Seto kaiba & yami yugi 1/7 scale figures by kotobikuya |
These are figures from the Art FX line by Kotokukiya. There are also Malik, Yami Malik and Jonouchi figures in this line.
I picked up these guys when they got re-released at the end of last month and i'm pretty happy i did! I missed out first time round since i wasn't a collector at the time. Yu-gi-oh was one of my favourite shows from my childhood, (and let's face it, early to mid teens) i just fell in love with how awesomely absurd everything was: Ancient dark magic wielding Pharaoh possessing the body of a kid to play children's card games to decide the fate of the world?? Hell yeah! So it's no surprise that when my favourite characters got high quality, scaled figures i wanted them! |
This figure is perfect in terms of capturing his character and the look of the art style, i.e. really weird proportions and hairstyles. I never realized how much Kaiba's hair looks like a bran muffin until seeing him in 3D and i now can't unsee it.
He's wearing his "come at me, peasants" smirk; warning that you're gonna get inexplicably hurt in a children's card game if you cross him. The box shows him with an over confident look but i'm kinda glad they didn't make his face like that. Having his face stuck like that would give me nightmares. If you do want nightmares however, another version of this statue was made with him in the pose on the box but...no. Not for me thanks. His coat is fabulous. It's painted with glossy paint which looks great against the matte black of his trousers and top. They even did the weird bunchy thing at his waist!
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Let's do Kaiba first!
I freaking love Kaiba - he's my favourite guy from the show (narrowly followed by Yugi) mostly because he's literally ridiculous. He's a snarky, rich, teenage genius asshole (and quite often badass) with an ego so big it has it's own gravitational pull. And, at least in the terrible 4Kids dubs i grew up with, he had the worst choice of insults. Like really. There's also the fact that he and Yami Yugi's voice actors try and out ham each other constantly, it's classic. For the most part, the sculpting and shading is perfect. The shading on his coat for example is amazing (and reminds me of a BEWD; is that intentional?). It's a shiny glossy finish with grey-blue shading and it works so, so well. There are only two things that annoy me and unfortunately they're both to do with said coat.
Firstly: it's hard to see on the picture, but there's a huuuge seam line running around his waist, near where the folds in his coat are. It's a huge glaring thing in person and it's pretty unfortunate. And secondly: They coloured the inside of his coat the wrong colour! It should be cherry red (and it doesn't look too bad on the picture..) but instead it's a purple-pink raspberry colour that looks fluorescent pink in sunlight T_T it's kind of a nitpick but it annoys me quite a lot. |
I hate to say it cause i love Kaiba a lot, but i think i prefer Yami Yugi's figure. Kaiba's figure is striking and has a great presence (like the man himself) but Yami Yugi's colours just pop more. I love that his trousers and jacket have been painted with gloss to give it that sheen; it really stands out nicely against all his black stuff and gives a bit of interest to an outfit that could have been quite dull.
The red and purple tones in his hair also make a striking contrast against the deep blues, with the yellow giving that extra burst of colour. |
Yami Yugi next!
It took me a while to warm to Yami Yugi as a character, just cause he's so bizarre. An amnesiac Egyptian pharaoh with dark magic, sealed in an ancient artifact of doom, possessing the mind and body of a kid to play card games? Yeeeahh. But i like things that are absurd so i grew to like him quite a lot. The figure isn't without issues, however. Changing parts was annoying.
Seriously annoying. To put on his jacket and puzzle you have to pop his head off, remove the choker then put them all back in the right order. Which is easier said than done because the puzzle likes to move around a lot and all the pieces are really tightly fitting, so getting everything to stay is hard. You also risk paint transfer when removing the black choker. Swapping out his hands is easier thankfully. There were also a few paint issues with his jacket, which i've seen some reviewers get, so i was pre-warned. On the picture above, on his jacket just above the shoulder seam to the left, is a small rectangular patch that looks lighter. It's not glare from the glossy paint. Rather, it's a spot that wasn't glossed. It feels rough to the touch and generally isn't nice. Luckily that's the only big bit of missing/badly painted figure, so i think they did a very good job. |
blue eyes white dragon one coin figure
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Thinking about it, most of my love of Kaiba as a kid was because of his dragons. I loved dragons more than anything else in the world as a kid; they were the first thing i ever collected and they're still my number one animal today.
So it's hardly surprising that i'd choose to get some BEWDs! BEWDs are pretty weird actually, as dragons go. They look like the Xenomorphs from Alien sprouted wings; something to do with their weird, elongated head and spiky teeth. I like xenomorphs so it's good for me, but they are pretty freaky looking if you think about it! This one coin figure is a tiny, cute representation of the fierce monster. |