Falguen
Bandai launched it’s Soul of Chogokin: SPEC line in January 2009. This offshoot began with Evangelion and has featured classic real robots from the 1980’s such as Layzner, Dragonar and L-gaim. Two years after the start of the line Bandai has released their eleventh piece in the line, XS-11 Falguen. Falguen is the villain mech to Dragonar from the 1987 anime Metal Armor Dragonar.
The box is excellent, as I have come to expect from this line. It features a flap with windows underneath on the front. The figure and accessories are packed in two plastic trays.
The figure has plastic armor built up upon a largely metal skeleton. It feels very similar to the SPEC Dragonar. The inner arms, legs, lower torso and inner feet are all metal. There is no way to tell if there is any metal in the upper torso. The fit and finish is very good. The sculpt is excellent, and the paint applications are good, with a few very minor issues. (see gallery)
The figure is very well articulated outshining its predecessor. Double joints are featured in the elbows, wrists, ankles, and knees. The shoulders have a series of ball and traditional joints, the large shoulder armor plates are ball jointed and the cable that connects to the figure’s left shoulder is soft PVC.
The hips are fully articulated and the legs can swivel. There are two joints at the waist, a traditional ball joint, and an additional joint that allows the upper torso to bend forward. The neck is double jointed and ball joints connect the wings to the backpack. All the joints are tight with one exception. When placing the large wings on the backpack the left side is very loose, it cannot sufficiently hold in position. I am not sure what the issue is but have not seen any other occurrences of this problem documented.
You can get the figure into a wide range of great poses. The stand is very good, and the figure balances very well on the ground. One important thing to mention is the front of the skirt. It is made of soft PVC so it can bend out of the way if it comes into contact with the upper legs. One note of caution is that if the two inward facing tabs are bent at too extreme of an angle, the gold paint may crack. I had only seen one early report of this happening, but I would advise to just be aware of this when posing the figure.
Previous entries in the line have featured fully removable armor. This figure similar to L-Gaim was not designed with removable armor as a feature, but the armor on the legs can be removed.
The figure comes with several accessories. First is the stand, it is the same stand that came with Dragonar, but it does not include the parts that plug into the base to replicate the catapult. The stand has a few points of articulation and attaches to the figure well.
Other accessories include a gun with removable magazine, two beam sabers with translucent blades, extra magazines and arm clip, Forge Unit M.A.F.F.U (large flight wings), multi dischargers (alternate for flight wings), several hands, and extra stiff antenna (the attached ones are PVC).
CONCLUSION
Overall this is an excellent figure. Design, paint and build quality are very good, despite my believed to be isolated joint issue. The price, 8000 yen does seem a bit high for what you get when compared to previous releases. Unfortunately this seems to be a trend from all companies. I would highly recommend the figure to Dragonar fans, or anybody who has either of the previous Dragonar figures.
If you are looking to purchase Falguen, you can get yours at HobbyLink Japan