Uranus and her partner Neptune were first announced at a Tokyo figure show last year, and Amazon put them up for pre-order on the same day. Uranus is the first of the pair to be released, and Neptune will come next month. I almost thought that Bandai would make these a two-pack, but if they didn't make Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask as a two-pack, why would they do it for Uranus and Neptune? Oh, well.
After the Saturn fiasco, I was waiting with baited breath here. Was I going to have to send Uranus back? Do I really need to keep doing this song and dance routine over and over?
The answer, of course, was yes and yes. One of Uranus' legs was slightly shorter than the other, meaning that not only were her boots uneven, but that she couldn't stand flat on both feet. The foot also could swivel 360 degrees in its socket, which I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to do. The Amazon customer representative was very nice and commiserated with me; he apparently collected Figuarts, too. So again, I sent it back and got a replacement figure sent via next-day rush (free of charge, which was very nice of them).
The replacement figure has wobbly feet like the prior one, and one boot is still higher than the other. I'm able to wobble her hips a bit to make it less noticeable, but I have a strong suspicion that this is a wide-spread factory defect. Be cautious if you decide to buy this figure. At this point, I'm tired of doing returns. The Figuarts have been rushed out so quickly that Bandai's QC just isn't doing anything. So caveat emptor in this case. I'll buy them to have a complete set, but I'm going to have to be careful with everything. I like the Figuarts, I'm just frustrated at this point.
The box art uses Uranus' own color scheme (goldenrod yellow and navy blue) with some lighter blue picking up the turquoise of her bow's gem. It's eye-catching, but I think doing her signature folded arms pose on the front would have worked better than this sassy-hip pose.
It looks good on the back, though, and I like that they included her Buster Sword attack pose. On the back, they show the different faces that she comes with, plus one odd accessory: a googly heart-eyes face plate for Sailor Moon. This I'm not okay with. Why can't all of Sailor Moon's accessories come with Sailor Moon? Why does she get the most accessories, when the other girls can't even get THEIR TRANSFORMATION WANDS. Seriously, Bandai. Step up your game here.
Here, we have the spread of Uranus' accessories. Her default face is her scowly serious face, but we also get a scowly yelling (attack calling?) face, a scowly side-eye face, and a smirky face. (Haruka's emotions seem to range from scowly to smirky, so it makes sense, I guess) She also comes with her Space Sword talisman, a SHIT TON OF HANDS SO MANY HANDS and a weird folded arm piece that I will attempt to demonstrate later. Oh, and her stand, of course.
The paint job is pretty good, and the colors are a pretty good match to her design. The gem, I'm not too sure on, though. The color pages of the manga, as well as promotional art, generally depict her gem as turquoise, but it's a dark blue (almost the same shade as her skirt) in the anime. It seems like most of the uniform colors for this line are a blend of the manga and anime designs.
You can see here what I was talking about earlier. One boot is higher than the other, and the foot joints are really wobbly and don't line up straight very well. This is the second figure, by the way. both had these issues, and like I said earlier, I'm pretty sure that this is going to be a common factory defect for all the Uranus Figuarts.
Here is a close-up of the face plates that she comes with. The default face and the side-eye face are so similar! Why didn't they pick a more distinct expression?
Bandai has begun using the post in all of their Sailor Moon Figuarts boxes, and I like it! Much harder to lose hands that way. Uranus comes with 6 extra sets of hands, plus one specially made for holding the Buster Sword.
I must say that they did a really nice job on the Buster Sword. It looks very intricate, is well-painted with nice metallic paint, and doesn't feel flimsy at all.
The folded arm piece does not work that well. You need to pop her arms out of the shoulder sockets, make sure that the sleeve pieces don't roll away, position the sleeve pieces while simultaneously trying to pop the shoulder piece in, weep at your cursed fate for not having more hands to do this with, and then push with all your might to get it to pop into place while praying that nothing breaks.
Protip: It will probably not pop fully into place, mainly because it's impossible to get these shoulder things into place. You can see above that the one shoulder socket is completely exposed. That is the best I was able to do.
Other than that, the range of motion is about the same as the other Sailor Senshi Figuarts, but my Uranus has very wobbly hips, shoulders, and super wobbly feet.
Uranus and Neptune come with a higher price tag--$49.99 apiece--and I'm guessing that is to justify the plethora of hands and the weird folded arm piece? It's a bit much, price-wise, for my tastes. Moon came with a heckuva lot more accessories than this and was still cheaper at $42.99. (I'm still kicking myself for buying her at a specialty shop and paying more. Urgh.) I was able to use some gift cards with this, so I feel a little bit better about it, but still, these are getting more and more expensive!
All in all, it's not a bad figure, but not an amazing one, either. The quality seems to vary on all of these, so it might just be luck of the draw, or vary depending on where you pick it up.
Miss Scarlett suggests: If you are a completionist who's been collecting all of these, or you just love Sailor Uranus, you should probably consider this...but wait until it's on sale.
