I have a confession: I am a huge sucker for androids. I distinctly remember crying for the films A.I, Bicentennial Man and Iron Giant. I bawled my eyes out over the kinetic novel Planetarian. And as you may already know, I have already reviewed two androids on this blog already (Hatsune Miku and Drossel). Now that you are acquainted with this fetish of mine, you should not be surprised by my instant fascination with Aegis (also spelled Aigis in the game) ever since I encountered her in the PS2 RPG game Persona 3.
Persona 3 is a rather unconventional JRPG produced by Altus that combines element of traditional dungeon-crawling turn-based RPG with elements of social simulation. The player spends just as time defeating enemies as making friends and attending class. While this dynamic seems questionable at first, I was surprised by how mutually complementary these two game elements are to each other, as well as the genuinely interesting characters and well-written dialogue. The game’s charm effortlessly triumphed over my thumb which is usually rested precariously above the “skip” button, and before I knew it I had poured over 90 hours into this game.
Aegis is a combat android that joins the player’s party midway through the game. She’s somewhat like the Tin Man of Wizard of Oz in her eventual acquisition of a “heart”. While she is a charming enough character in her own right, I was sold long before by her pseudo-steampunk aesthetics. The brass shoulders and hips, as well as the headphone-like cooling vents had me admiring Aegis long before her personality shone through. However, I soon realized that I was rather late in my discovery when I looked for Aegis figures on the internet. The 1/8 scale Aegis figure produced by Alter had been absent from the inventories of online retailers for ages, and all that remained was the questionably sculpted version by Kotobukiya. Thankfully, I was able to snag the Alter version at a decent price. However, while the figure looked great, it wasn’t a very accurate representation of the character, and while I overlooked this in the beginning, it started to bother me as the months rolled forward.
Then came the announcement of Aegis’ Figma treatment by Max Factory. Her figma incarnation certainly was less detailed than the full-sized figure treatment, but its facial expressions simply looked spot-on. I wasn’t crazy about getting having two figures of the same character in the same look, though, so one of them had to go. I remained on the fence regarding the problem until I checked the eBay price for the Alter Aegis – there was only one up for sale at the time and it was going for no less than $300 US. Anticipating a dip in sale prices as the Figma version becomes better known, I jumped at the opportunity and parted with Alter Aegis for around $270.
Do I regret it? Nah. Never mind the fact that $270 is a lot of bloody money – while Figma Aegis lacks the intricate shading, flawless paint application and the size of the Alter statuette, its great articulation, accuracy to the source material and the sheer fun factor more than compensates for its shortcomings.