RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER - Play Arts Kai Lara Croft Action Figure

I had a truly lovely surprise waiting for me upon my return from vacation: my box with the newest Play Arts Kai Lara Croft and Figma Arise Motoko Kusanagi figures had arrived! The wait was so well worth it - these are two of the most amazing looking figures I've seen. That said, I haven't opened either yet. My plan is to begin with Lara Croft, and spend a few days with the unboxing and review, so I'm going to update this review daily, or semi-daily depending on how much work interferes, until I've really had a chance to check her out.

To begin with, the box and figure are fairly big. The box measures just over 9 inches wide, and 12 inches tall, with the figure coming in at about 10 inches tall. Compare that to the original Tomb Raider release, with a box measuring 7 & 3/4" by 10 & 3/8", and a figure 7 inches tall (this version also costs about $40 more than the original release did) and you'll have two figures that unfortunatley might not display well together on the same shelf. The flap is held closed with magnets this time, rather than velcro, which I am EXTREMELY happy about. Whether it's Mezco's influence or not, I really like the magnet closure much more than those velcro circles.

Interior Flap

There's lots of descriptive writing on the interior flap and some cool in-action poses on the back. Inside, it looks like she's got two of her trusty climbing picks, 4 additional hands, a revolver, a knife, a quiver and a clutch of arrows, her bow and a hand/arrow combo. The face on the figure is absolutely beautiful - the sculpt and paint are spot-on, and there's no overindulgence in paint, resulting in raccoon eyes or anything. In fact, she almost looks too clean - the hands, jacket and pants all look completely clear of spray or wash. She's wearing a dark evergreen parka and light brown or beige pants that look like they have a thigh cut swivel and knee pads to help hide those hideous PAK knee joints. I'll find out once she's out of the box! Overall, my first impressions of this figure are that she's stunning. I'm impressed by the size of the figure itself, I like the small change they've made to the packaging and the accessories look plentiful. My only gripe so far is that she'll be out of scale with her younger self, but I'm also pleasantly surprised that my extra cost went into a (hopefully!) better figure. Next entry, out of the package she comes! Stay tuned...

Update: 4/11/16

I've had her out of her package for a little while now - not too much time to really mess around with the figure, but enough for initial impressions. I think there's something about Play Arts Kai that just doesn't quite click for me. I was really excited about her in-package, but in-hand she lost a bit of her luster. First, the good stuff. The figure is big, and really nicely detailed. The coat especially has tons of fine detail to it. The overall paintwork is generally quite good, and PAK has been much more restrained with the wash than in the past. The accessories are cool, and the gun, knife and arrows can all be stored on the figure perfectly. Now, the bad. OK, well, the face just doesn't look quite "right". I don't know how to explain it, other than the unpainted grey prototype looked much more like the game character I remember than this final figure actually does. The paintwork here is excellent - very clean and clear. She just doesn't look like Lara Croft to me. There's a full balljoint at the base of the ponytail, so it can be posed however you like. There are really weird cuts in the coat right above the chest, and in the back right where the lats are. They almost look like the plastic is torn, except that it's so symmetrical that it must be intentional. I can only guess that this is supposed to aid posing somehow, but I don't like them. Finally, I think I just have some difficulty adapting to PAK's joint system. So far (and this is just an initial impression), I've had a hard time getting her into poses I like. The left ankle is loose, so she flops forward if she isn't balanced with her weight back, and the left crotch attachment has a pretty big gap in it, especially compared to the right leg's attachment point. That said, I need to spend more time with this figure and see how my impressions change...