Before You Buy Play Arts Kai Action Figures

So you want to collect SQEX's Play Arts Kai line of action figures? Well, let me help you rookies by sharing you the facts about Play Arts Kai based on my collecting experience so that you'll know what to expect from this toy line.

The Facts About Square-Enix's Play Arts Kai Action Figures:

- Play Arts Kai is the new version of the classic Play Arts toy line that started around early 2000's.
- PAKs are now 1/7 scale figures and their height measurement ranges from 8 to 12 inches

- Some older PAKs are 1/8 scale figures that measures 6 to 8 inches

- Newer PAK figures have presentable and premium velcroed/magnetized "coffin-type" packaging

- These days, only Metal Gear Solid PAK figures uses traditional window-type packaging

- PAK display stands need assembly

- Characters usually have the necessary amount of accessories (sometimes no extra stuff)

- Highly poseable figures

- Have high quality sculpt and detail

- Paint application is either a hit or miss

- PAKs usually suffers from paint drops, slacks and sticks

- Might have random quality issues like broken, warped or missing pieces

- PAKs might have two left/right feet or legs

- PAK prices keep on increasing, which is getting ridiculous

- Some PAKs felt like an "experimental" figure, like SQEX is trying out a new joint system

- PAKs have inconsistent scaling, noticeable when comparing characters from the same series

- Female characters look much better, more accurate and much proportional than male characters

- Popular (or few unpopular) PAK figures are mostly get bootlegged so watch out for that.

- Some PAK figures increase in value over time so take good care of them.

- Variant PAK figures features well-known characters designed differently according to the designer's art style and vision.

- Variant PAKs are like Kotobukiya's Bishoujo series (Well-known female only characters in Shunya Yamashita's art style) for example

- Hitoshi Kondo designed the majority of the Variant PAK figures

- Tetsuya Nomura designed some Variant PAK figures too like Batman, Catwoman and Hatsune Miku.

- Characters from Square-Enix's video games are only available as PAK figures, unless they're old school toys during their collaboration with Kotobukiya and some other toy companies.

Does that help you? If you're a casual collector like me, I prefer that you ditch the smaller PAK figures and go for the large scale ones. If you're aiming to complete the entire collection which is pretty difficult (almost impossible) to do, well, get them all and good luck :D

Cheers and Happy Collecting!