DSC_0040
Ah Professional Wrestling.. or as someone once called it, "Male Soap Opera". Full of all sorts of plots, storylines, and drama. While there are highs and lows with regards to the motivation of the players, the one thing that is consistent is the fact it is a very physically demanding occupation.
I don't watch any of it these days, but I was a bit more active during what is known as the "Attitude Era", which took place during the 2000s. This wonderful time made many prominent new stars, such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, as well as continued the development of preexisting players like The Undertaker and of course, master of The Pedigree - Triple H, Hunter Hearst Hemsley, The Cerebral Assassin, The Game, The King of Kings... whatever you like to call him.
Picked him up on a whim cause he was cheap and more importantly, I had visions of Woody getting slammed and was curious how well articulated the wrestling bodies were.
My best guess is that this is based on a beefier standard body, and not the Tamashii Nations "Fighting Body" that the Street Fighter figures are based on.
Content wise, the set does alright. You get the figure, three total expressions (neutral, yelling, smiling), three sets of hands (closed fists, weapon grabbing fists, opening and closing fists), sledgehammer, and bottle of water. The only thing that would have been nice to add would have been a water spay effect.
Triple H certainly looks the part.. well mostly. The body is never going to be 100% accurate, but it does get his musculature and overall silhouette pretty accurately, with a somewhat undersized chest and honestly, not enough body hair for Attitude era Triple H.
The hair on his head, much like with Infinity War Widow, is gold instead of blonde, and is decently detailed for a figure of this size. Faces are hit and miss - the neutral face is fairly well done. They got expression, and the general shape of Triple H's brow, nose, and eyes. In the right light, you get a really good photo of him.
The yelling and laughing faces are... serviceable. In the right light, they're terrible, and you can be sure I had some fun with that.
Articulation isn't as refined as I'd like for a wrestling figure. I mean sure, the main points of articulation are there - ankles, double jointed knee, hips with thigh swivel, mid torso, shoulders with chest collapse, double jointed elbows with elbow twist, wrists, neck, and head. The hair, much like other figures with hair that drapes down close to the body, affects the ability of the figure to turn its head.
Ankles can rotate a full 360 degrees so you can replicate Kurt Angle breaking it, I suppose.
The chest collapse allows for pretty good replication of various holds, but the posing of the upper body is somewhat hampered by the elbows not allowing as deep a bend as I'd like.
While the hips pull down to allow for greater range of motion, the thighs are designed such in a full seated position they do no come together, which can make posing posing drivers or other seated slams a bit challenging.
Similar to the elbows, the knees could have used a bit more range of motion, but to do that you'd probably have to cut into the thigh and mess with silhouette.
From a paint perspective, he's deceptively simple looking. While not as vibrant as the other figures I've looked at. there's actually quite a bit of paint on the figure. For starters, the flesh coloured parts are almost all painted, with some dark airbrushing to emphasize muscles. It's the lack of colours that makes things hard to see. Overall, you get smooth paint applications, with average-at-best masking, especially given how simple the actual masking spots are. The digital face painting itself seems to be reasonably sharp, with the sculpt itself being what throws things off.
Build quality is what you expect - solid across the board. No issues with joint strength, limbs are the right length, parts hold together well, and no alignment issues. The finish isn't quite a strong as a Figma in terms of hiding seam lines, but again, Fiiguarts rarely are.
A neat figure and a pretty good Triple H, probably no worse off in terms of accuracy as any other figure based on a live action property. Not sure how well these (the WWE Figuarts line) sold, based on the pricing I've seen, but I imagine over here it's a bit tougher to get wrestling fans to buy based on the MSRP, even if the body and accuracy are better than your run of the mill figure. The sledgehammer was definitely a must have in this set... Triple H without a sledgehammer is like selling Stone Cold without a beer.
I've got a few interesting figures waiting to be unboxed, and one or two coming in the mail, a group of which includes a few things that effectively showed up because of "support local business" and aren't in my appetite.
So stay tuned!
DSC_0040
Ah Professional Wrestling.. or as someone once called it, "Male Soap Opera". Full of all sorts of plots, storylines, and drama. While there are highs and lows with regards to the motivation of the players, the one thing that is consistent is the fact it is a very physically demanding occupation.
I don't watch any of it these days, but I was a bit more active during what is known as the "Attitude Era", which took place during the 2000s. This wonderful time made many prominent new stars, such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, as well as continued the development of preexisting players like The Undertaker and of course, master of The Pedigree - Triple H, Hunter Hearst Hemsley, The Cerebral Assassin, The Game, The King of Kings... whatever you like to call him.
Picked him up on a whim cause he was cheap and more importantly, I had visions of Woody getting slammed and was curious how well articulated the wrestling bodies were.
My best guess is that this is based on a beefier standard body, and not the Tamashii Nations "Fighting Body" that the Street Fighter figures are based on.
Content wise, the set does alright. You get the figure, three total expressions (neutral, yelling, smiling), three sets of hands (closed fists, weapon grabbing fists, opening and closing fists), sledgehammer, and bottle of water. The only thing that would have been nice to add would have been a water spay effect.
Triple H certainly looks the part.. well mostly. The body is never going to be 100% accurate, but it does get his musculature and overall silhouette pretty accurately, with a somewhat undersized chest and honestly, not enough body hair for Attitude era Triple H.
The hair on his head, much like with Infinity War Widow, is gold instead of blonde, and is decently detailed for a figure of this size. Faces are hit and miss - the neutral face is fairly well done. They got expression, and the general shape of Triple H's brow, nose, and eyes. In the right light, you get a really good photo of him.
The yelling and laughing faces are... serviceable. In the right light, they're terrible, and you can be sure I had some fun with that.
Articulation isn't as refined as I'd like for a wrestling figure. I mean sure, the main points of articulation are there - ankles, double jointed knee, hips with thigh swivel, mid torso, shoulders with chest collapse, double jointed elbows with elbow twist, wrists, neck, and head. The hair, much like other figures with hair that drapes down close to the body, affects the ability of the figure to turn its head.
Ankles can rotate a full 360 degrees so you can replicate Kurt Angle breaking it, I suppose.
The chest collapse allows for pretty good replication of various holds, but the posing of the upper body is somewhat hampered by the elbows not allowing as deep a bend as I'd like.
While the hips pull down to allow for greater range of motion, the thighs are designed such in a full seated position they do no come together, which can make posing posing drivers or other seated slams a bit challenging.
Similar to the elbows, the knees could have used a bit more range of motion, but to do that you'd probably have to cut into the thigh and mess with silhouette.
From a paint perspective, he's deceptively simple looking. While not as vibrant as the other figures I've looked at. there's actually quite a bit of paint on the figure. For starters, the flesh coloured parts are almost all painted, with some dark airbrushing to emphasize muscles. It's the lack of colours that makes things hard to see. Overall, you get smooth paint applications, with average-at-best masking, especially given how simple the actual masking spots are. The digital face painting itself seems to be reasonably sharp, with the sculpt itself being what throws things off.
Build quality is what you expect - solid across the board. No issues with joint strength, limbs are the right length, parts hold together well, and no alignment issues. The finish isn't quite a strong as a Figma in terms of hiding seam lines, but again, Fiiguarts rarely are.
A neat figure and a pretty good Triple H, probably no worse off in terms of accuracy as any other figure based on a live action property. Not sure how well these (the WWE Figuarts line) sold, based on the pricing I've seen, but I imagine over here it's a bit tougher to get wrestling fans to buy based on the MSRP, even if the body and accuracy are better than your run of the mill figure. The sledgehammer was definitely a must have in this set... Triple H without a sledgehammer is like selling Stone Cold without a beer.
I've got a few interesting figures waiting to be unboxed, and one or two coming in the mail, a group of which includes a few things that effectively showed up because of "support local business" and aren't in my appetite.
So stay tuned!