S.H. Figuarts Naruto Uzumaki [Sage Mode] - Savior of Konoha

 

In my previous Sage Mode Naruto review, I realized I never put much background on this mode of Naruto. Naruto has the classic shonen problems of power creep, where he and a couple of other main characters' powers drastically increase to the point where it's ridiculous. Despite this fact, this is one of the times when the writing attempted to show a steady training process to enable Naruto to be in harmony with the elemental natures and gain amazing power. Rather than drawing power from his own inner strength and power, he absorbs the chakra in the environment around him to achieve tremendous strength, speed and to augment his jutsu. This time and this time only, he donned a red cloak, carried a massive summoning scroll, and fought pain with strategy, cunning and a sense of vengeance for his master. 

His fight with pain was pretty great, though I could've done with a little less repetition of Pain's millions of pain-related lines. This figure is a better-scaled version of the previous Sage Mode Naruto, with some improvements. First, there is a bendy wire cloak that allows for some more dynamic impressions, albeit with the annoying bunching at the collar and shoulders that seems to be a thing for the SH Figuarts Naruto line. Then the accessories are better done this time, with a Rasenshuriken he can actually hold, two large Rasengan to emulate a scene where he uses both. To top it off, the articulation range is also improved!

S.H. Figuarts Hinata Hyuga - Virtuous Byakugan

 

The Hyuga clan is one of the most powerful ninja clans in the Naruto world after the Senju and Uchiha. Their family members can use and awaken the byakugan, an eye jutsu that allows them to see the chakra networks of other living things, target those points, and disable or kill with pinpoint accuracy. They are always depicted as pupilless eyes, but once they lock in, they can see incredible distances through objects. The start of the original series shows that the Hyuga were split into two separate clans: the Main family and the Branch family. The main family are the leader and decision makers, while the related branch families are protectors of the main family. Being protectors, they have a cursed bird cage mark placed on their foreheads so that if they are struck down in battle, no one can steal the power of their eyes. Hinata is a Hyuga of the main family, and there is an interesting conflict with her first cousin, Neji Hyuga. He is a branch member whose father was killed, sacrificing himself to help retrieve a kidnapped Hinata. It built a strong backstory that made both characters really interesting!

Sadly, in Shippuden, the sheer power of the Hyuga is very underutilized, given how hyped up their abilities are in the series as a whole. Even worse, in Boruto, she becomes a housewife who doesn't really get to show off her awesome abilities. I blame this on how little the writers involve female characters in important moments in the show, placing a lot of emphasis on Naruto and Sasuke instead.  That said, this is a really cool version of Hinata from Shippuden! She has her standard hooded zipper jacket and cut-off pants look here with the long hair. It's my favourite look of hers, so kudos to Tamashii Nations for making this figure! 

The figure has great posing and balance, good sculpt and paint, and enough accessories to recreate the battle scene where she helps Naruto defeat Pain. 

S.H. Figuarts Pain Tendo - The Rinnegan of the Six Paths

 

The Pain Arc is one of the most iconic in Naruto Shippuden. We are constantly teased about this character for a good chunk of Shippuden as a mysterious, powerful figure who leads the Akatsuki. We find out through Jiraiya's spying that Pain is, in fact, a formerly deceased pupil of his. The mystery deepens when he realizes that there are, in fact, six formerly deceased people being used in a coordinated manner to lead the dangerous group known as the Akatsuki. They are the Six Paths of Pain, six separate bodies commanded by someone (Nagato) with the Rinnegan (the special eyes with many concentric circles possessed extremely rarely by some individuals in history). 

This path is the Deva (Tendo in Japanese) path, capable of utilizing attractive and repulsive forces on any scale. The path uses this power to initially charge up and wipe out most of Konoha. This path used to be a student of Jiraiya from the Village Hidden in the Rain. His name was Yahiko, and he initially trained with two other students, Nagato and Konan. They were all orphans from the village and were taught by Jiraiya to survive their war-torn country. They grew up and decided to band together and end the war by founding the Akatsuki. Their goals eventually warped under the influence of another villain, and they became obsessed with harnessing power, first by acquiring the nine different Tailed Beasts in the world. This is how they come to try to capture Naruto and steal Kurama, the Nine-tails. 

Pain is ultimately defeated by a new and improved Sage Mode Naruto (figure review incoming!), but the arc is pretty emotional for how quickly Pain destroys things around Naruto. The figure is also good! It comes with the Akatsuki cloth coat that works in many ways, and is a little bulky and awkward in others. The accessories are a little fewer than usual, but overall, the sculpt and paint are well done here. 

S.H. Figuarts Minato Namikaze - Narutop99 Edition

 

If you don't know anything about Minato Namikaze, I previously reviewed him here: Minato Namikaze. Being the father of Naruto, a legendary teacher, ninja and inventor of the Rasengan, he's got a lot of status in the series despite being dead at the start. He's a cool character, and one who worked hard to create his power set and relationships in the show. Since the writing of the last figure (7 YEARS AGO....I can't believe it!), Minato won Narutop99, a poll contest that determined the most popular Naruto characters worldwide (I voted Shikamaru!). 

This is a great revamp of Minato, featuring significantly brighter colours compared to the previous model. The figure also stands better with the current line and has larger proportions than the original as well. The accessories here are pretty standard for SH Figuarts, hands, many face plates, kunai and a Rasengan with a special 99 on it! 

SH Figuarts Tsunade - The Legendary Medical Healer

 Tsunade is one of the better-written female characters in Naruto; she has flaws, a history, some tragedy and love mixed in, and some wicked powers and a legacy to boot. She's the granddaughter of the 1st Hokage, former leader of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She was one of the three legendary Sanin who helped defeat Hanzo the Salamander in the Second Great Shinobi War. She did fairly well as the fifth Hokage. She possesses godly strength, chakra control, and medical ninjutsu knowledge that is unsurpassed in the series. I really enjoyed her introduction into the series, and how she is beholden to some classic vices! 

The figure representation is pretty dead on. She has a pretty good range of motion and flexibility; the only thing getting in her way is maybe the tunic parts that thankfully do have slits and splits in them to accommodate some kicking action. The accessories are well painted and put together, though they aren't particularly exciting. It might have been cool to include her with a rock blasting effect for when she lands a ground punch maybe? Otherwise it's fairly thorough: many face plates, hands, a necklace and an extra head for the kid Naruto figure! Overall, this is a solid release, with no real downsides for me. 

S.H. Figuarts Shikamaru Nara - Brilliant Strategist

 Shikamaru is easily one of my favourite characters in all of Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Boruto, and Boruto: Blue Vortex. He's smart, kind and one of the best friends of those who are treated as less. It isn't specifically said, but it does seem like he's Naruto's best friend throughout several series. Aside from his unwavering loyalty, he has some unique abilities that he uses well throughout the series. He's by no means very powerful, but does well with what he has. I never imagined that he'd ever be on the list of figures SH Figuarts would make (though I did answer several polls with that answer, so maybe that had an impact??? who knows!). This is a pretty easy figure to pull off, but there are some issues with the faceplates I'll get into shortly. The accessories and poseability are up to a good standard! Now I just need them to make a Shippudden version of Ino and Choji to complete the team! And Asuma couldn't hurt either....

Tamashii Nations Effect Wind for S.H. Figuarts - Blue ver.

 

This is by far the largest effect in terms of size of the three! This very stylish effect set comes with a large, wide-diameter wind column piece that rests easily on flat surfaces. Two larger pieces feature a semi-circle design that is also meant to fit on a flat surface, creating a more powerful wind base aura. The last three wind effects are slight variations on a semi-circular wind slash. These have peg holes so you can plug in a choice of three plastic bars for characters to hold or to join two effects together. So nine pieces in all!

I love the look of the effects, although the joints and parts with holes break up the light slightly when posing. A minor nitpick, but It would also be fun in the two large base slashes were identical and could be joined on their flat side with a peg to form a really wide air slash. That might be cool to see! 

Tamashii Effects Series - Effect Thunder Green Ver. fir S.H. Figuarts

These have been sitting on the back burner for a while now, so this week will be all about the effects pieces! The Effect Thunder is a set of three clip-on lightning pieces, including a large base lightning piece, an attaching columnar lighting piece that plugs into the base, and a single straight lightning piece that plugs into the top of all three. They did a good job here, making the lightning erratic in direction. I love the clear green on it, though sometimes I feel the white translucent plastic highlighting might take away a little too much in some cases. The pieces are very pokey! The figure attachment pieces are a little more difficult to put on than the fire ones, but overall, this is very cool! If you have a Deku figure or anyone else with a greenish lightning effect, this is a solid must-have! It does work for some of my Blue Lightning users, but I will probably get that specific set in the future anyway.

Tamashii Effects Series - Burning Flame RED Version for S.H. Figuarts

 I recently acquired quite a few Tamashii Nations effects pieces as well as the new Ichiraku Ramen diorama so this week I'll be trying to review them all! That said it may not all happen at once. Anyone who knows anything about action figure photography knows that with diorama or effects you can have multiple figures, using multiple accessories with a variety of poses to get some good range of shots, so it takes quite a bit of time to set up everything! 

This time I'll be doing the Red version of the Burning flame effects. These are honestly so cool and work well with all the flame based heroes. The reflection and translucency of the fire parts is awesome. With four smaller flame parts that can fit around figure limbs and three larger aura-like fire effects, these pieces work well on many levels. 

I realized I had to make an all new system to review effect parts and dioramas because the model for figures doesn't quite fit the bill. 

Revoltech Amazing Yamaguchi Batman - Arkham Knight

 I don't need to tell you about Batman in the Arkham Knight game. It's an amazing game with a great story and graphics, and it is the techiest suit I've seen in the series. It's also 11 years old at this point, so if you haven't played it yet, it's cheap in the Arkham collection on most game stores if you want to grab it. 

I started my very first toy collection by purchasing some 2012 TMNT figures and a 4 pack of Arkham City figures. I loved the games, and having some fun to play with representations was kind of like a little physical memento I could display on a shelf. It was all downhill into toy collecting from there! 

Out of all the Arkham figures I own, this may be the most excitingly poseable Arkham knight figure I've ever owned (that is under the Hot Toys price). The figure has a ton of dynamic movement and unique accessories I've never seen before, AND they really learned from their fragmented plastic shard cape fiasco from the 009 Batman figure by making this one with a poseable wired cape. 

This is only the second Amazing Yamaguchi figure I've owned, and while it is extremely poseable, it's almost a 3D puzzle to figure out how to get it exactly how you want it. I'm still not well-versed in this despite playing a bunch with the Ver. 1 of the Arkham Knight itself. As an aside, they are coming out with a Ver. 1.5 of that figure that actually has their two pistols and rifle. I'm a little tee'd to be honest that I bought the version previously, knowing how DC was being weird about it's license for figures that used guns. Sigh! Anyway, into the review!