I got a bootleg Play Arts Kai (Piay Arts Kai) action figure to review. He's a character from Metal Gear Solid, named Gray Fox (real name: Frank Jaeger). He's a Cyborg Ninja and one of the bosses and supporting characters in the game. I decided to get this knock-off figure because the price of the, now very rare, authentic one is so high, I can't afford it.
"A cornered fox is more dangerous than a jackal."
~ Cyborg Ninja/Gray Fox ~
PACKAGING
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| Box front. |
As expected from a bootleg, the windowed-type box is cheaply made from weaker type of cardboard and it's very easy to get beaten and torn apart. You can already see the figure and it's accessories through the box's viewing window. The MGS logo have the letter M and E erased.
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| Box back. |
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| Let's see how he's made of. |
Packaging includes:
- Cyborg Ninja (bootleg) figure
- Fox Blade (sword)
- Arm Cannon
- Right sword gripping hand
- Display stand
THE FIGURE
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| Viewing Cyborg Ninja at four sides. |
This bootleg Cyborg Ninja figure looks really good and it doesn't smell like bad plastic. The quality of the plastic is good and sturdy enough on most parts but, as expected, the smaller parts looks and feels very fragile. Paint job is good for a bootleg. I haven't seen up close or held the authentic figure in person so I can't say much about the quality of this bootleg figure's paint job.
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| Cyborg Ninja's head. |
Cyborg Ninja's head looks good. I don't see any deformities. It also got a nice paint job.
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| Closer look on Cyborg Ninja's head. |
The "Tokugawa Heavy Industry" is printed very well but it's not centered on the forehead, a clear sign that this figure is a knock-off.
Note: There's a noticeable gunk/rough surface on the mouth area of the head. It's super glue that I used to fix one part of this figure. The glue splattered around my work area and this figure because of my squeezing pressure on the super glue.
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| Back of the head. |
The back of the head have an orange backplate. The backplate is not painted entirely (there are some white parts on the edges) but the small texts are nicely printed and they're readable.
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| Gray Fox's exoskeleton (front) |
Cyborg Ninja's exoskeleton looks really good and highly detailed. You can't see the details of this exoskeleton in the original PS1 game. The paint job is good enough and there are some really good shadings around this figure. The small texts are readable and printed very well.
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| Gray Fox's exoskeleton (back) |
The back also shows lots of detail. Again, the paint job is good enough. There are small, clean and readable texts at the spine guard and shoulder blades.
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| Cyborg arm |
Both arms looks good but got a poor paint job on the shoulders. The shading on the shoulders looks like scratches or burn marks. The hands looks good.
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| Classic shoulder butterfly hinge. |
This figure have shoulder butterfly hinges. The hinges have details but doesn't look good when moving the shoulders but I'll give these parts a pass because Gray Fox being a Cyborg Ninja.
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| Classic Play Arts Kai elbow caps. |
This figure also have elbow caps, a classic part but easily breakable. I accidentally removed the right elbow cap from its peg while inspecting the bootleg figure and testing its joints so I used super glue to re-attach this piece. This is where I accidentally splattered the glue on some parts of the figure and all over my work bench. It looks fine now, like nothing's happened after gluing this part.
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| Waist area |
This is the only figure where SQEX did this unique floating piece on this figure's crotch area. It's not a standard "diaper" or "underwear" piece, it's more like a "thong" piece that makes more room for the waist and legs to move and what's weird is that it's effective for this figure.
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| Cyborg Ninja's legs. |
Both legs looks good. The paint job is good but the shadings looks like burn marks, just like on the shoulders.
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| I think you need to turn this to remove the leg part of the exoskeleton. |
The sides of the legs have this sealed area where I think this is where to start to remove the exoskeleton. This part is another detail that I or most of us didn't saw in the PS1 game. There are some super glue splatter around this part.
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| Cyborg Ninja's foot. |
The feet doesn't have much detail except for some lines.
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| Bottom area of the feet. |
The feet have some details at the bottom.
ACCESSORIES
Cyborg Ninja have very few accessories but it's not a big deal if you purchased the authentic figure that's super duper cheap back in the early 2010's. Anyway this figure got the high frequency (HF) sword, arm cannon and a single gripping hand.
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| Cyborg Ninja's items |
That's all he got. I just wish the bootleggers just included the interchangeable head with its visor open. Note that you can only get the extra interchangeable head if you got the limited edition Red Cyborg Ninja (which is still not yet bootlegged as far as I know).
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| Fox Blade |
Gray Fox's High Frequency (HF) sword, officially named Fox Blade, looks good and painted really well. I like the details on the sword's grip.
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| Arm Cannon |
Gray Fox only used this weapon when fighting against Liquid Snake and Metal Gear REX. This scoped Arm Cannon is only dark gray and have some small readable texts in some parts. It got some nice details too. To equip this accessory, you need to remove the right (or left) forearm from the elbow joint then attach the Arm Cannon.
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| Sword gripping hand. |
Sadly, this is the only extra hand that Cyborg Ninja had in the packaging. No pair of fists so that we can re-create the hand-to-hand combat between Solid Snake and Gray Fox. No extra left sword gripping hand too. Anyway, this extra hand looks good, paint job is good too but some of the printed texts is barely readable.
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| Display stand. |
Cyborg Ninja have a standard issue display stand that requires assemble. I'm not gonna use it.
ARTICULATIONS
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| Frank Jaeger realizing that he became a cyborg. |
Let's try the articulations of the bootleg Cyborg Ninja figure.
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| Going berserk |
The head is on a double ball-joint. It moves really well and can fully rotate, lean and tilt side to side without too much restriction. No neck articulation on this figure.
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| He's ready to slice some Genome Soldiers. |
The butterfly hinges on the shoulders makes it easy for both arms to cross the chest.
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| Neutral and ready stance. |
The arms can raise fully rotate and can raise to the side really well. The shoulder pads is made of soft plastic and it doesn't limit the movement of both arms.
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| Arm cannon equipped. |
The arms have bicep swivel. The elbows and wrists are ball-hinged and have very good range of motion. The elbow caps can also move up and down.
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| Overhead sword stance. |
The upper torso (chest) have limited movement. It can move side to side but have trouble when leaning to the front, back and side to side. The cause of the limitation is the chest that's made of hard plastic.
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| Focused double handed sword stance. |
The lower torso (waist) movement is good. It can turn and lean side to side and move forward and back but it's a little stiff on this bootleg figure.
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| Aiming the Arm Cannon. |
The legs have nice range of movement. It can raise forward really well and can go backward a little bit. Both legs can also swivel on the ball-joints.
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| Focused lower stance. |
The legs can also raise sideward really well. Cyborg Ninja can kick really high and can almost do a perfect splits.
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| Shooting mid air. |
The knees are double-hinged. It got a really nice bending range and it looks really good.
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| Defensive stance. |
Both feet have a ball-hinge but their movement is really limited. They can point up and down a bit. Both feet also have ankle pivot and have toe swivel that doesn't look bad when you use them.
SCALING
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| Two cyborgs. |
Cyborg Ninja is shorter than his fellow cyborg from the same Metal Gear universe, Raiden (MGR). I think the height comparison between these two is really good. I expected Raiden to be taller with or without his high heels.
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| A Cyborg and a guy wearing a Rage Armor set. |
Now let's proceed to my other bootleg PAK figures. Cyborg Ninja is taller than the Bootleg Diablos Armor (Monster Hunter 4).
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| A Cyborg and a royal servant. |
Cyborg Ninja is shorter than Bootleg Ignis (FFXV). The height comparison between these two looks weird. Makes you think that maybe the Cyborg Ninja, Gray Fox, is a short (or an average sized) person.
QUALITY ISSUES
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| Hardened metallic orange paint chip. |
The bootleg Cyborg Ninja PAK figure's quality is mostly good. But it's a bootleg, so expect quality issues. like this hardened paint under Gray Fox's left arm pit. I used a thick needle to remove this extra paint off. Another quality issue I found is the elbow caps that might have weak glue applied on them. Well that's all the quality issues that I found on this Cyborg Ninja that I got. I forgot to mention that I abused and over-posed this knock-off figure's joints to see if they will break. Luckily, they didn't.
CONCLUSION
To sum things up, this bootleg Cyborg Ninja/Gray Fox Metal Gear Solid Play Arts Kai action figure is really good. The sculpt and paint job is really good. The joints are sturdy and they can all move. The accessories are few (same amount the authentic have) but they also look really good. There are some issues though but that depends on your luck if you got a bad or good knock-off figure. So, do I recommend this fake toy? Well that depends: Do you still want to have a Cyborg Ninja PAK figure but don't have the money to buy the rare and super expensive authentic one? Then yes, you should get this fake toy. It's a good, super cheap alternative and this figure doesn't look like a bootleg, unless you (or someone) inspect it thoroughly. I don't recommend this knock-off toy if you're collecting authentic figures only.
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| A time paradox sword duel of two cyborgs. |
Cheers and Happy Collecting!
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