Thursday, 30 July 2015

Escaflowne Guymelef Action Figure
















'The Vision of Escaflowne' anime had been around for a while and it was only recently I seriously watched the anime TV series. Previously, I only had a rough idea having watched the OVA. I must admit that the anime's elements of knight fantasy and mecha blend well and the plot set at good pacing. Though the female protagonist, Hitomi Kanzaki, ain't the type many would like at first sight and beside she's too fickle minded.

There are a few choices of Escaflowne Guymelef from Bandai's LM model kit, Yamato's 8" transformable toy to Bandai's U.S released action figure. By elimination, the LM model kit itself lack details and even though transformable toy seems really cool, the cape seems weighing the toy down and the transformation seems complicated with weak joints from other review.

Finally settled on this 7"action figure which is a collector set based on an animated series from Bandai Entertainment. It come with the two main protagonists of the anime, Van Fanel and Hitomi Kanzaki. The character figures stands around 4.5" Van looks well sculpted and he looks really cool standing next to Escaflowne. Hitomi's figure on the other hand, doesn't quite resembles the anime character and she has that awkward 'Planet of The Ape' look : ( 

This Escaflowne figure released in 2001, looks great in my opinion though there ain't many points of articulation, therefore the number of poses are limited. It's well balanced, pre-painted with panel lines. The figure comes with an awesome huge sword that's almost as tall Escaflowne itself. The sword could have been better made if it's made with harder plastic like PVC rather than ABS rubbery material which tends to bend. The cape is removable so it allows display of Escaflowne with or without the cape.

4 comments:

  1. Escaflowne doesn’t sound unknown for me; i’m not pretty sure, but maybe as you, i saw an OVA several years ago, because i don’t remember the scene featured in the video at the end of the publication... this is a fantastic set and i thought by the presentation, it was made by Yamato, but actually is a product of Bandai... very good work on the sculpt overall, but the faces of the characters are a bit odd, which is more than compensated by the excellent paint job and sculpt, as i already pointed !!!... =)

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    Replies
    1. >> Chrismandesign
      Escaflowne has an OVA and TV series. Yamato also made Escaflowne toy and a transformable version. Can't agreed more that the mecha figure stand out in comparison to the character figurines.

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  2. I think your castle backdrop is very popular for your toy photo shoot..

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    Replies
    1. >> Desmond
      Haha! It has become one of my best prop for photo background. Totally medieval!

      Delete