S.H.Figuarts Darth Vader Photoreview

Tamashii Nation's take on the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader arrived on my doorstep today.  Let's open him up and take a look!

The box is very nice.  Lots of gloss and metallic paints.  The shininess of the clear plastic does make it hard to see the figure, in this picture and up close.

Backside shot.  Shows some neat poses and has some copy in English.

 Anakin removed from the box, and without the tray cover.  A good amount of plastic slips between some joints (to prevent them from rubbing in the box) including a hard-to-see and harder-to-remove slip around his lower torso.  

 Basic pose.  The cape is molded to sway slightly to the figure's left.  This picture shows it's neutral position.  It doesn't wrap around the sides of the figure very much, which is great for action shots.  For shots of Vader standing still, however, it doesn't look very convincing or screen-accurate.  This is my biggest gripe with the figure.

 Pretty good posability!  I could have probably have gotten him even lower, but his skirt hits the ground.  The skirt is seperated into three overlapping pieces which allows for much more range of motion on the legs than if it was just one.  The skirt as well as the cape are very soft, and can be moved out of the way off limps pretty well.  They also really help the figure to balance while standing, making posing off-center poses really easy.

 This is what you get in the box.  Figure, lightsaber (ignited), lightsaber (off), two open hands, two closed hands (which work great for force chokes) and one sliced off hand.  His right hands have hinge and peg joints while his left hands are only ball joints.  This allows his right hand to bend more for two-handed lightsaber holds.  The right hand pegs go through Vader's cuffs, holding it on.  If you remove the hand, the cuff can come off, making room for his "sliced off" hand accessory.

 Close-up of the head.  There's a lot of different finishes on Mr. Skywalker here, adding depth and realism, especially, the helmet.  By using different plastics and paints, he doesn't look like a black blob; you can easily read his form.  Along the back of his neck, you an start to see the gray electronics that connect this his helm to his mask.

The cape is molded to the chain around his neck.  There are pegs in the back (right around his shoulder blades) that can hold it closer to his body (for standing poses) or can be pulled out to make it flow more behind.  This is a really cool feature, and avoids the issues of some other Vader figures, namely, awkward-looking capes. 

Despite being a bit "hero"-stylized, he tends to look pretty lifelike and screen-accurate.  His left hand here is his lightsaber-grip hand, but works perfectly well as a force-choke.

Vader's hips can adjust, making him slightly taller or shorter.  In the shorter configuration, the hip joints are covered by his cod-armor, but lack range-of-motion.  In the taller way, they can bend much farther, but you can see the joint.  This is also very useful with regards the cape.  If can touch the ground when the hips are tucked up, or not, if they are pulled down, which is super useful when posing.  The cape would be much more restrictive if not for this feature.  I'm really glad they put it in.

The lightsaber blade is clear red plastic.  It tapers a bit towards the end.  Mine was ever-so-slightly curved, but not too bad, and was easy to fix.

His shoulder pauldrons have joints and can easily get out the way for poses such as this one.  They can be placed above or below his cape and chest armor.  If you watch closely in the movies, this is how his armor works.

This one's a bit blown-out to show the details.  The cloth of his costume is ribbed, like the films and has some creasing molded into it.  His elbow joints are pretty big and noticeable, despite having the ribbing and creasing molded on them as well.  There are tons of brightly painted lights on his chest controls and belt.  They really stand out, which I like.

The sliced off hand works well.  The wires poking out are all the same color of gray, despite being different colors in the movie.

The first-run bonus is huge!!  Its box eclipses the figures.

It assembles really easily.  The instructions are on the back of the box.

Inside the tray.  It truely is massive.

Here it is with Anakin on top for scale.  The shiny bits on the back wall are very reflective.  The stairs and back wall do not actually connect, I just placed the stairs flush with the back wall.

I can't wait for the S.H.Figuarts Luke, so they can duel on this amazing stand.

This is really cool: there are holes that fit Tamashii Stage pegs all along the sides of the diorama base!  That's very clever thinking on Bandai's part, and vastly increases the type of scenes you can make.

 Final thoughts.  This is a great figure.  The proportions, paint apps and posability are all on point.  (Alliteration bonus!)  The cape and skirt material, though flexible, is a bit thick for my tastes.  I also would have really appreciated a way to make the cape hang over his shoulders, either through a replacement cape or joints or something.  The iconic look of Vader with his huge cape draped over his front is not really feasible with this figure.  The face sculpt is great, looks just like him and with matte-finished eyes, you'll swear you can almost see David Prowse's eyes behind them.  A great figure, overall.