is on a ball joint so that will help get more range looking down. Shoulders are hinged ball pegs with a butterfly joint. They’ll go out to the side better than horizontal and there are no restrictions with rotation. The butterfly joint is just okay, but it’s not ugly. Trunks doesn’t need to do a Kamehameha pose so it’s not a joint he needs to get a lot out of. In the arms, we get the biceps swivel, double-jointed elbows, and ball-hinged wrists and all works fine. The arms detach at the bicep to facilitate the use of the crossed arms piece. It’s still a pain to get the piece on flush on both arms, but it works okay. It does mean the arms come apart a little too easy sometimes when just messing with the figure, but I suppose it’s better than being too hard like the recently released Beast Gohan.

There’s not a lot of hands included with this set, but it’s probably enough.

In the diaphragm, Trunks has a hinged ball joint so you can lift the chest up and crunch forward and back. This creates more room for the articulation and helps protect the painted parts, though it can lead to some gapping if you bend him too far. The figure can rotate and tilt to the side as well. The waist is a simple ball-peg attachment which is mostly useful for rotation. The hips go out to the side better than 45 degrees, but not quite to splits. The figure has some floating bits in this area and if you can maneuver the thigh piece to slide under them you can get more range, but it’s fickle. Kicking forward goes to about horizontal and he can kick back a fair bit too. There’s a thigh twist, double-jointed knees, and ball-peg ankles which only provide for mediocre range. There is a toe hinge, for good measure.

I’ve always been a little surprised that with this costume being so basic that the figure doesn’t have more range, but it is what it is. It’s not bad, I just think the legs could be better. The ankles are always an issue with the Saiyan boots as well as Goku’s boots. There’s no doubt that their approach here looks lovely, but I wish they did something to get the ankles more range of motion in every direction, including the ankle rocker. Even though Trunks moves well enough, I do find he looks best just standing there, arms folded across his chest, with a grim expression on his face. Pair him with a similar Vegeta (like the reissued one) and you get a pretty bad ass looking father-son duo for your shelf. This isn’t my favorite look for Trunks, but Bandai did this one just fine. And at the price they’re selling it at you really can’t go wrong.

Because you can’t have just one Saiyan on your shelf, here’s a look at a few more:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta

We’re back with another action figure review from everyone’s favorite version of Dragon Ball: Dragon Ball GT! And really, the only thing people remember from Dragon Ball GT is the Super Saiyan 4 transformation. Designed to bring the Saiyans back to their more primal roots, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation is pretty much on an…

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by Joe

SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta

He’s the Prince of all Saiyans. The last survivor to have laid eyes on Planet Vegeta, home world of the mighty warriors and birthplace of the legendary Goku. And he’s also a pretty fine toy. Vegeta, arguably the most popular character to emerge from Dragon Ball Z, has seen his likeness cast in numerous forms…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

October 27, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Orange Piccolo

By Joe

When Akira Toriyama set out to draft the plot for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero his original goal for the film was to take a favorite character of his and give him an upgrade. That character was Piccolo who had basically been left behind by the likes of Goku and Vegeta way back at the onset of The Cell Saga in Dragon Ball Z. After fusing with Kami, Piccolo was briefly the most powerful fighter on Earth, but he was soon surpassed by Cell, then by Vegeta, Trunks, Goku, and you get the idea. Following that arc, Piccolo was more like a resource for the heroes and sometimes fighter, but even when called upon, he usually just got whipped. And he was oddly okay with no longer being competitive, which I suppose is a reflection in a change in nature from the Evil King Piccolo to the Namekian he had become.

“Son! What happened?!”

That isn’t really fun though when it comes to story telling with Piccolo and it would seem that Toriyama wanted to have him be able to mix it up with the best of them again. Enter Orange Piccolo. Spoiler alert for those still waiting to see Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, but Piccolo makes a wish to the Eternal Dragon Shenron to have his latent power unlocked to defend the Earth from a new threat. Shenron grants the wish, but also does him one better and bestows a hidden power on the proud Namekian. Shenron is not usually known for his generosity, but since Piccolo (as Kami) created Shenron it would seem the dragon felt he owed it to him to give him a power not seen in ages. The movie doesn’t have time to explain it, but that power is an ancient one wielded by Namekian warriors. When their planet was in danger, the mightiest of the Namekian would turn to their Dragon Balls for a power boost. This is detailed briefly in the manga Dragon Ball Super and not the show or film, which is unfortunate because it sure explains a lot when it comes to Orange Piccolo.

He’s orange, buff, and feeling pretty good about himself.

Orange Piccolo is this buffed out state. We don’t know if this how the form was always represented, but I think we can assume the orange part is since it ties back to the actual Dragon Balls. As for the name, well that’s entirely due to Piccolo not having much imagination or time for fancy titles. The form’s name is basically an afterthought and a little bit of a joke that works with the Piccolo character. The only thing we really need to know is that Orange Piccolo is a really big version of Piccolo that’s orange and really powerful. How powerful? Toriyama suggests that he’s on Goku and Vegeta’s level in this form and likely behind Gohan’s new Beast form. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to assume that this is something Piccolo can now do at will or if he’ll need Shenron’s help in the future, but for now, he’s got a cool new form and it’s plenty powerful. Piccolo fans, rejoice!

Orange Piccolo probably marks the end of the Super Hero subline which has been a mix of general release and Premium Bandai figures.

What just might be the final release from Premium Bandai for Super Hero is indeed Orange Piccolo. The figure comes in the same Super Hero packaging as the previous releases only much bigger. And that’s because Orange Piccolo stands at around 7.5″, but beyond his height is his mass. Remember when Trunks got super buff in his fight with Cell? That’s kind of like what Piccolo goes through with this transformation. His head becomes more square-like, his neck is almost as wide as his ears, and his chest is massive. The flesh of his head, neck, and torso is a pale orange while his arms are a more saturated shade. He loses all of the lines on the normally green portion of his arms while the puffy areas remain yellow with a red rim (Super Hero followed the manga coloring so those areas were yellow instead of pink). That’s the basis of the transformation and you either like it or you don’t. I love these big, chunky, action figures so this works for me. At first, I was torn on Piccolo’s color change from green to orange as I think the green is just a part of his identity. Now knowing why he’s orange, I’m less bothered by it. It’s a neat way to call back to what the series is named after and strengthens the lore of the property (though it does raise questions as to why none of the Namekians tried this to stop Frieza, but we’ll just have to ignore that).

The size and the expressions are what sell this figure.

As a figure, Orange Piccolo casts an impressive…figure…on a shelf due to that size. The figure is comprised largely of orange and purple plastic with the purple gi closer to a fuchsia to simulate an aura. There’s some pink shading on the gi as well that’s heavier at the cuffs of the pants and the abdomen. The other paint is reserved for the yellow and red portions and it’s done okay. This figure is a “premium” release and cost $85 so I wouldn’t blame anyone for demanding a little more out of the red piping. The right shoulder on my figure is a little sloppy and there are spots here and there where it could be cleaner. The elbow hinges, which have the pattern continued onto them, are surprisingly clean. I’m a little concerned how these painted hinges will hold up over time, but their movement is smooth so it may be less of an issue than it would be with a cheaper product. The fingernails look like they may just be painted on and they don’t look great. The portraits, on the other hand, are terrific in keeping with Bandai’s output of late. This is a pretty typical release in that it mostly looks fine, but would look improved with a paint wash (especially on the boots) here and there, but that’s something Bandai doesn’t seem to like to do much.

“Oh my, if it isn’t that pathetic Namekian I nearly destroyed all those years ago.”

Like Gohan Beast, Orange Piccolo uses a rubbery overlay for the top of the gi. And like Gohan Beast, this is a mixed bag. On the plus side, you remove any visible joints in the torso. There are new cuts in the cuffs of the shirt though and they need to be accounted for when posing as the figure will look terrible if they’re exposed. The main drawback though is with the articulation. Piccolo has a double-ball peg in his diaphragm, but it’s rendered useless by the overlay. It does nothing aside from annoy as sometimes it will rotate with the waist which can prove irksome since his barely visible abs won’t line-up properly with his pecs. Underneath the overlay, the chest is fully sculpted and painted so if you wanted to you can remove it and have a shirtless, but better articulated, Orange Piccolo, but do you really want to do that to your $85 figure?

“WAIT! WHAT?!? AN ORANGE NAMEKIAN?!”

Like Gohan, the rest of the articulation is mostly fine. The head is on an oddly shaped joint, but it essentially functions as a double-ball peg. The head comes off easy, but it still moves well in tandem with a neck joint and you get up, down, and some nuance. The shoulders are on hinged pegs and that peg slots into a butterfly joint. The arms go out to the side at just about a horizontal position and rotate fine around the cuff of the shirt. The butterfly joint is pretty limited thanks to the overlay. There’s more forward than back, but I question the need to have it at all if it’s going to be this limited. There is a biceps swivel and a double-jointed elbow which does bend past 90 degrees even with the added bulk. The wrists are on hinged ball joints so they rotate and hinge just fine.

“I’ve been looking forward to this, Frieza!”

The waist is on a ball joint so there’s some forward and back to go with the rotation at that joint. The belt is a floating piece that may tab in on the back. The flatter portions of the gi overlay will be exposed if you bend the figure too far in any direction, but the belt can be positioned to remove that. At the hips, the legs go out to the side to almost full splits and Piccolo can kick forward to a horizontal position. They don’t kick back very far and there’s a thigh swivel there that works okay, but isn’t the prettiest joint. Double-jointed knees bend past 90 degrees and the ankles swivel at the top of the boot. Because the boot is such an odd shape, the hinge and ankle rocker offer little range in any direction, but you get a toe hinge!

Not to be forgotten, is Gohan’s new Kamehameha effect part. It can be used with Goku, as well, or even Gohan Beast.

Basically, all of the problems Gohan Beast has so does Piccolo, but because of his bulky appearance, it’s even more restrictive. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing though. While I want my figures to have as much range as possible, this version of Piccolo is unquestionably a bruiser and brawler. I think he has just enough and the only real change I’d implement is to dump that overlay. If the overlay was designed to be removed easily because he went shirtless in the film or something then the trade-off would be worth it, but otherwise I’ve been content with the all plastic approach to the torso of past figures. I did see some reports of people getting figures with loose hips. I can say mine are fine. They could probably stand to be a little tighter, but it isn’t an issue. It’s likely something that’s just going to vary from figure to figure. The rest of the joints are all nice and smooth.

As for accessories actually intended for Piccolo, it’s basically four portraits and some clenching hands and slightly less clenchy hands. In other words, not much.

The one area Orange Piccolo does feel light though is with the accessories. He has just three sets of hands: fists, open, and a slightly clenching hand. He does have four heads: stern, smirk, yelling, and teeth gritting. They all look great too and are viable, but that’s where it ends for Piccolo. Because this is the Super Hero subline, he apparently needs to come with parts for the Gohan Super Hero figure like all of the rest. That means he has a set of clenching hands with posts on them and a Kamehameha effect. It’s the same effect that came with Super Saiyan 4 Goku only now it’s the more traditional blue instead of red. And I like the effect and I like that it can actually work with both Gohan and Goku, but where’s Piccolo’s effect part? I’d rather get an effect part for the actual character I’m buying a figure for, not someone else. It’s nice to have, but did that effect part actually help sell more Orange Piccolo figures? I’m skeptical.

This is one tag team you don’t want to mess with.

Orange Piccolo is another A-/B+ release from Premium Bandai. I like the figure, but I do feel like it’s missing that extra ingredient to push it over the top. And that’s how I’ve felt about basically all of these Premium Bandai figures I’ve purchased based on the movie. And since this was a Premium Bandai release, it’s basically made-to-order so if you snoozed several months ago when it went up for sale you’ve already lost. The MSRP was $85 and those who bought Gohan Beast got free shipping. It’s likely more expensive on the secondary market, but if you must have an Orange Piccolo, that may be your only option. Dragon Ball Super is rumored to be coming back to television in the near future, so maybe when the anime gets to Orange Piccolo we’ll see a re-release of some kind, but that is probably a long way off at this point. The $85 is pretty pricey for what’s in the box. I can give it a somewhat tepid recommend at that price, but anything over $100 would be a really hard sell. Good luck!

Interested in other releases from Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero?

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Son Gohan Beast

Last summer, fans of Dragon Ball were treated to a new movie: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The intended purpose of the movie seemed to be to take two somewhat forgotten characters in Piccolo and Gohan and give them a makeover. The manga and anime Dragon Ball Super has basically been a story about Goku…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

September 7, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Son Gohan Beast

By Joe
Unleash your inner beast.

Last summer, fans of Dragon Ball were treated to a new movie: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The intended purpose of the movie seemed to be to take two somewhat forgotten characters in Piccolo and Gohan and give them a makeover. The manga and anime Dragon Ball Super has basically been a story about Goku and Vegeta gaining power and fighting off the bad guys of the universe. Every other prior hero has essentially been knocked down not just a peg, but several. That’s not exactly a surprise as Dragon Ball has pretty much always operated like that with Goku gaining a rival and then leaving said rival in the dust. Really, only Vegeta has managed to hang around and even he’s usually clearly the second best, but after the events of Super Hero there just may be a new strongest in the universe: Gohan.

Looks like Bandai has discovered overlay pieces for their action figures.

Ever since his debut, Gohan has always been the character with the potential to be the strongest fighter in the universe. It’s just his main character trait, and the one that distinguishes him most from his father, is that he doesn’t desire to be the strongest. He doesn’t even like fighting. For him, it’s a means to an end. Originally, Dragon Ball Z was to end with Gohan stepping up and essentially taking over for his dad as the savior of Earth. Economics being what they are, series creator Akira Toriyama was convinced to continue on with his manga and Goku was reestablished as the best of the best. Some fans have always hated what became of Gohan following the Cell saga, but for me, that was always Gohan’s logical progression. With no danger present to force him to keep up, he was going to slip back into his lifestyle and pursue his passion of being a scholar. Ever since the series came back as Dragon Ball Super, Gohan has had to go back and forth between his pursuits as a scholar (and now husband and father) and the universe needing him. After getting smoked by a resurrected Frieza, he’s convinced he needs to at least keep up with his training to some degree and it pays off in the final chapter of the anime, but we don’t really know what he’s up to in the manga as that has (predictably) focused on Goku and Vegeta.

The Kaioken aura seems like the only one that could kind of work with this version of Gohan.

Not to spoil a year old movie, but Goku and Vegeta aren’t around in Super Hero forcing Piccolo and Gohan to defend the Earth against a new threat. And that threat is one that’s possibly even more powerful than our favorite Saiyan duo. We’ll talk about Piccolo’s journey in a month or so, but for Gohan his power-up is what is now called Gohan Beast. In a scene that’s nearly a 1:1 recreation of Gohan’s Super Saiyan 2 transformation, Gohan is able to tap into a new level of power that basically mimics that of Super Saiyan 2, only his hair is even longer, silver, and his cracking energy is red instead of blue. His eyes go red as well making this a more primal take on the Super Saiyan look. It remains to be seen how Toriyama explains this in the manga (if he even does, though I consider that unlikely), but my interpretation is this is the new form Gohan vowed to achieve in Super. A form of his own creation, and perhaps it’s something born from him being mixed race. Either way, it’s more than enough to win the day and Gohan’s new form just may mean he’s the new strongest in the universe.

There’s definitely some shared parts with the Ultimate Gohan figure, but that torso is quite different.

Gohan Beast was going to be a major want from fans of Bandai’s action figure line, so it was hardly a surprise to see him go up for sale via the Premium Bandai website. Actually, I suppose I’m a little surprised this wasn’t a general release, but Bandai could always revisit it after the manga debut. Maybe without battle damage or something. The figure itself is very similar to the Ultimate Gohan Super Hero released a year ago, but also more different than I expected. It comes in the standard window box packaging with gold backdrop and was manufactured in China.

“So where’s your ultimate form, Piccolo?!” “Shut up – it’s coming.”

Gohan Beast stands at around 5.5″ to the top of his face making him basically the same as the previous Gohan figure. He’s still in his purple gi with boxy, brown, shoes only now there’s battle damage throughout in the form of hash lines sculpted in and some torn parts in the pants and top. The arms, crotch, and feet are pretty much the only parts repurposed from the older figure as the battle damage necessitated some new sculpting. The main difference is with the torso where Bandai opted to replace the sculpted-on gi with a rubbery overlay. This is true of the torso overlay and the sleeves which appear to peg-in somewhere inside the body. I’ll have more to say about it in the articulation, but from a presentation standpoint it’s an improvement as it allows the chest to be sculpted plastic and removes the challenge of painting it to match the sculpted color of the neck. The faces all look fantastic in keeping with what Bandai has been doing for the past year or so with its face printing and the hair is really well sculpted. It’s super spiky and a bit unpleasant to handle as a result. There isn’t really any shading on it though which is a bummer, especially for a “premium” release. The only thing I don’t care for when it comes to the presentation are the sideburns which are separate from the hair. They’re just a touch darker than the hair and the seam line is a bit annoying. There’s not much that could be done about it though unless they could have made them part of the hair, but maybe that would have looked worse or proven too delicate.

Once again, Lightning Collection effect parts come in handy for Dragon Ball figures.

As for paint, it’s mostly kept to the face. The wristbands are painted and the flesh in the torn pieces on Gohan’s pants had to be painted as well. The color used for those bits is probably just a touch darker than the sculpted flesh tone, but it’s not particularly noticeable since there’s plenty of clothing separating them. The red sash around the waist appears to have a paint wash applied to it and the front of the pants look like they’ve been hit with a matte clear coat. It’s especially noticeable near the cuffs of the pants as the factory didn’t quite hit the whole area leaving the sides of the pants shiny by comparison. The matte finish at least matches the top of the gi and I would say that, overall, this version of Gohan presents rather well. Especially if you like the look of this form.

The way the sleeves are connected to the body really limits the shoulder articulation.

Where things get iffy with this figure is with the articulation. The addition of an overlay for the top is going to cause some issues, and for some, the presentation trade-off Bandai made might not be for everyone. The head is on a double ball peg allowing for rotation and tilt. The hair prevents the figure from looking up, and the head gets some range looking down. There’s a ball joint in the base of the neck which, when used in conjunction with the joint at the head, allows Gohan to look down quite a bit, and you get a little range looking up, but not enough for a straight-ahead flying pose. The shoulders are on a hinged ball peg which is connected via another ball peg inside the shoulder affixed to a butterfly joint. This lets the shoulder move up and down and forward and back, but the range forward and back is quite limited. The hinge in its default, high, position won’t allow Gohan to raise his arms out to the side in a full, horizontal, position, but if you slide the shoulder down first then you should be able to achieve that. The issue preventing a lot of range is the cuff of the gi which is done in a rubbery material and is connected to the body basically in between the shoulder and butterfly joint. At any rate, it’s not a floating piece like it was with Super Hero Gohan. I suppose one could separate it by carefully slicing it with a blade, but it’s unfortunate collectors need to cut up their figure to get the range of motion they’re accustomed to. And I don’t know if this piece would float properly if one were to do that, it might just slide down the arm and require further modification.

Gohan can manage a Kamehameha pose all right…

After the shoulder, there’s the usual biceps swivel and double-jointed elbow. The hands are connected via ball pegs and work fine. In the torso, there may be a ball joint of some kind in the diaphragm, but again, the overly is going to get in the way. If it’s there then it’s basically useless, and I only even suspect it’s there because Bandai basically always includes such a joint and I think I can see one when pulling back on the shirt. There’s a ball joint at the waist and that’s where you’ll get your rotation and tilt, but there’s little in the way of forward or rear “crunch” in the abdominal area. The legs are the exact same as Super Hero Gohan, so the range there is as expected and the only limitations are with the ankles as a result of the more boxy shoe design.

…but the Masenko presents problems.

It’s a bummer to see the shoulders and abdomen so restricted here with Gohan. The prior Gohan released had a fully sculpted gi so there’s an ab joint that works fine. The only eyesore associated with that is the cut across the gi and the fact that Bandai had to match paint to plastic when it painted the bare portion of the figure’s chest. The overlay approach is unquestionably the more aesthetically pleasing way to do it, but is that upgrade enough to warrant a reduction in articulation? In my opinion, the answer is an emphatic “No.” I expect this to be a highly articulated line and I want that extra range. I don’t care about the visual joint, because at the end of the day this is an action figure and action figures have joints on them. It’s fine. I suspect though this was done as much as a cost saving than an improvement. Doing things this way, Bandai doesn’t have to worry about the color of the inner joints for the butterfly mechanism as we so often saw. It may also be easier to assemble and reduce labor costs and it certainly reduces the need for paint hits on characters with this, basic, look. At this stage in the line, I’d like to see the figures getting better at a standard Kamehameha pose, not worse.

Because apparently every figure needs to come with more Ultimate Gohan parts, we get a new face plate with this release.

The articulation may not be up to par, but Bandai is probably hoping that fans will be happy with the accessory load-out, and for the most part, I think they will be. For faces, we get a pretty standard allotment: stoic, smirk, teeth-gritting, yelling. There is a bonus fifth face plate for Gohan Super Hero that features an angry expression with red-rimmed pupils which I assume is intended to be a pre-transformation expression. It’s done well, but I can’t see many actually displaying that figure with it, it’s almost strictly for those who like to photograph their figures. For hands, we also get a pretty standard allotment: fists, open, clenching, martial arts posed, and a two-finger right hand. That’s basically all Gohan calls for as you have hands for the Masenko, Kamehameha, and the two finger posed hand can be used for the Special Beam Canon he apparently taught himself.

Yeah, I can’t make use of this. Even the Ultimate Gohan figure’s arms won’t come apart to give it a shot.

To go with that usual assortment, we get one extra display piece and an effect part. Gohan Beast gets a crossed-arms piece which I suppose could be used with Super Hero Gohan as well. I don’t know how well it works with Gohan Beast though as I can’t get his arms to come apart at the bicep where it’s supposed to. I think this is a byproduct of these arms not really being intended to be utilized in such a manner originally as every other figure I’ve had with one of these pieces has come apart easily. When I try to tug on the arm, the whole butterfly joint tends to slide and I’m afraid the arm will come detached from within the torso before it comes apart at the bicep. The pieces are small, but even when I manage to get a good grip on a shoulder and start working the bicep it shows no sign of loosening. I wasn’t planning on displaying the figure with that piece on so I’m not going to force it, but it sucks when a figure can’t really use an accessory like this.

It’s pretty crazy that Gohan got a part like this before Piccolo.

The last accessory is a Special Beam Canon blast effect. It’s likely an acrylic piece done in translucent blue plastic. There’s a touch of white paint at the tip and it looks pretty good, but there may be some cloudy portions in the sculpt (I have one right in the middle). The spiral effect is a separate piece and it’s glued into the “missile” portion of the blast and back by the fingers. There’s a two finger posed hand sculpted onto it as well which had to be painted to match the figure. It’s not perfect, as painting acrylic to match is certainly not easy, but it’s not so off that it’s likely to discourage folks from using it. There is also a stand included that pegs into the end of the blast because otherwise this would be too heavy for the figure to properly wield. The bigger question with it concerns that hand piece as I’m not convinced they needed to sculpt the hand onto it. It creates problems because acrylic is not as forgiving as PVC so getting the hand on and off the figure is harder than it needs to be. The first time I tried to remove the part, it wouldn’t come off and the peg going into the figure’s forearm came loose before the peg in the hand. It’s also a delicate piece and my spiral part has already separated from the main blast back by the hand. It doesn’t really change the look of the piece, but I can also see people accidentally cracking this thing or snapping it trying to get it on and off. The shoulder range being so limited also prevents the figure from being able to grasp a bicep or forearm with the left hand, as Gohan might do when firing this blast. Even the post on the front of the box is proving really hard to duplicate.

I like this thing, but finding room to display it is going to be a challenge.

For collectors of this line looking for a good representation of Gohan’s new power-up from the movie this figure gets the job done. It just doesn’t earn an A. It’s more like a B- as the frustrations I ran into swapping some of the parts and the limited articulation were real bummers. They give the figure a bit of a “janky” quality which is not a way I would describe most S.H.Figuarts releases. I’m used to smooth articulation, good range of motion, and a painless integration process when it comes to the extra stuff. A lot of the issues I experienced with this figure were self-inflicted as the overlay harmed the function and the extra parts could have been done in a different manner as to minimize any issues. Why not have the blast effect just slot into a hand piece rather than make the hand part of it? Or have the fingers slide into the blast? It doesn’t need to be a tight fit, it just needs some stability at that end.

Do The Mario!

If you are interested in acquiring this version of Gohan then you’re unfortunately going to have to seek it out on the secondary market. This was a Premium Bandai release which is like a made-to-order item and orders closed awhile ago. The figure retailed for $65 and I would guess the aftermarket price is likely close to double that right now. Gohan is a popular character so it’s possible another version sees release at some point, especially as the manga moves into this part of the story. I wouldn’t bank on a re-release though if it’s something you really want.

Did you like Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and want to check out more figures from the movie?

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super Son Goku Super Hero

Back in the early 2000s I was a collector of Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line of action figures. When I started collecting that line, I just focused on my favorite characters which were primarily Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo. Gradually, the collector impulse took over and I started buying entire waves as they came out…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

August 17, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Trunks – The Boy from the Future

By Joe
He didn’t exactly travel through time to get here, but he did have to cross an ocean.

The most captivating character in all of Dragon Ball Z for me back in the 90s was unquestionably Trunks. The offspring of Bulma and Vegeta who traveled back in time to warn the heroes of the day about impending doom on the horizon was unique for many reasons. For one, he actually looks like a normal person. Or rather, his hair does when compared with the likes of Goku and Vegeta. He wields a sword which is pretty different, and he sports some sort of half-jacket or 3/4 jacket that, while nothing I’d wear, he’s able to pull off. Mostly though, he was captivating to me because he was a character I knew was coming, but since the english dub of the show was stuck in Namek for so many years, he remained a mystery. And when FUNimation finally resumed dubbing DBZ when it became popular via Cartoon Network I finally got to see what all the fuss was about. It turns out Trunks is pretty okay. A tragic backstory, a determined will, and who is pure of heart – what’s not to like? Plus, he shows up and absolutely dominates Frieza, the enemy Goku spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 episodes fighting, dispatched in mere moments. Pretty bad ass stuff.

When it comes to Future Trunks, I definitely needed an upgrade. And Bandai, please, pretty please, re-issue the Dragon Ball Super Future Trunks!

Trunks, as one of the more involved character designs on the show, has always made for a rather desirable action figure. His figure in the old Bandai Super Battle Collection was, for me, one of the few worth getting. When Irwin Toys started making their own sculpts, a Trunks figure arrived before even Goku or Vegeta (actually, light praise since the same could be said of Yajirobe and King Kai) with a Super Saiyan version not far behind in their action feature subline. For a character with comparatively few episodes compared with the main cast, the show did get a lot of looks out of him which allows toy companies to do the same when it comes to figures.

We’re all in agreement, right? Trunks is cool because he has a sword.

When I got back into DBZ toy collecting, a Trunks figure was on my short list of figures I wanted. I almost picked up the battle armor version of Super Saiyan Trunks in the waning days of Toys R’ Us. A store near me had one with liquidation pricing, but it was still over 40 bucks and I just wasn’t that into the figure. It turns out, I was playing the long game as a better version of that figure is getting re-released later this year at the budget price of $35. I win again, universe! The real version of Trunks I wanted though was his first appearance. That’s the blue jacket, sword, short hair, look. Preferably, a Super Saiyan portrait, but it’s always nice to get both. My patience has paid off as recently released (okay, well, a few months ago because this sat in my Pile of Loot for a bit at Big Bad Toy Store) is a new version of Trunks from his debut episode. It is, as far as I know, an all new sculpt from an earlier version of the same which is why it doesn’t get the budget pricing (unlike Vegeta, who was released alongside him). That’s fine though as I don’t want a dated figure, just a good one. It’s a popular character we’re dealing with and did Bandai do Trunks justice?

Was this the last thing Frieza saw before he kicked the bucket?

Trunks arrives in the standard window box packaging for the S.H.Figuarts line. Out of the box, he stands approximately 5.25″ not counting the hair. As is often the case with this line, much of the figure is done with molded, colored, plastic with little in the way of paint hits. His jacket is a soft rubber with a very matte appearance while the sleeves are part of the arm’s sculpt. They’re a touch glossy when compared with the jacket so it’s not the most uniform look. The Capsule Corp. logo on the left bicep is more gray than white, but the opacity is at least appropriate. There’s a touch of paint at the ends of the sleeves where some gold buttons are featured, but that’s it for paint on the coat. The chest is painted flesh-color and it matches the neck, which is unpainted, better than some of the other figures I have. It’s not, however, especially clean as the left side is pretty rough looking where the flesh meets the shirt. There’s a little paint on the belt and boots and that is at least cleanly applied. The pants feature no shading that I can tell, and the plastic in his crotch region is more glossy than the pant legs which is a bit of a bummer.

Or maybe this was the last thing Frieza saw? He seems to be able to survive when in pieces.

What does look great though is the face. Bandai has really upped their game when it comes to their face-printing and Trunks is no exception. The linework around the eyes is sharp and clean and I like the little paint hits on the creases of his skin and at the ends of his eyebrows. The Super Saiyan hair is cast in a pale yellow, but with a kiss of light orange paint in the center. I honestly think they could have gone a touch heavier with the shading, but I’m glad to see it’s here. This is probably the approach to Super Saiyan hair I like the most. The translucent hair is a bit fun, but not really screen accurate, and the gold color they sometimes use is overkill. And then there’s the Super Saiyan Gohan head which is just pale yellow with no shading which was definitely lacking.

No energy effects, so I had to improvise.

In terms of the accessories, this is one of the most complete Bandai releases I can think of. Trunks comes with two heads and five faceplates. Four of the faceplates are for his Super Saiyan look. We get a neutral expression, yelling, teeth gritting, and a side eye. For that look, he also has two pieces for his bangs, one that’s basically neutral and another for when he’s powering up that’s pointed skyward. The second head is a base Trunks head with his very 90s haircut in molded, purple, plastic. He has one faceplate for this hair and it’s a neutral one. If you’re only going to have one, then it makes sense for it to be neutral. I’m a little disappointed that the upcoming Trunks in the battle armor doesn’t come with another base Trunks face as it would have been a clever way to expand both figures, but that’s not a shortcoming of this release. The base head is nice to have though, but it looks a bit off to me. The hair sits rather high, and while I’m happy the figure can be both super and non, I do wonder if I’ll ever really use this one. To go with the faces, Trunks has six sets of hands: fists, gripping, clenching, open, flat palm, and a more nuanced gripping hand. The extra gripping hands are kind of unnecessary, but I do like that his right hand and left can have a different grip which is kind of neat.

He looks pretty great with this aura effect. I’m going to have to make some room for it.

And Trunks needs those gripping hands because his signature accessory is his sword. The blade comes with its own scabbard which looks to be sculpted in a silver and then painted brown with light blue straps. I’m not sure if this brown is from the manga or something or just an error as it was more of a red-orange in the anime. The paint isn’t perfect on the straps, but it’s featured on the figure’s back so it’s not going to be displayed prominently in most cases. It slings over the figure’s shoulder via a strap done in a soft plastic. It’s painted well enough and seems to stay in place just fine. When posing the figure the strap might pop off and it is annoying, but it’s easy to work with, at least. The sword itself is sculpted in the same silver and the handle is painted brown. I like the shape of the blade and it comes to a nice point, something the old Irwin toy couldn’t do because of safety standards. The pommel of the sword is removable which is how you’re supposed to slide the handle into one of the gripping hands, which is a nice idea. The pommel does pop off rather easily though, so do be careful as it would be an easy thing to lose given its size.

Here comes the Burning Attack, or whatever he calls it.

Trunks comes with everything he needs (save for a blast effect), but does he have the articulation to wield it all properly? The head is on the usual double ball peg, though the hair covers the back of his neck enough to limit the figure’s ability to look up. Looking down isn’t a problem and the ball peg at the base of the neck enhances that range. Otherwise, you get rotation and plenty of nuance posing there. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs which fit into a socket attached to a butterfly joint. Trunks can raise his arms out to the side past a horizontal pose, rotate all around, and the butterfly has quite good range. It comes with a visual trade-off though in that Bandai did the rear of the jacket in segments. I don’t know that they needed to. On one hand, it’s on the rear of the figure and is also further obscured by the scabbard if that’s in place. On the other, it’s pretty ugly and visually unappealing. We also have a biceps swivel and the left one, for some reason, has a tendency to pop off. It’s easily popped back into place, but can be annoying. The double-jointed elbows bend well past 90 degrees and the wrists use the usual ball peg setup. They’re recessed quite deep in the cuffs of the jacket though so the range isn’t as robust as usual.

The figure also comes with a base head, if you want that.

In the torso, the usual ball-jointed diaphragm is present. There’s no hinge that I can see, and it mostly provides some lean to each side and rotation. The range back and forward is minimal, and if you turn too far you will expose some gaps on both the side of the torso or on the back and front. The waist is ball-jointed as well and it’s actually elevated more than usual. This is because the floating belt obscures the gap and it does let the figure bend forward and back quite a bit. Plus, it provides the customary swivel and a little tilt. The hips will allow the figure to do splits and also kick forward about 90 degrees. The range going back is minimal, and there’s a thigh swivel as well. The look of this joint is a little ugly though as they felt it necessary to have the paints continue up the side of the thigh all the way to the hip and I don’t know why. Or maybe they shouldn’t have the cut-out in the crotch, but it looks goofy. This is also the lone loose joint on my figure. It will hold a pose, but it’s a little floppy which is unusual for a S.H.Figuarts release. The knees are double-jointed and will go a bit past 90 degrees. There’s no boot swivel, and the ankle joint will bend back pretty far, but has almost zero range going forward. The ankle rocker is just okay and there’s a toe hinge, if you want it.

Trunks has great range in the shoulders, but it does come with this wonky setup with the jacket.

The articulation on Trunks is mostly good. I like the range in the shoulders and torso as he can hit a variety of sword poses. He can easily grip the sword with both hands or just one and he can also grip the handle while it’s sheathed, a favorite of mine. I don’t really like the hips though. The range there is great, but the looseness is unpleasant. This one was made in the Vietnam factory and it has that cheaper feel to it some of the figures out of that factory have possessed. Most of my nitpicks though are with the presentation. The jacket is over-engineered and the hips as well. I don’t like that there’s a sizable gap between the base of the neck and chest, but at least the strap on the scabbard can obscure that. The paint could also be better and the boots stick out to me as looking especially cheap. They need a wash or something to just class it up a bit. This is, after all, not one of the $35 efforts.

“Wait! Your dad’s Vegeta, and your mom is an inventor who knows me…?!”

Presentation nitpicks aside, where Trunks flourishes is with the display options. The faces all look so good that picking just one is a challenge. Maybe I would have traded the side-eye one for a smirk, but I also do like that one. The only accessories that could have made this release better is the usual blast effect, which most figures forego, or optional bare arms so he could have his end of arc look. That would have caused problems with the butterfly joint though which is done in blue. They would have had to include some caps or floating pieces to obscure that in addition to the arms, so I get why they didn’t pursue that further. Plus, I prefer the jacketed look more and I wouldn’t want that to be compromised at all to make way for such a thing.

These Super Saiyans practically grow on trees.

Trunks is one of the most popular characters in Dragon Ball Z and I think anyone who collects this line should probably grab this figure. It’s not perfect, but it looks nice on a shelf. I just hope we get more Trunks from Bandai down the road. We’re getting the battle armor reissue which features Trunks as a Super Saiyan with his hair tied back, but I’d really love a bulked-up Super Saiyan Trunks from when he challenges Cell. Yeah, it ended up being a bad form for fighting, but damn did it look cool!

Interested in more Dragon Ball action figure reviews? Here’s a few to check out:

SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta

He’s the Prince of all Saiyans. The last survivor to have laid eyes on Planet Vegeta, home world of the mighty warriors and birthplace of the legendary Goku. And he’s also a pretty fine toy. Vegeta, arguably the most popular character to emerge from Dragon Ball Z, has seen his likeness cast in numerous forms…

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by Joe

Bandai Dragon Stars Super Saiyan Trunks

Dragon Ball Super did to me what basically every cartoon/anime does:  it made me want toys based on it. It’s a compulsion I’ve never outgrown, apparently, and Bandai has made it fairly easy (but not cheap) to get what I want. Months ago I did an entry on the SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta. That…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two…

Keep reading
by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

May 11, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta

By Joe
I can just hear him yelling “Damn you!”

We’re back with another action figure review from everyone’s favorite version of Dragon Ball: Dragon Ball GT! And really, the only thing people remember from Dragon Ball GT is the Super Saiyan 4 transformation. Designed to bring the Saiyans back to their more primal roots, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation is pretty much on an island all its own when compared with other versions. It’s essentially been erased too with the creation of Dragon Ball Super and is but a footnote in the world of Dragon Ball at this point. Maybe it will come back at some point, certainly never say never, but for now it’s the black sheep of Super Saiyan transformations.

They think they’re so cool.

The Super Saiyan 4 power was achieved in Dragon Ball GT by Goku. Not wanting to feel left out, he was soon followed by Vegeta, as he often is. Vegeta took some shortcut to get there, pretty much a betrayal of his character and something to add to the long list of reasons why many fans don’t particularly care for GT, but once he did the look was pretty similar. It was a little different though which is actually yet another unique aspect to this transformation. It’s certainly terrific fodder for fan art as individuals try to imagine how Trunks or Gohan would have looked if they had done something similar, but as for the actual series only Goku, Vegeta, and their fusion Gogeta managed to pull this off. Bandai released the Super Saiyan 4 version of Goku last year and I think most expected that Vegeta would follow just as likely many expect a Gogeta next year. And at the time, I assumed it would be an easy way to make a quick buck off of some unique tooling that had to take place for Goku, but it looks like I was wrong with that assumption. Vegeta has a lot of new parts and is almost a completely different figure from Goku despite looking very similar. Maybe since both were manufactured at Bandai’s factory in Vietnam there was more room in the budget for new tooling? However it was accounted for, it’s nice to see that really no shortcuts were taken with this release.

“Behold! The true evolution of the Super Saiyan form! Jealous?” “Uhh, sure…”

Vegeta in his Super Saiyan 4 form stands at approximately 5″ to where the flesh of his head ends and a tick over 6″ to the tip of his hair. He looks good beside Goku as he’s noticeably shorter, but also not as bulky. And it’s really that slimmer profile that necessitated the need for new parts for Vegeta as he can’t really share anything with Goku as a result. In fact, I don’t think a single part is shared as I thought maybe the tails were, but Goku’s is a little more full than Vegeta’s. Even the little pieces for the butterfly joints appear to be different. Design wise, there’s a lot that’s different as even though both follow the same design principals with big hair and a furry torso, Vegeta’s ended up red compared with Goku’s more hot pink. Vegeta’s hair also became more of a chocolate brown. It retained it’s main Vegeta shape, except with hair going down his back as well and the same two parts coming over the shoulders. Because of that desire to keep Vegeta’s classic hair shape, he almost looks like he has a super mullet of some kind. It’s a bit of a goofy look, but that’s Super Saiyan 4 for ya.

Well that isn’t pretty.

With Goku, there was a sense that the figure was a bit rough around the edges coming out of the Vietnam factory and some of that seems true of Vegeta. This look required more paint than Bandai seem to like as we get the red fur on the torso which meets up with a bare chest and some of the abdomen. The paint is pretty crisp along the right side of the flesh-tone parts, but less so on the left for some reason. The painted belt looks nice though and most of the colors appear to match when it’s painted vs plastic. The neck, which is bare plastic, is just a touch off and glossy in comparison. The faces all look great when it comes to the eyes, mouth, and linework. The paint on Vegeta’s trademarked widow’s peak is not as well done though with the stoic expression looking downright terrible. The other portraits are at least acceptable. It looks like his gloves are all bare plastic and so are the arms. They appear to have cut off his forearms past the elbow so they could key the gloves on and avoid having to match paint here, which is fine. The pants are really nicely painted though and have a lot of shading applied. I have no idea if they’re supposed to be leather or some other material, but it looks nice. The boots are mostly bare plastic with the yellow portions painted on. They look all right, but juxtaposed with the shaded pants right there makes them take on a very plastic look. There’s also no shading on the rear of the pants so apparently that’s where they cut a few corners. Aside from the one portrait though, this figure does a good job of nailing this unique look for Vegeta so if you wanted a Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta for your collection I think you’ll be pleased with how he looks on your shelf.

I bet his mom thinks he’s cool.

Vegeta has a pretty similar loadout of accessories as Goku. It basically comes down to a bunch of hands, four faces, and an effect part. For hands, you get a set of fists, Big Bang Attack flat palms, open hands, clenching hands, clenching hands with a peg in the palm, and a set of stye-posed three finger gesture hands. The clenching hands with the peg in the palm works with the effect part, which is this little, translucent, green/blue ball of energy with some sculpted lightning cracking around it and a hit of blue air-brushing. It’s not as visually impressive as Goku’s charging Kamehameha effect, but it’s fine. Vegeta can either palm it like he’s getting ready to shoot an energy blast or it can be positioned in-between his clenching hands like he’s powering up a Final Flash technique. For portraits, we get four: stoic, smirk, clenching teeth, and yelling. All four have his eyes forward, so no side eye, and the actual face is painted very well on each. It’s just the previously mentioned widow’s peak that is an issue with the stoic head being so bad I consider it unworthy of display. The other three are fine, with the yelling head being the best under close scrutiny. If I felt confident I could match this shade of brown with a Gundam marker or something similar I’d probably attempt a touch-up. At least it’s the stoic head, which is a bit boring for Vegeta, and not an expression I was likely to use anyway. It should still be better though and it’s also missing some paint behind the ear. All in all though, a solid spread of accessories. I suppose I’m a little surprised at the lack of a crossed-arms piece, but those are always a paint to fiddle with anyway so I don’t miss it. One quality control issue I’ve had with this figure is the ball hinge on the right wrist keeps coming apart. It snaps together, but it’s pretty annoying.

Vegeta is probably angry that his effect part is smaller than Goku’s.

Vegeta may be comprised of all new parts, but he’s still pretty familiar as far as articulation goes when compared with Goku. The head is on a double-ball peg, but since the head is basically all of the hair, he’s a bit limited. He can rotate, but he can’t look up, and he mostly looks down as a result of the joint at the base of the neck. The hair on the back of his head limits how far he can rotate as well and he basically has no room for any nuance type movement. Tamashii Nations tried to lessen the impact of the hair by making the tufts that come over the shoulders and hang off of his head separate pieces connected via ball pegs. They only do so much though. The shoulders are on ball pegs, but they’re quite tight and really don’t get much play in the joint. They are hinged though and Vegeta can lift his arms out to the side past a horizontal position and rotate all around. The butterfly joint in there lets the arms come forward a bit, but almost nothing back. It’s a little messy looking due to the nature of the design, but at least he can do his Final Flash pose so I guess it’s worth having. There is a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbows that bend past 90 degrees, and ball-hinged wrists that work fine. All of the joints so far are on the tighter side. Nothing scary or that required heat, but nothing is remotely loose so far.

Final Flash!

In the torso, we have what I assume is a double-ball peg in the abdomen. I don’t feel a hinge, so this guy just can go forward, back, rotate, and tilt to the side. The range back isn’t very good, but he crunches forward a solid amount which is probably more important. The tilt going to the side is sufficient and he rotates plenty far, possibly all the way if you really wanted to push it. I’m also not seeing any paint rub or gapping issues which is probably more important. At the waist, it’s another ball joint so you get more rotation there and some pivot. The hips feel like ball joints, but it’s hard to see in there since there’s some pieces in the way. Vegeta can do splits just fine, but he can only kick forward to a horizontal pose and really can’t kick back much at all. There is a thigh swivel which works fine, but isn’t the prettiest thing. It’s so poorly implemented that it creates the illusion that these legs don’t belong on this figure. It’s easily the ugliest aspect of the figure and it’s something I’d like to see Bandai move away from. The double-jointed knees really don’t go much past 90 degrees. They also create some gaps at the base of the knee joint when pushed as far as they’ll go. At the ankles, it looks like we just get a hinged ball peg. The foot can go back a little, and basically doesn’t go forward at all. The ankle rocker is a touch restricted by the design of the boot. The ankle can rock in a fair amount though that I don’t think it’s going to be too problematic for posing. There’s a toe hinge, but it’s pretty damn ugly and implemented so poorly that I don’t think it’s usable. The tail is also connected via a ball-hinge, but it’s essentially pre-posed in an S shape and the articulation just serves as a way of making sure it doesn’t get in the way.

I have no idea what Vegeta’s aura looks like in this form, but this looks pretty cool.

Vegeta was doing pretty well until we moved below the waist (hopefully, that’s not what she said). I think he absolutely should have more range kicking forward and back and the knees are pretty limited for a SHF release. Some aspects of this release though are definitely an improvement over Goku. The shoulders look more natural and the neck doesn’t sink in like it tends to with the Goku figure. Sometimes the joint at the base of the neck slides past the chest and leaves a gap, but it can be pushed back into place easy enough. It’s more finicky than anything. The thigh cut looks worse on Vegeta when compared with Goku since his baggy pants mitigated it some. Removing the subjective component of which Super Saiyan 4 looks better, I think Vegeta turned out better than Goku as a result and it just feels like he’s less rough around the edges. The joints being tight and smooth helps, and the only thing Goku has over Vegeta articulation wise is better range at the hips. And even there, Goku came up a bit short too so it’s marginal.

Whenever Vegeta wants to feel tall he calls Krillin.

This whole review is honestly kind of pointless because what’s going to drive someone’s purchasing decision is how much they like the Super Saiyan 4 look. If you think it’s the coolest transformation of all, then this is a no-brainer. If you hate it and consider it an abomination then save your money. This isn’t going to convert you or anything. I feel like the rare person who occupies the middle on Super Saiyan 4. I think there’s an absurd component to the look, but that’s also what makes it charming and unique. I don’t have any love for Dragon Ball GT, but getting this goofy look into my display feels like the right choice. And as a figure release, Vegeta is solid. The sculpt is great and some of the paint is good, but it’s still not up to standard for the price point. The accessories make up for that a bit, but at an MSRP of around $65 this one is definitely pushing it. The fact that this one features all new tooling helps justify the price, but a bargain it is not. Still, if you like the look of Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta then I think you’ll be content with the purchase. And for me, this is probably all I need from GT so if that Gogeta does follow as expected don’t count on seeing a review for it here.

Missed our review of SS4 Goku? You can check it out below along with other S.H.Figuarts releases from the world of Dragon Ball:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Goku

In the world of Dragon Ball, there are varying opinions on which version of the anime is superior. Dragon Ball Z is unquestionably the most popular, but there are people (like me) out there who swear by the original Dragon Ball that came before it. More recently, Dragon Ball Super has entered the fray and…

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by Joe

SH Figuarts Super Saiyan Vegeta

He’s the Prince of all Saiyans. The last survivor to have laid eyes on Planet Vegeta, home world of the mighty warriors and birthplace of the legendary Goku. And he’s also a pretty fine toy. Vegeta, arguably the most popular character to emerge from Dragon Ball Z, has seen his likeness cast in numerous forms…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

March 30, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

By Joe
Are you ready to experience the latest in android technology?

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two characters who had been sidelined in Dragon Ball Super in favor of the two Saiyan boys, Goku and Vegeta. The film also marked the return of longtime adversary the Red Ribbon Army and with it came two new androids for the good guys to pummel: Gamma 1 and Gamma 2. I’m not sure if there was an embargo on the new characters when it came to action figures or if Bandai just wanted to give fans a chance to see the characters in action first, but two new figures of the pair were introduced via the Premium Bandai route and recently started shipping. These are made-to-order figures sold exclusively by Bandai direct to consumer. Presumably, there’s a bit of a crowd-fund element at play, similar to what we see with Super7, whereby if not enough orders came in then the project would get scrapped, but evidently that didn’t happen. Perhaps Bandai also sees softer sales with either movie characters or new ones which is why this pair went the “premium” route. The inclusion of added parts for Gohan with each figure also adds to the feeling that maybe confidence in the pair wasn’t super high. The two were at least priced in a more reasonable window at $70 a piece. While this is a lot higher than the retail releases for the film of Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Piccolo, they also feels like bigger releases as they come with a lot more stuff and they’re not reused molds from past figures. They do basically share all of the same parts save for the heads which is why I’m going to review them together.

There is a bit of a dorky element at play with these two. Think Ginyu Force.

The Gamma boys come in the traditional window box packaging the S.H.Figuarts line is known for. There’s product shots, or renders, combined with a gold backdrop that seems to be part of the Super Hero theming. Out of their respective boxes, Gamma 1 and 2 stand at approximately 5.75″ to the top of their heads not including their stylish fins. And those fins are the main things that distinguish the pair as Gamma 1 has one, center, fin on his head while Gamma 2 has, appropriately enough, two fins set off to the side. The only other thing that separates them is their choice in color for the cape and the number on their chest. Sculpt-wise, the bodies are entirely the same save for the head. Both characters have a dark gray skin tone with a light gray face. They have a bit of a shark thing going on with their heads and the circular ears do give them a distinctive Toriyama feel to their design. Their bodies are clothed in a soft yellow military suit which is all unpainted plastic. The only paint on these guys is reserved for the buttons on the double-breasted jacket and the cuffs of the sleeves along with the painted numeral on the chest. And that paint is not that well done. The buttons look cheap and the edgework is not the sharpest. The actual yellow portions of the suit are okay. It’s mostly matte, but the softer plastic for the bottom of the coat does have a different look to it than the harder plastic bits. The knees and elbows are a touch darker than the rest, but it probably won’t be that noticeable on a shelf. I would also argue the shade is a touch off to the source material. These guys have more of a mustard to the yellow in comparison with the film. There is the customary Red Ribbon logo on the left shoulder and that looks clean, but overall, the paint is not a strong suit here.

Unlike most Dragon Ball villains, these two actually use a gun.

The rest of the aesthetics are generally good. The faces look appropriate and I like the height of the characters for the line. The boots have a very glossy appearance, but that seems intentional given their presentation in the film. The cape is hard plastic with a hinge which I think looks mostly fine. I wasn’t crazy about the segmented cape on the Proud Namekian Piccolo so I don’t mind the simpler approach here. The only thing I’m not crazy about are the shoulders as they do the Goku thing of having part of the material just pinned on. With Goku, I don’t like it, but I always understood it to a degree because he has short sleeves that extend onto his shoulder. Here, it’s a suit that just has shoulder pads and a V shape to it so I wish they just left it alone. I don’t think it would have reduced the articulation in a meaningful way and it would have looked better. I find myself fussing with these shoulder pieces more than I would like as I try to hide gaps and get them into a more natural pose.

I hate these ball-hinged heads because you can’t put the hinge where you want to. The heads are grooved to fit that tab visible on Gamma 2 so for him his hinge will always be on the side while Gamma 1’s is more centered. As far as I can tell, there’s no easy way to rotate just that barrel piece that slots into the head.

With that in mind, lets just jump to the articulation since both figures are the same and then we’ll talk about the accessories. Both figures use a ball-hinge for the head connected with a ball-peg system at the base of the neck. I don’t know why they did it this way, but it sure is annoying. You will have to manipulate the direction the hinge is face if you want more nuance posing, but they can look down and rotate and the lower neck joint helps to add more character. It can get a little gappy though if you tilt it back too far. Doing so with the hinge in the proper orientation and in conjunction with the hinged-ball peg system of the diaphragm can get both figures into a good flying pose. That diaphragm joint also provides rotation and tilt, though you do have to be mindful of the chest buttons when crunching forward. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs so they have some play at that peg while also being able to rotate all around and lift up past a horizontal position. The shoulder pad ruffle, or whatever you want to call it, pegs in and can be pushed aside. There is a butterfly joint here as well which can bring the arms pretty much clear across the chest. It does expose some gaps in the back as butterfly joints tend to do, but it’s not as hideous as some others and the colors are consistent at least. There is a biceps swivel and the double-jointed elbows will bend all the way forward as these guys have pretty thin arms. At the wrist, the usual hinged ball peg is present that allows for plenty of rotation.

These crossed arm pieces never work as seamlessly as they should.

At the waist, we get another hinged ball peg so these guys can rotate and tilt. The floating belt does get in the way so you don’t get maximum crunch, but working in tandem with the diaphragm joint should give you enough forward and back. The bottom of the jacket is done with multiple, soft, pieces of plastic so it doesn’t impede the legs from kicking forward way past horizontal or stop the figure from doing splits. They also lack a true posterior so they can kick all the way back. There is a thigh swivel which is conveniently hidden by the coat and the double-jointed knees bend well past 90 degrees. The ankles are on ball joints so you get plenty of range going back, some forward, and rocker, but it’s not the prettiest sight as it tends to make the figures look like their feet are separate from their shin. It’s probably not as noticeable on the shelf as it is in hand, but it is what it is. There’s also a toe hinge, if that’s something you like and it seems like it’s fairly tight so it actually has some worth. There’s also the hinge in the cape so you can raise it out behind the figure for a more windswept look. It does make them slightly harder to stand, but not impossible. It just pegs in so you do get a little side-to-side pivot as well, but not a whole lot. It’s mostly going to lay relatively flat or blow out behind the figure.

The guns are silly, but I do enjoy them.
As you can tell, I did not get the Super Hero edition of Piccolo.

All in all, I would say the Gamma brothers move quite well. There are some sacrifices taken with the aesthetic to achieve that, but I think most will be content with the tradeoff. The only thing I don’t love are the shoulders, the rest I’m fine with. And that articulation will come in handy as both figures come with a variety of hands and heads to add some life to a display. For Gamma 1, we get a neutral portrait, one with a crooked mouth indicating displeasure, one with his teeth showing in a bit of a grin, a yelling portrait, and a yelling portrait where one eye is larger than the other indicating some distress. They are all separate heads, so no faceplates with these guys. For hands, Gamma 1 has fist hands, open hands, chop hands, and a set of trigger finger hands. Those work with his little blaster sidearm of which he has two. One to wield, and one with a peg in the front so it can be holstered. The gun is painted reasonably well, but I wish it had a blast effect or at least a peg hole for one to be added. Gamma 1 also comes with a set of crossed arms which peg in at the biceps swivel. It’s a bit of a pain to get on and get both sides inserted. My pictures will illustrate how successful I was there. Gamma 2’s accessories are mostly similar, but also a little different. He gets one less head as he has a neutral head, yelling head, teeth-showing grin, and a side-eyed smirk. He has all of the same hands and the two blasters as Gamma 1, plus a set of “devil horn” hands. He does not have the crossed-arm piece.

Both figures also come with stuff for the Super Hero Gohan figure released earlier last year. With Gamma 1, we get a Super Saiyan head for Gohan. It has a very pale, yellow, color for the hair that has no shading or paint whatsoever. It’s a bit odd looking as a result. It looks like a nice base for Super Saiyan hair, but I definitely would prefer it to have some shading to bring it to life. There are three faceplates included for it: neutral, yelling, and a teeth-gritting expression. They look nice, though Gohan does have the issue of a lack of bangs with his Super Saiyan look so the sideburns had to be painted onto the faces. It doesn’t match the yellow plastic of the hair and there’s a bit of an ugly seem line unfortunately where the face meets the head that usually we can’t see. With Gamma 2, we get another Gohan head, but this one has his hair blowing all over the place like he’s powering up and he’s also wearing his glasses. They lack lenses, but otherwise look pretty nice. To complete the look and scene this was pulled from, he also has his cape and shoulder pads. They’re done differently than what we saw with Piccolo as the plastic is very soft for the shoulder pads and the cape is in one piece. There’s a hinge for the cape, but unfortunately it’s too weak to support the weight of the cape so there’s not much that can be done with it. It also doesn’t like to sit flush on Gohan’s shoulders which gets annoying. I should also add, the hair on both Gohan heads is very stiff and spiky which helps make it look as good as it can be, but it sure can hurt too to swap!

“No 2! Don’t do it!”

If you watched Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and came away from that experience wanting action figures of Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 then I think you’ll be happy with what Bandai released here. Once again, the whole “premium” concept when it comes to Premium Bandai isn’t really evident in the quality versus what we’re getting at regular retail, but rather reflects the more limited nature of the characters. With better paint, these two figures would be stellar, but as they are they’re still quite good and among the better Dragon Ball releases that I have. They move well, look nice enough, and come with a boatload of accessories. It seems like the whole tack on some extra stuff for other figures approach only began with these two as other figures from Premium Bandai are being sold with more parts for Gohan, in particular. It’s a fun approach for those who are all-in, but it sucks for someone who wants a Super Saiyan Gohan, but isn’t interested in getting Gamma 1. And those parts of the release are just okay. I think the Super Saiyan look is fine and with some shading would be potentially great. The glasses and cape look is more niche and less successful. It’s fun, but am I going to choose to display Gohan like this instead of the other looks? That’s a harder sell. I suppose he’ll pair nicely with Piccolo in the same sort of attire.

As mentioned previously, these guys retailed for $70 and were P-Bandai exclusives. Other retailers were free to order them just like anybody else, but that also means they were paying 70 bucks as well so they have to charge more than that in order to make any money on the sale. If you missed out on the original purchasing window then prepare to pay over $100 now for each figure. At $70 a piece, I think they’re worth it and I’m even tempted to get another Gohan (but I probably won’t) to make use of the extra parts. At over $100 each they’re a harder sell. If you only want the Gohan parts, maybe try eBay? It seems unlikely that someone interested in Gamma 1 or 2 would have no interest in Super Saiyan Gohan, but maybe there are some folks out there just looking to offset some of the cost of getting the new characters. More likely, you’ll be able to find people looking to offload Gamma 1 and 2 without the Gohan parts so maybe there will be some opportunities to score a set for closer to their original MSRP under certain conditions. I think they’re good enough on their own without the Gohan accessories, but those do help sweeten the pot. If you’re out on the hunt then I wish you good luck!

Need a primer on Gamma 1 and 2 or want to see more of those Gohan and Piccolo figures? Look no further:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

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by Joe

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that Dragon Ball Super has been the thing I’ve loved most that I never knew I wanted. I was done, or at least content, with Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball GT wasn’t good, but I didn’t need it so it wasn’t something that bothered me. Then…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Piccolo: The Proud Namekian

When the S.H.Figuarts line was launched years ago and Dragon Ball Z was at the forefront, it wasn’t Goku who got to be the first figure out of the gate. Nope, it was Piccolo. That figure caught my attention when it was announced even though I had not purchased a Dragon Ball figure in quite…

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by Joe

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

March 23, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Event Exclusive Super Saiyan 2 Son Goku

By Joe
He’s attained a level beyond that of a Super Saiyan!

I feel like I need a little break with all of the TMNT reviews I’ve been doing lately. I could use a break from action figure reviews all together, but I have quite the backlog and I buy tons of them so I only have myself to blame for that. Today, we’re looking at last year’s event exclusive Super Saiyan 2 Goku from Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts line. For the past couple of years, Bandai has been doing event exclusives like basically everyone because they sell well, but with Bandai they’re not exclusive to any one event. The same cast of characters tends to get sold at multiple conventions and when that’s all done they also put them up for order on their Premium Bandai website. The only downside to ordering online is the wait as it’s sort of a made-to-order situation. I wish they would just unload their stock first and then turn to that, but instead, other retailers seem to get the unsold merch which they sell on their storefronts at inflated prices. The waiting isn’t that big of an issue though, and most of these event exclusive figures have just been repaints of older figures which is great because it gets them back out there and often looking better than before. Last year’s round of exclusives included re-releases of Majin Buu, Android 16, and Shenron, but the only one I grabbed was Super Saiyan 2 Goku.

Scream for me, Goku!

The Super Saiyan 2 transformation is perhaps the most boring of Goku’s transformations. I think it’s due in part to the original planned ending for Dragon Ball being the battle between Gohan and Perfect Cell. Gohan would ascend to a level beyond Super Saiyan, and for him, the transformation looked pretty different from his Super Saiyan look. His hair stood all the way up, looked to be longer and fuller, and then you got the aura and lightning effects. Series creator Akira Toriyama was convinced to keep going though so we got another arc and in that one it was decided that Goku needed to be the main hero once again. This meant he needed to achieve the same level of power as his offspring and then go beyond that. Super Saiyan 2 was the big transformation for the Cell arc, but for the Buu one it was Super Saiyan 3 allowing the Super Saiyan 2 look to essentially be an afterthought as it concerned Goku. As a result, it doesn’t look much different from the standard Super Saiyan look. Goku basically just loses most of his bangs and his hair is a bit spikier plus he gets the same aura with blue lightning effects. Simple, but still kind of cool. As sort of the forgotten and less celebrated transformation, I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Mostly, it was Bandai’s approach to the aura that got me to pounce on this one.

Bandai has taken multiple approaches to Super Saiyan hair. The honey yellow with shading on Vegeta might still be my favorite, though the new Gohan hair looks like a solid base, but needs some shading of its own. I do like the approach with Goku here. The Dragon Stars Trunks is obviously the most basic approach, and probably the worst, but it was also a 20 dollar figure.

This Goku figure is more than familiar at this point. He is exactly the same as almost every Goku figure I’ve reviewed so I’m not going to go into too great of detail for this review. I mostly just want to talk about what’s new. For the sculpt, it’s very little. We get a brand new hair piece that has a nice shape to it and is evocative of the Super Saiyan 2 look. There’s a metallic gold paint in use, which is typical of these event exclusives, and it does give it a very nice shimmer. Considering this is a form that is known to basically always feature an aura, I think this paint job works better than usual. It helps distinguish it from a Super Saiyan look. Would I want all Super Saiyan hair pieces to feature this paint job? Ehh, probably not. I like the yellow in play on my Super Vegeta and the shading is done well on that figure. I’ll be talking about it eventually, but the recently released Super Saiyan Gohan head went in a different direction and I’m still sorting out my feelings on that one. I’d love to see Bandai try casting the hair in white and then hitting it with an airbrush of yellow. Absent that, this looks good. The only thing I don’t like are the pieces of hair off to the sides of Goku’s head. There is a sizable gap between his forehead and these pieces that just looks unnatural to me. It looks like they should either be right on his head, or further from it. They do at least hide the sideburns and the seem created by the hairpiece behind them. This Goku also has a halo since this is Goku from when he takes on Majin Vegeta, which also explains the more basic gi he’s wearing that lacks any markings on it. I’ve never really liked the halo effects when it comes to Dragon Ball toys because even if the post is transparent, you still see it. It just pegs into the hair, but it doesn’t seem to want to come out so it might be glued in. I’m tempted to just rip it out, but I’ll probably leave it.

These things are a pain to insert and quite brittle.

As for the body, the only other new part is the chest. Since this is Goku from his brief return to Earth, his shirt is ripped which was something that occured during his fight with Yakon. He would go Super Saiyan 2 to battle Vegeta shortly after. There’s a sculpted rip in the orange part of his top and it looks okay, but it really could use more paint. Most companies would paint the inside of the rip darker than the outside. Just like most Goku figures, the only paint is really the blue and the flesh-tone of the upper torso, the blue on the sleeves, and the boots. The boots aren’t as clean as they are on some of the other Goku figures I have, even the budget-friendly Target offerings, so that’s a bummer. He does appear to have some light shading in parts. It appears to be yellow on the legs and a little on the torso to help sell his glow, but it’s very subtle. I wish there was more paint as the orange has a very plastic look to it, as do his arms and neck, but this isn’t a line known for using a lot of paint. He still has the floating crotch pieces which have a tendency to rattle around and feel cheap, but they work with the articulation so I don’t mind them as much as some folks do. I do hate the sleeves and how they pin into the shoulders and handling this figure just illustrates how Goku is in need of a redesign. They can do better than this and this mold is getting pretty long in the tooth.

When you get those pieces in (hopefully without breaking them) and get Goku positioned just right the effect does look pretty cool.

For accessories, we get the standard assortment of hands: fists, splayed, martial arts posed, Kamehameha hands, and a set of hands in a two finger pose for his instant transmission technique. For faceplates, we have four varieties: stoic, cocky, yelling, and a teeth-gritting expression. The face printing on all four is terrific and very much in-line with the more recently released Super Hero Goku so at least that’s one advancement this figure possesses. The other accessory is the main one and it’s an aura effect. It’s a big, yellow, burst that can be positioned behind the figure. It’s a much sturdier part than the others I have and it’s cast in translucent plastic that alternates from being clear to yellow to clear and to yellow once again. It’s a new mold when compared with the stand-alone one Bandai sells and I’m guessing they did a new one because this has some extra bits. Four, blue, translucent, plastic, sparking effects are included. They attach to the yellow effect via a ball peg at the end. This allows them to be manipulated so when you place Goku in front of the backdrop effect the lightning can be positioned coming around him. It’s a terrific idea to try and sell the Super Saiyan 2 transformation, though the execution is lacking. The ball pegs are really hard to get into the yellow effect. I even snapped one trying to get it in and had to glue it back together. There’s no reason why it needed to be this challenging to pull off. Once they’re in they at least stay in and the effect works well enough. It’s very specialized so this isn’t an effect you’re likely to use with other figures, but if you wanted to I suppose you could use it with Majin Vegeta or the new Super Saiyan Gohan, but then your Goku doesn’t have an aura to stand in front of.

That’s essentially it though. I’m not going to run through the articulation since this is the same figure I’ve reviewed before and some of them are linked below. If you’ve been collecting DBZ Figuarts releases then you know this one pretty well. And if you have all of the Goku figures then Super Saiyan 2 is the missing link, so to speak, as they’ve never done it before. I’m guessing that made this one fairly popular. I’m curious if he’ll get a more standard release at some point without the metallic paint job and maybe without the torn shirt. It’s a bit odd to make the Super Saiyan 2 form an event exclusive, but it was also easy to get so I suppose it’s like any P-Bandai release. If you want it, you’ll have to venture out onto the aftermarket. Some retailers have this figure still in stock, but it’s pricey. I don’t think this release is worth paying over 100 bucks for, but if you really want a Super Saiyan 2 Goku and somehow missed out then I guess you have no choice. Just be prepared to keep your expectations in check. You’re paying for new hair and an effect part as the body has been done before. And if that’s fine with you then go ahead. I’m personally a little underwhelmed and certainly annoyed by the quality of the plastic as it relates to the sparking effects. I don’t resent having this in my collection, but I probably could have done without considering I don’t even have Super Saiyan Goku or Super Saiyan 3. I guess I like the Super Saiyan 2 form more than I realized.

Need to know more about how this Goku articulates or want to see how good he could be with a redesign? Look no further:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super Son Goku Super Hero

Back in the early 2000s I was a collector of Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line of action figures. When I started collecting that line, I just focused on my favorite characters which were primarily Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo. Gradually, the collector impulse took over and I started buying entire waves as they came out…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Son Goku

That is quite the mouthful, is it not? The Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Son Goku is the latest action figure from Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts to arrive in Target stores in the US. This form of Goku is what happens when a Saiyan ascends to Super Saiyan God level, and then goes Super Saiyan again. Confused?…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

November 17, 2022

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

By Joe

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four, the only one I grabbed initially was Goku as I was looking for a base version of Goku and that figure really stood out as better than the alternative to me. I was tempted by Piccolo as well because the headsculpts looked like an improvement over the figure I have, but ultimately I didn’t want to spend money for some new heads. Another temptation for me was the new Gohan. Depicted in his “Ultimate” form, the adult Gohan from the film looked really interesting because it would appear he’s on a newer body that could see some reuse down the road. At the end of the day though, I’m not a huge Gohan fan so I decided to pass. The question was rendered moot too when he sold out really quickly as there’s a legion of Dragon Ball collectors out there who have been waiting for a good interpretation of Ultimate Gohan.

Then Bandai put up for sale on its Premium Bandai webstore two characters from the film: Gamma 1 and Gamma 2. They’re the “sort of” villains from the film and I liked their look. I wasn’t sure if I liked it enough to pay the Premium Bandai upcharge to get them though, but once I finally saw the film, I ended up taking the plunge. The thing with those figures is they both come with optional parts for the Ultimate Gohan figure. I suppose I could have sold those parts to recoup some of the expense of those two figures, but instead I just went in for more and purchased the Gohan figure. Retailers opened up some additional preorders for him, at the slightly inflated price of $40 (he may have started off there too and I just forgot), and I grabbed one of them. I’ve had the figure for about a month now, and let me tell you something: I love it!

My Gohan, you’re looking unusually focused this morning.

Gohan comes in the usual window box and should look fairly routine from outside the box. Once removed, he stands just shy of 5.5″ to the top of his face, closer to 6.5″ if you want to go to the top of the hair. Gohan from the movie is depicted in his classic Piccolo training uniform. It’s a purple gi with red sash and he has the big, chunky, shoes he and Piccolo both feature in the movie. He basically only distinguishes himself from Piccolo via his black wriststraps. He’s in his “Ultimate” form which was his ascended form he learned from the Elder Kai during the Buu Saga. It’s basically Gohan’s ultimate form, hence the name, though it doesn’t come with a flashy transformation. If anything, he just has slightly bigger, spikier, hair. He’s also jacked and that comes through in the sculpt. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to Goku who keeps going through all of these different forms and hair colors to get more powerful, but his kid just bulks up a bit. I kind of like that about Gohan, though he has his own wild transformations too.

The new style for the shoulder joints can be a bit finicky to work with, but the reward is that they look so much better than the old style with the sleeve cuff pegged into the shoulder itself.

Like most figures in this line, Gohan is largely composed of molded, colored, plastic which minimizes the need for paint. I suppose “need” is a strong word and certainly a subjective one as many (myself included) would like to see more paint on these releases. It’s much harder to criticize them for that though at this lower price point. With Gohan, there appears to be a hint of shading on the legs, which they like to do for some reason. It’s not as visible with Gohan as it is with Goku and his orange gi, which almost works out better for Gohan. It adds just a touch of depth and comes across well. It’s also helped by the fact that the purple is quite matte on this figure giving him a nice finish. The chest is painted and it’s not a perfect match to the neck and arms. The chest has a matte appearance, while there is a touch of shine on the neck, but it’s not awful. The red sash is a separate, floating, piece though it is rather snug on the figure. It may cause some paint transfer if you’re not careful. Lastly though, the faces for this figure look terrific. I don’t know what Bandai did to improve their facial printing, but keep it up. The previous Goku figure looked nice, but Gohan is even better. These faces all look fantastic and it really brings the figure to life. The hair also looks nice and it’s even tricky to figure out where the seem is to remove the bangs because the fit is so good. The only blemish is a bit of mold release, roughness, on the side of the hair. It’s not very noticeable from a shelf, but it does kind of suck and I considered trying to exchange it, but opted not to. Aside from that though, I think this figure looks wonderful.

On one foot with not assistance, and on the flimsy plastic of the arena playset at that.

Adding to my enjoyment is the articulation. I’ve been a little critical of the various Goku figures as I acquire more of them because that figure has some limitations and some features that are a bit of an eyesore. This figure doesn’t solve every problem that Goku has, but it comes close. The head is on a double-ball peg with another ball joint at the base of the neck. He can move around nice and smooth and there’s great nuance posing afforded by this setup. It’s only weakness it he can’t look up very well so if you wanted to position him in a flying pose parallel with the ground it would look awkward. The shoulders have a newer style of joint similar to what Krillin has which means theres no pegged in shoulder piece to look stupid. The sleeve is just a floating piece the arms goes through and it pegs into a ball and hinge style of joint inside the torso. The end result is you get some up and down movement at just the shoulder before even engaging the hinge which allows the arms to be raised out. You do have to work with the sleeve to get them horizontal, but it’s do-able. There is still a butterfly joint and that may be the only limitation here as he doesn’t seem to reach across quite as far as Goku. A Kamehameha pose is still possible, but a little less natural looking. The rear of the joint is cleaner, though there will still be angles where it looks unsightly. The joint is all cast in purple though so at least it doesn’t look as ridiculous as Goku’s where the interior is flesh-toned. The rest of the arms are typical stuff with a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbow that goes well past 90 degrees, and ball-peg wrists.

This one needs a stand though.

In the torso, we get a ball-joint at the diaphragm. There is no hinge in there to lift the upper torso higher which seems cleaner, but the figure also doesn’t have much range forward and back. He can pivot a bit on the joint as well. Below that is a waist twist which feels like a ball-peg of some kind. It mostly lets him twist, but you do get some nuance posing out of it as well. At the hips, we have some kind of a ball-joint that works very well. Gohan can achieve full splits and kick forward plenty far, though can’t kick back because he does have sculpted cheeks. There’s a thigh twist below that which is very smooth and the double-jointed knees both look and function well. At the boot, there’s a swivel and the feet are ball pegs. They don’t have much range going forward and back due to the cuffs on the shoes, but the rocker works okay. There’s also a toe hinge if you like those.

The Masenko pose is a bit tricky. Anything that requires the figure to raise its arms above the shoulder is tough because of the shirt piece.

Most importantly, all of the articulation is really smooth. No stuck joints, no uncomfortable creeking or squeeking noises, and it’s all very visually appealing. That may not sit as well with some other folks as I can see some wishing Bandai sacrificed some of the form to get better range in places. The torso feels like the biggest issue as we could probably get a better ab crunch in there. The ankles also aren’t great, but I think that’s partly due to the character design and the shoes present. The shoulders still aren’t perfect, but I think they look much better this way and I’ll take the reduced range there for this visual. I would definitely be interested in seeing a new Goku on this body, though I don’t know what version (I did order the Super Saiyan 2 Goku, but it’s on the usual buck). Maybe a brand new Super Saiyan 3 or “Awakening Super Saiyan” Goku?

He can do a reasonable Kamehameha pose though.
Fire away, Gohan!

This is a bit of a budget release, but there are still some accessories to talk about. Unfortunately, they’re not particularly exciting. Gohan just comes with some extra hands and face plates. For faces, he has a stern expression, teeth-gritting, and a yelling one. For hands, we get fists out of the box plus Kamehameha hands, martial arts pose hands, and a set of open “Masenko” hands. That’s it. It’s expected given the price point, but still disappointing to only get a conventional spread of hands plus three facial expressions. An effect part would have been welcomed and, honestly, adds mere pennies to the cost. How about the Super Saiyan 4 Goku blast effect, but in yellow or blue? Just something to put in his hands for a Masenko effect, though his shoulders aren’t really made for the charging effect so maybe it’s better not to draw attention to that via an effect?

Bandai is really killing it lately with the faces.

If this is the new, standard, body going forward for Bandai then I think it’s pretty good. It could be better, but I think we’ll get a lot of nice looking figures out of this. And even though there are some short-comings, I still love this releasae. And I don’t even consider myself a fan of Gohan. Nothing against him, I don’t actively dislike the character, he’s just not my favorite. This figure though is one of my favorites in the line and I’ve been having a blast with him just posing and fiddling with him on my desk while he waits for me to write this review. And maybe that’s partly what took me so long as I drew out the process. He’s going to head for the shelf soon and join his buddies, but I am definitely looking forward to getting those extra parts with the Gamma brothers so I have an excuse to mess with this one again. If you thought you didn’t need it for one reason or another, I must encourage you to rethink that. And at 40 bucks, this feels like quite the steal. This figure is way better than the Apocalypse I reviewed recently, a figure I did ultimately like, and it costs the same. While lesser companies are getting more expensive, Bandai is actually getting cheaper and that’s awesome. Keep it up!

I wasn’t sold on him initially, but I’m pretty happy to have added Gohan to the shelf.

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