This is a follow up on my previous post on Final Fantasy Trading Arts Kai Mini. I just received my toys today. Hurray!!
Most of the times, pictures and advertisement are nowhere near the real thing. Unfortunately, this is the case for now. I am utterly disappointed with my new toys. Haaaaaaaiz... Yes it is a hugeeeee sigh.. I have generally good impression with my Squall Dissidia Play Arts Kai so my expectation is quite high for these Kai Mini. Yes, despite the 'mini'.
The packaging is awful. It is damn difficult to remove the parts from the plastic packaging which house them. The delicate hair of Cloud and Squall makes it more tricky to remove them. To add to the headache, since the heads are bulkier than the bodies, pulling the heads may result in removal of the heads (the heads are meant to be interchangeable) and the bodies are left in the housing. Grrah... On top of that, the base, the various plastic support poles, the menu bar and the speech bubbles are sealed in the inner back side of the box. In order to remove them, it is as good as "destroying" the packaging boxes. I wonder who the idiots who came out with the design..
Moving on to the figures themselves, Squall, despite being my no 1 favourite, turns out to be no 1 disappointment. His hair is okay (as compared to Cloud's) but his paint job, especially his SeeD uniform, is terrible. The yellow linings are "smudged" to the black part. So unprofessional! It just does not convey the quality for the price I paid. Pupu has various shades of blue and I wonder that it is meant that way or it is another poor quality control. As far as I remember, Pupu is uniformly light blue in the game -_- Paint job for the skin tone is generally bad for all 3 figures with some parts are more tanned than the others. Bleah..
Cloud's hair is terrible. There are defects which remind me of Zidane's hair from Final Fantasy IX Play Arts. His paint job is unlike Squall's (thank goodness). In fact the intricate details of the motorcycle are pretty well done. However, the motorcycle figure cannot stand properly on its own, thanks to the heavier head. The motorcycle is like gonna topple forward and the back wheel is a big "lifted to the air". That's crap because I think Cloud looks better in his motorcycle pose.
Yuna was the last one which I opened and I did not bother to try removing her from the plastic housing. Among the 3, I think Yuna is the most satisfactory. The flower painting on her summoner dress is quite amazing considering the small size of the figure. Her gunner skirt is also amazing. The "flowing" thingy is well depicted with alternating transparent and light blue material.
Overall, I am extremely disappointed. Although if I take into consideration the price, I should not be expecting something of Play Arts or Play Arts Kai quality. With 2000 Yen per piece, they are even cheaper than Nendoroid figures which are the trendsetter for these chibi/superdeformed (SD) figures. Nendoroid figures are much better because the bodies are bulkier and hence can support the supposedly oversized heads better. The bodies of these Final Fantasy figures are just too petite to support the head.
Oh well.. lessons learnt.. Perhaps I will not buy the 2nd volume. I should have only bought Squall T_T
1 comment:
nice blog :)
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