It's no secret in this column that I love Tiger & Bunny, and my pile of merchandise from the show continues to grow. I've reviewed the Chibi Arts versions of Blue Rose and Dragon Kid before, and I'm continuing my slow decent into Bandai's figure line with the S.H.Figuarts version of Barnaby Brooks Jr.!
I think that this is the first figure in a while where right out of the packaging I have no complaints. The paint lines are nicely done for a figure of this size and price point, with only a little strangeness around the translucent lines on his legs, but it's not noticeable from any distance. As expected, the decals on the sponsor logos are crystal clear. Since there are no swappable expressions or extra heads, a great amount of attention was given to Barnaby's helmet, which is a great paint job by itself. Unlike the Chibi Arts line, which is still trying to figure out how to do articulation, Barnaby benefits from the experience Bandai has with the Figuarts line, sporting articulation from to his shoulder armor all the way down to his toes. He can also stand on his own, which still feels like a novelty to me since I'm used to Figmas that can't support their own weight.
Thanks to all of this, it's incredibly easy to recreate poses from the show or play around a bit with Barnaby to see what you can come up with. Despite the fact that the figure is of the character in his superhero suit and there are no expressions to speak of, I was impressed by how much of Barnaby's character still came through. The extra level of detail really pays off here, and I'm a big fan of the shine on the white paint, making it look more like pearl.
Of course, the tradeoff has to come somewhere, and despite how nice the figure itself is, this is a barebones release. Barnaby only comes with a special stand with his name and the Apollon logo on it and two optional parts that are more like accessories. The first is an arm plate with the Japanese Amazon logo on it to reflect the mid-season sponsor change. I wanted to display him with it, but for the life of me I couldn't get the piece to attach to his arm, only succeeding in scratching the paint off the nubs where it was supposed to go. To compare, the regular arm plates with the Crusade logo snap on with little effort. I'm not sure what happened here.
The second accessory is something that I was much more excited about and very disappointed by: the extra leg for Good Luck Mode. Fans of the series remember this useless power upgrade joke, and the "useless" part was taken a bit too far here. Theoretically, I'm supposed to be able to take Barnaby's leg off at the joint and replace it with the one for Good Luck Mode, but his leg just wouldn't come off because the joint was so stiff. At one point I got so frustrated that I applied too much pressure and heard something snap... It turns out that I broke one of the connecting pegs on Barnaby's waist. I'm not too broken up about it because he's actually easier to pose now, and in other reviews I've read other people accidentally did the same thing, so this seems like something that would've happened sooner or later. Still, if trying to attach an optional part requires enough force to potentially break your figure, it's not worth it. So out of the two extra parts Barnaby came with, I couldn't use either of them.
With that said, I should point out that my problem with Barnaby's Good Luck Mode doesn't seem consistent from figure to figure. A lot of people online have complained about the same problem with the stiff joints, but I've also seen video of someone popping off his leg with little effort. I'm not sure what caused the difference, but if you're looking into getting this figure, it's something to keep in mind.
But despite the problems and malfunctions, I still love this figure for its playability. Barnaby is nicely detailed and easily posable, and better overall than some of my Figmas. I'm happy to add him to my corner of Tiger & Bunny merch. Now he just needs a Tiger to join him...
I got Barnaby on sale at HLJ at the beginning of the year, and there's still plenty of copies of this figure floating around for much less than his original retail price. Now is probably a good time to grab him, since more people will start looking around for figures now that the US release of the series has come out. Happy figure hunting!
Images by me.
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