[Toy Review] Reno FFVII: AC Play Arts

[Review Updated: 10-20-13]

This one took a long time to review (skateboarding accident and other reasons), but here it is. I got the Play Arts action figure of a Turk named Reno, one of the supporting characters and comic relief together with his buddy, Rude from the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children movie. This is unusual because support characters have a rare chance of being made as a PA action figure. Maybe he's popular and cool enough to be made. The cool part is one of my reasons why I bought him. I got him super mint condition and it's cheaper than my Kairi figure.

PACKAGING

The box's front and back side

The packaging is simple. It's a matte window type box that shows the figure and its accessories. The box have FFVII:AC Play Arts foil texts in front and some warnings. At the back shows Reno and other characters' pics that belong on this volume 2 set and lots of text.

Reno is now out of the box

Packaging includes: Reno figure, Metal Rod, 2 different gripping left hands, one gripping right hand, figure stand/base, and a small manual.

THE FIGURE

Most people are wondering why they included Reno on their Play Arts line of figures, where they should have instead include Cid, Barret or Red XIII/Cait Sith. Well, what's done is done.

Reno's front, back left and right side

5 angles of Reno's head

Not one minor detail is missed on the figure itself making this Reno figure look like THE Reno from the movie. His suit looks very smooth and got some linings and wrinkles for detail. Paint apps use lots of black color because of his suit. The paint on the face features Reno's two red tattoos running on the side of his both eyes to his cheek bones, it also have some nice skin shadings with glossy finish on the eyes and kinda pale pinkish paint on the lips. Glossy black paint is applied to his shades/goggles hybrid. His small earring is painted precisely.

A little complaint: Reno's expression looks neutral, emotionless or bored where in the movie he is always seen smirking and cocky even in the fight scenes. Plus, he lacks sideburns. :D

This is Reno's suit.
He wears it like he doesn't care being scolded by his superior.

Reno's unzipped black suit is made up of rubbery-like plastic and what's underneath is his simple-looking white un-tucked polo shirt where its chest articulation part is made of hard plastic and the rest is soft and rubbery just like his black suit. The color of the suit's soft part is a little off than the rest of the painted hard plastic parts.

The back of Reno's head features his tied long hair

Reno's hair is soft and translucent, so shining a light around or behind it, the light will pass through and will make the hair look "brighter" kinda simulating what real hair is like when light was shun around it. His bangs are too thin and soft so it has the tendency to fall/cut off when its already worn out from too much stretching, but why would you do that? LOL!

The arm and the hand

The front and back of Reno's pants

The overall sculpt of this Reno figure is so simple, that all I can see here are the folds and wrinkles on his "well tailored" formal wear. BTW, the knee part looks awkward because of its articulation point.

Nice shoes

Reno's leather shoe looks real and common like you can easily buy a real one in stores. Yeah, it's very detailed even under it.

That's odd, I thought he's wearing a polo shirt under that suit.

The weird thing I saw on this figure is under the black suit right in the shoulder area... the color inside the suit looks like skin color. It should be white because he wears a white polo underneath. Well, it's easy enough to repaint it.

ACCESSORIES

Play Arts figures provide few accessories, but it's enough to get the job done. Yet I wished they made more accessories for their figures.

That's pretty basic, right?

...but it's nice of them to provide a figure stand/base.

So what we got here is Reno's Metal Rod, 3 extra pegged gripping hands and a figure stand/base (which is a rare item in the Play Arts Kai line of action figures)

The Metal Rod

The Metal Rod looks great. It has a small hole so that the extra pegged hands can fit in it. The only missing detail here is the tiny Shin-ra logo engraved on it (I watched the movie again to confirm it).

Reno is a lefty or maybe ambidextrous

Reno is left handed even in the original game. Not like Sephiroth who is right handed on the original game

[Left] Reno in ready position

[Right] Pointing his Metal Rod

The extra hands have different gestures: One left hand is in normal gripping position (left picture above) and the other left hand is pointing downwards (right picture above).

Reno: "My head is itchy"

Reno can hold his weapon on his right hand on special occasions.

ARTICULATIONS, POSING AND SCALING

The Reno figure is highly poseable having that "Over 20 Points of Articulation" and all. But for a Play Arts figure, Reno sure can pose very well, almost at par with Play Arts Kai figures. This makes him very playable.

Laying down with some chic carrying a whip... nice.

Reno's head, neck, chest, waist are ball jointed. Head movement is limited because of Reno's ponytail. Shoulders can swivel left/right. Arms can rotate and swivel 360 degrees without any problems. Hands can only swivel. Crotch area is ball jointed making Reno sit and do kicks easily. Legs can swivel 360 degrees. Knees and elbows are single jointed. The feet got 3 articulation points making it pivot side-ward a little, point up/down and toes can swivel left/right for so that the feet can be flatted down parallel to the ground.

Awesomely sitting on a skateboard

Other angle of Reno's cool way of sitting on a skateboard

This figure can almost do poses that humans can do. I tried posing him doing a kickflip and a crooked grind, looks cool but I can't take any photos because of lack of tools.

Is he trying to be a men's perfume model or something?

This pose shows his laid back attitude/appearance, but in reality he's a hard working second-in-command Turk as he said it in Crisis Core.

[Left to Right] Kadaj, Reno, Lightning doing a similar pose for scale comparison

To Play Arts figure standards this scaling is accurate, Kadaj is shorter than Reno. But when compared to the PAKs, in this case Lighting from FFXIII-2...

Reno and Lightning back to back

...it appears that they're about the same height or Lightning is a bit taller (given that she wears semi elevated greaves). I expected Reno to be a little taller than Lightning.

My attempt at imitating the scene where Cloud enters the Healin Lodge and was greeted by Reno.
Kairi's shocked at the scene lol.

And yeah, here's Reno questioning Catwoman after cornering her. :D

Not Gotham? (click to enlarge)

Catwoman is taller than Reno... It's understandable because she's wearing high-heel boots.

CONCLUSION

Judging by the amount of pictures on this review, it's clear that I had fun playing this action figure of Reno. His fun factor is almost at the same level as the Catwoman PAK. I encountered a few flaws, but it's no biggie. He is a nice addition to your collection and do you know that Reno is the only supporting character that is made as an action figure so far? I only fear that Square-Enix will make a PAK Reno... that's a bummer but also a good opportunity to have a VS. comparison between old PA and new PAK version of him.

Here's a cool photo for Reno! [Added: 10-20-13]

The reformed Shin-ra Corp is now hiring!

Reno's looking sharp!

Cheers and Happy Collecting!