A few weeks, Anime North happened, and as things usually go most of the Dealer's Room was a waste of time. But, also as things go, I always manage to one.. just ONE thing that made it worthwhile to go and spend time there. This year, it was a figure from a classic line, the Kaiyodo Revoltech Queen's Blade series. Specifically, I managed to find Alleyne, the elven combat instructor.
Considering how much cast off and nudity are shunned by the action figure "community", it's actually really annoying how hard it is to find these figures, and when I do, not die of price shock.
So to refresh memories, Queen's Blade started out as a bunch of books used to illustrate one on one dice battles, as well as characters to insert into a desktop fantasy game of sorts. It's claim to fame is that the character books would feature the character is varying degrees of disrobe, depending on how much damage they had taken, with a fully naked character emerging when they're down and out. This concept birthed a whole slew of cast off character goods, including the Revoltech line. The Revoltech line is special as it is the only action figure line of this series, whereas several companies have made scale statues, and with its recent resurgence, more continue to make the statues even to this day.
Not bad for a niche genre from the mid 2000s.
Contents are relatively sparse, though I don't recall the MSRP on these being particularly high.:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 2 x Face Plate (Normal, Battle Damage aka M Mode)
- 5 x Posing/Gripping Hands
- 1 x Battle Damaged Top
- 1 x Battle Damaged Skirt
- 1 x Staff
- 1 x Storage Box
- 1 x Base/Stand
The orange coin thing I believe was was token you could collect and once you had enough of them you could mail them in for some sort of premium. The stand that came with this figure was certainly better than the run of the mill stand that came with most of the Revoltech of that era.
There's no real reason to do a deep dive on this figure. It's old and while it's not terrible, its age is pretty much in the articulation, QC, and overall production values. This figure was made when most Revoltech figures had difficulty STANDING without a stand, let alone do anything too wacky.
Ultimately, if you're buying this it's because you've got a sore spot for Queen's Blade, or at least a particular character from the series. There are far better action figures, both from a thematic perspective, and even cast off figures have become better (and more hardcore). From an accuracy perspective, things are alright, but you're certainly not anime or book accurate.
As mentioned earlier, accuracy is questionable. The Beret comes off, which does improve the display options, though it's expected as full battle damage leaving the Beret on is.. not a look I'm used to. What's funny is that to me, it seems like the sculpter/artist put more effort into her M Mode face as compared to the one that most sane people would display her with.
Articulation is... awkward, both due to joint quality and just in general how the cuts in the limbs are made. Kaiyodo would go on to further refine this over the years, with modern day figure devoid of this sort of thing, though their figures may be too stylized and focused on posing than some collectors would like.
But that is still preferred over this old style.
Besides the obvious points, the hair and cape also feature extra points of articulation to help with your posing desires.
Paint and Build are tolerable, but the weak joints, especially at the hips, make me want to throw this and most early Revoltech figures against the wall and smash them into hundreds of pieces.
Overall, the line of figures is neat if you like outlandish character designs, but I really don't see the appeal to casuals - they'll be too freaked out to appreciate anything from this IP, and this period of time on the whole. I wish we'd see a new line of figures, but considering that I think only Alpha Max makes cast off action figures, any new line would either not feature cast off (a cardinal sin), or more likely would end up in the hands of some Chinese company, which I suppose is still better than some crappy kit you slap on a 1/12 Phicen body.
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