Spiral Zone Act 11: Figure Type I (White Man)

Spiral Zone Act 11: Figure Type 1 (White)

After releasing four SFG Spiral Zone extra Coating Type uniforms without figures, it would be expected that Bandai would release basic figures to go along with their coating armor sets. Spiral Zone Act 11 Figure Type 1 (White Man) and Act 12 Figure Type II (Brown) would fulfill those expectations.

Both of these releases would be a step away from their previous releases as they were of a European and African style face sculpts respectively and not Asian face sculpts like Acts 1 through Acts 3.

Act 11: Figure Type 1 (White Man) comes in a small box with a window to display the figure, a Styrofoam tray and a one-sided instruction sheet written in Japanese. Figure Type 1 has the same 36-point articulation as the previous figures but with a different face sculpt. The hands are removable so one can replace them with gloved hands from the uniform sets.

Like all the previous SZ figures the face sculpt is well executed and reminds me of a 1970’s football player. I believe this figure look great in a Sentinel Bear style amour. The figure does not come with a file card.

Of the two figures, Figure Type 1 (White Man) is a bit harder to locate than Figure Type II (Brown), but they do come up on Yahoo Auctions Japan frequently enough and I bought mine for $10.00 through Rinkya. Interesting enough after searching for over 15 years for an example a week later after I received my package from Rinkya I went to the Buena Park Model Kit Swap meet and I found an NOS example at a traders table for $5.00 along with Figure Type II for another $5.00. Although Figure Type I is harder to locate, I would suggest not paying more than $30.00 for the figure as both appear frequently enough as most collectors do not have uniforms for the figures and simply pass them up.

With both Act 11 and Act 12 being the end of the Spiral Zone line it is another loss that Bandai did not make a female style Spiral Zone figure. Again the second Spiral Zone series prototypes hinted at a female figure in a few drawings and a gashapon figure but a full 1:12 female figure was never produced. A Spiral Zone Super Sentai set would have been a great set of releases if they had moved towards that direction.

If seen, both Act 11: Figure Type I and Act 12: Figure Type II are worth picking up even if you do not have any Spiral Zone accessories as that you can usually resell them on Ebay to Spiral Zone hungry collectors as not many SZ toys made it into the USA back in the 1980’s. I also suggest not cutting up or modifying these figures as the Yutaka SZ style figures are still being produced and are inexpensive to pick up. And of course if you are a Spiral Zone Collector they are a must own for the collection.

Leonardo Flores (MonCinesate)