DIABOLOS

 

The very first action figure serires for Final Fantasy came from Bandai and Kotobukiya, both working on the characters and the monsters to match the scale of each other. While the characters were nicelly detailed for theyr size, the real meat for the collection were the creatures; the Guardian Force. Figures like this were hard to belive back in the final years of the 90s.

While i no longer own the full collection (and my Odin gor broken) i still keep a few of them like Shiva and Siren, but of course, i also have my favorite Guardian from Final Fantasy VIII; Diabolos. And this guy not only was one of the rarest figures back then, but he didnt come on a puny blister like his sister, instead he came on a big box with a widnow to make him look more impresive.

And impresive he is deffinetly, even after 20 years. He is much more taller than the female creatures, much more heavyer and his wingspan is huge!! Of course, he still suffer the same curse from the rest of the creatures: he cant stand on his own, soo he came with a black simple base with an arm. I no longer have the base tough.

He is articulated on the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles, all cut articulation soo theres not a whole lot of posability in here but thats not neccesary since he looks imponent and regal just standing still. Oh, he is also articulated on the wings with a metalic rod, soo the wings can move left and rigth and up and down, tough its imposible they stay in place given how ehavy they are (i am sure that metal rod is the only reason why the wings hasnt broke).

The sculpt is really good, his musculature complex and the scaly texture on his wings and for on his legs is nicelly done. I specially love his face, extremelly odd to the point is hard to discenr how to look, but once you look closelly, you can see his eyes and tiny teth and even his gums. The gesture of his claws and legs are really good and catch his personality perfectly.

Paint is not too complex, just vibrant red in here with deep black in there, some gradients on his wings and purple on his tail but again, his eyes, gums and teeth are soo nicely painted in a coper color for such a small scale is impresive. And speaking of his tail, i just wish it was somehow articulated or made with bendy material since it gets on the way too much.

And unlike the rest of the creatures, he is completelly alone, no small monster with him and no accesory either, wich is OK given the masive size of this guy.

Really, this is a very difficult figure to handle, i am still afraid to broke him given how cheap are the articulations and how heavy are his wings, he is also pretty troublesome to pose around for the same reason, but i cant help but love him soo much, this is deffinetly my favorite Final Fantasy creature closelly followed by Shiva.