Bandai Ultra Act Ultraman

Welcome to my 40th post! Today I will actually be doing my first full blown review. It not really a robot and it doesn't have rocket punch action but I love Ultraman and chances are if you love Japanese Sci-Fi/Robots/Tokusatsu, you will no doubt like and/or know who Ultraman is. I for one, am a casual fan, but I am a sucker for the original Ultraman design. My wife absolutely despises Ultraman and when I am watching it, it pretty much annoys her. Especially the opening song which you can see below.

What I have here is the Ultra Act Ultraman by Bandai. It comes in a simple cardboard box with an offset window. Notice the side profile of Ultraman on the right side of the box done in some snazzy graphics.











When you pull out the tray you are hit in the face with a strong PVC smell. The inner tray has two levels. The top level has Ultraman and alternate hands. The Bottom tray has his cape and Specium Ray gimmick.

The figure itself is quite nice, save for all the seams in the joints. The suit in the actual show was no prize either. It was a loose floppy wrinkly mess at times. The suit on this figure looks taut.

The seams on the back of the figure make it look almost like he's wearing armor. This is of course to facilitate the incredible poses required of this PVC figure to look just like what you see on screen.

Loved my many and hated by about just as much, mostly those who can't get past the guy-in-a-suit thing. This is a face only a mother can love. Very froggy and devoid of any emotion. Not very intimidating at all but he is still awesome. You can even make out the small holes required for the actor to look out through on the bottoms of the eyes which are molded from a clear material. Behind the eyes, there is mayonnaise, or at least it looks like it. Very nice effect.

You may recognize this pose that he is in for most of his on-screen time in between all the wrestling with the Kaiju.

The neck joints allow a satisfying range of movement which allows you to easily pose him how you desire.

Here he is using 2 different included alternate hands.

Double jointed elbow and knee joints that allow great movement.

Here are his balls..er I mean ball joints for the hips. You'll notice there are cups surrounding the hip ball joints. On top of those are the thighs. Again, this allows a great amount of movement.

Here he is hunched over to show off the range of his back joints. The upper chest and waist pose independently of each other. Note: the waist joint on my figure pops off rather easily.










The ankles are also articulated to allow easy posing. You'll see that even the toes have a joint which will come in handy.

 There is no limit to the poses you can achieve with this figure. If pose-ability was the goal of this figure, Bandai did a great job.

 How about we check out some gimmicks? Here he is with his popular Specium Ray. I love how well this figure is able to achieve the looks of his on screen persona.










Next, we have Ultra Slash!











Next is this pose, I'm just not sure what it's called.

 That's not all folks, he comes with this really cool PVC cape which is possibly heavier than the figure itself. Cloth would have been nice, but the wrinkles look more effective this way.

The cape looks and fits great on the figure. Great job in the sculpting.

I also wanted to show off this really cool base that came to me from Angolz.com. (IT IS NOT PART OF THE ULTRAMAN SET!)  It's made by Kid's Logic and it's called the Cosmos Base. It comes in different colors. It boasts 8 LEDs which are lit up through a hidden switch on the steps. It was meant for Saint Myth Cloth figures I believe but the adjustable stand posts should suit other figures nicely.

While my figure had no real problems standing on his own with the cape, any sudden movement on the shelf or table will cause him to fall. To remedy this, Bandai provides a molded plastic support to help keep Ultraman standing.

Do you know what happens when Ultraman is running out of power? The timer on his chest starts flashing red. Unfortunately Bandai did not provide and LED gimmick here. Instead they give you a little red piece of plastic to swap out for the blue one. On a side note, I bought an Ultraman candy toy a while back and it had a flashing LED gimmick. Go figure.





Well, that's about it for now, stay tuned for a video review. If you like this figure, it'll run you about 25-30 bucks before shipping. Is it worth it? Probably not to the regular collector, but if you have even a casual interest in Ultraman, then it might just be worth it. In my opinion, for the price it could have been better, at least maybe have an LED gimmick and more high-end feeling joints, especially the waist which falls out very easily. Unacceptable in something that costs $30 before shipping. I still don't regret it. It's a modern highly poseable Ultraman. I like. SHUWATCH!!