NWC Figure Fraction - One Piece Portrait of Pirates Strong Franky

Hey all you nerds and geeks, Nerd World Country's Geddy Cahoon here with the inaugural installment of what we hope will be a consistent, weekly feature on NWC, The NWC Figure Fraction! I am a HUGE fan of action figures and collecting, so I figured to pad the site out with some more content in between podcast episodes, I would review an action figure every week. Scott came up with the name (He does most of the grunt work for the site) "Figure Fraction," due to his love of alliteration I assume. I thought a good figure to start with would be a One Piece statue, to show that I am a SERIOUS COLLECTOR.

I will say unabashedly and unapologetically that One Piece is my favorite THING ever. I own a good deal of merchandise, and every American One Piece volume ever published. I own several One Piece Portrait of Pirates (POP) statues. These eight statues are more or less the pride and joy of my collection as a whole, so I thought it would be a good idea to kick off these reviews with one of my favorite POPs, the "Strong Edition" Franky!

Now, I will assume that not everyone who reads this blog (I know there are at least 3 of you out there!) are fans of One Piece. That said, here's a little backstory on this character:

Franky is the Shipwright for the main characters of One Piece, The Straw Hat Pirates. Franky was originally a villain, but it turned out his reasons for being villainous were somewhat noble, and rooted in an intense hatred of the World Government. He ends up being the 8th person to join the Straw Hats. Franky is my favorite Straw Hat. He's a funny character. He's very over the top and goofy, but he can still fight. And, like most One Piece characters, he's very noble. Also, I absolutely LOVE that Franky's nationality is American. That's how Americans are perceived by Eiichiro Oda, the writer/artist of One Piece- Obnoxious, loud, hairy maniacs who run around in speedos and crap like that. It's HILARIOUS.

This figure is based on Franky's appearance from the One Piece film, Strong World, so his outfit is slightly different. Now, I know I stated that this is one of my favorite One Piece statues... Find out why, after the jump.

BOX/PACKAGING: 8/10

Franky, like all POPs, comes in a very attractive, somewhat massive box. The color scheme is a very light teal, and features the POP logo under the front window

The box is also covered in windows for viewing the figure if you decide not to open it. I could never leave a figure this great in the box, but for those that prefer to, here's a window run down.

1. There's the front window, that's already been pictured.

2. Windows on both sides.

3. And finally, a window on the top, so you make look down upon Franky.

As you most likely noticed, there are pictures of the figure all over the box as well. These photos show the figure with a variety of accessories and in different poses. The back of the box showcases a number of these as well.

All legit, quality POPs made by Megahouse also have the Toei seal of approval on the box, generally in the upper left-hand corner.

POP boxes are always very attractive and nice. Franky's is no exception.


ACCESSORIES:  9/10

Once popped out of the box, most POPs are contained within a plastic-y box-ish thing that holds the figure and its accessories in place.

Due to the size of the figure and his whole box of accessories, Franky's holding case is very wide.

As a precursor to the large amount of accessories I am about to showcase that this figure comes with, I will reveal that this is the only POP I've ever seen (Counting my 8 and my brother's 7) that comes with a freaking INSTRUCTION MANUAL.

There's a good reason for the manual though... Franky comes with a whole pack of accessories. It's pretty amazing. Megahouse went all out with this figure, like usual.

This figure includes TWO massive guns, because in the Strong World Film, all of The Straw Hats carry around guns for some reason... I'll be honest, I haven't seen Strong World... I'm not a fan of One Piece movies. Anyway, there are two guns. One is more or less a giant revolver.

There's a good amount of detail on it, and it looks fairly realistic. There are also MOVING PARTS on it... But I couldn't really show that... Due to... This not being a video review... Anyway, the other gun is... Odd looking. It's sort of a bazooka-ish thing with a really big hilt on it... I don't know gun vernacular. IT'S BIG AND COOL LOOKING.

There's a decent amount of detail on this gun too. Even a little opening at the top where you can see the ammo that the gun has yet to fire.

Relating to this, one of Franky's other accessories is a belt of ammo that can be attached to the aforementioned gun.

Franky also comes with 3 interchangeable hands. That brings his hand total to 5, for those at home keeping count. Two of these hands are just for holding the guns.

The third extra hand is in a sort of high five position, and has a cool effect that I will get into later. There's also a little gray... Thing... That can be inserted into this hand in place of the blue reticle that's already in there, for a slightly different look.

That's not all of Franky's accessories though! He's also got two pairs of shades! One is his trademark pointy, black glasses that he normally wears on the show/in the manga.

He's also got the white, rounder shades that he wore in Strong World.

And finally... He's got a mysterious bottle of Cola... Franky is a Cyborg who runs on Cola, for people who aren't fans of One Piece... I'll get into the purpose of this Cola bottle later...

That's more or less it for Franky's accessories. He's got a ton of them, and they're all well made.


THE FIGURE: 9/10

Before I get in to the figure itself, there's still the matter of the base. The base is octagonal and gray, with some text on the front. All POPs come with bases. They're generally well-made, but do sort of take up a lot of shelf space.

Finally... We reach THE FIGURE. These POPs are more like statues than mere figures. They are hand sculpted and made of high quality materials, with expert paint jobs. Franky is no exception to these standards. The paint is impeccable, and the body and face look JUST LIKE Franky. It's really amazing how well POPs are made.

I'll break down the figure's appearance in organized sections.

1. Franky's shirt and jacket are very great. He has his trademark Hawaiin shirt, it's just purple. And he has a black sport coat on over that.

2. Franky has some nice chains, both around his neck and on his coat. The chains are made of a thick, sturdy material, and complement the figure quite well.

3. Franky has his thong on and some really gross, hairy legs. Only a true One Piece fan would be excited about a soda drinking robot's hairy legs and speedo...

4. Franky also has his awesome pompadour hairdo, and his face is strikingly accurate, as I've mentioned. It looks as though he's been pulled straight from the manga! Or anime, if that's your preference.

5. As a pretty nice final touch, we get to Franky's articulation. He has standard POP head articulation, with a ball jointed neck. However, the range of motion is very limited, just due to the odd shape of Franky's head and neck. The head pops off relatively easily, but can be popped back on no problem, with no lasting damage to the figure.

5b. Awesomely, Franky has something extra in the articulation department... Cut arms, allowing for movement of the arms up and down! Now this doesn't seem like much to get excited about by normal action figure standards. However, any fan of POPs or statues in general knows that they generally don't feature articulation of any kind. Having the cut arms is a cool little plus. The reason behind it is that the two guns are so HUGE that Franky would fall over if the arms couldn't be adjusted so the guns and their weight were positioned more evenly.

6. I alluded to this aspect of the figure earlier... It's the one drawback to an otherwise flawless figure. Basically, Franky can hold 3 bottles of Cola in his stomach.

Now, in theory, this is a very awesome addition to the figure. It's ridiculously accurate to the show/manga. It's something that shouldn't even be immediately noticeable, but makes hardcore fans like myself absolutely GIDDY. However... In execution it is flawed to an unignorable degree. As you can see in other pictures throughout this review, the abs, which open, are very jagged and obviously cut. The abs are also a BITCH to get open. I think I scratched the statue a bit while I was pulling on them. Once the bottles of Cola are in, don't ever plan on taking them out again. Those things stay stuck in there. It's more than likely due to the stomach hole being more or less the exact size as the bottles of Cola, making for an exceptionally tight fight. Overall, this is a feature that I feel could have been executed much better if more thought had been put into it. It's not bad enough to make me hate what is an otherwise perfect figure, but it does lessen the score a bit.

OVERALL: 9/10

In summation, this is a damn-near pefect figure. There's only one minor setback, but it isn't enough to detract too much from this great piece of Megahouse art. Franky is inundated with accessories, and the sculpt could not be better. I got this Franky for $100 even. It was worth every penny. However, the true value of a figure this expensive can only be gauged by how big a One Piece fan you are. As stated, I live and breath One Piece. Picking this up was, for me, a no-brainer. This toyline (Though something of this quality is hardly a toy) is strictly for hardcore fans, more or less. That's good news for One Piece fans though. Because Megahouse never fails to deliver. At this point I can't say much other than this figure is near-flawless, one of my favorite POPs. I took some pictures of Franky with his accessories, and I figured a good way to close out the main portion of this review would be to more or less let the pictures speak for themselves.

 Franky's shades slide on and off very easily.

 This is the cool feature on this hand I mentioned earlier...

 Another small, awesome thing that hardcore fans will adore.

Franky Rules.

Well that's it for the inaugural edition of the NWC Figure Fraction! Be sure to leave feedback, either by commenting on the blog or emailing me (hahahahawhy@Yahoo.com)! While Scott and I try to work some sort of recording schedule out, check the site daily for updates on the status of and goings on related to NWC! Any wrestling fans out there, check out my columns on Nodq.com and QuickWrestlingNews.com as well! Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and go back and listen to our previous podcasts if you haven't already! Until next week's edition (Whenever that may be), thanks for reading! Let's all keep collecting action figures well beyond the age it's generally considered socially acceptable, and Welcome to Your Doom!