Bandai Tamashii Nations AGP Yamato KanColle Action Figure

Buyers:Before going into the main part of the review of this figurine, I would like to highlight for prospective buyers that the Armour Girl Project Yamato did have some negative reviews as the first batches had some bad quality control issues from Bandai, notable painting was badly done and unfinished, mould lines and mould detailing was of a poor standard and fingerprints/bad airbrushing had been done on the first few batches paint jobs, it does seem to have been resolved with later batches however.Also to note Sellers of this item unfortunately cannot tell if the item is one of these bad QC ones or not due to the fact the box does not have a clear plastic window like other figurine manufactures like Good Smile and Max Factory who do other kancolle figures so they can't see into the box at the figurine and see if its one of the bad QC'ed ones. If your fine with that, then read on.With that out the way, I'd like to point out I got this item 2days after being posted from Japan and it is infact one of the good ones without any noticable defects in mould, bad paint jobs or broken parts so from my own experience I would say atleast that some form of quality control overhaul was done in later batches and they are fine.Onto the figure:Bandai Tamashii Nations has two versions of yamato, this one which is her non Kai-ni form and one wit her Kai Ni form. For those who might not know what Kai Ni is, for the armour ship girls is effectively a class upgrade similar to games which would have you progress through a profession like warrior -> knight -> paladin, in the Kancolle universe terms the appearance, sometimes the personality and also the armanents will change in accordance with a Kai-Ni upgrade.Yamato stands around the 15-16cm mark in her height and her paper umbrella and armanents probably add extra CM or so to her overall height. As a shipgirl she has a extremely imposing prescence due to the triple 46cm guns and extra secondary armanents she packs on her gear.I would say from my overall look over just yamato and her guns she gives a accurate figurine depictation of the anime and game, though her cherry blossoms in her hair could do with more defined detailing in the moulds as they are quite a keypoint to her overall outfit. Outfit wise they have modelled correctly her choker in the shape of the bow nose, her skirt which has a space to see the upper hip area and also the anchors upon her skirt. They have modelled her type 91 Armor piercing rounds in both the ammo holders on her legs and also held in hands as per the product picture on amazon well, granted at such a small scale the painting isn't 100% accurate but its sufficient enough to not feel like you would want to touch it up yourself with a brush and paint.Posability wise Yamato has a number of poses she can pull off considering the limitations of her ponytail which other reviews have also highlighted. She can kneel, she can spread arms with all guns spread, she can have her guns hugged around her and she can be doing the one foot lifted off the ground pose abeit with the aid of the figure stand (which is actually from bandai's gundam range if anyone is interested).Included for the effort of getting better "action" poses are a number of hands and 3 additional faces. The hands allow her to hold the umbrella as she is seen in the Kancolle game and anime and other different happy, ready for battle and commanding her main batteries to fire type poses. One thing important to note his her bangs and fringe detach to allow changing of face and this is a extremely delicate part, its not to the delicate part of breaking but delicate in the sense that it could easily detach if you are to aggressive in posing and moving her a suggestion to alleviate this would be bluetak in the socket where the hair attaches to the head to keep it in place and ifyou want a more permanent solution then glue obviously.From a collector's standpoint I still think the Good Smiles yamato in light and heavy armanents is more accurate, however the accuracy comes at a cost and in my case with living in the UK its anywhere between £250-400 for the heavy armanent version and £190-250 for the light armanent version, so that their is available this version of yamato makes getting atleast a full armanent version of yamato alot more marginable.Also as a collector point of view, if you enjoy really nice boxart and presentation then yes bandai kinda hits the mark with their box for yamato, so will be just perfect for those who are into displaying figures like that.Overall, besides the negative reviews of the original batches, I'm fine with giving this a 5-star review, there could also be improvements which could be said for any figure, for example some extra shading on the hair wouldn't go to miss and the actual base could have been alot better for supporting her however this does not detract away from what is a really excellent figurine interpetation of the anime and game's version of a classic WW2 battleship.I feel they also nailed it on keeping Yamato refined yet imposing but also friendly at the same time and while some people might show faces in horror of a anamorphic versions of a real life battleship I think it doesn't make Yamato any less Yamato at the end of the day as they were still able to protray yamato as the Yamato nadeshiko aswell as her battleship form with her 46cm guns visible.As both a fan of the real ship and the kancolle series I'm happy with what I got and it will be displayed with my 1 in 350 scale yamato battleship kit.I hope this review gives you atleast a reasonable idea of what to expect and also to not take some of the negative reviews of this figure elsewhere as face value.