We're back.. we're back. Today we take a quick look at one of the relatively recent Fate Figma, the line that got me collecting these in the first place.
This is Figma Nero Claudius from Fate/Extella, the game prior to the current Musou style offering.
For those who follow (or at least attempt to follow) Fate, it's no surprise that the expanded universe, first beginning with the Fate/Extra spin off game on PSP, has introduced many characters that remain popular to this day, seeing action in the various sequels to that game or expansion into the Mobile Gaming and Light Novel universes.
One such character is Nero Claudius, the Saber in the red dress. Nero is the Heroic Spirit of the last Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, conveniently made a female for the purposes of selling merch.. of course. She's a colourful character that, if I had to summarize, despite looking kind of like Artoria, behaves NOTHING like her both in terms of personality or fighting style.
This is actually the second release of this character in Figma form, with the first Nero Figma actually coming as an extra with the Japanese collectors edition of the Fate/Extra game on PSP. I can't exactly say this figure was a bargain for me, but it was less than original MSRP and much less than trying to find one of the figures that came with the original game.
The set comes with the figure, based of course on the 2.0 Figma body, three total face plates (smiling, laughing, shouting), her sword Aestus Estus, an extra left forearm and various golden parts to replaced her armoured look, a variety of posing and weapon holding hands, and of course the standard Figma stand.
As far as I can tell, the original toy had no buckler and only two faceplates, but did come with windswept hair like the Artoria Pendragon 2.0 Figma did.
Being a Figma 2.0 release, it goes without saying that this version of Nero has better proportions and detailing of pretty much everything. Most notable of an improvement would be face plates, which are larger and allow for a better representation of not only the source material, but also, accuracy of the desired expression.
The articulation piece is only arguably better as I don't have an actual sample on hand to fiddle with and is based on my experiences with Lily Saber and Saber 1.0 to 2.0 comparisons.
Just what do I mean by that? Lets start with the basics, as always.
Nero is fitted out with the standard array of Figma joints - ankles, single jointed knees, hips, mid torso, shoulders with slight chest compress and bicep swivel, single jointed elbows, wrists, and head. She has a bonus point of articulation on the back of her head, where the "bun" can be rotated for a more dynamic look. As with all other Figma, joints are cut such that you get a pretty good range of motion for a single jointed area.
So far so good, right?
The reason why I say I presume it's got better articulation than the 1.0 is based on the arms and shoulders alone, which on the Saber and Lily Saber releases are improved with regards to range of motion, mostly due to redesign of the shoulder pad areas (Saber only).
What's hilarious to me is the character with the fabric dress actually has worse lower body than the one wearing an armoured skirt. I guess because there's no segmenting on the character model, Nero's skirt is basically one giant plastic cone, just like on the original release. As you can probably imagine, yep, her legs are basically stuck within the confines of that space so sitting, squatting, lunging, etc. are effectively out of the question.
Positioning of legs to replicate slight movements is possible, particularly with the aid of the stand, but I don't think Nero is gonna be winning to many battles with the ability to hop a bit.
Paint work is up to the normal Figma quality, which is effectively silky smooth paint apps across the board including the semi-gloss buckler, with acceptable or better work on the smaller details. Gold trim across the dress are sharply done, including the trim on the hem of the dress. Underlying mould details are not lost due to paint application, even on the more intricate parts such as the gold braids and the Epaulets on her shoulders.
Build quality is solid as well. Joints are of a good strength, with limbs being the proper length to prevent lopsidedness. Tolerances are generally good, important given the nature of the necessary interchanging of parts on this figure. Finish on the plastic parts is smooth, which helps to further highlight the smoothness of the paint applications. Another neat thing is the use of translucent white plastics rather than a solid white, so not only does it look nicer but you're also able to see her legs through the walls of their plastic prison.
So, unsurprisingly, I find Nero to be a beautiful Figma, if somewhat limited, release. From a design perspective, I can see that if Good Smile had tried to make an articulated skirt the look would just be terrible looking - a separate "hiked" skirt would probably have been preferable even if it costs more.
I did get another Fate piece which I'll be getting around to looking at soon, but first, a few things that are different.