Review: Play Arts Kai: Jun Kazama

Front & Back View

Open flap

Atlast! My Play Arts Kai Jun Kazama is here to the review, one of my favorite fighter in TEKKEN series! Owh, this Jun was actually from her appearance in TEKKEN Tag Tournament 2, the sequel of the spin-off game TEKKEN Tag Tournament franchise. I actually wanted her TEKKEN 2/TTT alternate costume… But, who cares, atleast I got to own one of her existing figure for the 1st time. So far, Jun was a long time absent character from T2 (Official canon) & TTT (Spin-off).. Appearing only 3 times as a playable character, but she had a cameo appearance & mentioned in several sequel TEKKEN games. For sure, mainly came from Jin, Kazuya, & Asuka since they had the biggest relationship with her, being a son (Jin), Ex-Lover (Kazuya), & her relative (Asuka Kazama). She made her new appearance in TTT2 as the final boss, after her defeat she will transform into the game’s true final boss, Unknown her non-canonical alternate form. Okay, enough for her history… Going to the review now, Play Arts Kai Jun has a flashy black to blueish & white colored box. The front view got a really cool graphics, & has a cover flap which can be opened to see the showcase of her figure inside. At the back of the front cover, there’s a further informations about TEKKEN stories & Jun Kazama herself of course. & on the showcase display, there’s a printed blue colored Jun’s figure graphics along with the font of TTT2. Okay, the back view of the box was pretty simple, so nothing really special I think. Except that there’s a picture of Play Arts Kai Kazuya Mishima as the supporting figure series of TEKKEN created by Play Arts Kai. In there, Kazuya is marked as the No. 01 series while Jun is No. 02. The box itself is bigger than the previous existing release of Play Arts Kai figures. However, despite having a bigger box Jun’s scales are way too small compare to my Solid Snake figures, well she’s a woman size. But not only that… From what I’ve saw in Play Arts Kai Kazuya’s review, even Kazuya himself are shorter than Solid Snake despite having the same size box as Jun. On the contrary Solid Snake’s box is smaller than Jun’s box. Eventhough her box is bigger, the figure only comes with a very-very few accessories which rather plain & the box feels like half empty… So, what’s inside the box then?

Interchangeable Accessories

There you go… 2 optional hand parts, & pre-assembled display stand. Nice… That’s what I call cheap standard stuff… In this picture, you also get to see that the inner tray has the instructions manual printed on it.

Preview Pose

Okay, like in TTT2 main costume, she’s wearing a single suit of dirty white colored tank-top to her pants with a nice motives of black & gray colored raven shape, a belt tied on her waist, a wide black to blue-ish colored scarf with a yellow colored motives on the right side (However, this pictures shows her left sides more dominant but you can still see them in several photos below), & black & dirty white colored sandals resembling the outfit. In the game, her outfit was actually a clean white with black & gray colored raven motives on it. Play Arts Kai figures are made from PVC, ATBC, POM, M according to the box itself, also she has over 26 points of articulations, & most of her joints were a ball shaped. Well, I can make tons of pose for her just like my Play Arts Kai Solid Snake.

Head Sculpt, front & side view

… Clearly… Her face was totally inaccurate to the game, & I guess this is one of the reason she’s not worth to have. Although she didn’t look like it, they still made her face looked more adult & the image of her face sculpt shows her like a type of a motherly face. Of course, she’s Jin’s beloved mother… My… Nowonder Jin really misses his mother and still wishes that she were still with him. Jun’s hair was quite accurate to her game counterpart & Jun still dons her trademark headband. The overall sculpt was pretty outstanding, & her hair was made a bit soft to hold. The articulations are also good, we can swivel or bend up/down/side her head. However, my problem is I’ve been thinking like her neck was a bit too long & I have a bad feeling how she would look if I try to take off her scarf. & for goodness sake, she need atleast 1 extra faceplate! A serious one atleast during the battle.

Front, Side, & Back View

Jun’s proportions are a bit weird in some area, mostly for me on her butt… For me, that ass is a little too big for her (looks to me Jun is wearing some kinda extra bloomer), & her ass along with her crotch were made from a soft material. & it’s pain in the ass whenever I try to do some leg pose. Since the crotch is made from a soft material, they always stucked between her thighs & I have to fix the crotch view to be in front of her thighs. However, the soft material was intended to make her articulations works more vast, but there’s a big physical problem is when we do the action pose involving her thighs. Yes, we can actually do an extreme pose on her thighs but it would make her crotch & bottom’s off from her thighs, & I hate the sound of her thigh’s articulations whenever I want to move her thighs. The articulations of her trunk are located in her upper chest, & waist, so we can swivel or bend up/down/side her trunk. The articulations on her knee is made very awkward as hell, & this is considered the biggest articulation’s flaw on most Play Arts Kai figures. Yeah, it is also why maybe she’s not a best selling compare to her ex-lover since this flaw was very2 visible on Jun. Well, if you want to make some pose, bending her knee intensely would make her knee looks weird. But atleast without bending them, her knee looked perfect. Jun’s arms are pretty standard, much like other action figure works. Unlike Solid Snake, I have no trouble at all moving them except her wrists is quite hard one. Her scarf is made from a soft material, & there’s a cleavage on the back. this allow us to lift up her scarf also move her arms more freely. The overall sculpt is pretty nice, especially her belt, made from a soft material. Lastly, she doesn’t have a cut joint on her front foot to make us rotate them.

Scarf articulations

This is how the scarf works on her, pretty nice but could be more better I think… On the begining I thought that scarf would be a troublesome to handle. Also, they’re made separated from her, but it’s glued between her neck to shoulder. So, removing them it’s impossible.

Neck Articulations

Neck & Waist Articulations

Articulations are movable head that can be rotate 180 degrees & bend down but, Jun cannot look up much due to the hair piece on the back. She can also stretch her waist to the back as well.

Chest Articulations 01

Chest Articulations 02

We can swivel her chest but, not full 180 degrees & bend her chest to the side.

Crossed Arm Pose

Shoulder Articulations

Jun was included with upper bicep cut joints, so she can do a crossed arm pose perfectly easy. Unlike Snake, Jun can do a close hug arms pose pretty nicely despite she’s wearing scarf.

Elbow, Knee & Feet Articulations

Jun’s legs are actually fine made, we can create many dynamic posing for her. Unfortunately, like I said earlier her knee joints looks very awkward & ugly. Her elbow works pretty easy but, we couldn’t bend them much. Feet articulations works slightly different & unlike Solid Snake there’s no cut joints on the feets. Jun can also bend her chest a little.

Shoulders, Legs, & Hands Articulations

High Kick

Her crotch articulations can do gymnastic split pose as well & she can perform high kick smoothly, even without her display stand she could still balance herself. She can also raise her arms to side perfectly easy & also bend her wrist joints very deep than Solid Snake.

Option Hand Parts

Alternate Stance

Okay, one & the only optional parts for Jun has is a pair of open hands. Not really something but very nice to create many cool pose involving this. Gladly, putting her hand part to the wrist joint isn’t pain in the arse as my Snake which has a ball shaped one. Somehow, pretty much like how Figma progressed, using a peg jointed. Her default hands are fistful hands, the proportions looks better compare to my Solid Snake’s fistful hands. Funny thing that, in Jun’s prototype photos shown that her fistful hands are her extra optional part.

Play Arts Kai Display Stand

Saika Shikei

Kick!

This time Square Enix provided a display stand for the figure itself on my Play Arts Kai Jun Kazama, in which included pre-assembled. In this we have to assemble it first, if you’re clueless you can always read the instruction manual on the inner tray. They also provided 2 kinds of stand tweezers, a big one & the small one. The big one for me atleast, doesn’t really necessary to use for Jun Kazama due to her small body, so I used the small one oftenly for her. But the big one could atleast suitable for my Solid Snake, since he’s big. Actually, without the display stand Jun can still stand with no problem for me, except when I’m going to create some pose that couldn’t balance her body. On the contrary, my Play Arts Kai Solid Snake really need this so badly as he can easily fell off to the ground..

Blizzard Combo

Intro

Okay, that’s the only thing I can tell about her… So far Jun Kazama is my 2nd owned Play Arts Kai figure after Solid Snake, the rest would come later. Overall, I’m happy to get ahold her… Especially, she’s one of my favorite characters from TEKKEN Franchise. But, I can’t say this is a worth having Play Arts Kai, because she looked pretty strange whenever I tried to do an action scenes for her. Unless you like or being a fan of Jun Kazama, I think she’s worth to buy. If you ask me about why not getting Kazuya is, I never like him at all. Now, I’m waiting for Jin Kazama, & I want to pair Jun with her son as their tag team.

Pros: I liked on how SE made her scarf works & the soft material is pretty flexible, same goes to her hair. Other interesting things that she’s not hard as Snake to stand without stand, even in some certain action pose I’m not having trouble balancing her body.

Cons: Physical appearance problem in some action pose, when she did that her proportions feels off.. That ass was a little too big, & whenever I made her legs bend frontally, her ass feels like off from her thighs. Moving her thigh & wrist joint was a little too hard for me, & I hated when I heard a “Tek Tek” sounds during moving her thighs. The packaging really sucks, bigger box but almost empty inside.. But the good thing there’s no part of her that suffers the same problem like my Solid Snake’s SOCOM Suppressor. Of course, she only got a pair of open splayed hands & they were put pretty safe in the blister box but, I hate black colored blister box! Originally, my real Play Arts Kai Jun stock has a small issues on her head sculpt (messy painting & paint transfer) but I made it to exchange the better quality, man thank god I checked her 1st before getting her… Well-well, I guess I made it to avoid my other badluck on having my 2nd Play Arts Kai figure.

Design: 4/5

Moveability: 4/5

Small Parts: 1/5

Substance: 3/5

Accuracy sculpt to promotional photo: 5/5

OMAKE:

You dare defy fate?!

Get Ready.

Tsukuyomi

Jun Kazama Wins!

Thank you for reading.

Advertisements