Play Arts Kai Kazuya Mishima - Tekken Tag Tournament 2

The Tekken franchise lost it's hold on me over the years, but man, was I a fanatic back in the day. Though i do hold the controller again once in a while i never really used Kazuya (i'm a Ling Xiaoyu guy by the way). I read though that he won the latest Tag Tournament of The King of The Iron Fist. To me, Kazuya is to the old Tekken games what Ryu is to Street Fighter and  I wouldn't miss him for the world. Besides, everybody loves a good anti-hero.

The Tekken line of Play Arts Kai took quite a while to get here after the convention previews last year. Kazuya and his ex-lover Jun Kazama graced the initial wave and i do hope they continue making the rest of the Mishima/affiliates line - Jin, Heihachi, Lars, Devil Jin, et.al.. For one thing, the Play Arts Kai translation of Kazuya is pretty impressive indeed...

Packaging is pretty standard for Play Arts Kai figs these days and he also came with a stand. Unfortunately, the alternate pair of hands you see above are the only accessories included. They could have added an alternate head (or face ala Ryu) but SQEX didn't get my opinion. Instructions are printed on the inner tray similar to TDKR Batman...and (probably) the money they saved on the paper and accessories went to box production since it's a large box with a half-empty feel. Come on SQEX guys, you could have sweetened the deal a bit! All sarcasm aside, i feel shortchanged until i opened the box...

The sculpt is where Kazuya really shines, err...figuratively. The details are good, in fact, all his battle scars are actually present and the paint job is consistent. His face is definitely game accurate also and I especially like the design on his pants, intricate but not overly made. He's not wayward strokes free though and, i'm not sure if it's an isolated case on my figure but his hands are paler than the rest of his body. I'm still glad he doesn't have that dirty face paint suffered by other Kais.

However, there are a couple of old PAK problems that they failed to address: the "(Chris) Redfield or more recently, Kratos, syndrome" wherein the shoulders' connectors to the torso is very obvious and the "Arkham diaper" issue - loose crotch piece that tend to move around. Since Kazuya is a large figure the issues are more obvious. The movement of his arms (because of the biceps) and legs are also limited so tough luck for you if you're planning to pose him doing his trademark Axe-kick.

Doing a Street Fighter VS Tekken crossover is also out of the question since he's basically scaled with the bigger PAKs. Check out where Kazuya ranks below:

I really need to do that Scale guide V.2.0 soon...

That's right, judging by the scale, he's originally designed to be lined up with the MGS 10 inchers. Even the body build is proportional to the bigger PAKs which is actually good, imagine SQEX doing any of the larger Tekken characters in the future or pulling another Solidus Snake package this time with a Devil Jin, oh boy, would that be impressive! The only Tekken figs i know are the 12 inchers and the smaller ones (7-8 inchers) done by some obscure Toy line years ago which are quite hard to find and expensive yet they are clearly inferior to the Play Arts Kai version so it's good to know it's not too late yet to get your favorite fighters from the series.

I mentioned earlier that Kazuya is technically not compatible with the SSF4 PAKs right? Well, with a little resourcefulness, will you let that stop you? 

Mauricio "Shogun " Rua stance

Doing a Jin Kazama pose from Tekken 3

Bring it on!

Additional side by side pics with Ryu as per the special request of The Fallen: