SH Figuarts Obi Wan Kenobi figure review
I’ll defend the prequels against anyone. They weren’t the Original Trilogy, but to a large extent that was the point. One area I never have to defend is Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. He was so great I’m pulling for him to reprise the role in an Obi-Wan spinoff.
SH Figuarts hasn’t been gun shy about spotlighting the prequel characters especially the principal characters from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. I’m onto my first AOTC figure with the Episode II version of Obi-Wan.
Packaging: The packaging doesn’t blow me away. It’s simple with the black and silver color scheme, but the front window lettering is distracting and the way the window is packaged makes it hard to truly see the head sculpt. The Japanese text also limits the usefulness for U.S.-based collectors who primarily speak English.
[irp]
Likeness: I’d gotten the Hasbro Star Wars Black Revenge of the Sith Obi-Wan. That figure was somewhat disappointing thanks to an underwhelming head sculpt. There’s two here. One relaxed and one stern/angry. From the right perspective, I can see Ewan McGregor in the relaxed one. The stern one is a complete miss and I doubt I’ll ever use it after this review.
Similar to the Mace Windu figure, Obi-Wan has a layered tunic. I appreciate how different it is from Mace’s figure with tighter sleeves and overall more streamlined cut. It helps to distinguish the two and make Mace more imposing.
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Scale: Obi-Wan is 6′ making him four inches shorter than Mace. That’s reflected well with the figures as well.
Paint: Figuarts makes some interesting choices in regards to hair paint applications. They go with a gold tint instead of a basic blonde or light brown. It was too exaggerated with Jedi Luke, but is toned down considerably with Obi-Wan. Here his hair color looks more natural and in line with how it was in the film.
The face printing effort here is fine. The stern head seemed to have some caked up paint in places, but the default head is fine.
Articulation: The Figuarts articulation setup makes posing really fun. I didn’t lack for any good lightsaber wielding poses and the various accessories provided a wealth of options. The soft plastic robe allow for any Jedi movement and is really just limited to imagination. For some poses — specifically leaping — you will need a stand.
Obi-Wan has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee (double-jointed)
- ankle
- foot
Accessories: The Jedi don’t offer up much by way of variety for Figuarts, who for some reason continue to skip out on including robes. For Mace, that was less of an issue, but Obi-Wan wears his robe for half the movie.
I’ve already gone in detail about the heads, but the stern one is so far removed from McGregor’s normal expressions it may as well have been shelved. Maybe a more expressive head would have worked better here?
Additionally, Obi-Wan has four pairs of hands — one open set, force gesturing, lightsaber gripping and fists. I was annoyed my right hand open clutch lightsaber hand was cracked. That’s going to pose problems eventually and I’m just glad Figuarts had two saber clutching hands.
Figuarts also included an unlit lightsaber to attach to his belt. The lightsaber blade pops off as Figuarts recommends for posing. I didn’t have a problem with it on, but being cautious is probably the best decision.
Worth it? Obi-Wan will run you about $40-$45. I had a pretty massive 3 3/4″ Geonosis display with ever improving Obi-Wan figures. It’s nice to have a definitive version in the 6-inch scale.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Obi-Wan loses some points due to the lackluster second head and cracked hand. Otherwise this is a solid AOTC version of Anakin’s master.
Where to get it? This is an import figure so you’re either going to have to hope your local comic book store carries these or simply go online yourself. Amazon has one at pretty decent price now at $45. Some of the more popular characters start off reasonably priced and then shoot up so if you’re interested, I’d advise you grabbing him now.