Play Arts Kai Bayonetta Part 3

"Lets dance!"


Well, before the dance begins, a look at the articulation design of Play Arts Kai Bayonetta first. ^^ Since this is the first Square Enix action figure in my collection, I suppose a detailed examination on how the company handles the "play" component in the product series' title would be in place, after how much I talked about the awesomeness of the "art" part in the previous posting about this figure. ^^



Pretty standard neck articulation I would say, I do like how the joint is designed to be somewhat hidden by the hair behind her ears, making the cut seems less obvious.
On a side note, Bayonetta's eyes behind her glasses can be seen through the images as well, which reveals the great paint work done on them. ^^


The hair parts are made of soft material, allowing them to be bent easily.
The way the figure's hair "breaks off" like that is a huge deviation as compared to the actual character design, where the hair is integrated with her suit. For an action figure however, such elegance display is not possible I suppose, else there won't be any neck joint perhaps. ^^;


Pretty old school peg and hinge joint combo for the shoulder. ^^


The upper arm can rotate as well, with the belts serving as perfect coverup for the break-off point. ^^


Hinge joint for the elbow as well.



The joint that connects the large hair parts to the upper arms are somewhat like Revoltech joint - large ball type hinge joint minus the stubborn click. ^^


Both hair parts are made of soft material - rubber I believe.
Apart from being bendable, they are pretty lightweight, which is good news to the upper arm since it won't be suffering from too much burden carrying the large wing. ^^;


Ball type hinge joint for the wrist, almost like a miniature version of the ones used between the upper arm and the wing parts as mentioned earlier on.


Separate joints inside the waist and chest allow the figure to tilt to the back easily.


Obviously the body is capable of turning to either side as well, but the rear view would be unnaturally hideous-looking for such adjustment. ^^;



Standard ball-type joint for the hip.


Hinge joint for the knee (I think). Disregarding the guns mounted on her heels, the articulation range of the knee is very wide.


I really like how the joint is designed to be concealed almost completely when the knee is not bent.



Ball-type hinge joint is used for the ankle, so bending the foot to the front is very simple, but the gun on the heel is in the way when the ankle bends to the back. ^^;


This is pretty much the further it would go when bending the ankle backward really. You can see that the gun is about to pop off. ^^;


Without the gun, bending the heel to the back is as simple and as flexible as doing so the opposite way. ^^;
Nothing too fancy in particular when it comes to the articulation design of this figure I would say. There's no special type of joint we never seen before implemented on Bayonetta, all of them are pretty much the standard types that can be found on most other action figures. As a matter of fact, I think some of them are old types that other action figure makers try to ditch or at least redesign on their releases. ^^;

Two things I do like the designs: (1) Sturdiness of the joints - they are not Revoltech (XD), but the joints are pretty tough. The wrist joints for example, are able to support the hands in posing with the guns even though the joints are pretty small. Same compliments go to the shoulder joints as well, for being able to support the large hair parts on the upper arms for various action poses without any sign of exhaustion so far.

(2) How well the joints are concealed - as shown with the neck and knee joints, it's pretty obvious that the designer was thinking about incorporating the joints to be less obvious while maintaining the figure for more a natural-looking display. Frankly, I think they did it very well with Bayonetta, and Jeanne of course, which will be shown after this posting. Not that the joints are totally invisible on this figure because of that, but the design balances between display and articulation very well, which is a very good point about this figure in my opinion.

That's something the Revoltech Fraulein series should take note of in my opinion. ^^

Time for Bayonetta to go off killing some Angels now. ^^


With the support of Soul Stage Act 3 Action Support Clear Type.
















Pretty natural-looking kneeling pose, not a problem at all even with her slender long legs. ^^
Note that the right knee is not touching the ground actually XD Any more bending to the ankle and the gun on the heel is going to fly off ^^;


Alternately, the ankle can be rotated to the side to allow the gun to not be affected by the joint, but the display would be quite unnatural. ^^;










One of the images I remember from the promo of the game, not exactly the same of course. ^^;
While adjusting for the various poses, I was thinking to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if more face expression parts are included?" ^^; Just a single smiling expression isn't exactly enough to bring out the playfulness of Bayonetta really. ^^; Alas, I'll have to be content with a happy yet subtle Bayonetta. ^^

Jeanne in action next. ^^