Megahouse VS Series -THE DARK SIDE OF DIMENSIONS- Seto Kaiba

It's been a while (Read as: 1 week where I let more pictures sit and rot while I did nothing in terms of writing) since I've done a review I guess. Remember when I said I'd focus on prize figures and Yugioh stuff? Well, I'm doing better at fufilling the Yugioh side of that promise rather than the prize figures.

Well, I did say that I would review this guy as soon as I got him and I finally got him. Before any whack ass tariffs took place, too. And I don't regret anything about this, even if it was terrifying to track him down and agonizingly wait to confirm that I got him. Honestly the most nervewracking purchase of what is essentially plastic I've ever made. But eventually I got the email that confirmed he was mine.

So anyways, let's talk about Megahouse's VS Series Seto Kaiba figure.

From here on out I'll be refering to each dragon with acronyms: BEWD is Blue-Eyes White Dragon and BEAD is Blue-Eyes Alternative Dragon.

Honestly, this review is going to get kind of long in comparison to the rest of my reviews. He's a big figure with a lot of details, and he definitely deserves the attention for sure. But more importantly than that right now, the sheer size of this figure and the box he came in is massive. Which means the shipping box was even bigger...

No seriously, that's the shipping box from Amiami up against a dresser. Sure, it's not a super tall dresser, but it's still 27 inches tall. That box was easily 30 inches tall and I struggled to get it into my room. I could barely lift it, not because it was super heavy, but just because of how big it was in comparison to me. And even getting the figure's box out of the shipping box was a struggle as well. Not sure how tall that box is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's at least 24 inches.

Enough about size for a second. Let's talk about price. I was able to get him off Amiami's preowned section with A ITEM/B BOX ratings for 44980 yen. Because conversion rates are going up and down again, it's hard to estimate exact prices, but I believe it was around 300 USD at the time of conversion. He was another 24,460 yen shipped and can only be sent as a single shipment. He'll need to be sent as EMS, Fedex, or DHL depending on where you get him as well because there's no way he can be sent as anything less. (Though, if you're shipping to the states right now, it wouldn't matter much because a decent amount of shipment types aren't going through right now due to our tariff fiasco.) Either way, for me to get him it was a grand total of 69440 yen, which is close to 482 USD. So yeah, around 500 for this Kaiba, and his after market price was on the cheaper end, being closer to 300 rather than 450 for just the figure. So yeah... He's a lot.

So yeah, like I said, the box he came in is large. Normally I'd try to put it on my desk but there was no way that I was picking it up and attempting to take pictures of it from each angle on said desk. I'm pretty sure it'll be taller than the desk itself anyways, which wouldn't be good. That and it'd just be awkward to handle. So I did it from the bed. The pictures aren't great, but let's be real here: when are they ever? lol. Here for a good time, not a professional time, etc.

That aside, the box is impressive, that's for sure. Bright colors, lot of nice close ups as well. The top just has the logo and background effects. No window view for him, but he's got the authentification sticker in the corner, which is usually a pretty good sign. Then again, I don't think there's any counterfeits of Yugioh figures, so there's not much to worry. (I say counterfeit in the sense of "copy of existing license figure" and not counterfeit in the sense of "unlicensed figures" aka resins usually from Chinese companies, but that's a different tangent.)

Here's him in his blister. Safe and sound, as well as both his BEWD & BEAD. And the base as well. Honestly, there's nothing to say here other than the blister is notably huge, and instead of small sheets of plastic to protect parts, there's bubble wrap. However, I'm unsure if that's because of how the figure came originally, or because of how the original owner repackaged everything. Either way, nothing broke in transit and everything felt pretty secure and protected.

Next to him is the instructions. Honestly, I hadn't thought to take pictures of instructions for any of the previous figures, but to be fair, most prizes don't tend to have them. I should have probably taken pictures of Rei & Aprentice Illusion Magician's instructions, but I forgot at the time. Anyways, these are pretty in depth and for the most part they help. But I definitely needed to take the figure apart at some point in the middle of getting all the pieces slotted in to make certain connections fit better. So, keep that in mind if you plan to get him at some point.

Here's a picture of all his parts laid out on my desk before assembly. There sure is a lot.

So, lets actually talk about the assembly in depth. He comes with about 10 pieces for the figure itself, an elaborate base, and 2 support rods. Each of his dragons has about 4 pieces each: Head and body, tail, wing, and an arm. Each of them requires a different support rod, as well as BEAD being supported by BEWD on the back, and generally hooking into the base's abstract particle effects. There's about 2 parts on the base that will look broken off and that's where you slot in each dragon.

I would say follow the instructions, but they didn't exactly work the best for me. In all honesty, you are better off leaving Kaiba out of the middle and hooking the 2 dragon bodies together. It'll be harder to set the two dragons on the support rods this way, but it isn't impossible. Just slide them in the dragons then into the base without him in the middle. I think BEWD will need her body & tail attatched before you lay BEAD ontop of her, otherwise you will not be able to set her up properly. After you have the two of their bodies on pegs, you can go ahead and put Kaiba back in the middle, give BEAD her tail, and then proceed to attach their arms and wings as well as give Kaiba his cards. I don't say this as a "Instructions are a suggestion" way but rather in a "I followed them exactly and had problems attaching BEWD & BEAD's bodies and I didn't want them to be victims of gravity later down the line." Following the instructions really does not prepare you for the fact that their bodies just do not join easily if they're already attatched to the base without forcing the base or the dragon bodies. And in all honesty, I didn't want to break a figure that was nearly 500 dollars.

For the most part though, the figure is incredibly secure. The only issue I had past the dragons was getting Kaiba's feet on the base, which can be a bit of an issue because you do have to stretch his legs. He also won't sit completely flush against the base and you will see a slight amount of the metal peg under his heels if you look, but it's not super noticeable. It's not like he doesn't feel secure or wobbly or anything, he just doesn't go all the way on.

Also I won't lie, not only am I horrified at the idea of taking him apart to move him, but I'm terrified of having to put everything back in his box. Seems like a headache.

Moving on, here's the 360 view.

I won't lie, because of the wing and the lack of space I had on my desk, getting the 360 view with the wings in it was a bit awkward. So, I started zooming in on him, solely to show the detail more than anything. I also took slightly more than usual due to how big he is, but I did the same thing with Mana as well, so there's that.

Anyways, as you can tell, he's very big. Wingspan is pretty wide, and makes his height skyrocket. I always see the measurements for him on sites to be confusing as well as conflicting, so I attempted to measure him. I probably should have gotten a stepladder to do it properly, but he seems to be around 16 to 17 inches tall from the wings to the base? And the wingspan is just as wide? I understand why I see people saying that they took off the wings to put him in their cabinets. I honestly don't blame them, but also, I don't want to do the same, so I just put him ontop of my desk rather than in the shelf I bought to display him in... I really didn't want the top shelves to be tiny, nor did I want to remove one, so I'm just suffering for now. Looks like he won't be going inside of a cabinet. Then again, most people who tend to have him don't seem to have him in a cabinet either (at least based on photos I've seen), so it's not like it's uncommon. Makes me feel a bit better but I am a bit bummed out. But it's not like I've gotten doors yet for my shelves so it's not a huge ordeal anyways.

One day I'll have something impressive to put next to him, but until then, he'll just be the big focal point of above my desk. He's gonna be annoying to clean though, that's for sure.

Let's go over some of his details now. I took a lot of pictures this time around, because he's generally so detailed, so don't mind me while I yap on.

Focusing on the two Blue-Eyes for right now. Honestly, they look amazing. The regular BEWD looks great. Very reminiscent with a lot of the older art of her design. I love the attention to detail on the face of her sculpt. Meanwhile Alternative looks so cool with her blue accents all over. The design is so sleek. I especially love the attention to detail on her wing. The bright blue veins running through it look so good.

The paint on these figures is great as well. Quite honestly, I haven't seen a paint job as good as this The shading is magnificent, the attention to details in the sculpt are highlighted even further by the paint job beng as good as it is, and the metallic sheen of the dragons looks especially great. The alternating between glossy, semigloss, and matte paints is also great here.

Time for a closeup look at Kaiba himself. I feel like there's not much to say here, other than he generally looks as he usually does in figures. Adapted off the newer artwork as well, of course, but still looks really good. The attention to detail on his outfit is incredibly high, as well as his shading looking spectacular. The pose is okay, but as I've said in another post before, there's only so many variations you can do on a dueling pose, I suppose.

Finally, let's get a look at the base. For the longest time I was under the impression that it was a giant black hexagon with geometric shapes ontop of it, and no details. Once I got it, I noticed I was wrong. The inclusion of the Kaiba Corporation logo isn't a super noticeable addition, but it's a welcome one. Better than it being empty and black. As you can see though, the geometric shape blob of particle effects does look pretty weird on it's own. But considering you don't really see it when everythings put together, I don't really have much more to say on it past "Wow, cool effects" and that's about it. It's honestly only noticeable when you look up close at the figure anyways (as well as the parts that the particles peek through the rest of the figure.) Either way, it's neat and it's not plain and that's all I can ask of a figure.

Another thing to note with the base that I didn't bring up is that you can't really see the support rods. I mean, the figure has so much going on anyways that they're just not super noticeable. I guess if those kind of things bother you then like, that's a bonus? But it could also be that not only does it not bother me, but I'm not paying attention to it too much.

The last thing I have for now is a bonus shot of sorts. Here's a picture of the figure with the usual filter I put on images vs the figure with no filters at all in natural light coming in from one direction, and my strip of LEDs on my desk behind it. Because of how expensive he is, I felt that tossing this in as reference could be a good idea. A lot of the pictures I see online also tend to have filters or enhancements. I don't think my filters are that much of an enhancement normally, but I suppose this comparison points out how much gets changed.

Overall, I love this figure. I'm so happy with him. He looks so cool. Worth the money. I have nothing negative to say here past the price and how heavy he generally is and maybe how I think it sucks that I can't put pictures of all my Kaiba stuff together in one place but that's whatever. What a neat guy. Sorry this isn't even trying to hide my bias but also, my blog, my rules I guess.

The Positives

• Attention to detail is amazing
• The between the shading and finishes, paint job is spectacular.
• The most impressive figure of Kaiba that exists so far.
• The supports on the base are well done and nothing feels like it will become a victim of gravity later.

The Negatives

• Big McLarge Huge. Generally a very heavy figure, as well as demanding a lot of space for his wings. He is not fitting in a detolf, for people wondering.
• The aftermarket on him isn't the worst, but it's not favorable either. His markup starts at 50% on the low end.
• Shipping on him is a lot.
• Lots of details means lots of angles to dust.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say about this figure to be honest. If you like Yugioh and want something legitimately impressive, then go for it. He looks amazing. Probably the coolest figure we have with an actual duelist rather than just a monster itself. Worth saving the money for. Probably don't buy if you don't have the space to display him, because he is a shelf hog. If you're looking for something a bit smaller more budget friendly of Kaiba, probably look into his Pop Up or something.