Appleseed started as a Manga but has also been made into an anime OVA and two movies Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina. The story takes place in the 22nd Century after the non-nuclear Third World War has decimated the Earth, the story follows Deunan Knute and Briareos Hecatonchires form SWAT and LAPD members who are taken from a desolated city and invited to join ESWAT (Extra Special Weapons And Tactics) an organization in the utopian city of Olympus, the worlds new and most powerful state. Appelseed Ex Machina follows the on from the first Appleseed movie, wherein a plot that threatened humans and bioroids was underfoot, in Ex Machina a new threat has appeared to mankind and bioroids alike and Briareos and Deunan , joined by Tereus, attempt to stop whoever is behind it.
Briareos is a trained ESWAT officer with Deunan as his point man. Deunan and Briareos met at Deunan’s fathers SWAT unit before the world war broke out, and have been lovers since then. Briareos is a cyborg with the majority of his body being artificial, however he suffers little loss in humanity. His cybernetics are controller is called the Hecatonchires system, which is named after the same 100 handed giants of Greek mythology. In the movies Briareos received his cyborg body during the world war from Olympus, when Deunan arrives in Olympus at a later date she finds her lover is more metal than man, in form at least.
Sculpt:
Briareos’ sculpt is fantastic, he is big bulky and yet masculine and human. There could have been a real danger with creating him more cyborg and robot like, but they kept his design rounded and as human-like as his movie counterpart. He is seriously amazing action figure, he has so many layers and detail, and he is also very expressive, even without having a human face with his overall sculpt and possibility you can get him doing some very expressive emotions. All you need to do is to look into his little eye thingy’s and you get the deep pensive and powerful feeling the character portrays in the movie.
All of his joints are carefully concealed by either his armour or they have been incorporated into his design; Wave really went all out when it came to designing Briareos. His weapons are also very intricately crafted with great detail in the moulding, really the pictures don’t even really capture all the detail, you have to hold it and look carefully and the detail just kind of keeps going on and gets discovered!
10/10
Paint:
Briareos, like Deunan, has an amazing paint job, the detail and shading is great. His armor and belt, and belt buckles all painted nicely, they even painted his arms in two shades of grey as in the movie, which extenuate his rippling biceps. Once again his E.S.W.A.T badge is painted perfectly and readable (though very small).
His face is painted great, very detailed and expressive, with his shiny green eye things, and also his warning like logo on the front of his head, and back of his head are very intricate and you can read the words ‘Hechatonchires System’, that kind of detail is just great.
Briareos’ guns are well painted with nice detail for example the triggers and bolts/screws are in silver, different plastic is even used on the front of the guns where you can rest a hand for extra gun support, and all the aiming scopes are painted in either green or red. All of his spare hands are also painted well with his gloves being done nicely on all of them.
So absolutely no complaints about his paint work it is immaculate.
10/10
Pose/Articulation:
Starting from the top, Briareos’ antenna ear things are on little round peg joints and swivel around, they tend to pop off though if you hit them or if her falls over, so be careful not to lose them! His neck has two joints, one at his head and one at the base of his neck, allowing him to look from side to side, up and down; however he cannot look up to far due to his armour. Now his right shoulder is articulated in three places, the first piece of armour can move forwards and back, he then has a shoulder piece which is on a ball hinge joint which can move up and down and rotate around, and then bellow this piece at the top of his bicep there is a swivel joint allowing his arm to turn in and out. At his elbow he has a ball and hinge joint, so he can bend and rotate his lower arm, at his hand is another ball and hinge joint allowing the same range of motion, with a rounded peg for his hands to pop onto. His left arm has an extra piece of armour at the shoulder which has a joint allowing it to move slightly side to side and up and down so to not restrict the movement of his left arm.
His chest and waist is made up of four joints. Each piece of armour, which is sort of like a jacket, can move forwards and back allowing him to hunch or open up his shoulders, his upper chest has a joint allowing him to lean backwards and forwards and to twist, and then at his waist is another joint with the same movement.
A nice feature is the bags on his belt are on small round pegs so that they can swivel around and not restrict leg movement. At his hip he has a ball hinge joint, with forward and side motion; he can also turn his leg in and out here, but has limited backwards motion. His knee has a very nice hinge joint which looks very natural. His feet have another ball and hinge joint, and can point, flex, and move side to side, also his shoe collar is on a little peg joint so that as you flex his foot forward it moves forward to and doesn’t restrict his movement. Then perhaps the coolest articulation point of all, his toe, yes he has a hinge joint in his toe so he can do walking and crouching type poses. Very cool feature.
So that’s it for posing, and wow, he is just awesomely articulated.
10/10
Packaging:
Briareos comes in a clear box, with a picture of him and his name, plus some details running along the box from one side to another. The back of his box has a cardboard insert with a picture of him on the inside, (facing the figure), and some details about the movie plot, and on the back are pictures of him in different poses, including pictures of his accessories. And then some screen shots and writing (in Japanese), which I assume is about the movie.
Inside the box he is held between two moulded pieces of plastic, and behind him is plastic casing holding in his large rifle type gun, and under these is another lot of plastic casing which has his other guns and hands, this makes a kind of base the figure sits upon in the box. All in all it’s a nicely designed box.
6/10
Enjoyment:
I will break down my review of enjoyment into two categories, accessories, and play value.
Accessories:
Briareos comes with a nice arsenal of weapons, his has a huge rifle type gun, four smaller hand guns and two extra pairs of hands, and an extra hand for his large gun. Some nice accessory features is that two of his smaller guns have removable holsters so you can get some could scenes of him pulling his gun out. Also the bags on his belt are all on little rounded pegs and can be removed or moved around so that they do not interfere with posing, this also adds to the realistic-ness of the figure. Also he has two small holes on either thigh to attach his holsters and guns too.
So he has many photo opportunities due to his large amount of weapons.
Play Value:
Briareos’ combination of accessories and amazing possibility, plus his amazing design and paint job give him heaps of play value. I have had much fun using him to create comics with my Fraulein Revoltech, which are in a similar scale. He is an all round awesome figure, and would be the envy of any boy or girl figure collector.
Enjoyment is a 10/10
Over all Briareos is exceptional, the best by far in articulation, design and paint of all my figures, his amazing detail and movement mean hours of fun. What can I say really except that he is worth every penny, (although I managed to get him and Deunan for half price). With Deunan by his side they make a great display.
9.2/10 Total
Two Thumbs up and a big smile.
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