[Toy Review] AERITH GAINSBOROUGH - Final Fantasy VII Remake Play Arts Kai

She is a flower peddler living in Midgar and a last living descendant of an ancient race, Cetra. She's Aerith from Final Fantasy VII Remake, the game I played only for a bit, but finished the original. I finally have her Play Arts Kai action figure on my mitts after failing to claim it because of the new two-week lockdown and I had some internet issues that's now fixed. Enough rambling, time to review this action figure!

"The future isn't...set in stone.

That's what I always tell myself."

~ Aerith Gainsborough ~

PACKAGING

Box front

The packaging is simple. In front, you got a large product image of Aerith with Mako effect on the background. You can also see the usual logos.

Box back

The back shows more product shots of the figure in different poses and lots of texts.

Front cover opend

When you open the front cover, you can view the figure and its accessories. You can also read some info about Aerith.

Time to sell flowers or fight Shin-ra goons and monsters.

Packaging includes:
- Aerith Gainsborough figure
- 2x Interchangeable faceplates (serious face, closed eyes)
- Guard Stick weapon (2 parts)
- L/R gripping hands
- L/R fists
- Praying hands

- Left hand holding a flower
- Display stand

THE FIGURE

Viewing Aerith

I really like Aerith's re-design for the remake. Her design is a combination of the original game, Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts. This action figure is pretty light which is nice. Its lighter weight doesn't stress the joints too much.

The face of a lively girl

Aerith got a nice pretty face. Really accurate to the in-game model and a quality improvement over PAK Tifa's faces. Her green eyes have life in it and she got nice pink lips. The hair looks really good. Its painted and shaed well.

A very long ponytail

Aerith got a long braided ponytail, looks nice but the pink hair tie at the tip is not painted well.

Cute pink bow

Her big pink bow looks nice and got a rough texture.

Aerith's everyday threads

Aerith is wearing a cute light pink dress and a red biker-like jacket. The jacket reminds me of Resident Evil 2 Remake's Claire Redfield's jacktet. The jacket is soft and flexible and have a kinda glossy finish.

Aerith's necklace

She got a necklace with black string and gold pendant that looks like a cherry blossom. It's sculpted and painted really well.

Cool jacket

The jacket's design is asymetrical. The left side have pockets while the right side have none.

Slim arms

The sleeves of the jacket have a black strap wrapped around at the opening. The arms are painted and shaded well but I don't like how they look when you bend the elbows. Aerith have set of bangles on her left and right wrists. These bangles are free-floating so be careful not to loose them when you swap this figure's hands.

Cute frilly dress

The pink dress have sculpted lace patterns that you will notice if you hold and feel the figure and look very close. The linings and buttons have a bit darker shade of pink. The bottom part of the dress is frilly and have an almost white pink color.

Peeking the legs.

The dress is split in two parts. You can lift the skirt to the front to see Aerith's legs (that came out wrong). The legs are painted nicely but those mold marks/line at the side makes me want to leave Aerith's legs covered so that I won't see those lines.

Aerith's boots

The travel boots looks nice. It doesn't look big and clown-like. The boots are brown and looks leathery because of the shadings and glossy finish. The buckles looks like it got a brass colored paint applied.

Under the boots

Unfortunately the bottom of the boots doesn't have any detail.

ACCESSORIES

The new Aerith PAK figure comes with good set of accessories. She got her weapon and a basket full of flowers. For interchangeable accessories, she got two interchangeable faceplates and six extra hands.

Aerith's accessories

This is a great upgrade from the Crisis Core version of the figure, the accessory count is higher giving the figure a bit more variety and more posing options. Now that I noticed it: A flower basket, interchangeable faceplates instead of full headsculpt and a hand that holds a flower... Funny, it kinda feels like SQEX saw and read my Crisis Core Aerith review and took notes.

Guard Stick

Aerith's Guard Stick. Its design looks similar to the original and got some minor changes. This weapon is mostly metallic silver with a black grip. It got two green Materias attached.

Guard Stick in two separated parts

The Guard Stick can be split into two so that the grip can easily slide in Aerith's gripping hands. The detachable part is a bit loose but it stays without falling off the other weapon part when attached.

Flower basket

Aerith got a basket full of flowers. The basket looks nice and got a soft grip strap. Paint application is good and got really nice shadings.

Flower basket top view

The flowers are detailed and painted nicely. The flowers aren't soft making it a bit difficult to put the basket around Aerith's arms. The flowers and arms grind at each other when equipping the basket.

Extra interchangeable faceplates.

Aerith got two interchangeable faceplates: serious face and closed eyes. They look really nice, pretty and shows emotion. The faceplates have front and side hairs. The faceplates have great paint application and shadings. The question is: while the interchangeable faceplates is a good decision, the weird part is why SQEX included Aerith's hair on the faceplates? Why not make it like PAK Tifa with just faceplates, no hair attached.

Extra hands

These are Aerith's extra interchangeable hands. They look fine and have nice sculpt. The flower on one of the hands looks really nice.

New PAK display stand

I'm gonna make it short for this one. I'm gonna use this new PAK display stand. Not for Aerith, but for my other PAK figures that can't stand well.

ARTICULATIONS

Can't say "no" if she stares at you like that.

This Aerith PAK figure have new joints that have better movement range. But because of her character design, some parts can move a little.

Looking around to spot a customer.

The head can move and look around just fine, except for looking up because it's limited by her hair. I think it got hidden neck articulation.

She's giving a flower, for free.

The shoulder joint is a ball-peg it can shift up/down/front/back but exposes some gaps. The arms can fully rotate and can raise to the side well.

Praying

The biceps have hidden swivel joint. The elbows are on double-hinges. They move well and have a great bending range and they can also swivel on two ends. But I don't like how they look when you bend them.

Holding her weapon.

The wrists uses ball-hinges and they move well as usual. The bangles can hide this joint depending on how the arms are posed.

Ready to fight.

The chest moves really well and doesn't expose any gaps. Moving it forward for an ab crunch is great, but can bend back a little. Side to side and leaning left/right movement is great.

Concentrating

This figure got another hidden articulation and that's the waist articulation. It can move but it's hard to move this joint.

Casting magic.

The legs can move but really limited because of the dress. The cuts on the dress helps the legs move a bit more. It can move 3 clicks forward but makes it look unnatural on the side because the legs are exposed at this point. The legs can only do one click going backward. Raising the legs sideways is possible too but, again, it looks unnatural because of the exposed legs. I think that SQEX should have used cloth material for the lower part of the dress...but that might make the figure more expensive.

Twirling her Guard Stick.

The legs also have thigh swivel, They're useful joints and the dress hides them. The knees are are double hinges. These hinges are new and doesn't ratchet so the knees' movement range are not limited by the clicks.

Going for an offensive.

The feet uses ball-hinges and movement is really limited because of the boots. While the lip parts of the boots are separate pieces, they're hard plastic so the movement of the feet is limited with only one click up/down. The feet can swivel and pivot a little. They also have toe hinges.

SCALING

Let's see how tall or short this FFVII Remake Aerith PAK figure is compared to some of my PAK figures in my collection.

Aerith vs Aerith

Two Aeriths against each other. Remake Aerith is a half head taller than the other Aerith (CC). If you're wondering where I got the flower basket that Crisis Core Aerith is using, it's a fridge magnet that we got as a souvenir. I found it while cleaning the house and its magnet is missing.

Aerith and Tifa

Aerith is really short compared to her fellow Remake character Tifa (Remake).

Aerith gives color to this group of people wearing dark clothing.

Aerith is the shortest in this group that includes Tifa (AC), Zack (CC), Cloud (AC) and Sephiroth (AC).

Aerith with the other FFVII boys.

Again, Aerith is the shortest in this photo with Barret (AC), Cid (AC) and Vincent (DoC). Cait Sith is obviously the shortest but he's not human.

Aerith with the Chocobros.

The Chocobros, Ignis, Noctis, Prompto and Gladiolus, are all taller than Aerith.

Aerith with the girls.

Now she's with the girls. Aerith, Cindy and Lunafreya have very similar height. The only tallest here is Aranea. I just added Nanamo here to add more cuteness in the pic.

Aerith with Coccoon people

This is where the height comparison gets weird. Serah (FFXIII) the shortest with an awkward scaling. Lightning (Dissidia) is inaccurately shorter too. I think Hope (incomplete FFXIII PAK figure, no review) have the most tolerable scale when compared to Aerith.

QUALITY ISSUES

I found a couple of bluish spots on Aerith's left elbow. Looks like my Aerith PAK figure is bruised. Her pink dress have a little red paint from her jacket. Those are minor and most of my Aerith figure's parts looks fine and no broken parts and missing pieces.

CONCLUSION

The Final Fantasy VII Remake Play Arts Kai action figure of Aerith is a really nice figure that's highly presentable, it looks great and pretty and got good accessory count and variety. The articulations is good on the figures upper parts but the lower parts are limited because of the character design. The price of this figure is a bit cheaper compared to the past PAK figures years ago. So I definitely recommend this Aerith figure to FFVII fans and PAK collectors. I'm happy to add her to my collection.

I had fun with this figure so much that I made this little comic.

Aerith's sneak attack.

Foldable chair accessory not included.

I also made this edit. Hope you guys like it.

On the green fields of Gaia.

Based on her CG Limit Break in Brave Exvius.

Cheers and Happy Collecting!