[Toy Review] Harley Quinn Batman: Arkham Knight Play Arts Kai

This is the third Play Arts Kai figure of Harley Quinn from the Batman Arkham series of games. This new Harley PAK version is from the 4th video game Batman: Arkham Knight. While the two old Harley versions are great PAK figs, I didn't pick them up because of the new PAK standard larger scaling. Now this is the time to pick a new Harley Quinn PAK, so I did (pre-ordered it actually) and this new Harley action figure looks promising and it's cheaper than I expected.

"I know no one could replace Mister J, but I guess I wasn't thinking big enough."

~ Harley Quinn ~

PACKAGING

[left] Box's front

[right] Box's back

Opened front cover

This is my first PAK toy from the Batman: Arkham Knight game. As PAK standards, Harley got a coffin-type box, the design is dark and rainy. A large promo shot of Harley is presented in front. Open the front cover, now have magnets instead of velcro, to view the actual toy, accessories, Harley's character info and game's summary. The back shows more Harley promo shots and a teaser for the Arkham Knight.

Harley's ready to play, rough

Packaging includes: Harley Quinn figure, Alternate head (with pigtails), Changeable L/R pigtails, Police cap, Bat, Handgun, Left bat gripping hand, Right trigger hand, Right cap holding hand, Open right hand, Display stand (instructions on blister packaging)

THE FIGURE

At first I'm not interested on this Harley Quinn toy while being a grey prototype. I changed my mind once I saw her colored. This version looks much better than the two older versions.

Viewing Harley on four sides

The presentation, build and quality of this Harley toy is great. Most parts looks solid. Paint application looks great too, I haven't seen any problems at first glance but I took a closer look on Harley to see any hidden issues.

Face looks fine and similar to her Arkham City counterpart

Harley's default head is based and accurate on her promotional artwork. In my opinion, this is better than the in-game model. I like her smirk.

Lol, this face reminds me of Taylor Swift

Her other head is grunting. It looks good and similar to her default head. The hair/bangs on this head is in swaying motion same goes to the pigtails that's connected by ball-hinges. 

Both of Harley's heads are sculpted well and have good face paint. Her eyes and red lips are glossy. Her blonde hair have inconsistent paint/shadings. The tip of her left and right pigtails is painted red and black respectively.

[left] Front view of the dress

[right] Back view of the dress

Harley's latest design in Arkham Knight looks like a mix of her Arkham Asylum and Arkham City design. It's detailed, the quilt-patterned corset looks leathery. Her cleavage have nice normal skin color paint job/shading. Some of the dress' left and right parts have alternating red and dark blue (and almost black) colors. Her skirt's paint job is nice with dark blue ruffled layers with shadings and a detailed white laced bottom.

The strap is not really connected because of the articulated neck,
but it gives a good illusion that it's connected.

The choker, straps and most small parts are not painted entirely. I also noticed some red excess paint on the collar.

[left] The left arm (dark blue arm sleeves)

[right] The right arm (red arm sleeves)

The arms looks great. The white sleeves are wrinkled. Both arms have different colored arm sleeves. Right arm have red while the left have dark blue and it's longer. The arm sleeves have "shoe-lace-things" and ruffled cuffs (separate piece) on the wrists for detail. The hands have nice skin paint color.

Those leggings reminds me of the classic Harley Quinn costume.
You know, the black/red jester suit.

She's wearing an alternating red/dark blue leggings. Each leg side have decent shadings and embossed diamond patterns. The knees looks good too.

[left] Front view of the boots, it's studded

[right] Back view of the boots that have the same diamond shape patterns of the leggings.

Harley's boots is inaccurate to the in-game model which have heels. The boots have different color, red and dark blue and with studs.

The shadings on the white parts of the dress is dark, making it look like it's soaked in water.

ACCESSORIES

Harley brought some fun toys with her to play with: a police cap, a gun and a bat. She's also got an alternate grunting head, extra pigtails and four extra hands. Some of her accessories are based only on the game's trailers and can't be seen or used in the actual game. I guess I should make her Jack-in-a-box item, it seems easy to do.

Harley's fun toys.

You can mix/match the faces, bangs and hair depending to your liking. For my own Harley figure, I'm going to use the hair with ball-hinged pigtails, and the default face/bangs.

[Harley] "Don't you go shoot the enemies of my Mr. J, coz I'll shoot them myself!"
[Barret] "What da foo, crazy lady!?"

Her grunting face can be very useful mostly on action poses. 

Aluminum bat

The bat is a candy-cane of pain because of the swirling red stripe pattern around it. The other side of the bat have some metal things that, I think, adds mass to the bat. The bat is also inaccurate to the in-game model, because it lacks the rubber grip.

Standard looking hand gun.

The handgun have nice gun metal paint job and its bullet case ejector is painted grey.

The unlucky police officer's hat

The blue police cap with black visor looks good. I saw her wearing this at the end of the game's trailer. It got details like the police emblem and the small braided black rope. I never saw her wear this in-game.

"I tipped the head from your hat, copper!"

You can't make Harley wear the police cap if you're using the default pigtails. The other pair of pigtails included in the packaging are flatter, use those if you want to rest the cap on top of Harley's head. BTW, the cap have "indicator sculpts" beneath for exact placement on Harley's head.

These extra hands are also good for gestures.

Three extra hands are used to hold specific accessories. One for the bat, gun, and police cap. The fourth extra hand is used for more gestures. All hands are sculpted well.

The stand's packaging is also an instruction manual for the toy

She also comes with a standard issue Play Arts Kai display stand.

ARTICULATIONS, POSING AND SCALING

Harley is no stranger as a PAK figure, this is her third PAK. So as always, she's got lots of articulation but with few differences from her old PAK versions.

"I see you, Batbrain!"

Her head moves pretty well and can turn 360. It can also look up and down pretty good too. The neck is articulated too. The pigtails are also articulated and the other pair of pigtails have ball-hinges and it's already attached to the grunting head as default.

My favorite pose for Harley. Really hard to pull

Harley have great movement on her upper torso. She looks good when crouched or laying down. The waist's movement (the articulation is located under the skirt) have great range of movement.

[left] "Meh..."

[right] "Freeze donut-dunkers!"

The shoulders are ball-hinged and moves really good. Thanks to Harley's soft bosoms, it's easier to make the whole arm to cross the chest.

"Batter up!"

Arms have bicep swivel and it's hidden because of the sleeve. The ball-hinged elbows can swivel too and got passable 45 degree elbow movement. The small ball-hinged wrist moves and swivel well and it isn't hindered by the soft ruffled cuff.

Harley's promotional artwork pose.

Harley's legs can twist, raise up, sidewards really good but moving them to the back is a bit restricted because of her butt cheeks. The skirt is soft and have cuts on the sides to lessen the movement restrictions of the legs.

"I take bribes"

SQEX decided to use ball-hinges on Harley's knees. It works well like the double-hinges but ball-hinges have higher chance of getting loose, they're fragile and shows a big lump when you look behind the knees.

Officer Harley

The ankles are ball-hinged and they can swivel. Feet movement are fine especially when pointing the feet down. The toes are hinged (mine are super stiff) so that Harley can tippy-toe while playing hopscotch.

[left] Ready to give some punishment

[right] Time for crime

This PAK of Harley Quinn is a large 10-incher toy. She'll definitely look good with the rest of large scale PAK figs. I don't have any large Batman figs at the moment for comparison, so I'll compare her scale with the other characters that I got.

The two ladies from Batman Arkhamverse.

I got a Batman fig alright, but she's an 8-incher, she's Catwoman from Arkham City. 

A hero, an anti-hero and a villain.

Harley looks good with Raiden (MGR), but Leon is about the same height as Harley when it comes to eye level.

Harley with the colorful crew.
I noticed that she almost have the same color pattern to the other figs in this pic.

She's almost the same height as Lightning (LR:FFXIII) if I straightened Lightning's legs. Serah (FFXIII) and Sora (KH3D) are shorter than Harley

Harley with the AVALANCHE trio

Harley is shorter than the Cloud, Tifa and Barret. I think Harley should be taller than Tifa, because her official height in Arkhamverse is 5'7".

I'm a bit strict to toy scaling when it comes from characters from the same game/series/movie title. But hey, when it comes to crossovers with different characters from other titles, as long that the scaling looks fine, It's all good to me. 

QUALITY ISSUES

No major toy-breaking issues on this Harley toy that I got. The wrist ball-hinges looks fragile because it's too small. I also found few small paint drops/splatters.

CONCLUSION

This is the best Harley Quinn PAK to date. Her new appearance looks better in my opinion. This is the largest PAK toy of Harley, giving her a good build quality and more details. She's highly poseable with very few figure design limitations. My complaints are minor, it's about the small wrist ball-hinge and the ball-hinged knees. Accessory-wise, she got a good variety of 'em. The price of this figure isn't that expensive, so for a figure that looks great and have good amount of accessories, that's a good deal. Harley Quinn is a welcome addition to my PAK collection. Now SQEX, where's Nightwing and Catwoman's Arkham Knight PAK version?

As usual, made something extra for this toy and this review. Enjoy.

Crazy time with Harley.

Cheers and Happy Collecting!