Jay's Toy Shelf : S.H. Figuarts

The dastardly, seemingly cold-hearted brother to Sasuke and S-Rank criminal of the Village Hidden in the Leaves is Itachi Uchiha. At the beginning of the show it is made clear he is the culprit in the mass murder of the entire Uchiha clan.

The Uchiha clan the Senju clan were long ago enemies that fought constantly, and eventually, the two leaders, Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju put aside their differences for the common good and built the first Ninja Village cooperatively. This became the Village Hidden in the Leaves, but not all sat well with all the Uchiha. As both a way of keeping them close and allowing them some power, the Senju appointed the Uchiha as the village police.

That didn't appease many Uchiha however. A revolution was seen coming, and Itachi, who at the time was part of the ANBU Black ops, was ordered to take action, In exchange for following orders, slaughtering the Uchihas and betraying himself as a criminal, Itachi was allowed to have his brother, Sasuke spared. Most of this (and much more) is unknown to Sasuke for the large part of the series.
He joins a criminal organization known as the Akatsuki (Aka = red, Tsuki = cloud), whose motivations for a good part of the series are mostly hidden.

So you can see why Sasuke just REALLY wants to go at Itachi.

Itachi uses his Sharingan powered eyes to create a lot of jutsu that bend reality (genjutsu). These are often illusions such as the Tsukoyomi, that traps its victim in a state of mental torture for what seems like days. He also makes use of other eye powers such as the Mangyeko Sharingan, and fireball style jutsus.

This figure is a very clever way of both showing off a robed Itachi, as well as a mechanism that allows it to be removed for his brother vs. brother showdown. Though it is a plastic robe, there is a space for one hand to be pegged in. Once it is removed overhead, the arms from the sleeves can be pegged back in and you've got a fully articulated figure! A lot of collectors actually didn't like how he couldn't have his robe simply open or in other poses, so if you want that option there are a few eBay sellers that sell a very well made cloth Akatsuki robe that can be purchased for around 16 CAD before shipping.

In all other ways, he's a very decent figure, with sets of hands, the robe, and alternate faces. His articulation is very good and has near equal range to other figures in the line. The soft rubber of the bottom of his tunic helps not overly restrict hip range, but it still does a little. The one disappointing thing about the figure is that aside hands and feet he has no other jutsu accessories. Given that he creates the unquenchable black fire, Amatseru, and is often seen shooting fireballs from his mouth, you'd think one of those would be included.

I do like that he is included in the Naruto line, however, I wish Bandai would make other Akatsuki members such as Pain, Kakuzu, and Konan. Really, just make them all! Import lines don't often produce a lot of villains for a given series of figures, and that should be changed in my opinion. How are they going to have epic fight showdowns??! A toy blogger would like to know.
At least they made this one!

Sculpt/Paint: 4/5 Very solid as per usual. Cloth ripple details, the swishing robe and really nicely painted/printed on red clouds. The faceplate details are especially good too, while the rest of the paint is pretty clean but simple.

Articulation: 5/5 (34 PoA): He's got all the great SH Figuarts pieces, included the removable robe with a peg in for the hand and like Minato, the butterfly joints are well engineered. Without the robe, he has a bit of limitation from the bottom of his tunic, but since it's made out of a soft plastic, it's not too bad.

Price/Availability: 3/5 Pricey. You can still find him around, but because of his important role in the Uchiha clan plot, he's still fairly expensive and has not gone down in price at all. eBay has him at 200%+ of his original value, so if you were hoping to get him on the cheap, I'd wait...a long time!

Accessories: 5/5 He came with pretty much everything you want, hands, faces and the removable cloak. With those, you can recreate many of his scenes in the show. One thing that would've been nice is a fireball effect, though to do that he'd need to be packed in a much bigger box!

Fun Factor: 4/5 He's a really good figure, good balance, and everything, but with how static he is with the cloak, and the lack of interesting clothing without, he doesn't shine on the shelf per se. He is a good figure though and definitely a good one to pick up for the Naruto line since they really don't have many villain characters at this point.

Verdict: 21/25 Great. Being an SH Figuarts automatically gives this figure a good score, and the likeness and included cloak --even if somewhat inflexible in posing-- is a nice touch. He's not my favourite in the SH Figuarts Naruto line but still looks great. I may pick up that cloth custom cloak at some point to add to him though.

Up close! His character was drawn with deep lines
from the corners of his eyes.

Back view

The accessories. Cloak, faces and hands!

Amaterasu summoning eyes!

Cloak snaps off fairly easy.
Gaze upon the armless hand!

Take off the cloak and note
the horror!

Now that's better.

Each member of the Akatsuki group has their own ring.
Though they did sculpt it well enough for how tiny it was,
couldn't write the character that is supposed to be there.
It is a red ring that says "Scarlet" in Kanji.