There’s nothing quite like owning physical goods, but they can be expensive, and shelf space can come at a premium.  Every Wednesday Hardcore Gamer picks a premium collectible from our cavernous swag vaults and tells you whether it’s worth a spot in your Collector’s Cabinet.

Posable figurines are some of the most fun collectibles on the market, but they have their drawbacks. If you’re into doing photoshoots with your favourite characters, then they’re a godsend, but if you prefer to display your figures the joints detract from the overall fidelity of the model. It can be a little off-putting for a human character to have ball joints in their knees and elbows. This is the main reason I prefer to collect nendoroids – they pose with interchangeable limbs rather than articulated joints – but this reservation does not apply to robots, where ball joints make sense. Revoltech in particular has done a fantastic job with their line of Mecha, and while I’m not a big enough fan of the subgenre to collect any myself (not even the EVAs) I do appreciate the artistry of their design. When I saw the Cyborg Ninja Grey Fox (my favorite Metal Gear Solid character) in their production lineup for this year, I finally felt compelled to add a Revoltech figure to my collection (aside from the long out-of-print Professor Layton, of course).

That said, rm-005 Cyborg Ninja is not actually a full Revoltech figure. Instead he is the fifth entry in their smaller, lower-priced Revol Mini series, which also includes Solid Snake and Iron Man. These new figures stand a full inch shorter than their big brothers and come with substantially fewer accessories, but they retail for a full thousand yen (about ten dollars) cheaper – something to consider if you’re looking to collect on a budget. Katsuhisa Yamaguchi, the sculptor of the Revoltech line, takes a lot of pride in his work, so don’t let the lower price fool you into thinking this is an inferior product.

The sculpting and paint job on the Cyborg Ninja figure are top-notch. There’s nary a drop of paint bleed in sight, and the segmented design of Gray Fox’s armor almost perfectly disguises the ball joints holding him together. What really impressed me about this figure is the way the muscles are molded on each individual piece. No matter how you contort the figure, so long as it’s physically possible, the placement and apparent tension in the muscles makes any pose look natural. A lot of sculptors fail to account for this in their models, or otherwise disregard it entirely because the simplistic style of anime makes it unnecessary, but it’s this attention to detail that sets Yamaguchi’s figures apart.

 

Aside from five interchangeable hands (two closed fists, two open palms, and one grip hand to hold items) there are only two accessories included in the box. You’ll be able to play around with Cyborg Ninja’s trademark katana and arm-mounted laser canon, but don’t expect any cool set decoration or props to go with them. The gun is well-made but somewhat static, and really feels like more of a sixth hand part than a standalone accessory. The sword, meanwhile, is nicely made and will probably never leave the Ninja’s hands, not even (and this is one of the best things about this figure) by accident. Cyborg Ninja’s grip on his weapon is nice and firm, meaning it will stay in place once he’s holding it, but the way his hand is designed means that it can be held backwards or forwards, allowing for a wide variety of badass ninja poses.

The figure attempts to make up for its lack of extras with increased flexibility, boasting a full 16 points of articulation. This nearly works. Revoltech’s standard ball joints are of very high quality, moving easily when you need to pose them but staying in place once you’re done. For the most part the smaller joints of the minis are up to the same standard, but the same can’t be said for the pegs that hold them in place. I found the ninja’s hips in particular to be overly stiff, and more than once a leg popped out of its socket while I was trying to set up a new pose. On top of that the extremely thin pegs that keep the hands on the end of Grey Fox’s arms are a little unreliable and have a tendency to fall out. Once a pose is set the figure will almost always stay in it, but getting there can be a bit of a hassle.

The Revol Mini Cyborg Ninja is remarkably well-sculpted, and Metal Gear Solid fans will be delighted to see how true the figure is to the games. Sadly, its small joints are a little too fiddly, and that makes posing the figure less fun than it should be. The sculpt hides the joints so well, however, that the figure is ironically better-suited to holding a pose in a display case than being jostled around for a photoshoot.

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