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?