INTRODUCTION
Almost any One Piece fan will be familiar with the legendary pirate Edward Newgate (better known as Whitebeard). Long known as the strongest pirate in the world, he’s a literal and figurative giant of a man.
A character as imposing and mighty as Whitebeard makes a natural fit for MegaHouse’s Portrait of Pirates Maximum series. The P.O.P Maximum series aims to deliver much larger and more detailed figures than other P.O.P figure lines. You can think of them as MegaHouse’s most premium work.
ASSEMBLY AND SPECIFICATIONS
Fittingly enough, Whitebeard is a monster of a figure. Standing around 30cm tall, he dwarves almost every figure in my collection. With his huge bisento in hand, he takes up a hefty amount of shelf space, too. This is a seriously impressive piece to behold.
Assembling Whitebeard can be a little tricky. The figure doesn’t need a dedicated base stand, and will easily balance on a flat surface once you’ve attached the included rock to his foot. His coat (worn like a cape, as is the fashion in One Piece) simply fits onto his shoulders, wear it comfortably sits without issue.
The difficult part is the bisento. The fit for the pole and his hand is extremely snug. It took me a good bit of twisting and jiggling to push it through the hole. The head of the polearm has quite a snug fit too, which isn’t a bad thing at all – it means it’s not going to come apart easily. Unfortunately, that also means it’ll be a pain in the ass to disassemble should you want to put the figure away later.
SCULPTING
If it wasn’t already clear from the pictures so far, I’ll put it simply – the level of detail displayed in this figure’s sculpt is incredibly impressive. This is perhaps the most lavishly detailed figure I own.
Whitebeard is a mountain of a man, and like any good mountain he’s covered with the scars of many years’ wear and tear. From the wrinkled skin on his neck and arms, the crow’s feet around his eyes, the veins rippling across his muscles and the grizzled flesh in his scars… the attention to detail is amazing.
This carries over to his clothing as well, where every crease and groove is carefully crafted. Perhaps my favourite detail can be found on the buttons on his coat. Each button features the crest of the Whitebeard Pirates. It’s such a tiny thing, but it’s a perfect example of the love that’s gone into crafting this figure.
If I were to nitpick, there are a couple of spots on his arms where it’s clear that the muscles are acting as a seam. These are most noticable on the back of the arm, where you’re not likely to see them too often. They’re pretty much hidden completely when he’s wearing his coat, too.
PAINTWORK
Like the sculpting, Whitebeard has an excellent paint job. Again, the attention to detail is superb – there’s really too much to mention concisely. Of course, the use of appropriate finishes really helps the figure stand out.
While the shading can be a bit strong in some spots, the overall use of colour is very well done. The cool purple hues on his skin make Whitebeard’s body look more aged and worn down – fitting for a man in his 70s. His veins are picked out individually too, giving them more visual emphasis. I also find the weathered, stained look of his boots impressive. It doesn’t really show up in my photos, but it’s a really cool effect.
I do think his coat is maybe a little too glossy. I imagine it’s supposed to emulate the look of a heavy rain coat, but even then it looks just slightly too slick. This is especially true of the coat’s cuffs, which I’d expect to look softer. That said, I find this only really stands out when you shine light directly toward his coat. Under normal lighting it’s not too much of an issue.
Otherwise, on a technical level, it’s a very well done paint job. Much like the sculpt, I couldn’t see any glaring prodcution errors. The mark on his back and coat is painted neatly and I didn’t find any notable runover, even on the finer details.
FINAL THOUGHTS
At this point it should be obvious what I think about this figure. It’s probably one of the best in my collection, and well worth the rather hefty ¥18,500 RRP. It absolutely stands up to its promise as a premium quality figure – I’d say it’s a must have for Whitebeard fans and One Piece collectors.
That said, it bears repeating that this figure is huge. It would easily fill an entire Detolf shelf, assuming you could get it in there. The bisento in particular takes up a lot of extra room, extending the figure’s effective width on both sides considerably. Whitebeard certainly isn’t a good figure for the space starved collectors out there.
It’s also worth mentioning that Whitebeard might be tricky to find now, since (like many other MegaHouse figures) this was a limited and exclusive release. Still, if you can find him at a reasonable price then you won’t be disappointed. If this is the quality we can expect going forwards, then I’m definitely looking forward to future P.O.P Maximum releases now!
Final Score
Summary
MegaHouse has crafted a figure that captures the legendary Whitebeard perfectly. With an excellent sculpt and a near-flawless paintjob to match, he lives up to the standard of quality you’d expect from this premium priced piece. This is an easy one to recommend for fans of One Piece, although the space conscious might want to think twice before buying – Whitebeard is about as big as they come, and will be hard to fit into a tightly packed collection.
