[Toy Review] [Bootleg?] JESSIE - Final Fantasy VII Remake Play Arts Kai

I got another questionable Play Arts Kai action figure. I don't know if it's a bootleg or a reject because of it's awesome looks and quality. Anyway, we got Jessie Rasberry (yes her surname sounds like a fruit)! She's AVALANCHE's intelligent and sassy bomb specialist in Final Fantasy VII Remake. I can't believe she got an action figure. Probably because she's cute? Where's Biggs and Wedge? I want them to have their action figure counterparts too.

"I make a mean pizza, I'll have you know!

Marche, luche, black milly, red shelly--I use only the best ingredients!"

~ Jessie ~

PACKAGING

Box: front

I took a risk and bought this online. Being a questionable, bootleg or reject action figure or whatever, this one came without a box. So I used some pictures of the action figure's box that I found on eBay for reference. Moving on, the front cover of the box shows a large product shot of the Jessie PAK figure complete with the game's and Play Arts Kai's logo.

If this figure came with a box, I'll bet that the box quality is good but the image quality is low and missing it's triangular Arts logo and the holofoil sticker of authenticity.

Box: back

The back shows more product shots of the figure.

Front cover opened

You can view the action figure and its accessories if you open the front cover. There's info about Jessie and the game at the back of the front cover.

She's out and ready to do extreme stuff.

Packaging includes:
- Jessie figure
- Sub-machine gun
- 2x Interchangeable faceplate (smiling and "Psyche!" face)
- L/R fists
- L/R pointing finger hands
- Right trigger finger hand

- Right hand holding a grenade

Missing in the packaging:

- Display stand

- Manual

This figure that I bought online is surprisingly weird. Some minor stuff are missing like the manual and display stand but in exchange, I got additional accessories (see ACCESSORIES part of the review). I didn't include the extra accessories in this part of the review because I'm reviewing this as the standard version of this figure.

THE FIGURE

Viewing Jessie

This action looks really, really good for a knockoff(?). This is a lightweight figure. The old chibi artwork by Tetsuya Nomura on the classic FFVII game shows that Jessie is a cute character. Roberto Ferrari did her character design justice for the remake, she looks super cute and pretty now.

Jessie's mugshot

The face is very accurate and well painted. The eyes and lips of the main faceplate are not glossy. The faceplate's forehead and the bandana are not evenly leveled when viewed from the side, making an indentation between the top of the forehead and the bandana. It's not noticeable when viewing the figure at the distance. It becomes an eyesore if you view the the forehead up close.

Jessie's bandana

Her brown hair looks really nice and she wears a maroon bandana that's tied on a knot at the back of her left ear.

Ponytail

She's got a long hair, so she tied it on a ponytail. It looks really nice.

She's wearing armor plating.

Jessie is wearing a breast plate. It's made of soft plastic but it looks like its made of real metal thanks to the paint application. The front side of the breastplate have cuts on the side so that the chest can move more. Underneath the breast plate, she's wearing a black meshed shirt and underneath that, a blue bodysuit. The black shirt looks good with those mesh textures. The blue bodysuit looks smooth and have black mesh patterns on the hips.

She's kinda protected thanks to the armor.

The back shows the breast plate's backside. I didn't notice that the armor have gold rivets. The back also shows more of the black meshed shirt.

Arms looks good.

Both arms are symmetrical in design. The shoulders have shoulder armor. Jessie is wearing a black/grey long gloves and a brown fingerless hand gloves with knuckle guards.

What's inside that satchel, probably some Materia or Potions.

Jessie have a decent sized brown satchel on her left hip. She's wearing a brown leather belt with gold buckles. The look of satchel's strap is consistent on the belt. The belt and strap have nice stitched details.

Very common-looking pants.

Jessie is wearing a olive drab colored 3/4 pants. Looks nice with some wrinkles and shadings.

Back of the pants.

The pants have seam lines on both sides. The back side of the right leg have some very legible and crisp-looking embossed copyright stuff.

She won't be getting any shinners thanks to that shin guards.

Her brown steel-toed boots looks good. It got straps instead of shoelaces. On top of the boots are shin armors which looks consistent on Jessie's set of armor she's wearing.

Very ordinary bottom sole tread pattern.

The boots have very common bottom sole design.

Toe hinges folded.

If you move the toe hinge of the boots the color is consistent with the boots.

ACCESSORIES

I'm reviewing this as a standard version of Jessie's PAK action figure. But this is a special case. So I'm gonna separate the accessories found on the standard set and some extra goodies that I got on this KO(?) figure.

STANDARD ACCESSORIES

These are the accessories included on the standard version of Jessie's PAK action figure. She got her sub-machine gun, two faceplates and a total of six extra hands with one of them holds a grenade.

Jessie's stuff.

These are decent amount of accessories. But I still wish we got an extra hand holding a Materia.

Sub-machine gun

This is Jessie's sub-machine gun with an extended magazine. It looks like an uzi or a skorpion or both mixed together. It looks really detailed with nice paint application.

The other side of the gun features a folded stock. The stock part is soft so don't worry, it will not break. The stock also doesn't move.

Gun keychain for personality.

The gun have a red and white feather keychain attached at the back. Looks nice.

Faceplates

Both faceplates looks nicely sculpted, they look pretty and not derpy. The smiling faceplate doesn't have any gloss on the eyes and lips, while the "psyche!" faceplate have glossy eyes and lips. That's weird...

Extra hands

These are the extra hands. They're good for posing variety. They look good and I don't see any issues here.

A hand holding an exploding pineapple.

This extra right hand is holding a grenade. The grenade looks nice with a custom red and blue paint job. I wish the grenade is an extra accessory separate from its gripping hand.

Display stand

This bootleg(?) figure didn't come with a display stand, which is a bummer. So I used some standard PAK display stand lying around for reference.

EXTRA ACCESSORIES

These are the extra accessories that I got. These three extra hands are part of the Deluxe (DX) version of Jessie's PAK action figure.

Extra hands found in DX version.

The left and right hands are for gripping the handlebar of the motorcycle and the other one is a left hand giving a thumbs up.

While I'm happy to have these for variety, I'm still wondering where the heck is the motorcycle? Did the bootleggers intentionally removed the bike, and for what reason? It gives me that happy "Yaaaay!" to a disappointed "Oh..." vibe. Now I'm hoping to I find a separate/loose motorcycle for Jessie online.

ARTICULATIONS

Big smile!

Jessie is a fun and sassy girl. I bet that she's fun to pose.

"Psyche!"

The head is on a double ball peg. It can look around without any major limitations. The neck is also on a double ball peg that hidden under the blue suit where the plastic on that part is thinner and softer. I had some trouble on the neck joint which I will share later in the QUALITY ISSUES part of the review. The ponytail is also articulated thanks to the ball-hinge.

She wants you to catch a grenade.

Both shoulders have ball peg hinge joints and have nice movement range. Both arms can rotate and shift. The shoulder armor hinders the movement of the arms a bit when moving up sideward.

Ready to shoot.

The arms have bicep swivel which is hidden by the black sleeves. Both elbows are double-hinged. They got a very nice bending range but it looks really ugly. The forearms and biceps can swivel on both ends of the elbow joints.

Aiming her gun.

Both wrists uses classic ratcheted ball-hinges. I don't have any complaints on these parts.

Side sweep gun grip.

The upper torso is on a double ball joint. It can turn and lean side to side, no problems here. But the ab crunch is a little limited even though the ab part of the breast plate have cuts on the side. 

Gun dashing.

The waist is also on a double ball joint. It got more movement range than the upper torso.

Kick.

Both legs have ratcheted joints. It can go forward and sideward really high, making it possible for this figure to do some nice kicks like its in-game counterpart. Moving the legs backward takes just a few clicks.

Turning flying kick.

There's a lap swivel joint on both legs. It looks bad when you swivel these parts because it ruins the wrinkled look of the pants. It's still best to use the swivel on the ratcheted leg joints, but using the lap swivel joint makes the figure's legs more flexible when posing. Both knees are double-hinged, nice movement range but looks ugly when the knees are totally folded.

Crouched gun pose.

Both feet uses ball-hinges on the ankles. It can turn side to side and can point up and down well. Both feet can also pivot and have toe-hinges.

SCALING

Jessie is a short woman, how will her action figure counterpart's height compare with some of the PAK figures in my collection.

Cloud, Jessie and Sephiroth

Jessie is the shortest compared to my two KO(?) or "in-between bootleg and authentic" figures: Cloud ver. 2 (FFVII:R) and Sephiroth (FFVII:R).

Midgar girls

Here's Jessie with the rest of my authentic PAK figures. She is shorter than Tifa (FFVII:R) and Aerith (FFVII:R).

Jessie with her leader and an ex-Turk.

Barret (FFVII:AC) and Vincent (DoC) are both taller than tiny Jessie.

Jessie with an android and an adventurer.

Wow, I can't believe that Jessie is the shortest even in this pic with KO(?) 2B (NieR:Automata) and Lara Croft (RotTR).

QUALITY ISSUES

This knockoff(?) PAK action figure of Jessie is pretty good, still it got some issues when I got it.

- The faceplates, while they fit nicely, doesn't line up with the bandana by a tiny bit, indentation between the face and the bandana is visible when you look closely especially in a 45 degree angle.

- The neck joint is not connected on the torso.

- The ponytail ball-hinge is kinda loose (but still clicky)

- Right ankle ball-hinge is loose (but still clicky), making it hard to make this figure stand sometimes.

The neck joint is the major issue of this Jessie KO(?) PAK figure. It's fixable, but it's a struggle. The easy part is when I pried open the neck collar bone area (a very soft and flexible part) of this figure. No need to cut this part off, it's just tucked in. The hard part is when I tried to connect the neck joint to the torso's double ball joint. I have to shave the plastic off a bit the bottom socket hole of the neck to make the double ball-joint of the torso connect with a little ease without making it too loose. It took me about less than an hour doing this process, but now this figure is good as new.

CONCLUSION

This is a pretty good bootleg(?), or I would like to say in my opinion, a factory reject Play Arts Kai action figure of Jessie. I guess luck is on my side when I took the gamble to buy this toy because this KO(?) figure didn't disappoint. I'm happy to add this to my collection. It looks really good and highly poseable. It got decent amount of accessories. This came without a display stand, but in exchange, I got some extra interchangeable hands from the DX version. It got some flaws: three minor and one major, but all of those issues can be fixed or remedied if you put some elbow grease and finagling. So, the question is: should I recommend this knockoff(?) figure? The answer is yes, because it's a really good action figure despite its flaws and it's cheaper. My other answer is no, if you only collect authentic PAK action figures.

Jessie handing a Materia to Cloud.

Cheers and Happy Collecting!