Be a two-handed, gun-wielding, death-dealing anti-hero! He is called, simply, Beyond The Grave. In each hand, his deadly machine guns, "Cereberos." On his back, a coffin with built-in heavy weapons. Cloaked in darkness and smelling of the grave, he is the anti-hero of the game "GUNGRAVE."
There, now you know everything about this character that I do: his name is "Beyond the Grave," he's from a game called Gungrave,
and he uses guns. Guns, "Grave," Gungrave. But you know what? When it comes to Kaiyodo, who cares? They just make flat-out exceptional product and this is no exception. Gungrave Beyond the Grave is a 4" unarticulated "statuette," obviously quite a departure for the makers of the fantastically mobile EVA figures.
As the story goes, the regular action figure (which is at least twice as large and will feature all that zany articulation Kaiyodo is famous for) won't be coming out for quite a while, so the powers that be decided to put out this mini version for us now. It's a convention exclusive for Diamond Comic Distributors, which, as I learned, is pretty tricky.
You see, you don't buy the figure from Diamond. What actually happens is vendors/exhibitors at the show buy cases from Diamond and then the consumer must go and purchase the figure from those vendors. Thus, it takes a bit of time and effort to find the figure, plus there's no guarantee on the price, because the vendors can and will charge whatever they want (I personally saw prices ranging from the SRP of $10 up to about $16). It's the same thing Diamond does with their exclusive comic covers, and it's no better here than there.
But is it worth to go find and buy this tiny statue, especially when a full-sized/articulate figure is on its way? Yes, I say unto thee, yes!
Diamond had the actual upcoming figure on display
at their booth and on one hand it was totally flippin' nutty awesome, but on the other hand, the SRP they had listed was $54.99. That puts it right out of my price range and makes the $10 for this 4" version very appealing.
The first thing you'll notice about the figure is its packaging. It's a totally new design of clamshell packaging that, I'll admit, is definitely part of the allure of this piece. Essentially just your classic clamshell (i.e. what McFarlane uses and what Marvel Legends come in), but the is bubble centered on the package and bulges out like, well like something that bulges. It basically looks like a giant pill.
In addition to this new bubble-placement, the package has
a black plastic insert that covers and blacks-out the entire front of the clamshell save for a clear plastic cross over the figure. Once open we find the figure on a black tray, and a very impressive, full color drawing of Mr. "Beyond the".
The figure itself, as well as his guns and coffin, are great sculpts with exceptional paint, particularly for this scale. His guns are packaged separately but easily fit into his hands and around his fingers. Perhaps the only drawback is that the guns don't fit into the very ample holsters, as those are not fully hollowed out. Missed opportunity, but presumably the larger final figure will have them working.
The coffin is pretty cool, but doesn't open or do anything (but not in a bad way) and comes with a chain hanging from an eyehook at each end. Now I don't know if it's supposed to be two separate chains
or just one that broke here, but I have no complaints either way. (Looking at the art card and the big fig, the chains are supposed to wrap around the leather patches on his upper arms?) And in any event there is a translucent black stand that plugs into the included base and supports the coffin with no problem whatsoever. Gungrave also fits nicely and firmly onto the pegs on the base. I am quite honestly hard-pressed to find anything negative to say about this figure. It's just plain effin' cool!
Gungrave is just a simple little piece that reeks of quality and talent, I would recommend that everyone out there at the very least check out it, if not add it to your collection.
-- 08/23/03
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