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S.H. Figuarts Sailor Mercury Animation Color Edition


My first October pre-order has arrived, and it is none other than Sailor Mercury from Tamashii Nations. They released special animation color versions of various Sailor Moon characters, and since they were cheap (e.g. not web exclusives), I went ahead and picked up Miss Mercury.






The first thing I noticed about Sailor Mercury is that, despite her small feet and coming with a stand (like all the Sailor Moon characters), I was able to get her to stand relatively well on her own. You just need to position the feet at certain angles, but it can be done. I also own Nise Sailor Moon, and that one was a bit harder to stand without support. Mercury comes dressed in a white sailor outfit, with blue skirt, blue collar, light blue bows on her chest and back, blue boots with white trim and white gloves with blue trim, and her short, pixie like blue hair. For the most part, the paint and details are clean, although she did have a little bit of blue paint bleed on her right shoulder. It's more noticeable when looking at them from the top.





The box she comes in is blueish, with an open window to see the figure and larger photo of the figure. It also seems to have bubbles, to showcase her various bubble attacks. She comes with 5 pairs of hands (fists, open fingers, 2 relaxed pairs, one holding pair, and an extra hand for holding her pocket computer). She comes with the closed and open version of that computer. She also comes with an extra hair piece that has HMD (head mounted display) goggles, a heart stand that bears her name, and finally, 4 face plates (regular, smiling, frowning and open mouth shocked or upset). All the faces are nicely done and I always appreciate getting different expressions from Tamashii Nations. All the hands are easy to swap out, and the pocket computers fit nicely in her holding hands. 






Her articulation is pretty decent. She has hinged, ball jointed shoulders, ball jointed head, upper torso and waist, pegged wrists, single jointed elbows and knees, ball jointed thighs with pivot, and ankles that hinge and rock to the sides. You can get her into some decent action poses, though she won't be able to balance on one foot. Due to the sculpt of her hair in the back, she can't look too far up, but can look to the sides and far down.







S.H. Figuarts Sailor Mercury is a decent release. While she doesn't sport any awe inspiring articulation, her different faces and accessories make her fun, especially since she's not a pricey web exclusive. Tamashii have also released special animation versions of Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Venus and Sailor Mars, and they are all the same price. I also noticed that they are still available from most sites, so if you have the funds, you may want to pick up your Sailor Moon figures (the prices may even drop if you wait a bit, since they don't seem to have sold out). I'm satisfied with Sailor Mercury. She's a good figure with fun accessories.




 

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