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!

Kaiyodo Amazing Yamaguchi Arkham Knight - Batman: Arkham Knight

 

Amazing Yamaguchi is a line by Kaiyodo of action figures with hyper poseability. So much so that when I read or listen to reviews about them, the largest complaint is how difficult it is to get into poses due to all the joint rotations, but once you do, they look...well, amazing! Using the Revoltech joint system (two pegs with a ball joint swivel), they're able to achieve extreme poses, albeit with exaggerated proportions compared to the source material. 

This figure of the Arkham Knight from the game is pretty cool. Aesthetically, not as bulky or imposing in this scale, but maybe that's because there's no equivalent for this line for Batman himself. This is an expensive import though, and as such the quality is fantastic. The sculpt is so detailed and the colours are vibrant, especially the shiny bits. The figure is solid and fairly easy to pose around, though like many Amazing Yamaguchi figures, there are certain poses that show surreal gaps, especially raising the arms above the shoulders. 

There are so many great accessories here, specifically for switching the figure into the Red Hood version. The weapons are very odd here, and it's something that has put me off buying a lot of McFarlane DC Figures. He comes with a couple of laser swords and two kris knives....which...I gotta say I played the game 3 times and never saw him use a laser sword once or those knives. This is a weird choice, but it's pressured by WB's decision that started with a mandate to remove guns from their figure marketing properties. This effectively means that since February of last year, no figures sold using WB's license can be marketed using guns. I don't know how this decision came to be, but now toy companies are selling figures with trigger fingers that are supposed to use guns, but don't come with them. This makes it a harder decision: Do you buy them and then hope the decision is reversed? Hope McFarlane or other companies sell a weapons pack later? Do you buy them and use your own weapon arsenal to substitute in? For the most part (this figure being the exception), I don't buy them. 

This doesn't affect most figures, but I passed up on the Arkham Knight Red Hood by McFarlane because...well the character isn't much without the guns. The same goes with Hush or a multitude of other characters. I just have those already with guns, so I don't need to buy a newer one that comes with less, you know?