I won't harp on too much again about Itachi Uchiha, I've already done one detailed SH Figuarts review from his older figure here. He is Sasuke's brother and a prominent drive for Sasuke's character throughout the two series. This particular figure is the result of re-releasing Itachi to celebrate the top 20 characters chosen in the Narutop99 poll taken a while back. As the 20th anniversary of the series, they took a fan poll of the top 99 most popular characters. Itachi came in 2nd (the first being Minato, who, as a result, got to have a one-shot manga written by the original writer).
Anyway! This figure is a huge improvement on the previous figure in nearly every way. The secret here has been including not just a cloth goods Akatsuki cloak to allow fun poses with clothing Itachi normally wears, but having it bendy-wired. This allows so many good options. Typically at this scale cloth goods look bulky and a bit silly but despite the lower than Mezco price point, they've managed to do a good job here. Add that to the improved articulation scheme and some fun accessories make this a great release!
The only thing the original takes from this one is having a couple of final battle face plates that allow a bit more dramatic expression for the character. Also technically I think the clothes under are supposed to be blue, not black, but that's more of a nitpicky thing.
