Astro Toy

Figma Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman

Figma Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman
Series: Attack on Titan
Maker: Max Factory/Good Smile
Price: ~$50 each

We haven't had a double review in a really long time. Usually I do it with teams: like if you're watching Jojo Stardust Crusaders right now, we did those figure reviews years ago. This time it happens that I put in orders on everything Titan, just to be safe, and that meant that I made orders on both the Eren and Mikasa figures without realizing it. These figures are too similar to review in separate columns, so my scheduling mishap is your gain! It's double review time.

The Titan toy wave continues. For those not keeping track the hit/miss record for Titan on the column up until now is one modest hit (the Titan playset) and one huge miss (Nendoroid Mikasa). The figmas will be the tiebreaker. They'd been out for a while, they'd just sold out instantly. Repeatedly. I believe both of these are from either a second or a third production run.

Anyway, here's the base Eren. The level of detail and care here is evident immediately upon looking at the figure. The many belts, buckles and even the buttons on the Survey Corps outfit are crisply detailed, and the Corps decals are very clean as well. The jacket (torso part) and the skirt are both made of flexible plastic to move with the figure.

Obviously, since it's the same uniform, ditto to all this for Mikasa. The body shapes are of course very different (she's buffer than him, of course): they didn't use the uniform as an excuse to cheap out on sculpt.

Articulation is very good, in line with the advances made in recent figmas. Obviously I just opted to make Eren look stupid, but the shoulder movement to get the arms around the back of the head is actually kind of a rare feat (and needed for the salute). You'll note that the skirt has been used to hide a lot of articulation around the hips, including legs that can swivel in place at the thigh. Since these two do a lot of flying around, it's particularly important that the figure is able to move well.

Accessories are identical for both figures, aside from Mikasa's removable scarf (why would I do that, though). You get the blades...

and a small cape which is forever fluttering back in the wind.

Of course, it is inevitable that the main accessory for an Attack on Titan figure should be the 3D Movement Gear, which in the series allows the characters to fly on cords to fight the titular Titans. The gear is sculpted in as much detail as the characters are, and certainly accounts for the extra cost of these figures.

The backpack is of course where things start to get fiddly: it can't be helped due to the nature of the thing. The backpack first goes into the back, then the side parts-- attached by flexible plastic that the manual warns can break-- plug into the legs. The pegs are as unfriendly as they are on most figmas, and having to secure this many of them at once is an arduous chore. Did I mention that you can have the cape on at the same time? Like I said, it gets fiddly.

The wire anchors go into holes on the backpack for a wire-shooting effect. If you want to go full Spidey, there's actually a quantity of wire and hooks for you to play around with. I didn't mess with this; the setup was prone to falling apart enough before I put it on a string and hooked it to a damn cliff.

Steam effect parts for the movement gear complete the set, and they're definitely convincing. There's a second hole in the lower back for the stand: when you try to put all these things together everything is going to fall apart over and over again. When you finally get it together, you're not going to want to touch it ever again.

Keep in mind I'm actually really impressed by what they were able to do getting the 3D Gear working at this scale and size. It's not difficult to put this together by some designer oversight: it's just an extremely difficult piece of equipment to translate into a toy while keeping the aesthetics. In conclusion, some novelty toy designer should design an Eren figure in the style of the famously off-model Clover Gundam.

Facial expressions for both characters are either grim (the default we've been using), aghast, or angry. Such is the world of Titan.

These are top-quality figmas, representative of the line at its best. (Getting both was kind of unnecessary, but what are you gonna do?) Titan fans are not only safe buying them, they'll be extremely pleased by them. The 3D gear is a lot of trouble, but it's also an extremely tall order for an action figure in this scale, so I can forgive them if it's a pain to put together... so long as it can be put together. After the terrible Mikasa Nendoroid I looked at, this is a real relief.

Each of these was about $58 shipped from Amiami, which isn't really bad at all for a deluxe figma. As I write this preorders have just opened up for Levi, and they probably won't be open anymore by the time you read this. As I write this, they are in stock, and I suspect with as many production runs as these figures have had, you're probably not going to have any problem getting your hands on them anymore.

Finally, I'd like to announce a giveaway of these very figures! Here's how it's going to go: all you have to do is post a funny picture involving your figures in the comments of this article. Here are my rules:

No text
No photoshopping
Nothing pornographic
Revoltech Woody is played out

The picture which most directly caters to my sense of humor gets the figures on us. This contest is open to all territories. Pictures must be posted in the comments section for this article; no email submissions will be accepted. The winner will be notified by June 20th, 2014 and announced in the June 22nd installment of Astro Toy. Good luck!

When he isn't killing time on fighting games and mahjong, David Cabrera makes moe 4-panel comics about videogames at Kawaiikochan.You can follow him on Twitter @sasuraiger.