I’ll be honest. I was okay with the Hasbro Star Wars Black Series Darth Vader but was looking for options. The first option to come along blew it away. The Bandai Darth Vader model isn’t perfect but it’s definitely a step up.
You guys know me. I’m not super picky. I don’t buy toys that I know I’m going to hate in some way. Easy to please. So when I first got the Black Series Vader I was happy. Yay, finally, a six inch Sith Lord! And while I still don’t hate the figure, it doesn’t increase the buoyancy of my seafaring vessel. The news of 1:12 Darth Vaders coming from Medicom MAFEX, Bandai, S.H. Figuarts, and Revoltech didn’t do the figure’s life expectancy any favors either. But I was happy. For a bit.
Then Amiami hit me with a “Your order is shipping” notice and the possibility of a shelf space exchange slapped me in the face. I got excited. Really, really excited. For several days I would look over at the Black Series Vader and find more and more things I disliked, anticipating a better version. Building up the suspense and then the expectations. Something I hate to do because it builds up too far and then I get disappointed.
That didn’t happen this time.
Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up. The box is nice. Really nice. Not nice enough for me to keep it in the closet due to my hatred of packaging but I have to give credit where credit is due. Gloss black and nice artwork on the front. The sides are promo shots that we’ve seen before. And lots of Japanese. The bottom is just a straight gloss black.
Open the box and you’re met with a daunting amount of parts.
Not an uncommon sight for those who do a lot of model kits, but a scary scene for those of us who are used to getting our figures, y’know, assembled. I went through that terror when I put together the Halo Master Chief SprüKit, but the Arkham City Batman SprüKit went together much easier, mostly because I knew what to expect. And that’s what happened here.
The comparison to SprüKits is unavoidable. Hell, they are both from Bandai. And while this isn’t called a SprüKit, which I’m assuming is an American branding of the model kits, this is basically a scaled up SprüKit with a better quality feel to it. The instructions are completely in Japanese but again, I knew what to expect from my SprüKit experience. The pictures are pretty straight forward though, so don’t be scared.
The best thing about the whole kit is all the pieces just push together and hold. No glue needed. No fingers glued to parts, no dried glue outside of seams to clean up. Some of the parts pop together pretty well while other slide together and hold tightly. So even if you mess up, just pull apart and try again.
I’ll go ahead and link my video review here because the first half is building the kit. I don’t film every second because, really, who wants to watch me fumbling for 2 hours? But I do point out some things as I go and then ramble on, and the second half is an articulation breakdown and review.
As for the finished figure…
The figure looks great. I mean, really great. When I look at the mask and details it gives me a sense of Vader that I didn’t get with the Hasbro version. I’m not a super stickler for exact details on any figures I buy so I’m not saying this one is more screen accurate than any other Vader figure out there. I’m just saying this figure exudes Vaderness in spades.
Most of that has to do with the sculpt. The helmet is fantastically done. And that’s an important aspect of nailing a Darth Vader action figure, probably the most important. But all the rest of the details are there too. The chest plate controls, the belt boxes, even a small chain for the cape that is almost a hidden away detail. Like I said, this scream badass Darth Vader to me.
Watch the video for a full articulation breakdown and range of movement, but again, this is another step up from our current 6-inch scaled Vader. Double elbows and knees with ball ankles and rocker action. Double ball torso that is a bit hindered by the sculpt, which also applies to the overall movement of the head. There is a ball both at the bottom and top of the neck but because of the helmet it can be difficult to get where you want. Not impossible though. Even the cape is articulated.
And the cape is where I have my one big nitpick. Not a huge one but it’s still a sticking point, even though it’s grown on me the more I play with it. The cape is a hard shell, no pliability whatsoever. I don’t dig on cloth, but this is the other end of the spectrum. Not quite what we were all hoping for when we said we wanting a plastic cape and skirt. Luckily there is some articulation to at least allow it to move as to not hinder the figure’s movement, at least not completely. There is still some blockage. The skirt pieces hinge out and the cape is actually three separate sections that peg together for neutral pose and then flare out on hinges for more dramatic posing while the whole assembly itself is on a bar that swings out away from the back. Complicated to describe in text, again, go watch the video. But this picture gives you an idea.
The skirt splits in the back and the cape pieces gap if you get too wild but it’s not terrible. Not as crazy looking as the Kaiyodo Revo Darth Vader set to hit soon.
While I’m talking nits, the other things that throws me is the weight. It’s light. Super light. It’s a hollow thin plastic model kit, I know. But it’s strange to pick him up and not feel that familiar action figure weight. You know what I’m talking about. This is like lifting barbells made out of foam or a paper mache boulder, it catches you off-guard. Not really a biggie but something to keep in mind.
And then there’s paint. There is no paint. None. Everything is molded in the appropriate colors of matte black, gloss black, and red for the lightsaber blade. The kit comes with waterslide decals for the various lights and buttons on his chest and belt. Two sets of decals actually.
Why two sets? There is the obvious difference of colored borders, one has them and the other doesn’t. But why two sets? How do you apply waterslide decals? Why is each teeny tiny button a separate decal? I have no idea, I told you I don’t know how to read Japanese. Oh sure, I could have researched it online, learned how to apply decals, drove my self Batguano crazy doing every microscopic button. I opted to paint. I did a rush job because I was too excited but I’m much more comfortable with a paintbrush, not to mention fifteen minutes is much more attractive to me than several days of trial and error. I’m sure the decals look great when applied properly. I’m lazy.
I still need to make another pass at the belt buckle. Oddly enough, there is no decal for the points on the mouth piece even though the box art and promo pics show those as silver. Also the nose is shown with gray. I painted the mouth points but I want to do more research before I add paint to other places.
He does comes with some accessories. Two lightsabers hilts, one with a hole for the blade, the other with side pins to peg into holes in the skirt. Two hands with holes for the lightsaber. One left fist. Two splayed open hands. A pretty basic base that conforms to the foot and works better than it looks. The only hand I feel like it’s missing is a force choke hand but that’s me being greedy.
All of the hands are two pieces. That comes into play when you want to pose Vader holding his lightsaber like I do above. The grasping hands are closed holes, you can’t get anything bigger than the holes into the hands without disassembling one of them. Essentially, to have him holding the hilt around the sculpted buttons you have to split the hand apart and then find the sweet spot where the hilt will fit inside enough to be able to put the hand back together. Again, I’m lazy, so how you see it above is how it will stay, that hand forever holding the hilt. For a two handed pose the bottom of the hilt slides right into the left hand.
The pegs on the hands don’t have any kind of mushroom or bumps so they slide right in and out. Don’t worry, it’s a snug fit so they don’t fall out.
Okay, you’ve read this far, so before I give my final thoughts I’ll throw these in. I’m sure this is what most of you want to see.
Startling, no?
Like I said at the beginning of the article, I was happy with the Black Series Vader. Not anymore. Putting the Bandai model side by side with him just makes me realize just how off the old one looks. The helmet, the proportions with the cloth, even the lightsaber is smaller. I can’t unsee a sad walrus now that I’ve had that thought go through my head. The cumbersome chain sticks out at me like a sore thumb and makes me remember how hard it is to make it lay right when placing the figure on the shelf. The Bandai model is now the Darth Vader for my 1:12 scale Star Wars shelf.
So basically, this figure is awesome. Both in look and in mobility. Sure, I have a couple of nitpicks but at the end of the day I look over at the shelf and I’m super happy. And there is something gratifying in knowing that I had to put in some work to get him there. The build and quickie paint took about two hours in all but it’s totally worth it. In fact, I haven’t been this excited about a toy in a while.
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Bandai has a Stormtrooper model kit coming in December and while I’m totally content with the Black Series Stormtrooper, after getting Vader I may not be able to resist. Given the articulation and range of movement I now know they can pack into these things I have to give the trooper, who has a lot less parts to inhibit movement, a test drive. At least one. But you know I’m all over the R2-D2, C-3P0, and R5-D4 models, R2 being another Black Series figure that doesn’t quite live up to expectations. I’ll wait and see about the Biker Scout and Sandtrooper though, our current ones are hard to beat. I want to see what the Stormtrooper has to offer first.