DEVILMAN FIGURE COLLECTION 2

 Right now Banpresto is one of the most active brands in Japan producing lots of really high quality figures with extremelly low prices. Really, theyr stuff looks amazing and made me wish i buy more products for them but sadly, they keep focused on Dragon Ball, One peice and other shonen titles i am not very interested in, tough in the last century they produced some Devilman stuff.

With the title of "Devilman Figure Collection 2" (i have never meet soo far the Collection 1...), the figures are actually small statues that came on window boxes that reminds me a milk package and only have four characters: Devilman, Devilman TV, Akira Fudo and Satan.

They are smaller than your average action figure tough big enough to nto be "gashapon" (also you can look at the figure perfectly from the window box) and non can stand on theyr own but they comes with a small and extremelly siplie black base that works pretty well.

Devilman TV version is a little too slim for my taste tough he keeps the pretty heroic pose with his arms crossed at front, reminds me a whole lot Ultraman. Also this is one of those rare times where he has no wings. The quality of the plastic is good and is cast on the colors of the figure soo he have a pretty clean apprearance. The very little paint appyed is flawles, on his yellow eyes and red marks.

Devilman, on his original manga version, reminds me a lot of Go Nagai´s artwork and have the same feral and wild appearance of his illustrations, on a pretty ape like pose, with his animal claws and huge smile full of teeth, the sculpture of the musculature is really impresive, even with veins, as well as the hairy legs. Out of the four figures i think this is my favorite in term of sculpture and paint.

But the one i think is the most important is Satan, because this is pretty much the only Satan figure with Go Nagai´s original design (not counting Nirasawa´s version from Fewture). With his/her arms corssed in front and the wings spread, two wings covering the crotch area for evident reasons, this small statue looks like an image of the manga in 3D. I am glad they didnt censor the chest area and while the sculpt is pretty simple and most of the work is on the wings, the same can be said of the paint: pretty basic skin tone with some yellow washes on the wings and strong yellow on the hair and blue on the eyes.

The last figure was Akira Fudo but sadly, i never got him soo my collection is incomplete, tough my main interest was on Satan and Devilman of course and i am extremelly happy with this two. This figures dosnt have a pretty imposing scale and can be simple looking, but they showcase the first genes of Banpresto perfection with its figures.

DEVILMAN ART COLLECTION COMPLEX

 One of the most popular toy in Japan is the miniatures on capsules or blind boxes and i admit they are exiting as long as you can get them easy but if you are in another country, they are a pain in the ass. I am not sure of the blind boxes toys are still called "gashapon", but Devilman sure had a lot back then and the last ones were titled "ART COLLECTION COMPLEX" since each one of them was designed for a different artist.

This was the reason the collection had such crazy variants over the normal gashapons. Like for example, one of them was actually a tiny action figure. A Devilman painted on green and articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrist, legs, knes and ankles. The size of the tiny pieces is really stuning and the articulations works really good (tough sometimes hes dismembered)

I dont know who are the artists behind each figure, but this one reminds me a lot Yaushi Nirasawa´s work, with Devilman having spikes, tiny wings and the big smile, pretty monster looking. The color is radioactive green with some rusty tones to give volume to his muscles. I think out of the entire serires this guy is the most fun and eve had a variant on orange color.

Another figure have Satan standing on a rock with a hand on his/hed head. Is just a small sculpture with no accesorys and the sculpt on the wings and feathers is really awesome for such small scale tough is difficult look at his face. The entire peice is cast on transluscent plastic, green for the rock, white for the body and yellow for the wings. This give it a pretty unreal looks but makes it also difficult to see the details thanks to the scale. There was a green color variant of this figure.

My favorite of the entire collection is deffinetly the bust. Even if its a miniature, the bust nature makes the details to stand out nicelly and there is A LOT to see here: Devilman´s creppy smile, the skin on the wings on his head, the flesh texture on his neck, the muscles, the skull on his hand...and the paint, while is discret (mostly for the eyes, fangs and some minor details) is pretty natural looking. This mini bust looks terrific on the shelf and reminds me a lot Katsuya Terada´s work.

Next up is a piece inspired on the TV anime, the blue Devilman with the red super hero wings coming out from the ice with his best friend and foe, Dorango, on his back. Both are missing an arm and Dorango is heavilly wounded on his chest. The composition os the peice is really spectacular looking and while the sculpt is good, the best part is the paint since is really vibrant and catch the style of the anime. I also love how the stump on theyr missing arms are translucent, like both arms were freezed, soo the amount of detail is pretty cool.

The other figure on the collection consist on Devilman on top of a church roof top, with a goden cross behind him. While the image is pretty awesome i think this had worked better on a big scale statue since the scale dosnt let the details to shine as they could, specially on the face. The transparent wings is a nice detail and there was a color variant of this figure.

Lastly theres a figure of Devilman standing on....a red thing, blood maybe? I am not sure with this transluscent red thing is but i dont need to ask who was the artists behind this, obviouslly it was Go Nagai, this is his Devilman, the shape of his eyes and mouth, the pose, everything is reminiscent of his art and looks like a 3D panel from his manga.

This is also the biggest figure of the collection and while his face is extremelly good looking (well....his entire body is) is the only figure that cant stand on his own.

There was another figure on the serires but i was never able to get it soo my collection is incomplete. Some of this figures are really good, maybe too god for this kind of blind box miniatures and made me wish they make bigger version of them but also the different quaity of visions avoid this serires to feel as a unity.

SATAN

After the HUGE shock that was the trhid figure on the second series of Devilman - More Than Demon, Fewture Models continue to did an impresive job by releasing again an extremelly important character that never before saw an action figure release, the main antagonist of the story, Satan.

Yasushi Nirasawa really took a lot of libertyes with Satan (and Ryo as well) and remove all of his warm and traditional beautyfull features to gives him a much more demonic and dark nature: Satan have pretty menacing claws as well as bat like wings in bewteen his angelic wings and have the silhouette of a star.

This is an angel made with a cold and icy light and for that, Fewture decided to cast the character in transcluscent plastic. This gives to the figure a pretty goodly look since the light goes trought his body and wings in a very spectacular way. This along the fact the figure have blue sparkles in the plastic gives him a pretty unique and luminous look.

The body with transparency also contains the acion feature of Satan: he have glow in the dark insides. You can see his ribs and organs shine in the dark but you can also glipse at them under normal light, something pretty odd considering this is a being made of energy and light, there is flesh on this character…

Sadlly, Satan´s head is made in hard normal plastic, soo the levels of detail and texture is pretty different on his head compared to his body and how the transluscent plastic degrades with the ages and take a yellow tone. This is much more evident on photos tough, since in person the difference is not that abismal.

Now the censorship. This figure is not censored and have a pair of female breats as well as a hairy bulgue. It looks totally female until you touch his sexual parts and notice theres a penis sculpted under the vaginal lips… i guess this was a clever way to keep Satan hermaphroditic nature as well as avoiding censorship.

Satan is as aticulated as Zennon, with nech and wings articulations, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knee and ankle articulations soo he have a lot of pose options that looks elegant on him, tough his anle articulations are very weeak and his wings too heavy and is almost imposible to make him stand.

To help him a little to keep balance, Satan comes with the same style base of Zennon with his name on it but in a smaller scale (bit bigger than Akira and Ryo bases). And to be honest, this base dosnt help a whole lot…is hard to keep Satan on balance doe to his big wings and that makes me like Zennon much more (if thats posible).

This is one of the best Nirasawa design, a figure that tells a lot with its silhouette and texture. It have some issues like the yellowing of his body and the lack of balance, but it manages to be pretty different to Siren while keeping its divine nature, it manages to be pretty goodlike while still looks cold and evil  and that makes it a pretty beautyfull figure of a rare character never before seen in plastic form.