[DreamSword]

Now that pre-orders are up and we have more promo pics, I wanna highlight what I meant by the shoulder joints looking poorly designed.



You see that big gap in his right shoulder there? Lately, Tamashii has has been changing the way they do shoulder joints on alot of their figures, such as on their recent One Piece line. Instead of doing the thing most companies do(and even they've done up until recently) wherein the shoulder and the joint are the same thing, they're now making the shoulder a cap and the joint a very tiny double ball peg. This is a serious step backwards.

For those who don't immediately get why, having the shoulder and the joint be the same thing not only looks aesthetically the best(especially when posing), but also achieves very good functionality assuming you impliment the hinge part correctly. The way these recent shoulders have been done not only results in them being very ugly in anything other than a vanilla pose, but makes the range of motion horrible. The worst case of which being their recent Guts figure.



And if you're wondering why the gap is in these two photos but seemingly none of the others, it's likely that they just rotated the shoulders in order to hide the gaps, which is extra work that'd be entirely unnecessary were they designed better in the first place. Tamashii pulled a similar move with the promo pics for Guts, wherein they used shadows the hide the gaps. I have no idea if this some weird cost cutting measure or what, but like the rubber torsos before it, it's a trend that very much needs to stop.