ARTHUR

 Some videogames are designed with a certain time frame and gamers as theyr objective public and with this they made imposible to translate them into another time frame thanks to theyr design but somehow this kind of games are the ones that turn legendary and the most memorable as well. Splatterhouse comes to my mind but also Ghost ´n Goblins, one of Capcoms´s most succesfull game series that sparked a fantastic trilogy in the 80s arcades rooms as well as the Nintendo, Sega Genesis and SuperNes. Capcom wanted to bring this series back from the dead in the PSP with Ultimate Ghost ´n Goblins and many years later in the Swicth with Ghost ´n Goblins Resurrection but moderns games didnt care for the game punishing difficulty and simplistic design.

For me this is one of the games i remember the most from my childhood and while i never finish any of them, i loved the amazing art direction of the SuperNes game and i was really happy with Resurrection but Capcom didnt care for it too much anyway since it didnt had any kind of marketing or even a physical release but surprisingly, Good Smile Company released a Nendroid of Arthur in his Resurrection design.

Many years ago Sentinel released a couple of action figures based on Arthur and Red Arremer and i really regret not getting them but aside of those, this is pretty much the only Ghost ´n Goblins action figure in existance soo i had no choice but to get him.

Like all Nendroids this guy is really smal and in scale with the rest tough he is a little bit smaller than Von Lycaon and Klaus but he fits perfectly with them. He cant stand on his own soo he realy needs that anoying Nendroid base and given he is one of the "new" Nendos, he is only half articulated...

His neck have the traditional ball joint that let him move his huge head all around tough the beard get sin the way tough it is also articulated!!! The beard is conected to his helmeth sides soo you can move it down and it reveals his open mouth, a really awesome idea to not swap face plates. The shouldes have a basic cut articulation that lets them move only up and down and both the biceps and wrists rotate as well as his waist, and his legs also have the ball joints that let him move them up and down and to the sides.

Theres no articulation on the elbows, knees or feet at all but somehow, thanks to Arthur simple design and tiny size this limited articulation feels perfect for him and also makes him a really sturdy Nendroid. Its odd but this super deformed design fits the character orginal design really good and dosnt feel alien for him at all.

The armor is extremelly clean sculpted with the big round shouder pads and little skirt and while the legs section is a little bit more intrincate, the whole armor feels like that of a generic knigth from a cartoon. The huge front of the helmeth is spectacular and both the mustache and beard looks like made with milk caramel thanks to theyr velveth texture, soft sculp and soft brown color.

Arthut dont have the siny almost invisible anime nose of the other Nendroids, his nose is actually big and very human looking wich is odd but help him looks like a mature man instead of a kid cosplaying a man. His big blue eyes looks actually menacing for such a small warrior and dont look at all like the anime eyes this figures always have.

Rest of the figure is painted in a clean and super shiny silver that looks and feels damn good, while the hands are brown and theres small bits of black under his armor and his belt is brigth red, silver is the prominent color here deffinetly.

He comes loaded with a bunch of items. While theres no face plate at all, he comes with 2 pairs of hands and a half: closed fist, open palms and a left closed fist with a hole to insert his weapons. All hands can swap pretty easy with a peg and a hole in the arm.

He have a pair of bend arms. Yes....bend on the elbow since theres no articulation here soo he can be displayed withhis arms straight or bend (unlike Lycaon). This arms biceps rotate soo they can be adjusted to the side and they sawp very easy as well as each hand fits on them perfectly.

Arthur also have a second bottom half sculpted with his legs runing and the armor skirt moving in front. This bottom half can be swaped pretty easy and also comes with a pair of bend legs- again- in a running motion. They have theyr own ball joints soo they cna be rotated and adjusted but also they can be removed completelly and exchangued for the straight legs and mixed around to adjusts to your display necesitys.

As of weaponry Arthur comes with his trademark lance. This lance is very very generic and its quiet big, as tall as Arthur and is painted in the same silver as his armor and the handle is red. The handle can be removed soo it fits inside the hole in Arthur´s extra hand and this is bascially the main weapon of the characters.

As a secondary weapon it comes with a small and plain looking knife painted in silver, yellow and blue and almost looks 2D and my personal favorite item: a holy water bottle. The bottle is completelly round and it have a spectacular main of flames in top and best of all, its cast in transluscent ble plastic. While the bottle is shiny and brigth in an electric blue, the flames have a soft hue of ligther and paler blue.

This weapons comes with theyr own stand that consist on a round transluscent base with an articulated thin arm that ends in a clamp. This clamp holds onto the lance or knife handle and also fits perfectly into the neck of the holy water bottle and the arm can be adjusted in angle and heigh since it have a ball joint. This works soo perfectly to display Arthur throwing his weapons.

Another item included is a set of blue flames cast in transluscent blue with a hue of ligther blue on the base. This burt of flame in the floor is the result of the holy water and reminds me a lot Geral´s flames as well and lastly, theres a treasure chest as well. This chest looks veryc artoony and is painted in ligth brown with golden details and it can be opened but its totally empty soo i gues sit can be sued to store the figure smaller bits tough in the game this chest also contains dangerous warlocks soo i wish they added here a warlok acrilic standee or something like that but i guess thats ask too much given how many accesorys this little guy already have.

Oh and also theres the traditional Nendroid base full of holes, square shaped and with an articulated arm tough its a basic item since it helps Arthur stand still but also works wonderfull to pose him jumping in middle of the air.

Overall, despite all items included this fugure feels a little bit limited in the display options, he seems to only achive 3 poses: standing still, jumping and throwing stuff but actually, in the game thats rpetty much everything Arthur does; stand still, jum and throw stuff soo somehow this fits the character perfectly.

And actually, with soo many hands and arms and legs options its actually posible to achive a few functional poses with just a little bit of cretivity mixing the parts. Honestly this is one of my favorite Nendroids in my collection (just like Lycaon) and is not only fun to pay with but also it makes one of my dreams come true to have a Ghosts ´n Goblins action figure in my collection, somethign i doubt it happens never again.

GUTS BERSERK ARMOR

 Not too long ago i formed an small Nendroid collection until Good Smile Company started to up the price at crazy jumps and turning them into one of the most overpriced toys in the market, just like Figmas and the way Square Enix did with Play Arts Kai as well. Medicom Toys too soo this is a trend of the japanese market it seems.....but anyway, years ago when Nendroids were sold in a fair price they were pretty cute and fun collectibles, imposible to take serious but with a strong japanese charm.

Sadly, as much as i could resist i could no longer do it and here i am, with Nendroids on my hands thanks to hard to resist characters, like Arthur and Von Lycaon but one of them being Guts from Berserk too. A couple of years ago i got the Guts Nendroid and while i was able to ignore Griffith, i could no longer ignore Guts on his Berserk armor, the newest addition to the collection.

This guy is on the same scale as the rest of the Nendroids tough somehow he is a liiiiiitle bit smaller to normal Guts without the spiky hair and this is one of those Nendroids that can stand on theyr own thanks to his black cape that works like a tripod.

As part of the new style Nendroids, this guy is not fully articulated but most of the possing comes from swaping different static body parts soo, to start he have the traditional ball joint on his neck that lets him move his huge head up and down and to the sides tough this time around the head movement is limited thanks to the helmeth and cape in the back but, just like Arthut, Guts is articulated on the jaw soo he can open up his mouth a whole lot but this also makes it get in the way of the cape.

The cape have a small ball joint that i hope is resistant enough and have a huge range of movement while the shoulders have a basic cut joints that lets the arms rise but not open them up, while the biceps rotate and the wrists too and lastly, the legs have ball joints that lets them move around up and down and open up.  Theres no more movement on his legs and his elbows dont bend at all.

Sculpt here is terrific, with his body shape being bulky and each section of the armor being carefully sculpted, inlcuding the bolts that hold some segments, and the cape looking all shapeless and ragged in a very sinister way. This cape is not articulated like the normal Guts one but is sure is bigger and the texture on it much more elaborate to make it looks almost like smoke or fur.

Head is good, with the geometrical shapes looking good and the long pointy snouth and long ears tough of course theres no face expression or details here, only the wolf helmeth. The jaw opens up and reveales a big amounth of nothing inside, just a wall of darknes with the same etxture as the cape. This really gives the little guy a very inhuman feel since theres no one inside....tough once fully open the black mass inside is shaped like a head.....

The paint here is black....i mean, plain black. The inside of the helmeth as well as the cape and the sections on his upper legs are all dark black while the rest of the figure is metalic black. The paint shines tough not as much as Arthur armor but its enough ti catch the ligth and shines in different greys. The only color here is the red on the eyes, tough for some reason his left eye is brigth red while the rigth one is very very dark. I have no idea why they do this.

The accesorys are very very low tough, just the same as the first Guts: only a pair of open hands and a closed rigth hand to hold his sword and a left hand open to use the arm canon. The open hand is cute and odd, i mean the armor hand is open up while the face hand is open down soo it looks like two hands opening as a flower. All hands can be swaped very easy.

Then theres two bend arms that can be swaped on the biceps area soo Guts can hold his sword on his shoulder (or make it looks like he is doing it because his head wont allow) while having his other arm straigth to shot the canon. I dunno, this is a matter of mix and match but honestly, its very difficult sometimes to discenr wich arm is wich given how similar they are.

They also include two whole extra arms sculpted in a way to join in the chest area, soo he can hold the sword with both hands. This is a great idea because theres no other way h can hold his sword like he should (like Figma....) tough the hands cant rotate, the arms a a whole piece of plastic and that helps to keep the sword steady.

Guts also have a pair of extra legs with the knees bend as well as his rigth feet, soo he can be close to the fround or posed walking, or jumping as well. The little legs are super cute and looks good tough changue them is kind of tricky, each comes with theyr own ball joint and they move nicelly.

And aside of this extra body parts, the only real item for him to hold is his giant sword. The sword is pretty much the same as the other Guts but this one is spalttered in blood. Tough the blood dont stand out too much against the metalic paint of the blade, it looks really good and the handle can be removed to put the sword on the extra hands holes.

Finally, theres the basic Nendroid base tough this time is missing a hole in the center, soo the arm can be put only on the sides soo Guts its always at the center of the square and i have no idea why they made this changue tough i can see why they changued the arm. This time the arm have its circular shape backwards, twisted to the inside instead the outside, soo the camr can be inserted on the back of Guts without moving the cape up. Very clever and very confortable.

Honestly tough i dont find this Nendroid particulary fun to play with or to look at...while Lycaon is very pasive he have a lot of items to pose with and Arthur also have a lot of weapons to interact and both have a whole lot of details too look at, but this guy have his sword to hold and pretty much nothing more and while the sculpt is detailed its pretty dificult to see them because this is just a black mass of balckness, theres only black hiere with the red eyes and thats cool but dont works too good in such small scale.

Tough all this is not Good Smile Comapany´s fault but Kentao Miura´s faolt for his design. Yes, the Berserk armor looks super cool but its really not specially interesting to look at, honestly i always find the basic Guts much more interesting as a design just because of all the knifes, belts and exposed skin, not to mention the face expression and details.

Now that i skiped Griffith i am sure i will do the same with Femto but i am just collecting the characters i like, after all this things are not cheap at all.

VON LYCAON

 Last time i say the Apex Toys Von Lycan figure was my second Zenless Zone Zero official item, well this is my first one: the Von Lycaon Nendroid. Many years ago, before the pandemic, i used to buy a lot of Nendroids and i formed quiet a collection with my favorite characters but my clumsy sausage fingers had problems adapting to such tiny mini figurines and Good Smile company prices were the last nail on the coffin, making them the most overpriced toys on the market and i stoped buying them completelly.

But for some reason, Good Smile has been doing a ridiculous amount of Zenless Zone Zero characters on Nendroid form (and only the main characters as Pop Up Parade) and eventually they arrive to Lycan and of coure, i had to go back to collect Nendroids thanks to him.

This little guy feel kinda bigger than the rest tough its thanks to a convination of his body looking too bulky and his long ears but he is pretty much the same scale as the rest of the Nendroids and the good news is he can actually stand on his own using his tail as a tripod, something very unusual for this line but that makes him very confortable to play with.

This is a brand new Nendroid released a couple of months ago soo his articulations are...odd. He have the usually big ball joint on his neck that let him moves it around nicelly tough  limited by the hair sculpt and theres also a ball joint on his tail that lates him move it with much more freedom. He have basic cut shoulders that let him move his arms up and down but not open them, a basic cut joint on his biceps that let him rotate his arms and cut articulation on his wrists.

He have ball joints on his legs but they are pretty useless since they barelly move but thats all, theres no knee articulation or elbow or waist articulation soo he cant move his legs or have his arms straigth at all, his arms are perpectually bend and thats very strange given this is a combat character that use a lot his legs just like ChunLi.

Soo this is an action figure with very limited articulations that lets you pose in a few ways but you needs to be creative because all the posing is done by swaping parts and accesorys, not actually moving the character around soo he feels kinda like a 3D puzzle.

Sculpt is very nice, again, the snout have the perfect size and while the bangs on the front are not as stylish as in the Apex version they follow the design perfectly. The ears are huge but round at the tip, just like the spiky hair on his back, everything here is round and cute, theres no edges at all and unlike the Apex version, all the belts are part of the central sculpt.

The body is muscly and bulky in the same way as the Klaus Von Reinherz Nendroid, the buttons on the front of the vest, the scarf, the pocket clock on his chest, all details are there as well as the metalic parts on his hips, ass and back side. The hairy arms looks good as well as the big tail that, while not as impresive as the Apex one, is deffinetly more usefull but the most intrincate sculpt is on the prostetic legs. They are a miniatirized and simplified version but they still looks damn good.

Legs are all metalic black and only have the orange lines in front while his suit is plain grey and the shirt, tail and entire hairy bits are plain white, theres no airbrush or shadows here, every thing is a single color clean but i guess thats good in this tiny scale tough all details are clean painted, like the golden chain of the clock on his chest, his carimson scarf, the little sitches on hhis vest as well as the golden knockles on his gloves.

The black tips on the hair and the ears are still here and the mouth is both sculpted and painted with a black line and the red anime eye stands out a lot thanks to its big size.

He comes with 3 pairs of hands as well as a single extra left hand: a "relaxed" pair of hands, another pair with fingers possed to hold a cup and a plate, another pair with a left hand with a hole on the palm to hold a portait and a rigth hand pointing and a single open left hand with a square shaped peg in the center. Of course all htis little hands are easy to swap and are designed to hold extremelly specific items.

He also have 3 face plates; one with his basic stoic face expression, another one with a very subtle smile and another one with a perplexed face expression (his eyes wide open and his mouth smaller). All this face plates are very easy to swap once the front hair is removed and is quiet tricky find the differences with each other but it cant be helped, Von Lycaon is not a very expressive character.

Aside of the extra parts he comes with a dinner plate with a silver cover. I am not sure how to call this item but somehow it resembles a hotel bell, but its a plate with the dinner inside. Its painted on silver and shines a lot and includes a square shapped hole under it to use it with the specific hand and once on it, not power can mae this item to fall from his hand.

Theres also a cup of tea and a plate. They are very elegant, very cimple and the cup have actually brown tea inside and while theres specific hands to hold bot items, they are much more delicate and easy to lose than the dinner plate.

The second best accesory here is Corin´s borthday gift, a Von Lycaon postrait painted by her. The artwork is really adorable with a cartoony and super cute Lycaon with his tongue out. The print is super clean and and it have a long peg that fits on the left hand with a hole on the palm. This item is designed to be used with the pointing finger hand as well as the perplexed face plate to recreate a scene we only hear in the game.

And lastly, the best accesory is by far, Eus, the little Bangboo that works as main control drone of the proxys. This character is essential in the game and here is soo soo incrediblly tiny and yet, the sculot is spot on and the perfect too, with his orange scarf with the 01 printed on it, its green eyes and tail and the big pointy rabbit ears, as small as he is this count as a character of its own in this package.

Little Eus have a hole on his back as well as an articulated circular arm with a ball on its end side to fit him. Once there he can be adjusted to the sides and eigth soo he can be jumping around Lycaon or even sit on his shoulders, or even sit on the floor without the base.

Also the figure includes the same base as all Nendroids, the transluscent square shaped plataform full of holes and an articulated arm with a peg to fit on Lycaon back. Its kinda anoying but i guess it does its job nicelly.

Given the character nature it puzzles me they didnt included anything combat related, like effect or fierce face expressions of ice effects but instead only gives Lycaon pasive pose options but aside of that this is deffinetly one of my favorite Nendroids given how different he looks to the rest and how sturdy he is, that along side the inclusion of Eus make this guy the oonly ZZZ Nendroid i am interested to get until they release Ben Biggers of course.

VON LYCAON

A couple of weeks ago it was Zenless Zone Zero second birthday. Time sure flys and i find hard to belive i been playing it for soo long and is kind of perplexing too it took them soo long to release this Von Lycaon figure. Von Lycaon was one of the reasons why i started playing ZZZ, i remember all the hype around him years before the game came out and how exciting it was to finally meet him in game and he is still one of my main characters to use since i am a sucker for werewolfs and his design really push the rigth buttons on me.

Now, a year ago i review another Lycaon figure but that one wasnt mine, it was a friend´s figure, but this one here is all mine and part of my collection and pretty much the second merch of ZZZ i have in my hands. Crafted by Apex Toys, a pretty classy and high end brand of figures i am not very familiar with, this company has been releasing high quallity statues of the ZZZ characters for the last two years, very expensive statues and eventually, pretty difficult to find too because how limited is theyr distribution.

Soo far they release The Cunning Hares - Anby, Nicole Demara, Billy Kid, Nekomata -, The Criminal Investigation Special Responde Team - Jane Doe -, The Stars of Lyra  - Astra Yaoi, Evelyn Chevalier - and Victoria Housekeeping - Alexandrina Sebastiane, Ellen Joe, Corin and finally, Von Lycaon. 

This lupin semi-human is 1/6 scale soo is quiet big and fits perfectly with Hot Toys, Sideshow, IconiQ, Tunshi and other brands of high scale figures soo the size really helps to bring all details to life in pretty good quality. Of course, he cant stand on his own since his legs have such an odd design and his tail is super heavy, but he comes with a circular transluscent and very shiny base with metal posts that fits pretty feep n his legs and keeps him standing perfectly. Also as a statue, theres absolutelly no articulation in here but theres no asembly either.

Aside of very tall and very heavy on the back side, this animal is very handsome as well and have a sculpt that perfectly capture Zenless animation style. The pose is very manly and stoic, with Lycaon standing strongly with his legs open while he.....stretch his muscle arms?? At first i didnt understand wath he is doing but it seems to be he is getting ready to figth while tightening the belts around his fist/arms. Its a little strange pose that represents better a boxer character than a fighter than use musclt his legs to fight - like Lycan - but i guess it shows his combatibe nature nicelly.

The scult is fanfastic. The snout have the rigth size (since in some figures sometimes is very short or sometimes too long) and his mouth is actually sculpted. The hair in the front have a very stylish and spectacular sculot with perfectly defined strands that curls in the end and the spiky hair in the back looks soo cool.

The shoulders are really wide while the waist is really thin and the detils like the buttons on his vest or the sticths on it are finelly sculpted, while the metalic plates on his back have a....we.., metalic texture while his best and shirt feels a little more rugged. His ass is very round and again, the metalic plates on his ass and around his hips have a shiny metalic texture while the pants are a little more rugged but not too much, soo the figure looks clean enough to looke like an anaimation.

I got the feeling the left hand that is being stretched is turning a little too much to the front....i mean, i cant turn my hand that moch in that pose but in the end, this is an anime wolfman, i guess he is much more flexible than an average human being. The tail sculpt is really spectacular, heavy like i said, but the way the tail curls around him makes the strands looks more like fire tongues.

Also, all the belts are completelly independant sculted elements puts over Lycan and this makes them stand out and generate theyr own shadow in a very natural way and not only that, they are made of soft plastic oo the belts on his hands feels like soft rubber as well as the belt net around his tail and the end sections can be moved around. If not afraid to damage the paint it could be posible to remove all the belts seen over him.

His prostetic legs have the most complex sculpt of the entire figure with with a very intrincate mechanical design on both the frint and the back side that looks designed by Yoji Shinkawa himself. Seriuslly, the high heels remidns me Raiden way too much and the mechanical inner workings seen behind the knee is really striking.

The paints is also very complex with this sections having nine different colors of black and grey that make each section stand out from the other quiet nicelly ad some sections have a gradient of black that make shadows to each piece as well as some details, like the orange lines in front and the little warning signs at the sides or the golden ring on the ball of the knee, the paint is just brillant.

And while the belts are all plain black with metalic grey buckle in the end, Lycaon suit have the same finish as his legs, with dakr grey on his pants with a darker airbrush on top to generate shadwos and a lighter grey on the vest. The gloves are plain black with the golden knukles and metalic grey bolts and theres actually a crimson red scarf in front but is completelly covered by his arms and thats a shame because this is the only colored section that accentuates his design.

Both the shirt and the fur are completelly white and looks incrediblly clean (i am guessing he is going to atract a lot of dust tough) tough the tail tips have a black airbrush while the cpiky hair on the back of his head have some black tips painted in cell shading style. The bangs on the front also have this black sections as well as the tips of his ears.

The nose is painted in shiny black and his mouth is also painted with a black line and the eye looks almost printed on the plastic with his shiny red pupil, the only element that broke the black and white color palette.

Tough theres no accesorys, his base is more complex that it looks since it comes with a secondary optional section that resembles a giant roll of film. The film windows can be seen on the sides and back while the front reads "WELCOME TO NEW ERIDU WHERE HUMANITY RISES A NEW! on top of a pale blue color while at the other side the film forms a flap with the logo of San-Z Studio. Who is San-Z Studio? Well, inside the game is a toys shop that lets you buy figures to display in your virtual room soo this figure seems to be one of theyr creations tough in real life, San-Z is actually the composer of the soundtrack of ZZZ.

The under side of the film roll have the same logo while the top side have the actuall film sculpted inside the metalic can and the circular transluscent base fits in here pefectly like a glove soo you have Lycan standing on a cristaline cover on top of the film. Looks really good and unique and fits the game perfectly since the films are the actual currency of the game to buy the characters, tough i got the feeling the flap is very delicate and also this seconday base make Lycaon even taller than he actually is.

And lastly, the figures comes with another off items that looks like some kind of acrilyc cookie that is actually.....i am not sure, an acrilyc standee? It pretty much is a pale blue acrilyc square with an second transluscent acrilic square with a corcilar identation in the middle where an acrilyc disc with Lycan artowkr fits perfectly and another pale blue acrilyc swuare with a window in front goes on top like some kind of plastic sandwich with blue bread. To keep all this in place they included transluscent bolts and washer that goes on four points. once secured this looks like....a floppy disk?

Theres arrows and little signales that make this looks like a floppy disk and the dark bottom section have the shadow of Lycan inholografic paint while the window in the center showcase Lycan artowkr with some more holographic details while his name on top shines. They also included a little chain that goes in place of one of the bolts soo it can be used as a keychain maybe but i find this thing way too heby and delicate to use it that way, tough the center disc turns around soo Lycna cab be seen in any angle and reveal some more of his artwork tough never reveals it entirelly.

This thing is elegant, clean and looks very retro futuristic and maybe more importantly; is very interesting to look at since its very difficult to describe or even know wath it is but in the end, is nothing but an acrilyc decoration, a very nice extra to find here.

As much as i like ZZZ i would only buy a handfull of characters in this collection; Banyue, Manato, Pan Yinhu, Ben Biggers, Anton, but i doubt Apex Toys release them and if they do its going to take them ages soo i am in peace at the moment with this collection, if those characters never come out i am happy owning only Lycaon, specially at this level of high quaity.