Review: Kabuki 6" figure

Posted by Lindsay

This one is a bit unusual.  I spotted this figure at a local comic shop just recently, but it's dated 2000.  

I have zero idea what the background of this figure is.  Let's try Google, shall we?

Apparently Kabuki is/was a comic series which “is about an assassin who struggles with her identity, in near-future Japan,” according to Wikipedia.  

Good enough for me.

Kabuki was made by Moore Collectibles.  I'm not sure that they're still in business...

A bit more Google work seems to indicate that the sculptor has moved into doing only high-end sculpture.  Hey, guess who doesn't care about high-end sculpture!

Appearance and Construction:  7/10

Okay, the good first:  The sculpt is fairly interesting, and the paint decent.  I love the dragon tattoo that wraps around the torso, and the detail on the utility belt is very nice.  The large sleeve things are a little odd looking, although I like the wrapping detail on the lower arms.

However, the paint on the face and hair could be better, and overall the level of detail is uneven. 

Her lower half feels like an afterthought, design-wise. 

And I find it odd that there is shading on those sleeve things, but nowhere else.

There is a larger problem with the figure, but I'll go into that more below.

Packaging and Accessories: +2

The packaging actually has done a good job of protecting all the small bits, so kudos there.  I'm amused that they warn you about possible sharp parts of the stand.

Now, I bought this figure for the accessories.  I don't care about having a Kabuki figure, I don't know who Kabuki is, and there is way too much tiny tiny text on the back of this pack for me to read through it all.  But she comes with a pretty good looking stand, and a great assortment of weapons.

 
In total: 2 guns, a sword, nun-chucks, a hand sickle, a hand sickle attached to a chain, and a grappling hook and rope.  Plus two extra hands, giving her a left and right “holding” hand and a left and right “gun” hand.  Plus a mask, which in fact stays on nicely.

I wish that the stand didn't say Kabuki on it, but other than that, this is a great haul.  The weapons are nicely detailed, sturdy, and a bit sharp!  The figure is 6 inches, but petite for that scale, which means depending on the piece, her accessories work as a little big for 4 inch figures and a little small for 6.  I have a lot of potential here. 

Be aware that she has a hard time holding many of her accessories.  The hands that were packed separately go on easily enough, but they don't hold the weapons securely the way they should.

The mask is very cool, though, and I appreciate that the chains on the nun-chucks and sickle-thing are actual metal.

Play and Display: -2

The articulation here is pretty bad.  Shoulder and wrist cuts, neck cut, hip cuts and knee hinges.  Most of these joints only sort of work.

Let me preface this next part:  Who knows where this package has been for ten years.  It's probable that it has stood up to a great deal of heat and impact damage, just from being in the pack that long.  So the fact that it's still in decent condition at all is pretty good. 

But that doesn't excuse the fact that the pin holding together her left knee fairly quickly loosened, and then broke into several pieces as I was posing her.

Also the hip joints, crummy cuts though they are normally, had fused into complete immobility.  I was able to crack them open, but only the right one is really functional.

Price Tag and Final Analysis: 7/10

I paid 5 dollars for this figure at a Manhattan comic shop.  In case you somehow missed this, I was buying it for the weapons set. 

Kabuki is going right into the spare parts bin.  But 5 dollars for a bunch of nice weaponry, a stand I might use and some body parts?  Sounds like a decent deal to me.

For more from Erin and I, you could try my book review blog, Erin's general geek blog, or Erin's original fiction.