Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Play Arts Kai Bayonetta Part 1

First experience with Square Enix's action figure

A nice segway from the previous posting I would say, since the last video clip shown in that interlude connects directly to this new review series: Play Arts Kai Bayonetta from Square Enix. ^^


A long overdue review actually. Just a couple more days and it would be a full one year since I got this figure, along with Jeanne from the same series. ^^; I always have the tendency to save the good stuff for later, and the "later" usually turns into eternity. ^^;

Because of the close connection between Bayonetta and Jeanne, I always wanted to do a double-feature for the two like what I did for Revoltech Sengoku Basara Sanada Yukimura and Date Masamune. ^^ So expect the first posting on Jeanne after this, then back to Bayonetta, followed by Jeanne again until the end of the series. ^^

Anyway, Bayonetta is the title character from a not-so recent console game (given how fast driven the game industry is ^^) by Sega. I'm not a gaming person, so I didn't get to play the game. I do enjoy the game play videos (watching how other people play the game essentially ^^), and for quite a while when the game hit the market, which was around end of 2009/early 2010, I did actively seek game play demo videos to see how the game was played. Just like the characters themselves, all the designs in the game look flamboyantly fluid and elegant, or nastily gory when it comes to some of the kills, which are very exciting to watch I would say. ^^;

Check out the Japanese CM for "Bayonetta" below:


Video clip is from Youtube. Follow this link to the website if you can't see anything.

By the way, the Japanese theme song for the game as featured in this CM is "Something Missing" by MiChi. You can listen to the entire song through this link.

For the character herself, I'm quite a fan of the bespectacled witch even before the game was released. ^^ I first saw her through promo screenshots of the game and I was immediately enchanted. XD When the demos started to roll out, I was even more intrigued by the character with her European English accent. ^^ Like I said, I'm not really into gaming so I'm extremely unfamiliar with the many game titles, but mature female characters as the lead (Bayonetta and Jeanne, and the earlier is supposed to over 500 years old ^^;) seems like a really special thing to me. ^^;

The attack moves of the characters are really exciting to watch as well. Seeing how Bayonetta dances around while massively slaughtering the monsters in her path is just awesome, especially when she executes her "Torture Attacks". ^^ Depending on the types of monsters she encounters, the attacks can be a Guillotine, Iron Maiden, a giant wheel of spikes or an old fashioned chainsaw to the head. ^^; Very bloody, but they are very much for the witch's own amusement though.

And very typical of a Japanese game developer, one of weapons for selection is a katana, which seems to be a very versatile and powerful one to be used. So a European witch fighting with katana while riding on ice skates should be considered a really normal thing in this game. XD You can watch the katana and ice skates parts as separate combo features in this video clip below (Note: one of the "Torture Attack" moves shown in the video is a bit lewd in execution. You are warned here ^^;)


Video clip is from Youtube. Follow this link to the website if you can't see anything.

On a separate note, this is also my first experience with the Play Arts Kai action figure series by Square Enix. I know the company has many of its own console game titles, but it produces a lot of items related to games and anime from other companies it seems. Action figure is one, it has quite a few releases in the gashapon, fixed display item and large figure categories as well. More images and information on the company's online catalog site.

Back to Play Arts Kai Bayonetta: ^^






The figure itself can be seen clearly through the front window.


(Left) top view of the box.


Very simple design for all sides of the box.




Introduction of the figure on the back of the box.


Mind the age barrier there: not 15, and 17 and above. ^^;
Kids, this is not for you at all.


Box open.



Box content.




Just the most basic accessories - her handguns (and feet-guns no doubt XD) called "Scarborough Fair" are included.
But the details and colors of the figure itself are amazing.



A huge blue moon as the backdrop of the box.


A small piece of instruction on how to change the hand units and how to attach the guns to the figure's heels.



Straight out of box display of Bayonetta.
Stands perfectly balanced even with her large "bat-wings" (supposedly her hair) XD sticking out from the upper arms.

Was hoping that more weapons could be included actually, especially her katana (called "Shuraba") since it's such a prevalent weapon of choice in the game, but at least the figure features Bayonetta in her most significant image when the game was first promoted. I'm all cool with that. ^^

An introduction on her sister, Jeanne in the next posting. ^^

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