Kirito

There’s no denying the power of “Sword Art Online.” More than any other show, it ruled 2012. Sakura Con, held the end of March in Seattle, was so laden with “SAO“-centric activities that attendees – an incredible amount of whom were in SAO cosplay – referred to it as SAOkura Con. The name fit, and in the spirit of the event, I picked up a couple of statues from the dealer’s room. What collection would be complete without a Kirito and Asuna?

While, in the end, I am pleased with my purchases, these are not the greatest quality statues ever. Asuna is Sega Prize, so while not the cleanest figure ever, she was super affordable. Furyu’s Kirito, while also a prize figure, was infinitely better in quality and the same price.

Let’s switch gears and look at Kirito.

I’d seen this guy everywhere, and he has a matching Asuna. The box is pretty big; I had to mail this one to myself from Seattle because I couldn’t fit him in my luggage.

Here he is in the case. The pegs on the bottom of his feet that plug him into the base are gigantic. A better, bigger look:

Just huge. Not at all graceful.

Here he is out of the box. At first glance his sculpt seems cleaner than Asuna’s, though his face seems a little generic and not terribly Kirito-ish.

The shadow over his nose probably doesn’t help anything, but still. You can see how un-Kirito he looks from this angle here.

The movement in his jacket isn’t terrible. And you can see in the white trim on his coat that the paint lines are much cleaner than Asuna’s.

His boots look nice. No sign of the utter clunkiness of the pegs.

Elucidator looks very pretty here.

The details are true to the anime. Everything from the chest straps on his scabbard to the fingerless gloves is nice.

This is really the only angle where he looks like Kirito in the face.

I really like the folds in his pants.

You can see a little bit of sloppiness in the paint job here just above the arm cuff, but nothing like Asuna.

Let’s put the two together:

This next one is my favorite.

That’s pretty much how they’re sitting on my shelf right now.

So, bottom line: Sega bad, Furyu good. If given the chance, I’d definitely recommend going Furyu with these figures; it’s a good way to get a beloved character for not a whole lot of money.