I'm Still Unimpressed

Bandai officially announced the Figuarts ZERO - Shanks (Battle ver.) (see the previous announcement here) in their Tamashii Web by giving us these official promo photos. I am actually expecting that they would show us a much better look of the figure than what we've seen before, but no, I'm still not impressed.

What they did is that they gave us shots in limited angles which would not make the unimpressive face too obvious. As you can see, there's not even a single close-up shot on the face. There's one front shot but I can't even see the eyeballs. I'm actually thinking that they are planning to redo the face sculpt that's why there held back on giving us a close-up shot.

As for the battle pose, we haven't seen Shanks in action yet, so this attack really doesn't make sense. Or this could be the sword clash against Whitebeard when they met. See below.

Shanks and Whitebeard sword clash

I'm not sure, but I believe Bandai just came up with the Battle ver. of Shanks thinking of the character's popularity. They should have released some other battle ver. characters like the rest of Mugiwaras' timeskip attacks, or Marco Battle ver. I'm sure those will be sold out figures. Releasing Shanks in a never before seen battle stance isn't really a good idea (unless it is really based on the photo above). I think this will be sold out figure too though, given the popularity of the character, and not because of the figure itself. An easy money for Bandai. 

As I mentioned earlier, this will be a pass for me unless I saw something good in the final production photos. If they show this one against a battle ver. Whitebeard, then that will make this figure ten times more interesting. But for now, I'll better wait for that before I jump over the fence. This figure is set to be released on May 2014 (not April 2014 as earlier announced) for 4,320 yen. No preorder schedule information yet so keep an eye on this site or on my Facebook page for further updates.

Update (2014-01-24): Preorders for Figuarts ZERO - Shanks (Battle ver.) will start on the 3rd of February 2014, Monday at 16:00 (JST).

Below are the official photos by Tamashii Web