Toy Review: Playarts FF XII - Ashe & Gabranth

Ashe & Gabranth

As you can tell from my FF AC series 1 review, my FF XII preview, and my Daytona Hardy vs. Fenrir review, I’m a big fan of the Play Arts Final Fantasy (PA FF) line. They boast the best female action figure sculpts of any toy line, have fabulously detailed costumes and accessories, functional articulation, and include the best figure stands I’ve come across in my 4 years of collecting. Their only drawback is their relatively high price tags, but since they are such high quality figures, this is acceptable. Considering that 4″ to 6″ Figma and Revoltech figures cost the same, an 8″ figure for php1,500 - php2,000 isn’t ridiculous.

Back when the FF XII toys came out, they were readily available, warming shelves of Toys R Us and Toy Kingdom alike. Their php2,500 price tag was one of the reasons (which was odd, considering 2Rats, the distributor, sold them at less), but I think it was mostly due to the fact that people went out and bought the Judge Gabranth figure and left the rest of set. I’m one of those collectors, that while not a “completist”, still wants ALL of a set or NONE AT ALL. Without a Gabranth I wasn’t going to pick up the rest of them.

Then I was lucky enough to find a Gabranth for sale online. SCORE! It was too bad that by this time, the other figures had been discounted and people were again buying. Argh. I spent some time tracking down an Ashe figure which was the second one to disappear from the shelves, but eventually found it in Eastwood. Word to the wise. Look around the shops before you buy. I picked mine up for php2,000 at Toy Town, and then found another not a block over at 2Rats for php1,500. Massive headpalmage.

Both of the figures come in the box that has become the standard for PA figures, as well as the new Square Enix lines. It’s pretty sturdy, shows off the figure well, and is thankfully lacking in twist ties. You can just cut the seal, pop it open and pull out the tray. Then you just need to open it up and the figure falls out. I tell you, after you’ve opened a bunch of Marvel Legends or Transformer toys, this is a huge relief.

The box is awfully plain though. On the back it’s got some Japanese text and a photo of the toy in about the most unimaginative pose ever, with insets of the other 3 toys in the line. No great thing; the box is functional, so It doesn’t bother me. You’ll need to watch out when buying PA FF toys though. There are a lot of reports of bootleg copies of some of them on the market, and it’s hard to tell. I haven’t heard much about this particular sub-line, but you’ll want to check to make sure that the box is sealed with round clear tape pieces rather than plain scotch tape, has clean paint applications on the face, and that the photos on the back are clear and don’t have funny color hues.

After the relatively dreary Advent Children, Ashe is a a sight for sore eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dark tone of AC, but if you’re displaying all that black plastic together, people get the wrong idea. It’s nice that the character design of FF XII is so much brighter, and more detailed. Granted, it’s a matter of opinion though. Another way of looking at it is that Ashe looks like a Jeepney driver went and dolled up her wardrobe.

She comes with a few things. First is the PA figure stand. I love these things and always always always have a few of them on my shelf somewhere, supporting either these figures, my Marvel Legends/Universe figures, or DCUC figures. The classic black is just much much better looking than the silly clear stands that we were stuck with from the Legends line and the wire claws don’t require holes in the back of the figure to use like Figma stands. They’re also not as annoyingly fragile as my Fraulien Revoltech stands.

And they allow poses like this:

Her sword is the second accesory and boy, is it nice. It is highly detailed, with sculptural details all over. There’s a nice blue “crystal” near the point that adds a nice accent to it. It’s a very good example of the things that I’d like to see included with other toys lines. No more Stupidly Big Guns please.

One of the problems with the FF VII AC line was that their weapons were hard to get in and out of their hands. If you wanted to pose Cloud without the Buster Sword, you were in for some grunting and could expect some paint transfer from the hilt to his fingers because it was such a snug fit. Thankfully, they’ve gone another way here, making the hand loose, and just adding a small post on the palm that fits into a hole on the hilt. It’s unobtrusive and holds the weapon in place fairly well.

The last accessory is her hands. She’s got two that are sculpted into fists instead of open hands. Not so great, but a nice include. I really don’t use them at all and they went into my bits box straight away.

The best thing about Ashe is the new articulation that PA worked out. It’s more of a refinement actually, allowing the elbow and knee joints to move past the 45 degree mark. It’s beautifully done and you don’t even notice it at all until you’re playing with it and it’s brought to your attention.

The rest of her has the standard PA articulation, along with hinge ankles, rocker feet, ball-jointed hips (somewhat limited by her skirt), ball-jointed shoulders, and swivel arms, wrists, and thighs. She’s also got a ball-joint in her torso I think, as well as one for a neck. Both of the last are hampered by the sculpt though, so not as much use as you’d want.

The other figure I got was Judge Gabranth. I’ll leave it to you to wiki this guy, but he’s a monster. The figure itself is HEAVY. The first time I took it out of the box, it was the first thing that struck me. The second was the sculpt; again amazing. The armor on this guy is really finely detailed and looks more like a statue than a action figure. The paint lends itself well to the armor, with gold accents that look like they’re supposed to be filigree. It’s really impressive.

The two swords he comes with are just as detailed as Ashe’s. He has one large sword and a smaller dagger (which would be a two-handed blade on anyone else), both with the same level of detail as that of the other figure. You can even connect the two together if you want to form a sort of naginta/staff thingie. Very cool. It’s got the same post/hole system that the other figures use as well.

The big problem with Gabranth though is articulation. He doesn’t have it. Sure he has the joints, but because of his mass, a lot of that is blocked with various plastic obstructions. It’s a trade off I’ve come to expect from bigger figures. You can write it off as “knight in armor, so he’s weighed down, right?”.

Another thing is that their weapons are delicate. I found out the hard way when I snapped one of his swords in two. Not one of my favorite moments. Thank god for superglue.

These two figures are definitely worth the purchase, especially if you’re able to get them at the php1,500 price. Expect to pay more for Gabranth. I normally see him at php2,000 or so online.