Back in the 80's, anime as a genre wasn't that well known here in Canada. In fact, I think if it wasn't for the huge influx of people from Hong Kong trying to get Citizenship to avoid the Mainland China takeover of '97 (Spoilers -nothing happened and everyone went home without selling their houses) I probably would have had to wait till my University years.
I had the basics down, though actually being able to watch any was... challenging. The VHS tapes were not universal, as in Canada we used NTSC whereas Hong Kong at the time was still PAL. Then there was the actual delay in delivery. Then, one day, Laserdisc and CD-MPEGs came along and I could finally watch things that had aired overseas a decade ago, which included my first Dragonball Z movie, The Return of Cooler. Despite this delay, I was still a decade or so ahead of rest of the country.
Now, I didn't know at the time, but the Dragonball movies were basically non-canon, which meant they really could do whatever they wanted, which included introducing all sorts of fascinating characters, which in this case was Metal Cooler, cyborg clones of the original Cooler, Father of Frieza, who was supposed to be dead.
Anyway, fast forward about 30 years and S.H. Figuarts finally released a figure of this guy.
So for those with a US hookup, pretty straightforward pickup from P Bandai. Typical packaging, but I have to say upon first sight it's like you bought one of those limited edition chromed out Sentai Mecha.
The MSRP on this piece was not cheap at all, and you can probably guess where most of that money went. As there is no Base Cooler figure that I'm aware of, I'm guessing that this will form the basis of what will be the standard set down the road:
1 x Main Figure
4 x Heads (Neutral, Angry, Shouting, Laughing)
10 x Posing Hands
2 x Alternate Feet (Standing On Prone Figure)
1 x Tail
1 x Left Cybernetic Shoulder Pad/Arm Set
Being Frieza's father, Cooler resembles him. I think we can agree one word describes this guy - SHINY. It's a little hard to make out, but the body isn't entirely chromed, and the chrome isn't Silver either - it's more Green, with the actual Silver areas being painted (the hands are the same off Green as the chrome is). Overall, I think this was done to match colour scheme of the character itself, though its really odd of all the things they didn't paint or chrome, it is the elbow joints and the joints on the tail, but they chromed the knee joints.
Oh, speaking of the tail, great for balancing.
So one of the strangest things that I don't ever really mention is weight. Metal Cooler, I swear, is the lightest figure of this size. Not that they did anything else to take advantage of this, and I wonder if it is basically the plastic used in the chroming process not being as heavy as the usual ABS or whatever it is they use.
So the faces are nicely sculpted, detailed, etc. But that's not the story here. You probably noticed that these were all heads rather than the usual faceplates. Not only does having full heads effectively eliminate the potential for paint scraping, it also means that the actual head doesn't have any seamlines that could also cause paint wear due to excessive use or just general fingernails wearing it down.
As with Frieza, the curved feed work well simulating situations like, well, this, provided that ou find the right edge for the figure to stand out. The lack of weight of the figure doesn't seem to affect the balance too much, if at all, and there's always the tail you can fall back on.
Finally, there's the Cybernetic set. They're nicely detailed and finished, but lets be honest, they don't look as awesome as the chrome parts. Perhaps more importantly, the arm has no articulation whatsoever.
The biggest issue with Frieza was always stability rather than Articulation, so it should be a shock to nobody that with the extra bits helping with the former, Metal Cooler is a decent poser. You're never going to be TBLeague levels of articulation, but for a guy with Chicken Feet and a long tail, he does pretty well. Hips are standard hips but they do have that built in lower rotation point, so the range of motion is pretty good. Butterfly joints for the shoulders though they only allow for the shoulders to rotate backwards. Back Arch/Ab Crunch is minimal, but I like how they worked in the functional waist despite having that solid ab piece there. Head tilt is decent but it's not going to win any award from me. Pauldrons shift out of position to allow for greater range of shoulder motion. Tail articulation allows for some either dynamic poses or is capable of being used as a weapon.
Paint Application is probably the most remarkable thing about this figure, though not so much the actual paint and decals - it's the chrome. The chroming work is EXCELLENT, with no distortion or air bubbles or other crap that you get on low quality jobs. Then, whatever top coat they put on is nice a thick, and quite frankly unless you're outright exposing the surface to some sort of abrasion, you're fine. Even problem areas like where the thigh and waist meet, in general, again using reasonable force, any time the parts meet they just kind of bounce off each other. I haven't experienced any problems with fingerprints, which was another concern. I'm certain this process must have dramatically increased production costs and quite frankly, it was worth the increase in MSRP.
Build Quality is also very good as well. I mean, generally they're fine but you might get the occasional hiccup. I think because of the higher price point, perhaps more money was thrown at QC. As mentioned, the actual parts themselves are fantastic, and this includes the chrome work. I'm quite surprised at how well the parts fit on the body though, and part of me has considered that perhaps this is due to either the new nature of this figure, or perhaps tolerances are better when using chrome. Whatever the reason is, this is a well made and produced figure.
Yeah, this was $!20 USD, but I don't really think they're ever going to do another figure like this because, well, I can't think of any other ones. So at best, it's going to be a reissue or a 2.0, but this isn't one of those characters I care about THAT much that I would keep up with the Joneses. If you're a Dragonball collector or Figuart collector, this figure really is that well made that I'd suggest seeking one out to add to your collection.. presuming you can find one. If it was already $!20 on P Bandai, I hate to think what third party stores are asking.
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