In today’s review, we’re taking a look at the latest Dragon Ball Gals figure from MegaHouse! This is Android 21 (Transformed Ver.) from the smash hit fighting game Dragon Ball FighterZ. Designed by series creator Akira Toriyama, Android 21 is one of the strongest female fighters to appear in the Dragon Ball universe to date. She’s also one of my favourite characters!
Like most of MegaHouse’s figures, you can expect an above average level of quality here, but not without some small issues. With an ¥11,800 RRP, Android 21 won’t break your bank, and she’s a pretty good size. Her tail is particularly impressive!
Android 21 is depicted in her ‘character select’ pose from Dragon Ball FighterZ. If you ask me, it’s always suited her ‘evil’ persona better than her ‘good’ version. The figure includes interchangeable face-plates, letting you easily swap between both versions. Personally, I think the evil version looks a bit better, as it hides an issue with the eye decals that I’ll mention later.
The sculpt is overall quite solid, though some people may be annoyed by her slightly exaggerated bust and the inaccurate placement of her tail. I can’t say it really bothers me – you won’t notice the tail’s placement at all unless you’re looking at her from the back.
Otherwise, the figure is very nicely detailed and looks gorgeous. Her baggy trousers look super comfy! It’s also a very solid feeling figure – it doesn’t feel cheap at all. However, there are some rough patches where perhaps they could’ve smoothed things out a bit more. These are largely well hidden, though.
Her paintwork is also of a high quality, with some vibrant colour choices and good use of shading and gradation to help define form and make the figure more interesting to look at. You can especially see this on her hair, which has plenty of pink mixed in to pep it up. I could see some criticism of the bright yellow used for her belts, bangles and so on, though I imagine they chose this to be more faithful to the source material. I think it probably works better than making them gold.
That said, there are some issues. They’re pretty small and easy to ignore, but they’re worth mentioning. The first is the band around her neck, which is sculpted without division from her body. This wouldn’t have stood out quite so much if I hadn’t noticed that the paint is sloppily applied here. There’s no clear definition at all, with a lot of visible pink space on the band. It just looks kinda lazy.
The second issue is her eye decals. They’re in the right place, so her eyes don’t look wonky or anything. It’s more an issue with the way her face is sculpted – her eye sockets are slightly concave, which seems to warp the decals. The effect is more noticable with the ‘good’ faceplate’s, as you can see the outlines bending more clearly. Again, these aren’t details that you’ll notice much, but it’s a bit disappointing.
Overall I’m very pleased with the Android 21 figure! It’s not perfect, but it’s a very appealing piece of work overall. The small issues are things you either won’t notice or can easily ignore – the important features are almost all in place.
Fans of the character should really consider picking this up, since I’m not sure how likely it is that we’ll see many more figures of the character, especially at this quality. With how well they delivered here, I’ll most likely pick up the upcoming human version figure from MegaHouse, too – it’ll be one to look forward to!
Final Score
Summary
MegaHouse deliver consistent quality again with this lovely rendition of Android 21. At a mid-level price, she definitely delivers the goods, though there’s some issues that stop this from being excellent. Of course, as with many MegaHouse figures, some might take umbrage with some of the proportions and anatomy, but I don’t think it’s too egregious in this case.
As a non-canon, spin-off exclusive character, Android 21 might not see many releases of this quality, so fans of the character will definitely want to check this one out.
Dragon Ball FighterZ gained a lot of popularity both among fighting game enthusiasts and casual players, and its new character Android 21 is finally getting the figure treatment.