Inside the Box with Ichabod presents:

D-Arts Bass and Treble from Tamashii Nations/Bluefin!

 BASS!!!! How low can you go?!

Well, here he is. The much discussed and oft criticized D-arts Bass. Now you guys gotta listen to me ramble on about him. I'm kind of a long time Megaman fan, and I really enjoyed the GameBoy Advance release of the game Bass co-stars in along with Megaman, so this release was definitely on my radar.

 And the sculpt is dead solid, looking pretty great. Except for all the paint flaws mine has. The black has a delicious sparkle in it that really helps make it pop, but the yellow is not clean at all. Lots of scuffs on mine, right out of the box. Disappointing, especially from a company that normally has spot on paint application.

 The blue gems catch light really well, and look pretty fantastic. The red in his head does not pop nearly as much but you don't see it nearly as prominently. The flat grey helps make the metallic black pop. You can really see how off the yellow is here. 

 Fuck these ankles.

 His elbow and knee articulation is pretty solid, allowing for a good range of motion besides the forearms falling off occasionally on mine, I don't actually have any complaints here. Good for you, Bass.

 His torso has solid range, accompanied by a great neck joint, once again this is a solid set of joints. I don't own D-arts Megaman, so I can't compare, but these are good, workable joints. The torso has a joint connecting to the abdomen, and that has a joint connected to the crotch. It makes for some fidgeting when posing them, and aligning them up for a picture or pose can be a slight pain, but they all move well.

The hips are way weird. I heard they have improved from Megaman, but I don't know how his work. Instead of pulling down for extended movement like a figuart, these have to be pulled out and forward to move them at all. The legs connect to a ball, and can rotate, but have nearly zero movement. You have to grab it up at the grey disc in-order to move them out ward at all. It is a weird awkward movement that I don't like much but they are functional. That grey ring is molded to the joint so I don't think it will break.

 So his shoulders move just fine, with a sort of ugly joint you wouldn't think you'd see much. But you do.

 Why do you see these joints? Because the shoulder pad design is shit. It pops off if you look at it wrong. It is a peg and friction joint, so they always feel loose and wobbly, and they CONSTANTLY fall off. Literally they fell off on nearly every picture I took. It became so thoroughly frustrating. I own a bunch of the D-arts Megaman X characters and none of them have this issue. I don't know what happened here.

 I said early "Fuck these ankles". They are virtually unmovable. The do pull down for more movement, but It is tough and doesn't feel intentional. In nearly any stance but a straight leg up and down they don't touch the ground. For a figure released in 2013, in a line touting highly articulated figures, it boggles my mind. The ankles on the X line of figures are so much better than these. Once again I don't know what happened here.

 His feet and gun gems look better than the head one, but you never are going to see these so.... yeah. At least the gun gem looks nice and pops well.

 Also he is short. I don't know if he is in proper scale with Vile here, but it is a significant height loss.

 He comes with left/right forarms and gun arms, two open hands, two fists, and a more expressive pointing hand, as well as 3 faces. Not a bad load out, but there is no effect parts, and since both Busters arms have gems in them, you can't put the effect parts released previously in them. WTF.

 His faces are solid, and expressive, so that's a plus. He comes with less than Megaman though. And his "looking annoyed and to the left" is.....weird.

 Swapping heads is weird. You completely disassemble the head, producing a great effect. Then you reassemble in 3 stages. It actually was a real bastard of a time the first time I did it, and it got easier after a few swaps. I do like the way the head disassembles though because it produces a pretty seamless look once done.

 "Hey look, over there, a better toy."

 You can throw this guy into some alright poses, but his weird ankles and hips kept getting in my way and working against me.

 "Damn loose shoulder pads!!!" I feel ya, Bass. 

 The head swapping can give you a great mono-eye robot though. Yay?

 Lets talk Treble. His head rotates. THAT'S IT. NO OTHER ARTICULATION. Oh and his paint looks good, which is a big plus.

 He's just a big hunk of plastic to stand next to Bass. I get why they made him, because they made Rush. But rush was fun and pose-able. Why they decided to make Treble here a giant hunk of plastic.... I will never know. It is a huge disappointment, and really detracts from this two pack.

 He sure looks alright just standing there, semi-menacingly. Yup.

 I just....I don't even know. I don't.

 Yup, found a use for him! A mount. A purple awkward mount. Now he looks like he is ripping off of Skeletor. You deserve better, Treble.

This is a weird toy. He is decent, but compared to Megaman, he is lacking a lot. Add to that the messy paint, and missing accessories, I just am not feeling this figure. He was a Tamashii Web exclusive, but thanks to Bluefin he got a domestic release. Which is a good thing, because paying the premium import price on him would have been killer. This is at least available for the same price as Megaman. Which makes this purchase even harder to recommend. If you LOVE classic Megaman, he is passable. But unless you really love this design, its likely not for you. If he had at least gotten a articulated Treble, it would have swayed my opinion. As it is now, it is a figure with bizarre design choices that was made because he had a game where he co-starred with Megaman. I don't hate this toy, but I find it very puzzling.

The upcoming Ultimate Armor X looks amazing, and don't write off this line just because this is a weird release. The other X figures are fantastic, I really love mine. Bass here just doesn't add up compared to them, or other figures in the D-arts line. You can pre-order Megaman D-arts over at SuperPowercollectibles.com. This product was provided courtesy of Tamashii Nations/Bluefin