The shine may be wearing off my S.H. Figuarts obsession. I’m starting to find little faults with each figure I get lately, including a few on the Avengers: Age of Ultron Black Widow. Either Bandai is slipping or I’m getting older and crankier. Or both. Probably both.
But it’s not like it a huge drop in quality with Natasha. Articulation hindered a little, some odd decisions, but she still looks and moves great.
The package is a standard S.H. Figuarts box. It’s rectangle shaped and made of cardboard. Clear window. Figure inside. It’s weird how we reviewers try to come up with something new to describe the same thing over and over. After this many years I still attempt it. In a few years I’ll just type “Package” and post the pictures. Probably to the same effect.
Even in the box I knew Widow would look great. It’s all in the face with Figuarts and they pulled it off again. And the proportions and body are pretty good too.
But without sounding too lewd, it’s all about the head. I tried several different ways of wording that but I can’t help it. Short and sweet. The head makes this figure. The face itself because of Bandai’s printing technology, but even the hair is lifelike. The gradations in color makes it pop, and the use of metallic red here is much more successful than the shiny gold of Luke Skywalker’s hair.
Okay, the likeness isn’t perfect, but from a lot of angles it’s damn close. As always, in close-up pics the details of the eyes and such look weird but in person, tiny person. Just a shrunken human running around on your toy shelf.
The sculpt on the body is fantastic with all kinds of little details and textures, but I feel like it’s not perfect for Scarlett Johansson’s body as seen in the movies. The figure is a little more lithe and streamlined.
For accessories I’m going to list some things that can be separate but aren’t packed as such. The doodads and thingamabobs on the belt.
These are all little separate pieces attached to the belt by ball joints. They can be tilted, turned, and removed. Which makes them a little troublesome. They tend to drift around while posing and my big fear is that I’m going to lose them somewhere in carpet purgatory.
For other accessories, the figure has Black Widow’s pistols:
And her batons:
Finally, she has the usual hand options. Fists, grip, trigger, and splayed open.
Articulation is another sticking point for me. There are a lot of joints and they work great for the most part, but the biggest downfall is her inability to point both guns straight forward. The other trouble joint is the ankle, or, more specifically, the shape of the foot. It cause stability issues and the ankle doesn’t help things. You can get poses, it just takes a little longer than a lot of other figures. You can see all the points of articulation and range of movement in my video review.
Comparing the S.H. Figuarts to Marvel Legends Captain Marvel, you can see that she isn’t going to fit in on you comic shelf.
She will fit in a little better with your Marvel Legends MCU figures. It’s not perfect but with some creative posing it can be fudged.
Where this figure really shines is with other Figuarts Marvel movie characters.
Now here comes a little more negativity. The price. I understand that Widow is a Tamashii Web exclusive, but it seems like prices are going up all over. I pre-ordered Age of Ultron Hawkeye and it cost over $85 after shipping. I paid for Widow in March and I think it was over $60. The whole price situation made me pass on War Machine. It’s sad because I really like the Black Widow figure; the likeness is awesome and she’s a great presence on my shelf, but if it’s a trend trend for Bandai to raise the price on each release in the Marvel S.H. Figuarts line, I may just have to pass on more in the future, no matter how fantastic they look.
S.H. Figuarts Black Widow is currently available on BBTS.
I feel you on some of those. But I think on others it’s a bit different.
With Figuarts, their Japanese properties get the most attention.
They have the best engineering hands down, no matter the figure, no matter the style.
On top of that, you get like 3 figures a year. Never a whole wave.
It’s the lines I call “cash ins” that have all the varying degrees of engineering and detail and too many figures released at once to maintain the level of quality Figuarts is known for.
Star Wars and The various Marvel Movie figures are two such lines.
One of my good friends, and fellow youtube reviewer ODC DATSME, is a Star Wars Fanatic. He almost buys everything Star Wars and has been picking up everything from the Black series and certain figures from Figuarts of characters he digs.
Darth Maul had QC issues that I’ve never seen with Figuarts…Never.
Stuff like arms falling off in package.
Or legs not assembled correctly.
My other hommie, Agent O, also a fellow YouTuber, got into figuarts becaus of me.
He’s a big marvel fan and really got into the Marvel movie figures.
He’s had issues with Thor, more than one Iron Man, Black Widow and Ultron to name a few.
Articulation has been limited…in a figuarts? I couldn’t believe it.
Details unpainted.
Again…in a figuarts?
I’ve been collecting imports for a little less than 10 years, with the majority being Figuarts. FIGMA come up a close second with S.I.C. coming in third.
Almost all are Japanese series and have been around for a long time…Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, various anime characters(Mostly the Type Moon stuff), Ultraman.
That kinda thing.
None of them have had any issues, let alone the ones all those American properties have seemed to have.
The only issue I see them all having in common is the damn Tamashii web exclusives.
I hate those.
Yup GoD Bruce and Rock Lee are high up on my list for next year as well.
Totally agree that people are nitpicking. Just received mine and it’s just fantastic. Beautiful figure and excellent sculpt, paint and articulation. I get the price complaints, but I think Bandai do their thing knowing their market. Black Widow is a must figure for Avengers hard core collectors, but for the casual people that only have an Iron Man or a Batman on their shelves it’s obviously a hard sell. I’m fine if they do the more marketable figures at a better price and more expensive short runs on the rest of figures so collectors at least can get their roster complete, even if paying too much for it.
I still gotta watch your Black Widow review.
As for Hawkeye, just wait til he shows up “you know where”.
I may still get a BP some time soon.
He’s up there on my list but Game of Death Bruce Lee and a bunch of others are higher.
I LOVE IT…All this nitpicking on a figuarts but when the Legends come out, hardly a peep.
I get the issues with price, but c’mon with the nitpicking.
Sometimes it is warranted…especially for the price. A figure over 50$ should be immaculate.
But immaculate is in proportion to the design.
A simple design can only have sooo much detail.
The Widow from the films is a simple design with a lot of things popping up once you’re close up.
It can’t really be THAT immaculate…just accurate.
And it is.
As for the whole Tamashii web exclusive thing…
I’m with you guys 10000000000000000000%.
It’s why I only got the Age of Ultron Cap and ignored the rest of the releases.
They need to reserve that for characters that are in popular franchises but are less of fan favorites.
I don’t get how they didn’t just make the main Avengers, Black panther, and War machine regular releases and Agent 13, Spidey and maybe Vision or a larger Ant-Man the exclusives…or something along those lines.
As a pretty hardcore figuarts collector I never can get behind selling equally important characters for a big mark-up. It’s as bad as HASBRO simply NOT MAKING important members of our favorite teams.
Her face just looks… flat. And this is the new “printing” way of applying paint to the faces? It looks extremely unfinished to me, or “unsealed” so to speak – like it’s a custom job that isn’t quite done.
But points where points are due – they got her hair almost right, parted from the side.
I agree on both the Black Widow and Ultron being exclusives. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m not a completist collector, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy the Hawkeye figure as well. It’s another figure that shouldn’t be a Tamashii web exclusive. Excited about my Black Panther though
While I love Figuarts I do feel they’re a bit more drastic in terms of quality. Yes I tend to always point at Figma and laugh (despite owning a bunch) but ya know, quality is generally going to stay the same. With Figuarts, and well Bandai in general, the quality can jump all over the place. I don’t think Widow looks bad, but I can see a lot of the flaws when compared to others in the line. So if anything, that bugs me with Bandai despite doing a lot of things I really like. They’re quality can just jump all over the place and sometimes I do feel they just don’t care.
Honestly I think my little honeymoon with Figuarts might be over. Well, unless they come out with a lot of brand new sparkling Star Wars stuff and I throw all these words out the window.
I agree, their Dark Knight Joker looks horrid, I was shocked at how awful it looks. And yes, Thor was bad, and Hulk didn’t look screen accurate at all. I don’t get how we can get Iron Man mark 46 for $60 (amazing figure) and then get a piece of garbage like Hulk for closer to $80. Just doesn’t track logically. I have become much smarter when shopping for SH Figuarts now, I watch reviews and youtube videos from Tamashii Nations floor shows in Japan to get a better idea of how their up coming figures will actually look.
To me, it seems like some SH Figuarts figures are a miss because I don’t think they put the same time and effort into each figure. Maybe different sculptors or teams handle certain licenses. When you look at Darth Maul and both Luke’s, Mace Windu and Obi-Wan, most of their Iron Man suits of armor, Bruce Lee, those figures are all nearly flawless. Same for their Lupin figures, but the Lupin figures are half the price, and you can tell the build quality isn’t on the same level (construction, engineering and paint applications). It’s like they have their best crew working on some figures or something. Of course this is all speculation on my part, but I have tons of SH Figuart figures from their different lines and they’re kinda all over the place in terms of quality/design/execution.
Both Black Widow and Ultron were web exclusives and way over priced and nowhere near as good as other figures they had previously released. Head sculpt on this Black Widow is great, the profile is garbage, the body suit highlights are too dramatic, and it looks like it fits more in with the SH Figuarts Dragonball or Naruto figures rather than their other Marvel offerings. I can tell from all the Tamashii show videos that Black Panther is gonna be great so I’m saving up for that. But I cancelled my Hawkeye because it’s too over priced and just doesn’t look quite as nice as I’d hoped. Tony Stark looks like he’ll be on point. Just have to keep shopping smart cuz these are freaking bank busters man.
I gotta ask…the hulk? I mean I get cap. I get the antman…hell…i even get thor…but hulk? C’mon man
I think I might sound like a broken record, but like Mafex and Mezco latest offerings, the Bloom seems to be off the rose. You see little problems from figures that should not be there. For the figuarts price, I feel face sculpts need to be better and so do the extra parts.
I was forgiving of Cap and looking like the actor in certain angles, and with Widow, I kind of started to assess Figuarts. Even with their upcoming Dark Knight Joker, it is a TERRIBLE likeness that makes Mattel look like the high quality brand.
The guns and hands are an BIG issue since it is Widow. I think the scaling is a bit off with her if I were to be super picky. But so many glaring problems and many of which was fixable. Right now I feel my figuarts Marvel figures are in hibernation mode.
In all honesty, Thor, Cap, Widow, Hulk had awful to subpar likenesses. For the price, I feel it is time to be MORE critical and call a spade a spade.
Yeah, I bit the bullet on this one…I love her…I mean I don’t care if mezco makes a 1:12…this is my widow…Hawkeye
and black panther I’m debating on, but this one is good, and I mean good enough to be the lady figure…of this character