[Electric Turahk]

(Actually took that last one first before I remembered he came with a stand and just didn't feel like putting him in the pose again heh.)

So for the longest time, I have been very, very much wanting a 1/12 scale high quality Kingdom Hearts line. It was my pipe dream. I tried out Play Arts Kai, but they're just too big for my liking. Then Square announced they were finally going to do a new line at just the size I wanted and were starting it with Kingdom Hearts 3 Sora. I was pumped! And that lasted for a long time until the newer reveal from Bandai that we'd be getting S.H. Figuarts Kingdom Hearts figures. Ecstatic would be downplaying my reaction a fair bit. So that unfortunately eclipsed my hype for this fancy new Bring Arts line quite a lot, as SHF is a known and more trusted brand and Square's been known to have problems with their bigger PAKs.

Well now I have the Bring Arts in hand and... I've been trying really hard not to compare it to what the SHF will bring to the table since we don't really know how well that will be executed until it is in hand too. Which is going to be a while. It's just impossible not to compare though. And even then, if the SHF weren't ever going to be a thing, this one does have some design choices I just really don't get.

Let's start with the stand because holy hell I hate it. I should not have to bust out a screwdriver to use it, so as a result have a lot of stress marks from trying to bend it for just a few seconds before realizing everything on there needs unscrewed to use. It's ratcheted for some inexplicable reason because there's just no way any joint is holding position without being screwed tight. It's just annoying to handle.

Okay, now the figure itself... First the neck/heads. I don't know why Square didn't go with the tried and true ball joint connection. Instead, the head connects to just... a peg. Which has a ball on the other end in the neck so you can get some wiggle out of it. But the head itself just swivels around on this peg and both heads on mine do so pretty darn loosely. And come off incredibly easily. It's just dumb.

My next biggest complaint are the weapons. They feel comically thick, which is something I kind of expected as it's done with the PAKs too. Still don't like it. It just makes it hard to get any of them into and then stay in a hand. You can eventually, but while they will pop out while handling it's not the worst thing ever. That solid ugly keychain is. I hate that detail.

The rest are kind of nitpicks. More limited range of motion in various joints, I feel the knees are cut a little awkwardly, have some trouble getting the feet perfectly flat.

All that said... I don't hate it. I just wanted better. And it really does look like the SHF will be in every way. It's a shame it will be a whole inch shorter because honestly I rather like the size of this Bring Arts one. At least it represents an older Sora so I could kind of hand wave away the discrepancy with them next to each other on a shelf. Since Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't even out yet, who knows when or if Bandai would ever get to his appearance there?

So for now it's perfectly serviceable, I just kind of had my hopes set higher.