That's one hell of a title, and it's the one given to none other than Sakura Haruno, the last of main Naruto trio. She's not as adept at fighting compared to Sasuke and Naruto, but her knowledge of the healing arts, brute strength, and general anger management issues make her very effective on the battlefield.
Coming in at about 4,800 Yen, Sakura is priced in between Naruto and Sasuke. I guess it kind of makes sense, and the figure is in between when it comes to complexity of the final product. Content wise, again pretty consistent with that was offered with the other characters, though understandably it's kind of hard to provide an effect for overwhelming brute strength:
- 1 x Main Figure.
- 5 x Face Plates (Neutral, Focuses, Happy, Shouting, Angry).
- 7 x Gripping/Posing Hands.
- 1 x Energy Attack Effect.
I have no idea why an open fist was included with this set - my best guess is that maybe it works with other weapons, like the Kunai from the Naruto release?
Of the three, Sakura is the weakest looking. Part of it is the joints, particularly on the shoulder. But you know what, joints allow the figure to pose and all that stuff, so I can give that a pass. To me, however, it seems that her proportions are way off. Her legs are too chunky, her top is too narrow, her shoulders are too broad, and her neck is too long. I'm not entirely certain about her height as compared to the others either, but given I didn't care about before, I'm not about to start now. The face and head itself isn't bad - certainly not Naruto accurate, but it's more on point compared to Sasuke.
Articulation wise, things are pretty good, though it's for a different reason than you'd think. Up until this point, pretty much every Figuarts line I've handled always seemed to have different bodies for the males as compared to the females, with the female bodies always having less articulation. Well, maybe Tamashii has stopped doing that, as it seems like Sakura features the same base body as the other two - the only other time I've personally seen this is with the recent Android 17 and 18 releases, though I wonder if that is just a happy coincidence due to their similar sizes.
So the underlying performance of the body is solid, and your display options are quite varied, presuming you can get the thing the balance. Lower body articulation is not affected by the skirt, which is both short and made of a very pliable material.
Paint is up to the expected Figuarts standards, and like with the Figuarts standards the quantity of paint is relatively low. On the other hand, the less paint there is, the less there is to screw up. Like with Sasuke, there is that jarring mismatch of flesh coloured paint and the flesh coloured plastic where the neck meets the chest, but thankfully its relatively unnoticable, as the area is quite small. Decal work is on point,
Build Quality is also up to Figuarts standard.. at this time. Maybe it's just me, but the elbows look a bit delicate to me, though I've not experienced anything during play testing that would suggest there is an issue with fragility.
With that, the main trio have been entered into my collection. The degree of accuracy to the on screen counterpart varies from one to another, but from a play perspective, they all generally perfectly well. Of course, it comes down to price and while Naruto is a very reasonable 30 USD, the other two not so much. For me, though, the greater accuracy, posing capabilities, and general QC of a Figuarts over something from the Anime Heroes line up is worth it.
I eagerly await my Kakashi to join the group... as well as whatever releases the future holds for this line.
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