Years ago, I remember seeing a photo of a prototype of Ultraman Tiga from S.H. Figuarts. Like several prototypes that they display in shows, the years came and it never dropped. Then it was announced earlier this year that they would finally be giving us that Tiga figure. And even better, in their deluxe Shinkocchou Seihou line. This is supposed to be special series using a "true bone carving" sculpting method, meaning that they give extra attention to modeling the figure to be as accurate to the suit actor as possible. Fans were excited and the promo photos that dropped looked rather promising. And then came the end of July, when the figure was officially released. Was it worth the hype? Well, yes and no. There is one major issue that's being talked about all over social media. Let's dive further...
Tiga comes with an alternate red color timer, 6 pairs of hands (fists, open palm, relaxed, and various karate chop styles), an extra left karate chop hand, and an extra forearm piece that has his Zeperion Beam molded into it. You swap it out by popping off the regular forearm and popping in the beam version. It swaps out fairly easily, clipping and unclipping with no hassle. As far as sculpt, Tiga looks great, very accurate to the suit. Tiga was the first Ultra to change forms, a trend that continues to this day. He's red, purple and silver, with a golden striped collar and forehead crystal. He had the ability to switch to an all red form (Power Type, which gives him extra strength), or an all purple form (Sky Type, which gives him extra speed and agility). This version is his regular, Multi-Type.
Tiga's articulation is, for the most part, great. His head rests on a peg that allows him to turn to the sides, look far up and down, neck on a ball joint, hinged shoulder that have a butterfly like clicking gear joint to allow his arms to extend far forward, upper arm and thigh swivel, double jointed elbows and knees, ball jointed upper torso and waist, added ab crunch underneath the soft plastic of his torso, hinged, ball jointed thighs that can drop down a bit for added range, swiveled ankles that have wide side tilt range. Where the issues arises, is that the shoulder pads, torso and waist are all made of soft plastic, and the paint can easily rub off at various points, especially on the sides when his arms are positioned going forward. This makes his beam pose a catch-22, because the paint can easily rub off while attempting it.
There were reports that the paint that was used had trouble sticking to the soft plastic, and when I watched several Japanese YouTube review videos (since they got the figure first), most of them showed paint easily peeling off or scratching. Certain social media pages started to report that the paint hadn't fully dried when the figure was placed in the box, so they suggested to take the figure out of the box and leave it to sit in a cool dry room for several days to allow the paint to fully dry and adhere to the plastic. I actually tried that method, and while it initially seemed to work, after posing the figure a few times, I began to notice the paint rubbing off. There were even some users that started coating their figure with a special spray. Not sure if that would work, but either way, it's quite a misstep on Figuarts' part. They should've have applied more quality control to the figure before releasing, so that they could have caught this and corrected it prior to release.
Tiga is in scale with the other S.H. Figuarts Ultras, and is shorter than the older Ultra Act line, of which I own several figures, including Tiga Multi-Type and Tiga Dark. He also scales well with most of the old standard vinyl kaiju I own, and since I have several from his series, it works out well.
While I love the sculpt, extra hands and beam accessory, the issue with the paint rubbing off the plastic parts really brings S.H. Figuarts' Ultraman Tiga's rating down. When Tiga debuted in the early 90's, the show helped to introduce Ultraman to an entire new generation of fans, and thus, he's loved by many (myself included). I still have old DVD's of the show, and the theme song, Take Me Higher, is catchy as hell. It's really lame that after all these years of waiting for Tamashii Nations to give us a Tiga figure, it came with such an avoidable problem, especially this being Tiga's 25th anniversary. If you purchase this figure, I guess you can try the method of spraying it with a special coat to protect the paint, since having the figure sit in a cool dry room for several days clearly didn't work. Or you can just have him sit on your shelf in a regular pose. But that defeats the point of having a highly articulated figure. I don't know what's been going on with Tamashii Nations recently, but it seems that lately they're giving us subpar figures, such as bare bones releases, special color editions that have no extras and are more expensive than the initial release, or avoidable or badly constructed QC issues (e.g. Sevenger's legs). I'm pretty sure that in another few years, they'll re-release Tiga in a special color edition. Hopefully they fix the issue he currently has, like not giving him soft plastic that doesn't gel well with the paint. Tamashii Nations' releases are starting to become predictable, and not in a good way.
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