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Review: Figma Metis

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When I think anime/manga geeks (like myself), I often associate them with JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Disgea. But despite my fascination with them “big-eyed cartoons”, I’m actually not a huge fan of the JRPG genre. Persona 3 & 4 differed from other JRPGs in the amount of control the player has over the progression of the story. Sure, there is a main plot that you have no choice but to follow, but a considerable bulk of the game centers on its social sim element – that is, building relationships with people about the school and town. Here the player is given the freedom to interact (or ignore) characters of his choosing, which goes a long way in enriching the role-playing element of a role-playing game. Because of these choices, I felt much more involved in the game’s plot than, say, when I was playing a Final Fantasy game.

Sadly, the turn based, menu-scrolling combat of Persona 3 soon became a chore to me. It’s not a painful chore by any stretch of the imagination, but it was an obstacle between the game’s story and I. Given my distaste for dungeon crawling, you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that “The Answer” (the segment of Persona 3: FES in which Metis appears) is almost exclusively a dungeon-crawling affair. I played for about an hour or so, and decided to put it down. Without my beloved social sim element, no amount of robo-girls could make me grind through the game.

My distaste for grinding didn’t stop me from ordering the Figma Metis, though. Initially an assailant on the SEES dormitory, Metis is soon after revealed as Aegis’ sister and joins the dorm-dwellers in their quest in finding a way to escape the temporal loop the gang is trapped in. I’m not sure what happens afterwards, but judging from the opening animation of “The Answer”, some drama eventually unfolds between the robots and the rest of the group. I should really read up on the plot of “The Answer”, but in all honesty, I don’t need to learn about the story context to indulge in my robo-girl fetish, and the Figma Metis simply spoils me rotten.

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Metis’ design is loaded with a lot of pleasant-looking curves. I’m not sure how long, shapely legs or a toned robo-midriff helps in fighting shadows, but I know I’m not complaining. Like Aegis, Metis is on the tall end of the spectrum for Figmas, measuring in at 14.5 cm. Metis’ legs take after those of her elder sister in their sheer length. Though unlike Aegis, Metis’ feet are more humanoid in appearance.

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Metis seems like a stripped down or an incomplete version of Aegis, albeit with a few differences in features. Whereas Aegis is furnished with brass guards on her shoulder and hips joints, Metis is almost completely bare. Only on Metis’ right arm can the familiar white outer layer be found.

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Another aspect of Metis that suggests her incomplete nature is the back of her head, which is just a barren metallic dome! As I was not very familiar with the character beforehand, I was pretty taken back when I took her out of the package, to say the very least. This is not to say that I don’t like her unexpected baldness, as I really like these bits mechanical detail in her design.

Thankfully, Metis is not completely stripped down and barren. Her streamlined appearance is adorned by ornaments, which consist of bras-coloured frames and red translucent material. These can be found on her visor, her “skirt” and her right arm.

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The visor can flip down to engage to cover the bulk of Metis’ face. It is secured via the two pegs found on either side of her head. It is somewhat loose fit, but the visor is able to retain its position sufficiently for the time being.

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There’s a similar part on her right arm that can flip outward. I’m going to assume that this is part of her “Ortega Mode” along with the visor.

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Like the rest of the ornament parts, the skirt is a detailed piece of work. It is made of a flexible material, so there is little risk of breakage. The skirt might be a little too flexible for its own good, however, since the fringe of one of the pieces is slightly bent. I assume this is just a production or packaging error, so this is probably just bad luck on my part. The skirt pieces are secured to Metis’ lower waist, much like the Figma Saber and Saber Alter.

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In terms of articulation, Metis is your usual Figma fare – that is to say, pretty freaking great. The beauty about Metis is that the Figma joints do not look out of place on her, as they blend into the character’s design very well. The only joint that looks out of place elbow of her right arm, which is the arm with the white wrapping on it. This means that the aesthetic appeal of the original character design is pretty much completely intact, so if you are a fan of the character’s looks, you’ll probably like the toy’s looks as well.

Accessories

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Metis comes with two faces: a smiling expression and a tense expression. They’re pretty accurate to the source material, though I find her smile to be a little creepy, much like that of Aegis. I just wish Max Factory thrown in more faces, because I find that a few extra face pieces exponentially increases the fun factor of action figures. I understand that Metis probably does not have many different expressions in the game, but I even minor variations in the eye direction would open up a lot of doors for a toy like this. While the latest Queen’s Blade Revoltech Ymir comes with an impressive 4 faces, it seems that Max Factory has been skimping on the number of faces for their Figmas recently. Shame on you, Max Factory!

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Metis comes with two weapons. The first is her signature warhammer. My initial concern with this figure when I first saw the previews was on the strength of the hammer shaft, which is very, very thin. Thankfully, this concern is instantly dispelled when I found out that the shaft is made of metal. The overall metallic finish hammer gives it a weighty appearance, and the pointy cross-shaped hammer head gives it a rather fierce look. Sadly, although the shaft itself is straight as a line, way it attaches to the hammer head is slightly crooked. This is probably a limited production error, and a minor one at that, but it does bug the nit-picker inside me from time to time.

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To place the hammer Metis’ hands, simply pull off the bottom pommel of the hammer, slide the thin hammer shaft though one of two special hands, and pop the pommel back on. Like the case of Saber Alter, these special hands allow Metis to hold her hammer at two different angles. In addition to these hands, Metis comes with a pair of open hands, a pair of fists, a pair of fanned-out hands, and a pair of gripping hands. The left gripping hand is designed specifically to hold onto the pommel of the hammer, and the right gripping hand is made to hold Metis’ other weapon – a bus stop sign.

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I have to say, compared to Aegis’ rocket fist of death, Metis’ stolen public transit property is pretty underwhelming. Still, it’s got a goofy charm to it, and it would be perfect for a Figma diorama, provided that you find a way to secure it upright to a surface.

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If you’ve read my Aegis review, you might remember that one of my principle complaints was against the clear “hoof helpers”, which are virtually useless. Thankfully, this issue does not rear its ugly head again in Metis, as her clear foot stablizers feature a longer distance between the two contact points, which does wonders in terms of stability. While they’re not good enough to sustain any dynamic poses, these upgraded “hoof helpers” are more than sufficient to keep Metis standing upright without the fear of her tumbling over if you even do so much as to fart in the same room as her.

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Finally we have Koromaru. It’s decently painted, and the head can rotate slightly. Thankfully (or regrettably, depending on who you are), unlike a certain other famous figure dog, Koromaru does not have an articulated penis. There’s not much more to say about him, nor do I know what to do with him, since the pose is pretty stuff. I find it hard to have Metis interact with Koromaru, since his pose is pretty stiff, and having Metis (or any other Figma, for that matter) sit and kneel down to snuggle with Koromaru is pretty frustrating. Still, it’s a decent throw-in, if a little unnecessary.

Final Say

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I have to admit that I am not as enthusiastic about Metis as most other figures and models in my collection, but that is no fault of the figure itself. The Figma Metis is very accurate to the original design, and the details on her are executed admirably well. There are a couple of small production errors and they could’ve thrown in another face or two, but there really aren’t any major flaws with the figure. I think my slight lack of enthusiasm for this toy stems from my unfamiliarity with the character, since Metis made its way into my collection mostly due to the merit of Aegis rather than that of her own. Still, I’m very glad to have her in my modest Figma collection, and if you like Metis’ character and or design, I’m sure you would be as well.

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Pros

  • Detailed ornament parts
  • Strong hammer shaft made of metal
  • Foot stabilizers that actually work
  • Character designs lends itself well to a Figma

Cons

  • Only two faces
  • Minor production errors (bent skirt and hammer)

16 replies on “Review: Figma Metis”

I like the Persona games, but I never seem to get too far into them. While the social aspect of the games is pretty neat, it also produces my biggest frustration with the series: time being the most precious resource. I’m too used to my RPGs not actually having any sort of time costs so I can run around and do absolutely everything/grind to hell instead of doing whatever the main quest is. I was rather surprised in P3 Portable when the game told me “you spent too long in Tartarus, you can’t do anything for a few days now!”

Metis is pretty nice looking. Didn’t know the red stuff was going to be translucent, that’s a pretty cool touch. I was thinking of getting her to compliment Aegis myself, but ended up not doing so in my constant pre-order shuffling. I’m not sure I’d really get all that much out of her, not even being able to play The Answer (it’s not part of P3P).

I think you should have taken a picture of Aegis and Metis making out.

For some reason, the back of Metis’ head there reminds me of the helmet of the guy on the front of SMT: Strange Journey. But then Persona is supposedly part of the SMT series somehow and it’s all done by Atlus anyways so there’s bound to be stuff like that.

Can’t do anything for a couple of days? You mean the “tired” status? Doesn’t that go away if you sleep early for one night? I think I always completed each dungeon in one go on my playthrough with P3P, because time is indeed a valuable resource in this game, and every night I spend dungeon crawling is one less night I get to spend upping my social links or boosting my stats. It does put a lot of pressure on the game experience, too — I remember having to backtrack 5 hours just because I realized that a certain S.link becomes unavailable at one point in the game and I missed out on the opportunity to max it. It certainly pays off to save regularly in that game.

I was pretty bummed to find that “The Answer” is not in P3P. I would go back to finish the ps2 version, but the friendly AI in that game is so stupid that it’s often infuriating. Not to mention save points in the ps2 version are sparse at best, so I wasn’t keen on rage grinding all over again.

I actually tried to take a photo of them making out! Metis’ giant robo-tits kind of got in the way, and I got frustrated at the limitations of the arm articulation. I tried to have them interlock fingers, but it was like threading a needle while running. I’m impatient like that, which is why I have a lot of respect for the comics that you make — arranging complicated setups like yours would drive me bonkers!

Yeah, that Tired status. The first time I was let loose in Tartarus, I was absolutely determined to go as far in as I could once I discovered I could infinitely grind various floors. I remember at one point my party members complained about being tired and I was just like “what your HP/MP is fine quit your bitchin’ WE’RE GOING TO THE TOP TONIGHT”.

There’s so much random stuff to do in that game, and the game refuses to let you do them all! ARGH
And I couldn’t seem to get Junpei to stop hitting on my FeMC.

Heh, most of what I do isn’t all that complicated, and generally only really good when I actually take my time and think about things. I don’t think I’m all that good at a lot of poses, though. Especially action poses.

I’m kinda tempted to get Metis for the same reason as you – I like Aegis and I feel compelled to get her counterpart. I’ve been a big fan of JRPGs since the first Dragon Warrior game and I’d rank Persona 3 among my top five favorite RPGs, but I haven’t gotten much merchandise from the game; maybe I should get Metis. Though I gotta admit, I didn’t care much for The Answer epilogue … P3 didn’t have the most satisfying ending but The Answer didn’t provide much more closure to the story in my view. On the other hand, Metis was kinda cute and I do have a thing for sexy female androids. Maybe I should get Metis. It’s too bad me that Koromaru lacks that essential detail but I guess you can’t have everything. Still a real shame, though. Metis looks pretty good and I’m also thinking of getting the KOS-MOS Figma, so I’d have a trio of RPG heroine combat androids. Pretty much the main things I have against Figmas are they’re really small and you can’t take off their clothes. When it comes to poseables, I like being able to take off their clothes.

Hey, Metis doesn’t have any clothes to speak of, so there goes half of your complaint! A robo-girl trio would be pretty awesome. Out of curiosity, would you ever do a review on figmas or other small articulated figures?

Yeah, I’m planning on doing a review of GSC’s Nanoha and Fate actstas. They’re a bit larger than most action figures but they still look more like oversized Figmas to me. I hope they’ve got decent articulation.

I used to like JRPGs but since they rarely ever port them to the PC I haven’t touched one in quite some time although looking at the comments on a lot of the recent ones I don’t know if I want to.

Persona sounds like it borrows from Visual Novels…Be nice if more games did that.

Go download a ps2 emulator and get on Persona 3 and 4 dude. Especially 4. If your computer can run recent games like Dead Space 2, I’m sure it would be able to handle a ps2 emulator. The Persona games do take a lot of visual novel elements. There’s even implied sex! Do it Ash, do itttttt.

Ugh please tell me this stupid game gets better at some point…

So far all I’m doing is dungeon grinding the same boring halls being forced to talk to a virtual parade of useless dudes that range from flat out imbeciles to clingy little creeps…So far I’ve only found one girl that they let you talk to and she’s hardly what I’d call a riveting conversationalist…Apparently these no name loser classmates are more important to talk to then your house mates who don’t have much to say and offers no reward for doing so…

So yea…Does it ever get better? More interesting people to talk to? Non artificially gated generic dungeon crawl fighting? Some semblance of an actual plot beyond “duh kill stuff climb the tower.” ?

I would say I feel like I’ve been utterly wasting my time, but the art is nice, the cut scenes (That seemed to have dried up now…) were a treat and the music is just absolutely awesome on every level!

The rest though is pure drek so far…

I know nothing about the origin, despite of the things you’ve told us in your intro part.
Metis slender humanoid robot appearance looks very cool, I love these dark colors.
this figma has a very different feel to it than other figmas, she’s more on the serious side, reminds me a bit of thhe upcoming Kos-Mos figma.
I really like Metis face expressions and the bus stop sign is a great item.
the poses you’ve showed us in your pictures are really good,especially this http://www.flickr.com/photos/34366571@N06/5414925402/

I seem to be drawn only to my more serious-looking Figmas. I’m still amazed at myself for not having a single schoolgirl Figma in my entire collection! I’m glad you liked that shot with the bus stop sign. I was scratching my head on what to do with the silly thing for quite a while ^^;

I was really into JRPGs back when I was a kid with a modded PSOne but slowed down with them as I got more interested in other forms of media (okay.. mostly anime) and although I still play the occasional game, Persona isn’t one of them. I really should at least take a look at it considering the fanbase the games have generated.

I really enjoyed reading your review and I’m envious of your Figma posing abilities, she looks great in all your photos!

The bus stop sign is probably my favourite extra although I’d probably steal it off Metis and give it to another Figma. Loving the transparent red panels and the fact that they used a steel rod for her other weapon too.

Yeah, do check it out! Unfortunately, Persona 3 has a few really bad voice actors in the main cast, so I’d recommend looking for an undubbed version online (you’ll need a modded PSP or a way to play burned games on your Ps3, though). Still, they are fantastic games, and the familiar school settings should make anime fans feel right at home.

Hehe, thanks! Truth be told, my long absence from reviewing action figures and my unfamiliarity with the character made my pose-fu a little rusty. I should’ve googled the character and watched some videos for inspiration. Many Japanese toy bloggers are amazing at coming up with action poses. Even if they only use a plain backdrop, the creative framing and camera angles they use are really neat. Looks like I’ve got some homework to do in preparation for the Figma MJ review, hehe.

Just finished the Answer yesterday and I’m very tempted to pick up Metis. She’s really cute! Koromaru and the sign post are really welcome addons. If they released a Shinji or Ryoji, I’d be a really happy fangirl but since that will probably never happen, Metis will have to do. Now, if Aegis was only available, shame to me I got just recently into the fandom!

The bad thing is that Haruhi Kouyou academy version and BRS are really appealing too and I only can afford one so the question is which one to choose. Probably would end picking Metis because I don’t like the joints on Haruhi and BRS is pretty much sold out, though.

Am i the only one who thinks that goodsmile company and max factory should make a nagasumi figure from seto no hanayome to go along with san .

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