No out of town trip is complete for me unless I find some cheap Figma of some sort. Montreal was no different, and I saved those for last. I managed to find three such figures, all complete but loose, and at very agreeable prices. The first of which is Figma 049: Persona 3 Aigis/Aegis... I swear I've seen it both ways.
This Aigis is the first of three releases, with the two being Heavy Weapons (Persona 3 FES) and her appears in Ultimate Arena. The package came with the following:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 3 x Face Plates (Smiling, Side-eye, Focused)
- 10 x Posing/Gripping hands (pretty sure the gripping hands are to be used with accessories from Metis)
- 2 x Machine Gun Magazines
- 1 x Rocket Punch (with detachable fist)
- 2 x Ankle Attachments
- 1 x Figma Stand
All in all, a pretty typical package for a Figma. What's kind of annoying is that unlike the Heavy Weapons version, there were no machine gun firing effects or hands or whatever. I guess you could use the flat palm hand to aim the right direction, but that's about it.
So Aigis was built on the Figma 1.0 platform, which features the hands with the wrist pegs built in, along with a slightly squished head/hair. Overall though, figure appears to be in line with official art pieces for the character from Persona 3., including the extremely long lower legs and overall silhouette. Profile of the face is a bit off, but the overall shape is about right. Colour matching has never really been an issue with Figma releases, and this figure doesn't buck that trend.
Articulation levels for the figure are on par with Figma 1.0 standards, so the major joints but limited shoulder and head movement. Further complicating matters are the lack of ankle joints and the fact that basically anything other than your basic standing pose will require a stand or some other support. Even then, getting a basic standing pose out of the figure is a bit tougher than normal as you're basically making her stand on ice skates.
The irregular leg proportions are also responsible for crouching poses being pretty much a non existent thing for Aigis, as the angles needed to make a solid pose are very hard to pull off.
Paint wise, again, you're looking at the typical above average to good paint applications. There's no overspray observed, and paint bleeding is kept to a minimum, though there is some on the areas of finer detail. Some of the finer details are also prone to some weaker than anticipated paint applications, such as the thin gold line at her pelvis. Overall though, Aigis looks solid and you really have to be on the look out for issues to find any.
Build quality wise, first and foremost I'm not a fan of the 1.0 hands, as I've broken a few of them before resulting in the loss of the hand. For this particular figure, they also make the cuff too deep, and as a result when you insert a hand into the hole, it doesn't go all the way in, so it always looks like you didn't insert the hand all way, when it fact it actually can't go any further. Tolerances are also that much more important on these older hands - for some reason, one of the hands fit on the hand holder, but fall out of the wrist, but other hands would be fine. Everything else, however, is as expected, in that joints would hold poses, no QC issues with regards to limbs or general bad finishes.
The play experience with older Figma is generally more limiting than new figures, but it generally never fails at being a very competent figure of whatever IP you happen to be chasing. Aigis is certainly, at the very least, a very competent figure.
It's probably the weakest of the three iterations, but it's also the only one that comes with the Rocket Punch, so it has that going for it. One day, I'll get that Heavy Weapons versions and complete the set.
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