AURON

 I am not sure for wich one i feel more nostalgic; Final Fantasy X or the original Play Arts line. After Square launched theyr own town line - Play Arts - with action figures of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, shortly after they follow with the entire cast of FF VII and 3 characters of the later games; VIII to XII, it was a time when Square was an actuall fan from Final Fantasy too.

Ironically, i felt no interest in the characters they release: Squall, Rinoa and Selphie from VIII for example but there was a single exception: X. They released Tidus and Yuna, characters that dotn interest me at all, but instead of chose Rikku as the third character they chose Auron, the one i consider my favorite character from the game and looking back, is one of the best if not the best, from the entire serires.

Auron comes in the same scale as the rest of the figures, being taller than Cloud and Tifa but a little bit shorter than Sephiroth and Vincent, wich is perfect for me. He can stand on his own perfectly tough he comes with the same bases the other characters have: a flat looking ovall with an arm to hold him in the waist, tough unlike the FF VII familly, his base is white.

Auron is articulated on the head, shoulder, elbow, wrist, waist, legs, knes and ankles. This articulations......are extremelly delicate. I dont know why they arent as stronger as the FF VII ones, but they seems pretty fragile. The worst ones are the elbow and the knes and i saw lots of pictures of videos of Auron disjointing like a puzzle in the very moment you take him out of his box.

The head have a ball joint and is very loose as well as his wrist, tough his shoulder have a pretty hard to move ball joint....but his elbow, legs and knes have a cut jount soo they can only move in one direction, and that limit A LOT his poseability. Gladlly, the only thing that get in its way aside of the style of the joints is the neck piece since his antire kimono is made with soft plastic, he can move his legs all he wants with no problem.

I have no complaign about sculpt tough, he is perfect on every detail, from his waist piece to the beads on his side and shoulder pad, every part ogf his design is perfectly sculpted and that includes his face, smaller than the statue but still his mouth, nose shape and look on his eyes are pretty damn fine. The glasses are made of soft plastic but they dont look cheap or oversized for the scale and they dont even get in the way, this is probablly the most impresive part of the sculpt. 

The paint is just as good as the sculpt tough his head and kimono are cast into skin and red plastic soo they dont need too much paint. The red tone and beads on his side are soo vibrant and beautifull looking as well as his blue eye. The only part that need a little bit more effort are the white on his hair, they are soo soft they are difficult to see.

Aside of his base the other accesory he have is his giant sword. Theres not much to say about it since botht the scult and metalic paint are perfect as well as the yellow and green handle. The sword fit perfectly on his gloved hand but i feel like the wrist articulation is too delicate and i fear to broke it with the weigth of the sword.

His other accesoryes consist on a down sleeve of his kimono and his free arm. Thats rigth, this two can change the figure a lot since they give him a figthing stance and adds a lot of poseability as well. You can remove the left side of his kimono (hand included) with pegs that fit on his torso and put the down sleeve in the same holes AND the extra arm on his empty shoulder and he is ready to figth.

Sounds easy....but OH MY GOOOODDD this procees is incrediblly difficult since the parts are made with hard plastic!!! Remove the kimono part is extremelly difficult and once the extra arm is ready, remove it from the shoulder and dont broke the peg (or his opposite arm...or legs...of sake bottle) isquiete a challengue!!

The sculpt and paint on the extra sleeve and arm are fenomenal and the arm add 4 extra articulations: shoulders, biceps, elbows and wrist, much much better than his rigth arm movement. The muscles are nicelly shaped as well as his pectoral, quiet sexy too.

The fragile articulations as well as the difficult arm exchange are factor that push away this figure from perfection, but besides those issues, this guy looks extremelly good even standing still. Part of it is thanks to a magnificent character design from Tetsuya Nomura and part by Square great toy crafting, wich was extremelly good even in its begginings.

Years later Square would update the serires with Play Arts Kai, but only for Tidus and Yuna leaving Auron out wich make this figure much more important since is the only action figure of the character. Now i just have to wonder if this figure is the best Auron or the Kotobukiya statue?

AURON

 

With the release of Final Fantasy X, Kotobukiya noy only released action figures of the monsters of the game, but also a collection of giant scale vynil statues of the main characters. The first two figures were pretty easy to find: Tidus and Yuna, but the second serires was much more troublesome; Auron and Rikku and the last characters; Lulu and Kimahri were extremelly difficult to find and very expensive.

I got Yuna at a very low price but the main star for me was Auron deffinetly, since he is my favorite character from the entire party i was extremelly excited for him, specially with his size he looks really spectacular since he towers over Yuna an entire head and a half. He is actually one of the tallest figures from my collection almost matching Sideshow.

Auron can stand on his own perfectly without his sword, but with the sword on his hand he have a little bit of trouble getting balance tough at times the sword help him to stand too. He came with a big round black base but i dont have the base anymore.

Despite the size, he is pretty light thanks to the material and he have only one articulation on one of his wrists to move the sword direction a little bit tough the movement is mostly useless.

The sculpt is really really good, based on the Tetsuya Nomura artwork, he is standing in avery heroci way with his outfit being moved by the wind, included his sleve. The belts, the carving on his wrist piece and shoulder pad, everything is perfectly done and specially his face. You cant see his face under the eyes but he is actually really really handsome under the collar piece, his face features are chiseled and i really love his intense blue eye.

The color is pretty clean just like Yuna, to give it a kind of anime look. Most of the figure is cast on red and blue vynil soo the paint is limited to the small details of his design, like the white strips on his pants, his boots, the shulder pad, etc. The paint aplication isnt perfect but i am glad the paint of his hand matches the skine tone of his face.

Again, the face is the best part of the paint, with his vibrant blue eye and white hairs on his hair, they really were carefull painting his face, the most important part despite being half covered.

My statue is incomplete tough, since its missing the sake bottle on his wait as well as his gllases. This two items are pretty delicate since aside of being small, the just hang from him in a very flimsy way. I regret the most not having his glasses since they add a lot of personality to him but at the same time i can see his eye much better without them.

His other accesory is his GIANT sword. Its huge..as tall as Auron himself and i never notice his gigantic was his weapon on the game....the blade is pretty thick and strong with metalic tones and the handle is very colorfull with a weird carving on it. Pretty nice looking sword tough thanks to its size and how old it is, the sword handle is bending already. Gladlly, this can be noticed only by looking at it in certain angles.

The sword is pretty difficult to put on his hand tough thaks t the hard material and each time i remove it i am afraid to broke it, also take a whole lot of space on the shelf....but since it helps him stand its impossible to display him witouth his weapons, not the mention the iconic pose.

While Yuna is a very nice statue, this Auron is really really impresive, even after 20 years he still stands over other figures thanks to the incredible design on Nomura and great crafting of Kotobukiya. I am even tempted to buy him again to get his glasses and sake bottle but he is soo expensive....and getting Lulu and Kimahri is really imposible now.

YUNA

Back in 2000, when Final Fantasy was extemelly popular and jumping to next gen (and finally getting voices) Kotobukiya was at full force releasing action figures based on the creatures and monsters from FF VIII and X but they never released a human character somehow, instead they released the cast of both games as vynil statues that for some reason were extremelly pricey (for back then standar) and pretty difficult to find.

Pretty difficult except the first two of the X serires: Tidus and Yuna and while i am not too much of a fan of Yuna i really dislike a lot Tidus soo i ended getting only Yuna. She have a huge scale, the same size as a Hot Toys or Sideshow figure and can stand on her own with no problem tough she came with a black round base but i dont have it anymore.

She is articulated only on the wrists to turn around her hands. Pretty usless except for adjust her accesory soo she is a statue on all sence of the word. She is not my favorite character but i dont dislike her either, in the game she wasnt as anoying as many of the female FF characters and i loved her fighting style based on Summons soo i was pretty happy with her back then.

She is pretty, really pretty, I think Kotobukiya did a great job esculpting her soft face features with a little bit of anime touch, more focused on the Tetsuya Nomura illustrations than her render. The folds on her upper outfit and sleves are realistic enough and are fluid enough despite her pose to be extremelly simple. She is just there standing still and yet she dosnt look stiff thanks to the gesture on her hands and very subtle movement on her dress.

I am actually glad she is not arms open jumping or something, with her size that would be very difficult to handle.

The paint is wath makes the sculpt shine. Her dress have very soft hues of blues to give it volume while her sleves have soft pink. Her hair is kinda plain tough, i wish they give her more shadows and shades but i guess they wanted it to match her skin, since this section is cast on skin colored vinyl, with no texture and paint at all.

The intrincated design of shadows on her dress and waist piece (obi?) are actually printed like stickers soo they are really vibrant and perfectly deffined. Her face is beautifull, with soft pink lips and a blue and a green eye to show the amazing attention to details.

Her only accesory aside of the missing base is her staff, with a good sculpt but a really awesome paitning. I do love the aquatic tones of blue on the staff as well as the deep browns. Its kinda difficult to put the staff on her hand thanks to the rigid nature of vynil but once installed its direction can be moved by moving the wrist of Yuna.

Now, this figure is old, 20 years old and is pretty dusty and have some scratches here and there, also she is missing the big ribbon on her back. I try to clean her as much as i could and curate the scratches but i wasnt able to do anything about the ribbon soo excuse the incompletness of this piece.

Overall, she is really pretty. Considering her Play Arts action figure as well as the Play Arts Kai, i think this is the most pleasent and aesthetical accurate representation of the character: soft, serene and really pretty. Tough as pretty as she is, my waifu wasnt Yuna....but Lulu.....and sadly, she was crazy expensive back then and now she is even more.