I remember at the late 90s and the begining of the century how strong was my obssesion with Jin Kazama. Is not like i dont like him anymore but i juts learn to like the rest of the cast of Tekken, because back then, for me, Jin was the only thing i saw on Tekken. He was the coolest guy in the entire universe, no one could reach him and then, he transformed into a Devil and set the bar even higher.
The Epoch action figures of Tekken 3 were pretty awesome in the 90s, but the jewel of the crown was both True Ogre and Devil Jin. I remember how much i seek for Devil Jin but he was soo rare i never find him until probablly 15 years later. He was this "deluxe" figure with huge wings that stand out from the rest of the characters (even tough he wasnt a playable in Tekken 3) and now Storm Collectibles did his magic on him, something that got me excited for the ongest time since the first time they show him was like...4 years ago.
Yes Storm take a lot of time to release theyr stuff but now, a few months ago we got King, soo that mean we got two Tekken characters in a year for the first time!!!
Devil Jin is at the same scale a the normal Jin Kazama of course tough, unlike Jin, this guy CANT STAND on his own. Thanks to the heavy wings, Devil Jin only can stand in a straigth museum like pose since anything else makes him lose his balance. I usually accept the fact Storm gives base only to the Street Figthers characters just because theyr figures stand pretty well by theyr own but this time around, a base is or extraordinary importance and the fact Storm is turning bases into DLC (they sold separatelly), this really hurts the figure experience (specially with the high price).
The articulations are as goos as always: head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes, ankles, half foot, wings and half point of the wings tough he lost once articulation: the abs cut. Instead his torso is entire made with soft plastic with the mechanism inside soo he can bent a little bit but not much. Its deffinetly really good looking but this prevent him to be posed in a crounching position or turning around. This was, of course, thanks to the heavy wings on his back, an abs articulation would be lose pretty fast.
The rest of the articulations are excelent as always tough i am really dissapointed with the wings....the section conected to his back have a very basic joint that makes them move up and down but thats it and the middle section have also a basic cut joint that lest them open up and close. With the quality of the ball joints of Storm Collectibles i was deffinetly waiting for more....i was expecting to move the wings on all angles or have multiple layers of them but they are extremelly static. Even the Gargoykes from NECA have a much bigger thange of movement in the conectin section.
The sculpt is awesome and dosnt recycle anything from the normal Jin Kazama. His torso is different of course for the remobal of the articulation (and i have the feeling his pecs should be bigger...)m his arms have this veiny sculpts near the elbows and his pants have a totally different leather texture on them while the original Jin have a fabric texture.
The feet are different too wince he is using some very cool boots as well as his hands, now claws. I love the hands, the gauntlets seems to be absorbed by him soo they looks organic and fleshy and the metal claws are rad. The palm is full of this spiral sculpts that makes them look like fingerprints, very Tim Burton like.
To my surprise, the chains arent real chains but they are sculpted on his legs, waist and arm. This is good because it means you can mess them up by moving him and the hanging parts on his waist and arm are made wisth soft plastic, but they different materials mix soo good is difficult to tell the difference.
The face sculpt is the same as the normal Jin Kazama and - in my opinion - it dosnt looks that much to Jin sicne i find his jaw and nose too thin, but thanks to the marks on his face and hair is difficult to see the little lack fo resemblance since the starnds of hair are longer than normal Jin´s and cover most of his face. The horns, i love those hrons!! They are made of soft plastic and looks terrific!!
Now the wings....the damn wings...the wings are kind of a central point of the figure, wath makes him stand out of the rest of characters and i am not very happy with them. The feather texture is magnifiscent tough, the tiny feathers on top and how they get longer until they are pretty long in the end and the hairy-feathery sculpt is sharp and well done but the shape...
I dont know any animal with this wings shape...when closed, wings take this round shape around the body, they are very flexible, but here....they looks like giant doritos. They are somehow curled opposite to Jin´s body and thanks to the shape of Jin´s back they are in a pretty...odd angle. And of coruse thanks to the lack of dynamic articulation, you can change the angle soo they are perpetually on a 120° angle.
While closed they dont looks very closed or relaxed at all, they looks like they are in this spicky motion at the sides. While open they looks better tough in the top section they joint looks very awkard, like they have small horns on top....i dunno, i dont know how to describe it, specially on english, but they dont look anatomically correct nor closed or open.
Also.....they are soo smal...soo tiny wings. I think they Epoch Devil Jin from 1999 have much bigger wings and they looks pretty short compared wo the Gargoyles wings from NECA and thats sad since they are in the same scale. Also the top section (where the wings fold) is taller than Jin´s head on the same,the wings are maybe 6 inches taller than Jin himself, but here the wings are actually shorter than Jin soo yhea....pretty short wings.
The paint is good as always. The entire body is cast on skin tone and the legs in black soo they looks pretty clean and natural. The red on the legs and the boots and gaountlets is pretty vibrant and contrast nicelly with all the blacks and metalic colors. The chains and claws have shiny metalic paints but the application is soo amazing they looks really really metalic! I know how difficult is to paint a chain but made this good job in a 3d chain is really amazing. Why McFarlane cant reach this level of perfection???
The gauntlets have this weird spider legs holding on Jin´s arm (is amazing how many details have this figure that are unseen on the game) and a spike at the center in a pretty Devilmanish style, all this as well as the horns on his head are painted in gold metalic mixed with blacks soo they looks extremelly natural, like made with bronze.
The tattoos on his torso, shoulder, veins on his arms and face are pretty clean and nicelly done as well as the red eye on his forehead. The eyes are amazing looking, with yellow pupils and the eye lashes and eye brows soo perfectly painted at such smal scale. Also, for some reason his nipples are painted....why is this important? Because the rest of the characters dosnt have them painted, not even the normal Jin.
The awfull wings have a great painting as well, with a greysih black on it very different to Jin´s hair and pants and with pale blue strokes here and there for the feathers to stand out. A very basic paint that actually gives them a pretty livelly and artistic look and keeps them away of the black chunks of plastic looking wings from the Epoch Devil Jin.
For the accesorys he have 3 extra sets of hands: one pointing with two fingers, one open hands and one in claw shape. The sculpt and paint are top notch and they are easy to change tough the two fingers hand gesture is really menacing looking, i dont see too many display options to use them.
He also have two extra heads: one a snarling fierce expression and another shouting. Again the sculpt and paint are perfect, specially on the mouth, with each individually sculpted teet painted as well as his tongue and i find this head sculpts much closer to his Jin actually look in game. Change the heads is kind of tricky tough thanks to the wings is relaly imposible to get a strong hold of Jin´s body.
And thats it....nothing more. Just extra hands and extra head, no other display options and absolutelly no effects. This characer can shot rays from his head as well as use other suppernatural attacks and yet, Storm gives him nothing. Not even red electricity to his fist or anything making this the Storm Collectibles figure with less accesorys soo far.
There is a background piece tough, a cardboard background that dosnt fit too much thanks to Devil Jin´s wings. I try to use it on the photos but those wings keep the background away but also i tough this was a copy of Kazuya´s background. Kazuya´s background is the volcano where he figths against Heihachi and this one is like...a different kind of volcano? There is rocks and lava but this one is brigther. I dunno, i never realised Tekken 7 had two scenarios that looked like each other this much.
Overall, this figure is impresive looking. Even if its Jin all over again the little changes are masterfully made and everything works great just like all Storm Collectible figures.
But then theres those wings...those damn wings....those damn heavy and tiny wings....odlly shaped wings that looks made by an art AI and then there is the complete lack of accesorys....after soo many years, i finally have a complaing over a Storm Collectibles figure. This could have been the central piece of the Tekken collection but he falls short compared to the rest and yet he is really cool looking still.
