[Toy Review] Kadaj FFVII AC Play Arts

[Review Updated: 06-07-13]

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is the second CG movie Square created (first one kinda sucked). It's a graphically great movie with a good story. Well enough about that. What we're going to discuss about is this figure of Kadaj, the leader of the Remnants of Sephiroth and the main villain of the movie (Sephiroth is just an extra... an awesome extra).

PACKAGING

Front view and back view of the packaging.

I already took the figure/accessories out of the box.

I got the Japanese version. It's a matte window type box The front is simple with a metallic foil movie title and Play Arts stuff written on it. At the back features Kadaj (no poses featured) and the other characters of the 2nd volume of this Play Arts series and some texts.

Kadaj is ready to commence his reunion mission

Packaging includes: Kadaj figure, Souba (Kadaj's sword), 2 extra left gripping hand, one extra right fist (that's 5 hands including those currently attached to the figure), Display stand/base, and a complimentary tissue... err... manual.

THE FIGURE

Kadaj is the main antagonist of the Advent Children movie, that's why he got himself an action figure. Too bad his two brothers - Yazoo and Loz - didn't make it to the toy world.

Front, back, left and right side views of Kadaj

Kadaj's face. No lip color... Is he sick or something?

The Kadaj figure looks exactly as the character from the movie. This means that the overall sculpt is pretty good. The head sculpt is great too, no weird defects there. The soft translucent "silver/white" hair looks nice when you shine a light on it, giving a kinda realistic hair effect. Facial expression is lacking, it should have been better if they gave the figure a smirking face because he's as insane as Sephiroth. Paint apps on the face lacks lip color. Looking at his pale face and colorless lip gives the impression that he's anemic.

Kadaj's dark attire

He's wearing an all-black leather coat that resembles Sephiroth's coat with 2 belts crossed on his chest and shoulder pads. With all that blackiness, I'm not gonna talk about much about the clothing's paint apps (BTW, it doesn't have any noticeable paint bleeds). Details and sculpt are great, the coat have linings and it's textured giving a leathery feel to it, zipper area is detailed and painted properly too.

Shoulder pads looks like it's made from real leather material

The coat's abdomen area and the shoulder pads are made of soft flexible plastic so that the arms and waist can move without any problem.

The sheath for Kadaj's sword.

The sword is now in the sheath

The back features the sheath of Kadaj's sword, it is permanently attached to the back area by a strap where the 2 belts meet. And the sheath is not accurate to the movie, I think probably so that you can put the sword in it easily.

The leg part or the coat is not soft.

Legs features the extension of Kadaj's coat. It's not made of soft plastic making it kinda hard to move the legs at the hip area because the zipper part obstructs the legs from spreading further making it hard for Kadaj to do kicks.

Pale skinned Kadaj

Kadaj and his brothers have pale skins in the old Advent Children movie. In the newer and HD Advent Children Complete, the extra scenes shows a healthy-looking Kadaj with rosy lips and fair skin complexion. The Advent Children figures are already released before the complete movie version.

ACCESSORIES

The figure comes with 2 pairs of hands (default) 2 kinds of left hands, a closed right fist, and the sword itself called "Souba".

That's the Play Arts standard quantity of accessories

The display stand is one of those standard accessories

The extra left hands are pegged so that the sword can be held properly. The other extra left hand features tighter grip and its hard to put the sword in it. And another thing, where's the Jenova's Cell canister and his bike?

Souba, Kadaj's sword

Kadaj's Souba and its sheath is not movie accurate but it's well detailed enough. The sword features black and white ribbons which is made of flexible plastic (I'm planning to replace them with real ribbons :D) A small hole is present on the sword's handle so that the pegged left hands can hold the sword properly. The two blades are so thin and flexible that it has the tendency to get bent (check the pic below).

The sword is bent... oh man...

The Souba is a twin bladed samurai sword. It's an effective offensive and defensive weapon, because this sword can disarm the opponents. Kadaj disarmed Cloud during their fight on Midgar.

[Left] After drawing the Souba from its sheath

[Right] Holding the Souba on both hands

[Left] Using the his fist to summon Bahamut SIN or cast magic

[Right] Defensive stance

They should have added an extra left fist, because Kadaj is using his left arm to attack, cast magic and summon Bahamut SIN.

ARTICULATIONS, POSING AND SCALING

The Kadaj figure have over 20 points of articulation making him very pose-able. But along the figure's design comes some few movement limitations.

Initiating a spinning attack (top view)

Head can move freely, the sculpted neck can also rotate but it's hard to put it to right position because of the collar. Chest and abdomen are ball jointed and no limitations in moving it but it gets loose very easily. Elbows and knees are single jointed. Arm articulation and movement is great. Legs are ball jointed and pretty stiff, probably because of the coat's extension at the hip area, I can't make him split or do some kicks lol, but with some creativity, we can move the other joints so that we can make his legs open like on the pics on this review. Feet articulation provides nice "flat-stepping" giving great balance. He can stand strictly straight without the aid of the display stand.

Kadaj is drawing his sword, Souba

Kadaj always holding his sword backhanded, this is because his quick fighting style uses acrobatic spins and kicks, making backhanded slashes more effective...

Awesome pose there. (using the tight grip hand)

He can also hold and swing his sword normally. He is a very versatile fighter but he's weaker than Geostigma-free Cloud.

Another cool pose like he's a samurai (tight grip hand)

The shoulder joint makes the arms get a little closer to the chest, that's why the pose on the pic above is possible.

Kadaj is going to do another spinning attack.

Kadaj figure can also sit too, but still, I want this figure have a kicking pose.

Lightning and Kadaj

Kadaj is a little shorter than Lightning (FFXIII-2) which is great because Kadaj is a short character whose actual height is only 5'5" while lightning is 5'6".

Sephiroth's Remnant, Kadaj is attacking the Knight of the Goddess, Lightning

CONCLUSION

I don't have any complaints about this Kadaj figure at all, except for the anemic face, the inaccurate sword and sheath and some leg stiffness. To be honest, I enjoyed playing this figure more than my FFXIII-2 Lightning figure, because he's tougher than Lightning when it comes to build quality. Ironically, most old Play Arts figures have almost no quality issues than the newer Play Arts Kai figures. Anyways, he's a good addition to your Final Fantasy figure collection and the good news is there are no bootlegged versions of him. 

And for a little extra, I edited one photo of my Kadaj figure. I removed the articulation joints making it look like the 3D render seen on the promotional images for the movie.

Promo image inspired

I wish they made him a bike!

Cheers and Happy Collecting!