to another review!
As usual this one will be picture-heavy, but I guess it won’t be pretty. If you feel easily offended by people being overly critical about figures, please move on (no need to upset yourself). ヾ(_ _。）
This time I’ll take a closer look at item/675573 MegaHouse’s depiction of Arsène from Persona 5. Without delving into too much detail or spoiler-territory, Arsène is the initial Persona of the protagonist from Persona 5. The awakening scene at the beginning of the game is one of the epic scenes that stuck to me and even with my reservations about MH due to past bad experiences, the prototype looked cool enough to preorder right away.
Well…
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Before I get ahead of myself I’ll start by taking a look at the box, there’s till plenty of time to… errr… voice my opinions. So, after getting rid of the outer Megatrea Shop box (which I didn’t bother to take pictures of) the figure’s box features a mostly red and black design with some white elements and pictures of the figure itself from various angles. The stylized visuals, the stars and the whole design is very reminiscent of the game (can’t say anything about the anime as I don’t want to watch it). Even the interior and bottom of the box fit the overall theme and certainly make a good first impression. The front has a big window allowing you to look at the figure, a smaller one can be found at the top, while star-shaped ones at the side were added to emphasize the overall theme.
As you can see he come in 2 blisters, one for the figures, base and effects and another one for the large wings. A usual practice I believe and nothing to complain about.
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Well then, after taking everything out we’re left with 1 figure, 2 wings, 1 base, 2 flame effects that have to be attached to the base and a support rod for said flames. With some tries you’ll eventually figure out how to put everything together, but just for the sheer amount of parts an instruction sheet would have been nice… I mean it’s just a piece of paper (though I’ve owned MH figures where they just printed that on the box’s bottom too) and I think for that price something should be included. Since it isn’t and some people still seem to struggle judging by the rather lively comment section of the figure I’ll include my attempts to put everything together under spoilers.
View spoilerAfter reading through the comment section it became apparent that it’s wise to attach the wings first, which I did. This seems to be the part where most people had issues and it’s indeed a bit hard to find the right angle for them. It didn’t take me that long, but they weren’t firmly connected the first time and fell off when I attached Arsène to the base.
From the pegs construction you can only attach them one way and after my second try it worked (even tested it by shaking the figure around for a bit). Still, I wouldn’t put a faulty design past MH either and the sheer number of complaints kinda affirms this.
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Now for the base, without attaching anything yet it is a simple black disk, a shiny one at that (and I hate that, because of the visible fingerprints and stuff once you start handling it). Apart from my personal preferences, this is nothing inherently bad, a bit simple maybe, but there are still other parts left to go. Yet apparently even this part they couldn’t get right, as the base is wobbly… once you have everything put together your figure will wobble (also a common complaint). This isn’t even due to bad weight distribution, which is actually ok, but the base simply isn’t high enough for the peg construction under it and won’t fully touch the ground/shelf/whatever under it.
Not sure what I’m supposed to say here as this is just too sad…
Enough with the rambling for now, again I’ll put step-by-step pictures under spoilers to show the full assembly of the base.
View spoilerYou best start off by inserting the support pole in the middle, it can be rotated to accommodate the flames that are supposed to be put on it (that’s something at least I guess).
Now for the smaller flame part, use the outer pegs closest to each other to attach them.
The rest is just the bigger flame part, the one for the support rod, and you’re good to go.
There are 2 big peg holes in the flames where Arsène will be attached and those actually fit perfectly.
By itself and if you don’t look too closely that base is kinda cool and impressive, even with the black disc. Unfortunately however, the parts don’t fully fit (and I did use force) as you can see.
This is not only something I had to deal with apparently… Well, I’ll probably do something with my hairdryer to make it fit some time soon, but at this price-point I really don’t see why I have to do this in the first place. The parts shouldn’t be this ill-fitting.
While the chains look quite good (no gaps between the individual links, but that’s ok for me as I prefer stability), the flames have some really ugly seams and the gradient from the semi-translucent parts to the pearlescent paint could definitely be smoother and more polished.
It also worries me how snuggly Arsène’s heels fit the flames, in theory this may sound like a really good thing, but if you need to disassemble him in the future do exert caution.
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Well, here we have the pillager of twilight in his full glory.
For all the complaints up until now and the upcoming ones, he still looks fairly impressive (from a certain distance that is).
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I don’t really have a strong opinion about his face/mask as they nailed it down to the extensions (or antennas? Whatever you wanna call them). The flames however I’d have preferred a bit sculpted in to create more depth. A shiny paint a little duller would’ve been nice too as it would look a bit more high-quality (and closer to the ingame effect), but there are enough complaints elsewhere to not dwell on nitpicks like this.
His cylinder looks fairly ok, if you ignore the small excess bit of plastic and the kind of grainy-looking sculpting. The color-gradient actually looks pretty ok, however the cylinder being completely hollow feels a little off and after checking the initial design it seems inaccurate to me as well View spoiler (might just be me, but the top looks like there’s just a big dent, but nothing more).
What bothers me more however is that look at the back of his head, which is probably the worst paint on lacing I’ve seen so far (I haven’t been collecting all that long).
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Let’s take a look at the wings next. The span is pretty impressive even while folded. Again the finish looks kinda grainy to me, either they didn’t sand down the unpainted parts or the paint wasn’t applied properly. Whatever it is I can’t say I’m happy about it. The individual feathers itself are a nice feature however and show that some effort went into this (somewhere along the line). The blue effect wasn’t executed perfectly either, but it does look ok.
Sadly the big ugly seam lines from the prototype made it into the final product and the top parts being glossy while the feathers closer to the rim are matte feels just bit a weird.
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Well, on to the body and clothing…
Even with a not-so-close up it’s obvious that the paint is anything but clean. The sculpted folds and the shiny finish look quite good at first glance and the shading between the various parts actually isn’t too shabby either.
When you look at some details and see stuff like the black paint at the back of his collar or the gold applications (buttons and stuff) basically everywhere, the lacing, the excess bits of plastic both on the surface and on the rims of his clothes though it’s all just bleh~ (I’m quite literally at a loss for words by now). The best looking thing is probably the scarf-thingie, it seems a bit massive, but looks otherwise decent.
Arsène’s back is looking way better than the front of his clothes, but this is usually not visible… duh~
A lackluster paintjob is what we find at his claw-like hands as well. While the color gradient being rather sudden is something I personally don’t like the paint isn’t clean. The plastic looks grainy again and apart from the seams of his sleeves there are some that can only be explained through sheer negligence.
Well, Arsène’s legs look quite good, as said before the color gradient isn’t exactly to my liking (especially at the bent knee), but otherwise there’s not much to complain (if you don’t look to closely at the gold details).
There’s still the grainy plastic at his feet, but otherwise they nailed them down to the swirls, heels and creases.
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I’ll largely skip the size comparisons this time as I honestly don’t feel it for this one. The figure including base comes up to 29cm (28 if you ignore the black disc), with Arsène measuring about 23,5-24cm from the top of his cylinder to the tip of his foot. My guess is that he’d fit well with 1/8 scales as that seems closest to his size. Though seeing how he is supposed to be larger than humans it wouldn’t be accurate.
I personally wanted him as a sort of backdrop for my Joker figma and that’s all I did here.
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Conclusion
If it isn’t clear enough by now, I’ll be frank. I’m dissatisfied with this figure to the extent of being angry with myself for expecting anything from MH (as stated before my experiences so have been less than stellar and this is no exeption). The most severe points of criticism for me are definitely the ill-fitting parts, the paintjob and the texture of the plastic (which makes up almost every complaint I had… I guess). Sure he looks good from afar, but at his price-tag I expect way more than that, like actual quality. To say that I’m disappointed would be an understatement, even lowering the bar beforehand, because well… it’s MH… I'm pretty sure I won't keep him for long and right now I'm kind of happy that he's in a darker part of my shelf my gaze doesn't wander to all that often.
That's it for this review! Thanks for reading and sorry if you feel offended…
This is all just my personal opinion and you’re obviously free to disagree.
If you don’t mind I’d love some constructive criticism, if you don’t feel like posting any your thoughts on the figure are also very welcome. :3
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