GUTS

 I cant belive its been six years since the last time i get a Nendroid from Good Smile Company. There was a time when my collection of Nendroids grew pretty steady until Good Smile Comapany decided to follow SquareEnix road and started to sky rocket the price of theyr products to the point they had to create Pop Up Parade to get some money from collectors again. I miss a lot of Nendroids in the last years because i wasnt going to pay 3 times the price they had before the pandemic.

But i finally fall back at theyr graps, why? Berserk. I am actually surprised they took soo long to start release Nendroids of Berserk actually, and they start in the same point all other Berserk collections start: Black Swordman Guts.

This little Guts is the same scale as other Nendroids: pretty pretty small and he fits with the rest perfectly but wath surprise me the most is that he can stand on his own perfectly, for the first time, he dont need a base. Why? Because of his cloack that works like a tripod and keep his balance perfectly.

He is not specially articulated tough, only the head, the shoulders, wrists and legs and nothing more. The head have a ball joint as well as the legs but they dont have too much room to move, specially the head since the clack keep the head kind of static. The shoulders and wrists are cut joints soo he can rise his arms up but thats it, he has no way to open his arms at all.

He have a couple of extra articulations tough on his cloack, it is a 3 pieces construction with the main piece in the center keeping Gts standing and the two extra flaps at the side can open up an move around a little bit to give the impression the cloack is moving around. Open them too much and they look like insect wings soo its better to just move them a little to give them a discret pose effect.

The sculpt is very nice. Of course his face is extremelly simple with the cute little nose and giant proportions tough his chin is square too make him look more manly. His spiky hair is very nice but looks like a challengue to dust off. The details on the shoulder and legs armor is pretty incredible as well as the little mechanical arm.

But the best part is deffinetly the knifes on hi chest and the one on his belt, the puches on his waist and....it seems he have more on his back but i cant see them thanks to the hard plastic cloack. I can see chains and even his crossbow but they are completelly hidden under the cloack.

Theres no exture here, nothing at all. He is completelly clean of any texture and his cape looks specially simple thansk to this but i guess it helps to make him look like a little anime chibi.

The paint is good but keept as minimum since each part is cast in the dominant color of that section. His skin looks really nice as well as the hair and the brown belts with the knifes, tough the metalic armor part have black silverish paint that makes them looks, well....metalic (and this includes the mechanical arm, is actually darker than the rest of the outfit and the cloack).

The mouth is both sculpted and painted tough the scar on his nose and entire eyes section is only paint. Looks crispy and pretty clean and still amaze me that, despite the simplicity of the "anime" design, his eyes are totally different to the eyes of the other Nendroids, and the thick eye brows too. He have one black aye and his gaze is as serious and cold as Venom Snake.

He dosnt have too many extras tough. To begin with he comes with two extra face plates that fits into his head once the front hair part is removed. Is prettye asy to exchange them and one have an mischevious smile and the other is shouting. The screaming one is my favorite and fits him perfectly tough the addition of the smiling one is good, i think he looks way too much like an anoying breat in here, even his pupil lose all ligth to make it looks like he is in madness mode but it dosnt works for me.

His most important accesory is the Dragon Slayer tough, his giant sword that is,like always, taller than him. The metalic paint is good and i like a lot the bandages flapping at the wind in soft grey color. Of coruse the sword looks way too clean but it matches perfecty the extra clean look of Guts.

He comes with an extra left hand and an extra pair of hands to hold the sword. The hads are soo tiny and at times soo easy to lose but they are of coruse very important, specially the left one since is itself a weapon: his little mechanical hand is bend down and revealing his arm canon, just like the Figma (and just like with the Figma it makes me wonder why they just didnt articulated the hand....).

Since his arms are not articulated he also comes with a pair of extra arms with the elbows bend. The scult is nice as well as the paint and they can be exchanged by the bicep section, conects with the rest of the arm with a peg. And same way, since his legs are not articulated he also comes with a bend knee left leg. To my surprise is pretry easy to swap legs and this one helps for the more actiony posing.

He also comes with another pair of extra arms witout the bicep section. The missing biceps let him join the arms up front soo he can hold his sword with both arms at the same time. This is a pretty smart soluction since most figures cant join theyr hands up front to hold a gun or a sword (Not even the increedible expensive IconicQ Ryu can do it) and i even wish the Figma version had this arms.

And finally he have his base, the slasic Nendroid base made with trabsluscent plastic and an articulated arm thingy that conect to his back with  apeg, tough this time around the base is completelly inecesary except if you want to pose him jumping around.

And thats all, not much really and while i looooooove the look of this little Guts, he is pretty limited. Even with the extra leg and arms, he can only achive 4 or 5 poses and thats it, not only his design hinders his movement (he cant be pused with his sword over his shoulders because of his gigantic head), but the static nature of the figure as well. Is really not very fun pay with him to be honest, this is a figure once posed is best to let it rest on the shelve and thats it.

Or maybe i am just bitter for the price i pay....this guy is like 1/4 the size of a Gargoyle or a Pop Up Parade and i had to pay for him a little bit more that those. I still dont understand why this little figures are soo expensive since they are now basically statues, i even find it hard to call this an action figure at all.

Truth is i had this same issues even 10 years ago when i started collecting Nendroides with Metal Gear Solid, but the price they have now make things feel even worse. I am not sure if i will buy more Nendroids tough, despite how cute and cool looking they are, maybe i stop after Endeavor.