The design of Nomura's Variant Batman looks similar to the Hellbat armor, it also look like the Beyond suit. It's like the combination of the two. It also looked like a Keyblade Armor as seen in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. Sometimes I like to call him Bahamut-man instead of Batman too.
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| Looking at Batman at four sides. |
The figure is kinda light despite its bulky look and this is one of the coolest looking action figures I have ever seen. But there are gaps present on this figure, like you can literally peek on the gaps to see the other side. The gaps are only noticeable while posing the figure.
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| Nice sleek headgear, bats. |
The helmet looks really cool. It's futuristic and I bet will scare a lot of criminals. The red visor have a bat design and it's translucent but all you can see behind is a flat surface, I wish they added some face sculpt underneath to make it cooler. The ears on the helmet got a really sharp design.
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| Batman's Wayne Tech suit. |
The darkened armor is really glossy and the chest have a bat logo but you can't really see it unless you look very close. The abdomen section looks really good and I think the proportions looks great. The armor have some dark red hues around it.
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| Cool shoulder armor. |
The shoulder armor is made of soft flexible plastic so that the arms won't have any movement problems. Both left and right shoulder armor have a very nice thick red lining that unfortunately you won't see on the other parts of the figure.
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| His bat-pythons are sick! |
Batman have bulky arms and they look great. The gauntlets have guards that are removable. Some parts of the arms have glossy and matte finish. The hands have long nails for painful face scratching.
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| Not a Utility Belt but a plain Bat-belt. |
The belt looks really nice and got a bat logo, again you can only see it when you look closer. The belt doesn't have any utility pouches and gadgets though.
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| The legs are heavily armored. |
The legs are super bulky because of the armor design. The undersuit have some mesh texture and there are some parts that are glossy and some have a matte finish. The leg features a removable side "panels".
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| Cool but simple-looking boots. |
The boots looks really good. It got an armor piece that might hinder the feet movement. Each boot have three removable pieces.
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| The treads on the boots will prevent Batman from slipping off the wet rooftop. |
The bottom of the boots are treaded which is a nice attention to detail.
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| Cape looks good when on normal pose. |
The black cape is glossy and have a cloth-like texture. It's in two parts and have a huge gap when widely spread out. The good thing is that this cape is very thin so it's really light. Still I prefer cloth capes.
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| This is where Batman's wings are connected. |
The cape parts are connected via ball-hinges to this big plastic piece that's connected to Batman's back. This back piece looks really good and have very nice details. I think this piece is "glued" and you can probably remove this and the figure will still look good because its back is really detailed too.
ACCESSORIES
This Variant Batman have a lot of accessories and most of them are interchangeable pieces to make this figure look more badass. But it lacks the standard Batman equipment like the Batarang and grappling gun.
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| Wow, that's cool! |
Swapping the smaller parts are kinda difficult because they're kinda stiff.
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| Batwings |
The wings looks amazing and have a smooth glossy finish. The wings have "arms" that looks dragon-like and have an human-like arm extension that also look skeletal in design. The wings are lightweight.
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| Both wings have cool but weird arm extensions. |
The dragon-like arms have ball-hinges and the "bone" arm extensions have hinges. These movable parts can swivel too.
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| Wings attached. Batman looks scary. |
With wings attached, Batman looks even cooler but will take a huge space on the display cabinet/shelf and the figure's weight is not that heavy. Still, he looks good even without the wings.
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| Extended feathers mode or flight/glide mode |
The wing's three "feather" parts are articulated. These feathers are very thin and looks and feels very fragile so, exercise caution while posing this part.
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[Left] 2x Bat-Shuriken compartment
[Right] 2x Arm guards extended spikes mode |
The gauntlets have interchangeable arm guards. The spikes are soft so that they won't break in case the figure falls down 3 to 4 feet.
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| The default arm guard looks like dragon scales. |
The default pieces doesn't have the spikes which looks cool too, but kinda boring to me.
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| Those spikes can be used defensively and offensively. |
So I replaced them with ones that have extended spikes, which I prefer.
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| Front and back of the Bat-Shuriken compartment. |
The "Bat-Shuriken compartment" accessories can be attached at the sides of both of Batman's legs.
[Left] Leg panel on
[Right] Leg panel removed
If you remove the default "compartment" panel, you can see the peg and tab holes and a detailed interior. Just align the pegs and tabs of the compartment accessory to the holes to attach them.
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Bat-Shuriken compartment equipped.
It's kinda difficult to take this photo in an angle where the shurikens are visible. |
The shurikens are painted silver which is nice but these accessories are pretty much useless to me. I will use them if Batman have an extra hand holding these tiny shurikens.
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| The boot attachments. |
The boots have three tiny parts that can be interchanged with these tiny extra accessories.
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| The default attachments looks similar to the arm guards. |
These tiny interchangeable accessories have unique tabs on them so that you won't put them on the wrong place.
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| With different set of attachments equipped. |
I don't know what they are, but I think those help Batman to glide in the air a bit better or they can be used as thrusters so that Batman can go to high places without the grappling gun. But again they're useless to me so I changed them back to the default ones.
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| Extra hands. |
Batman's extra hands are a pair of fists for punching bad guys. The arm extension on the wings have an extra pair of clawed hands that have their fingers spread apart.
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| See? The arm extensions looks like human bones. |
The extra clawed hands can be attached on the arm extensions on the wings.
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| Boo! |
Well that gives a very scary silhouette or shadow in the dark.. and it's awesome.
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| Display stand |
The figure can stand very well on it own even with wings attached. But if you want to pose this Batman in a more action and amazing way, you'll need this display stand. Or get a better display stand for this figure.
ARTICULATIONS
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| I'm Batman |
Despite its bulky look, this Variant Batman figure is highly poseable and the articulation cuts are almost invisible thanks to its dark colors and very angular and kinda robotic design.
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| Looking to the side. |
The head articulation is very well-designed, it can easily move around with very little limitation. The neck helps the head to move more.
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| You don't want to get close to Batman |
The arms have ball-hinges on the shoulders the elbows and wrists. They all move really well. The shoulder armor doesn't hinder the vertical movement of both arms. No bicep swivel but the ball-hinges on the shoulders and elbows can do the job.
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| Come get some! |
The chest have a very nice range of movement, it doesn't produce a huge gap in front when going far to the back, but you can see the gap when you look at it from below.
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| Bat from above! |
The waist also have very nice movement range but the legs might limit its movement depending on how both legs are posed.
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| It's time to give up, evil-doers. |
The legs on this figure are bulky so the sideward movement is kinda limited but can still pull some very nice high kicks. Forward movement is really good and can move a bit backward pretty well. Both legs can twist side to side too.
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| Palm strike! |
The knees are double-hinged and it looks really good when fully bent thanks to the character design that have armored knee caps.
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| Guarding incoming attacks. |
Both feet have good range of movement. They can point down really well, but not so much when pointing up because of the armor piece on the boots. Both feet can pivot and the toes can swivel that makes the feet look bad, this should have been a toe hinge.
SCALING
This Variant Batman PAK figure is a tall one but I hope he's tall enough so that he doesn't look awkward with other characters that supposed to be shorter than him.
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| Batman with Catwoman and Hatsune Miku |
I compared Batman first with my other Variant PAK figures that are designed by Nomura. Batman is the tallest when compared with
Catwoman (Variant) and
Hatsune Miku (Variant). Phew now that's a relief.
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| With the FFVII protagonists. |
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| Batman with the rest of the FFVII:AC party. |
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| With the people from Eos |
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| Batman alongside the medieval fantasy looking people |
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With the Dissidia team.
Batman looks like an alternate skin for Garland. |
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| With the KH boys and FFXIII sisters. |
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| Batman with a bunch of different characters. |
QUALITY ISSUES
Added 11.01.18
I forgot to add this section, probably because I didn't see any major quality problems on this figure. But like I said before, the wings' feathers felt fragile plus I read some rants from other Variant Batman owners that the other parts on the wings got broken just by posing them or simply by falling off the shelf. The figure itself is sturdy, mine fell off my review table two times while taking its photos doing action poses while doing this review and nothing breaks. But as precaution, I placed my Variant Batman on the lower shelf to prevent it from breaking its wings when it falls.
CONCLUSION
This Batman figure is one of the best Play Arts Kai action figures ever made. Its very cool design looks fitting in the future Batman timeline in the DC universe. Nomura's design is over-the-top and robot-like but it still looks like Batman. The accessory count is amazing but some are useless depending on how the figure is posed. This figure needs standard accessories like a batarang or extra hands with shurikens. Articulations are really good, it's highly poseable and the figure can stand well on its own even with two wings attached on it. I got a sweet deal on this figure. I got this brand new from
ToyCon 2018 for around Php.6000.00 ($112.00) and its price is usually around or more than Php.8000.00 ($150.00). Finally I got a Batman action figure (still I want the traditional Batman look) and this Variant version of him is a nice addition to my PAK collection and my Variant Catwoman now have a playmate.
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| My Batman epic pose. |
[Update 05.22.2021] Added new Variant Batman photo edit.
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| Scouting the dark cyberpunk city. |
Batman standing on top of a building to scout for bad guys doing crime and stop them using his latest WayneTech Batsuit, gadgets and combat prowess.
Cheers and Happy Collecting! Happy Halloween!
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