SH Figuarts Synduality Noir

Noir is a character from the Bandai anime (and upcoming game, Echo of Ada) Synduality Noir. An amnesiac AI Magus who has awakened from a lengthy slumber, she's a bit of a clutz whose real talent is supporting combat in a "cradlecoffin" (the name of the combat mecha from the show).

I picked up Noir because I had quite a few points in credit accumulated at Nin Nin Game, so with an eye on an interesting character design. I plumped for this SH Figuarts release. I've been increasingly impressed with Bandai's action figure line, the last example I acquired being the kunoichi from Hell's Paradise Yuzuriha. The plastic may not be quite up to Figma standards, but sculpts and joints have improved over the years to the point where they're pretty much on equal footing now. Removing parts never feels like a risk and the pegs are solid.

I love the colour distribution, the subtle differences between the skirt, collar, leather and tunic look wonderful.

So what appeals about Noir here? Well for one, she has a delightfully Cyberpunk: Edgerunners look to her, complete with big coat and baggy sleeves, augmented by orange and powder blue detailing that gives the figure some neon colour. With grey hair, dark chocolate legs and coat, with only a white Jedi-style undercoat to provide contrast, she's a fairly monotone figure otherwise. In an ideal world I'd have liked to have seen the saturation on the spot colours amped up a touch and maybe even some spot gloss (as she has on her collar) to make it really pop, but overall the aesthetic is a solid one and it does justice to the design by KenichirouKatsura.

I find that anime character designs usually need a hook to be memorable, and in Noir's case it's the coat that provides a distinctive silhouette, semi-stripped from her shoulders and wrapped around her arms. It can look a bit disconnected if you move her arms too far from the body (I'm pretty sure the coat is one item), but it looks effective when posed right, even it posing becomes artificially limited.

There's a nice sheen to the leather coat, reminds me of Fire Force in terms of style.

Though I haven't seen the show, the figures accessories suggest a pretty unemotional character, with four faces in total, each only showing minor deviations and nothing even remotely extreme. You get eight pairs of hands, again all open palm with moderately different finger poses, though the ninth hand holds a camera so that's something.

The camera is a cute little accessory, and the extra arms allow you to display Noir sans coat.

You can remove the coat from her back (a single ball peg) and you can swap out the baggy sleeves for bare arms and have her without the coat, though since that's such a major identifying characteristic of the silhouette, I can't see why you'd want to. A stand completes the package, just a clear base with an arm that has three points of articulation and can plug into the rear of the coat, as well as a claw attachment which you'll need if you want to display her with the coat removed. 

Its a fun little figure and though the show it comes from has a lacklustre reputation (alien invasion mecha show with few outstanding properties) I have higher hopes for the game which looks like a lot of fun. For pure looks, I like Noir quite a bit - you can't go wrong with a little Cyberpunk on your desk. And if you really want to make a display of it, the Chogokin Daisy Ogre mecha is available too...