One of the very first things I did upon my return from Montreal was to crack this figure open.. and it certainly wasn't because I was super excited to play with it. I'd preordered this figure, oh I dunno... 9 months ago or so. It was due to come out September, but ended up delayed until, well the week I was in Montreal. But what DID come out on time was something I'd never seen before - a public apology and list of screw ups from Goodsmile Company about this particular figure.
So, in the interest of making sure I got my spot in for any warranty related services, I checked this figure out the moment I sat down. While I didn't get all the issues (mainly bad paint applications and poor tolerances), I certainly got my fair share of them. As such, I'm now officially on the waiting list for the second batch, due at some date in 2022... *sigh*. I hope I don't any more hoops to jump through to get my replacement.
On the plus side, that's basically Paint Applications and Build Quality addressed in one sentence.
Alice Gear Aegis was originally a mobile game featuring Yumi and other ladies like her, armed to the teeth and ready to blow some stuff up. The game became popular enough to warrant an OVA (download voucher included with purchase) and of course, character goods including Figma. Yumi is the fourth release in the line, and from comments I've read, it seems like many people were waiting for her.
Like the characters in the game, the Figma is set up like an Armoured Girl Project release, where you have a core figure, generally wear a simple plugsuit, then limb swap and arm the figure to the teeth. I think like the model kits and other similar release, you can probably swap with other figures in the same line, and possibly with those outside the line (provided the connectors fit).
There's apparently special names for all the gear she's wearing, but all I needed to know was "Girl, Sword, Tactical Nuke".
So while QC was all over the place, the actual contents of the set were on point for something of this price point:
- 1 x Torso
- 1 Set Plugsuit limbs
- 1 x Plugsuit head
- 1 x Platinum Line armour set (Snow White)
- 3 x Face Plates (Neutral, Smiling, Happy)
- 1 x Night Crane sword
- 1 x Gritzgruss M3 bazooka
- 1 x Requite Favor conversion parts
- 11 x Posing/Gripping hands, including a clasped pair of hands and the "OK" sign
- 1 x Pick Point A accessory (which I'm guessing is the clear blue parts)
- 2 x Thruster effects
- 1 x Standard Figma Stand/Base
- 1 x Multi Stand Figma Base with extra stand
- 1 x Download Voucher for in game DLC and the OVA
As I didn't buy through GSC, I did not get the bonus winking face, though I suspect I did the math and figured out the GSC price wasn't worth it over the savings.
So here's Yumi in her base Civilian mode. Like all good Plugsuits, this one is skin tight and minimalistic... to help with aerodynamics, of course.
The articulation present is effectively what you'd get in a typical Figma 2.0 female body, which sadly means no waist joint. The shoulders do feature double ended joints and as a result the arms can actually cross properly. Due to the connectors, the figure features both bicep and tight twist, along with pull down hips that allow for greater range of thigh movement. The back of her hair flips up so her head can tilt up for a more natural looking flight pose, though the bangs get in the way of actually turning her head.
All this articulation carries over to her Armoured Mode flawlessly, so there are no concerns about loss of function though to be fair, it's not like she gets a torso upgrade or anything.
Fully decked out, Yumi is significantly taller than any female Figma, and is more in line with other 1/12 scaled Armoured Girls, though proportions aren't as "natural" as others due to her height mostly a result of really long legs.
So, fully decked out, Yumi gains many, many more points of articulation, with the sole purpose of making attacking and flight poses look that much more awesome.
The knees are now double jointed, so you can recreate dynamic flight poses with greater ease.
The biggest design flaw in my books, is that the harness used to connect the floating wings (and the bazooka) to her back are translucent. Now, I'm going to guess this mimics an energy effect or something in the game, but in the world of figures this unfortunately means the use of plastic that generally less resistant to play wear so handle with care, though to be fair it wasn't as brittle as some of the other translucent plastics I've handled. The thruster effects, made of the same plastic, don't seem to have an issues, but then again there's no joints or bending forces on the parts either.
Oh right. It's unlikely you're going to be able to stand the figure up, so the stand is pretty much a necessary item at this point.
The four pontoons on the wings actually conceal energy beam emitters. They aren't jointed, however, and rely on friction to grip the connectors. Sadly, this is where my figure had issues with the pieces either gripping too tightly, or barely gripping at all, which made posing the figure that much more a pain in the ass.
Energy blast effects would have been really cool, though.
Other weapons look fantastic, with the aforementioned wing harness being able to move the wings out of the way for more natural looking weapon poses. The Requite Favor projectile (giant missile) actually has a stand attachment point on the bottom of it so you can actually pose Yuri pointing the thing in the direction you desire. I was just too lazy to do it. Speaking of lazy, like most Figma you generally put weapons into hands by removing the bottom part of it and just slide it into the relevant hand. In the picture of with the Requite Favor, you'll see the bottom of the bazooka missing. Again... too lazy to put it back on.
There have been stories about how Covid related travel restrictions made the jobs of QC managers that travel from plant to plant basically impossible, and that the final product suffered because of it. One highly visible example I can think of is the Hot Toys Mark 85 Tony Stark headsculpt, an error so egregious that people bitched and pissed and moan about it until Hot Toys officially replaced it with an older sculpt (Mark 46 I think) and cause the poor bastard in charge of Master Painting, JC Hong, to effectively stop letting random people post on his social media.
I'm going to guess THIS is why the Paint and Build Quality of this figure were not up to the typical Figma level of greatness. I had less severe, but equally annoying QC issues with regards to my SAC 2045 Motoko as well, and the Fate Alter Ego Okita Souji Figma was delayed for... reasons. Overall, I'm glad that GSC is taking the time to fix things that need to be fixed, but also that my life is so filled with stuff to do that I don't even have time to mull over how late things are.
So overall, a very ambitious Figma release. While I'm not thrilled about the translucent blue plastic, at least the thing actually fits on the figure correctly. Due to the sheer number of joints and connecting parts, the QC game really needed to be competent for this figure to come out, but as it stands it takes much more effort to pose this figure than it should, and I get to keep my eyes peeled for randomly dropping parts as a bonus. Mine was at least 3 weeks behind the initial batch, and I still had these issues, so maybe now isn't the best time to buy this release, unless you really want it or you want to gamble on getting a replacement for double the fun at some point in 2022.
As far as QC issues go, at least GSC is owning up to it and getting it sorted out. Besides, this is a subpar Figma, which apparently is still better than some other release that were acceptable *cough* Magic Henshin Girls *cough*. When they get the QC wrinkles ironed out, I think I will be able to appreciate the posing capabilities of this set better, as there really is an obscene number of joints on the thing. From a strict aesthetics perspective, Yumi is great, over the top Armoured Girl design with some very nice weaponry.
Now if someone would just make some energy blast effects...
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