Jay's Toy Shelf : Bandai - Sasuke Uchiha (2003)

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Bandai - Sasuke Uchiha (2003)

There's nothing more interesting to a collector than finding something in a store that you didn't even know you wanted -- but once you saw it, there was no turning back! I attended an anime convention where I found this figure. A set of 3 figures were made by Bandai in 2003 of the Naruto series: Naruto, Kakashi and Sasuke. Now that I found mine at a very reasonable price (given its rarity), I'm pumped to get the other two.

Given that the highly articulated SH Figuarts line didn't debut until 2008, this figure is fairly well articulated and comes with a bunch of neat accessories. AND, it comes with an awesome art scroll of Sasuke with his name at the bottom (Uchiha Sasuke).
I was pleasantly surprised by how articulated this figure is given when it was made, but you can always trust a Japanese toy company to put their all into making figures and collectibles (especially these days).

It is not without flaws since some of the paint and sculpting isn't very clean. So let's dive into some ratings!

Sculpt/Paint: 3/5 This may not be an S.H. Figuarts but most of the anime details are well present in the sculpt. They even did a decent job of his eyes, though it is difficult to tell from pictures.
The sculpting is a little blocky and the paint is quite sloppy through the hood, hands and leg bandages. One strange oversight is the Konoha leaf symbol on the headband is sculpted by the relief is not painted. Weird! I will have to do that later.

Articulation: 4/5 (21 points): This figure has some interesting precursors to what would be standard S.H. Figuarts articulation when that line started. Though they are slightly too recessed as ball joints, he has ball jointed wrists and ankles, which allow a bit more range in the 360-degree motion. The knees and elbows are single jointed but move quite far. They also have no caps or stops, so they can "break" bend! There are swivel cuts at the end of the shorts and t-shirt, and though they didn't have an ab crunch, the ball jointed waste is pretty decent. Add to that, both the neck and head are ball jointed. Not bad for 2003!

Price/Availability: 2/5: This is not an easy figure to find. They only made three in this line, Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke. They are not so much very expensive (although it is still 200% of its original price at least), as they are super hard to find. I didn't even know these EXISTED until I stumbled upon one by sheer blind luck at an Anime con. Mine was 1/2 off, but it was only sold in Japan originally and wow am I glad I found this one. Of course, now I have to hunt down the rest

Accessories: 5/5: Extra hands? Two fist hands, one hand to hold the shuriken, one hand to hold the kunai and one hand with a peg hole to hold the scrolls and shuriken. One neutral head and a cool intense Sharingan eye-having head. The demon wind shuriken is a great accessory, as are the furled and unfurled scrolls. The coolest part is though that these figures come with an ACTUAL small scroll that has art with the character on it that you can display. Yes this, a thousand times yes.

Fun Factor: 4/5 It doesn't have the full poseability or great clean paint of some other Japanese import, but for its rarity and the fact that there were very few good figures made of the original Naruto series (I do NOT count the Toynami toys for kids), this one is great. It does have decent balance, it looks great and it even scales not too poorly with the SH Figuarts Sasuke Uchiha Battle version.

Verdict: 18/25 Good. I would say that if you are a Naruto fan you must find this, somewhere, somehow. And not just this one, but all three of them. For everyone else, given that lack of SH Figuarts quality, you might pass on it, but I would recommend it for sure. Plus he can hold the Chidori effect that comes with the SH figuarts Sasuke. Not bad!