BEEF... it's not just for dinner anymore.
"Beef" is a plot device - a highly antagonistic relationship between characters that is used to move a narrative forward. With that in mind, today I'll be looking at the S.H. Figuarts Resurrection Freeza (or Frieza) figure.
Freeza is a long standing villain in the Dragonball universe. While most recently seen (at least to me) in the Dragonball Super "Tournament of Power" arc, Freeza was introduced way back in the Z series as the one responsible for t e destruction of Planet Vegeta (Saiyan homeworld) and the total domination of countless planets, eventually being the self proclaimed Emperor of the Universe.
He was first defeated by Goku after a LENGTHY fight on Planet Namek (and I do mean long.. long a weeks worth of episodes long), and was obliterated in about 5 minutes after Future Trunks first appeared before the Cell Games.
Freeza I would describe as a melodramatic drama queen, and considers himself superior to all living being in the universe.. so naturally he's a fan favourite. To the point where his movie on resurrection was written officially into canon. While the universe now has its genocidal madman to deal with, this madman owes Goku a solid, and it'll be interesting to see where things go from here.
Resurrection Freeza is actually the third issue of the original 2014 Final Form Freeza toy. It features the same body with new heads, slightly fewer accessories, and a very lame base. You get the figure, three heads/expressions (smirk, open mouth, gritted teeth), a Halo, some additional hands (closed fist pair, open palm pair, open hand pair, two different pointed right hands), two total pairs of feet (one for the ground, one for floating). two tails (one for standing, one for floating poses, the latter of which can be segmented to replicate battle damage), crossed arms effect, Death Ball and Death Beam attack effects, and the standard Tamashii Nations transparent base.
A pretty good stack of goodies, but I can sort of see if you had the OG you'd probably not be rushing out to upgrade. While you get new heads, you lose the neat rock base, which also had special feet for standing on it.
One of the first things I noticed upon opening and assembling the figure is that geting Freeze to stand without support requires Freeze to lean forward a bit to counteract the weight of the attached tail, which doesn't bother some people but just drives me insane. If only the tail were slightly longer, you could have used it to balance the figure. But, the way it stands, it's about 1/8 inch short.
I think the new heads are slightly larger than the old ones, which is fine as I found the original figures to be kind of undersized. I guess this increase alone was enough to keep Freeza in line with the rest of the 2.0 line up. Oh speaking of which, this is "Resurrection Freeza" as it comes with a halo, which is how the Dragonball universe shows a character is dead. Strangely though, it only works with his smirking face, which I don't understand why.
I also don't understand why Freeza only came with one stand, seeing how annoying it is to actually pose the figure without one, and how having one is mandatory for the Death Beam effect - the Death Ball clips onto the wrist.
From an articulation perspective, it's not bad but you're looking at first generation Dragonball body, which means it's not going to be as refined and will have more limitations on range of motion. You get ankles, double jointed knees, hips, waist, mid torso, shoulders with slight chest compress, bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, wrists, limited neck movement, and head articulation. There's also a single point (or two if you're using the floating one) of articulation for the tail. As stated above, you'd do have most of the standard points, but do the nature of the cuts in the body the actual quality of the pose you're trying to pull off will vary.
Paint wise, Freeza is beautiful. Nice metallic purple with a matte white, featuring some subtle blue paint apps to serve as highlights. Paint applications are even and paint masking for the most part is razor sharp, especially where it counts, with some very minor masking deficiencies otherwise. Decal work and other small details are nicely done.
Build quality wise is strangely not quite up to par. Overall, most of the usual criteria are addressed - good choice of materials, no issues with limb length or joint strength, and the only real area with gap issues is the arms, which is understandable given the interchangeable nature of the parts there. The issue is that the tail joint doesn't like to stay in place, resulting in it falling out very easily, which is annoying to saying the least because not only do you lose the tail, but the entire figure will topple over due to loss of mass.
Overall, it's nice to have a Freeza in the collection, and while I would have liked to have the rock base, the screaming face is a good trade off... I'm gonna have me some fun with that. As always, while the figures generally will keep flowing here, I've got no clue what is coming next for this property in particular.. also this whole Covid thing makes buying figures like this a bit challenging, but hey, I've got some decent backlog to burn through.
Besides.. "challenging" isn't "impossible", so as always, stay tuned.