S.H. Figuarts Doctor Strange Review

The Figuarts Doctor Strange, a figure I have been excited about for some time.

“Dormammu! I’ve come to bargain!”

“No, seriously, I saw your Craigslist ad for your Shakeweight. Can I give you $17 for it?”

Welcome to another review! Today we are looking at the S.H. Figuarts Doctor Strange figure.

I enjoyed the movie. I enjoy action figures. Naturally, the Figuarts Doctor Strange is the peanut butter in my chocolate. I purchased the Bluefin release, which is an American distributor for the Japanese based S.H. Figuarts, itself a subsidiary of Bandai, based out of Japan.

Whoa.

That was a lot of information in one sentence.

What’s in the Figuarts Doctor Strange box?

This is the way it works: Bandai cannot release their Figuarts line here in the United States because of the different licensing agreements with more familiar companies like Hasbro and Mattel. Most of us either have an American based online retailer who gets the items in and we order from them, or we order them directly from Japanese shops. This is where Bluefin comes into the picture. I am not sure on the legal martial-arts part of it, but they have to package theirs differently and then they can release it to American retailers. Now that we’re all (mostly) caught up, that is how I got my Figuarts Doctor Strange. Consequently, I get this large, but beautiful box.

It comes with flame effects that should be familiar to most of us who have purchased Bandai “effects” in the past. Still, its a welcome addition to my collection as I try to find ways to make my pictures more aesthetically pleasing. The effects pieces lend themselves well to that endeavor. Outside of the flames, the Figuarts Doctor Strange from Bluefin the exact same figure and accessories you would get if you purchased it from a Japanese shop.

Let me get this out of the way now: I love this figure. The default head sculpt nails actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s likeness. He has a second head sculpt that, much like the Padme secondary head, leaves you scratching your head (no pun intended… or was there?) a bit. It looks similar to the original, but perhaps more determined? You be the judge.

He comes with a whopping FIVE sets of hands. My favorites are the spell casting hands.

Finally, the Figuarts Doctor Strange comes with two sets of “magic casting” effects. I’ve seen different effects made by enterprising aficionados with 3D printers and they all look super cool. However, the packaged default effects look good. He comes with four sets, total. Two for general magic usage and two (which, he really only needed one of these if I am using the movie as a reference) smaller green ones. It took me a little bit to figure out WHY we got these ones, and then it hit me: They are very screen accurate renditions of the spell he used to manipulate time in the scenes third act (and one before in the training montage). Well played, Bandai.

What doesn’t work with the Figuarts Doctor Strange?

The figure has a ton of articulation but maddeningly, he has almost zero foot movement. I don’t even mean ankle pivot, I mean the foot barely moves up and down, let alone side to side.

PLEASE Bandai, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we need those points of articulation.

Speaking of articulation, he has a hard plastic cape that is articulated. I absolutely HATED that feature on Thor, Injustice Superman and Batman. However, it works here and looks great. Yet again, the monkey paw strikes, because even though it looks good, it does inhibit a lot of poses. However, when you extend the legs (more on that later) the cape does support him because his legs won’t. (update 4-18-19: I bought a custom cloak for Strange that I love, check out my piece on it here)

As you can see in the pictures, he is short. I’ve never thought of Doctor Strange as a physically intimidating character in the comics, so that doesn’t bother me. However, Benedict is 6 feet tall, Chris Evans is 6’3. However, s you can see, the Cap figure dwarfs Strange. It doesn’t bother me, but I know it will bother some of you.

His legs can be pulled down for more dynamic poses and as you can see in the picture, it puts him where he needs to be. However, when extended, his legs aren’t sturdy enough to stand him up.

Those few negatives aside, I am sure you are asking yourself the following question:

Should I get the S.H. Figuarts Doctor Strange figure?

That depends. The Figuarts Doctor Strange is a great figure and as good as most other Figuarts releases, but he could be out of your price range. However, if you WANT an MCU Doctor Strange, your choices are limited. Pretty much this, the Marvel Legends one and the Marvel Select version. I have all three and of them all, the Figuarts is my favorite. However, the other two are not that bad.

I think it’s a great figure and definitely worth picking up. He is still available, and you can pick him up here:

I apologize, I got a little wordy here, but its a figure I think people want to know about.

Were you thinking of picking him up? Or did you pick him up? If so, what are your thoughts? As always, share, share away!