Tag Archives: pac-man

Dec 13 2024

Pac-Man: SoftB Sonic Figure by Bellfine

Some quick behind-the-scenes talk before today’s review! As you’ve probably noticed the midweek reviews haven’t been happening. As much as I’m trying, the demands on my time right now are too great to keep them as part of the regular rotation. It was even tough for me to get back to do this review today, and the only reason I could is because it’s a quickie. And as I move forward, it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. In addition to fighting for free time, I am also contending with having more and more of my collection getting packed away not not accessible. So, please bear with me and I’ll keep doing my best to continue to get something new here each week, even if it’s just me stopping by to talk about how things are going. At some point in February FFZ will have to go on hiatus, but hopefully it will only be for a few weeks while I get moved and settled.

OK, so a while back I checked out a pretty amazing giant vinyl Sonic The Hedgehog figure by Bellfine and commented how their Pac-Man figure was undoubtedly going to wind up in my collection eventually. Well, it did indeed just a short while later and he’s been chomping at the bit to get his time in the spotlight here. Honestly, the reason it’s taken so long as that there’s only so many ways you can photograph this guy, making for a pretty short review. But, since I’ve been crazy busy this week without a lot of time for taking pictures, he seemed like a quick and easy way to end the week!

Here he is in his massive window box and it is indeed a sight to behold. I’ll definitely be displaying him in the box, as the interior tray creates a really nice environment with the maze pattern and artwork. I’m sure I’ve talked about the early 80’s Pac-Man Phenomenon here before, but it’s worth repeating just how ridiculously invasive Pac-Man merchandising became. Even if you never set foot in an arcade, Pac-Man was everywhere! There were books and stickers and trading cards, novelty candy, ballcaps and shirts, gumball machines and board games and puzzles, plushies and keychains, there were ice cream treats and canned pasta and breakfast cereals. Everywhere you looked, Pac-Man was there, heck he even had a hit record and a Saturday Morning cartoon. I can still remember my Dad taking me to a giant flea market in NJ and one of the sellers having a whole table of bootleg Pac-Merchandise. I walked away with a massive poster-sized die-cut sticker sheet reproducing a lot of the stickers found in the wax packs. Sadly there weren’t any decent toys and that always made me sad. I can even remember making figures based on the cartoon out of Play-Doh as a substitute. Since then we’ve had some companies step up with some toy-like collectibles, particularly SH Figuarts, but I wouldn’t really call today’s figure a toy.

Like their Sonic, this is just a giant vinyl statue and he looks great. He stands with one hand on his non-existent hip and the other outstretched with a big dot-eating grin on his face. The Pacster has been depicted a whole bunch of different ways over the years (look it up, because some artistic interpretations are quite surreal!), but this is based on what is easily my favorite official artwork. Apart from the big toony boots and mittens, the detail is all in his giant face. The eyes and eyebrows are sculpted as well as painted and you get a big red tongue inside his wide black void of a mouth. I dig how his eyebrows actually form peaks almost like cat ears and his long Pinocchio-style nose. Considering all the artists had to go on was a yellow pizza missing a slice, this is a delightfully creative and endearing rendition of the famous Dot Gobbler, and tends to be the official style NAMCO tended to use for marketing.

The vinyl holds the colors really well as he is a super bright yellow with orange mittens and red boots. The black facial features offer a nice contrast to the yellow and there’s really nothing to nitpick here when it comes to quality of paint or execution. He does have a large round seam on his back, which I’m sure is necessary for the molding process. I do think it would have been cool to have them put a power pellet or something in his outstretched hand, although I could probably just make something work with a yellow Ping-Pong ball.

And if you want an idea of scale, here’s this big boi holding the SH Figuarts figure!

Pac-Man merch will always tickle my nostalgia bone something fierce and I’m always happy to see companies putting it out there. And I have to say, this Big Daddy Pac is easily the showpiece of my modest collection of yellow chompers. This particular guy has been off the market for a little while, and I really couldn’t find any examples of what he’s selling for these days. I recall paying around $100 for him on Amazon back around June. But, Bellfine is releasing a half-sized version early next year to go a little easier on the wallet and on the space he takes up and who knows, maybe I’ll end up with that one as well!

Aug 11 2021

S.H. Figuarts Pac-Man by Ban Dai

I was still a young’un when Pac-Man made it’s arcade debut in the United States, and boy was I into it. It was easy to learn how to play, and that combined with the colorful graphics, and cartoony characters, had it sucking away every quarter I could wrestle from my poor parents’ pockets. But Pac-Man’s popularity quickly transcended the arcades, and it’s absolutely impossible to overemphasize how powerful and invasive Pac-Man Fever became. There were books, stickers, candy, t-shirts, ballcaps, games, puzzles, ice cream bars, gumball machines, pasta, a cartoon series, and even a hit record. It was nuts! And despite all that, there weren’t really any action figures, and that was disappointing. Many decades later, I’m an old man and I still love me some Pac-Man, and luckily the yellow chomper has had the staying power to still be crazy popular in an era where just about everything can get an action figure!

Enter S.H. Figuarts… OK, I wasn’t expecting that! It’s a brand known for some highly articulated collectible figures. When I first discovered Figuarts, it was mainly focused on anime characters, but it’s since branched out to include lots of different franchise. Pac-Man comes in a beautiful little window box that shows off the figure inside and features some nice artwork of the maze, as well an approving Pac-man on the front. Obviously, Pac-Man sports a rather unique character, so I’m pretty excited to see what they did with him!

Out of the package, and we get Pac-Man’s large spherical head-body with short arms and lugs jutting out from it. The eyes and eyebrows are sculpted as well as painted, and the mouth has some depth to it and includes a big red tongue in there. His portrait is rounded out by a jutting nose. Pac-Man has been stylized in a lot of ways over the years, but I’m really glad SHF went with this one. It’s simple, it’s iconic, and I think it captures the character perfectly. It’s also the design used for Namco’s 3D Pac-Man games on the PlayStation, and I really dig those games a lot.

For such a simple design, SHF managed to cram a decent amount of useful articulation in here. There are rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, upper legs, and knees. The hands are mounted on ball joints, so they can be swapped out, and the ankles are not only hinged, but also have lateral rockers to keep his feet flat in wide stances. Also impressive is the way the legs can shift forward and back on tracks along the bottom of his body. These tracks help to put him in running poses. All this makes him a surprisingly fun figure to play around with!

Pac-Man comes equpped with two bulbous fist mittens, and these can be swapped out with a set of open handed mittens, and even a right hand giving the thumbs-up!

You also get a swappable face plate, which is actually the entire front hemisphere of Pac-Man’s head-body. This extra face has Pac-Man offering a wink, and while it’s a bit limited as far as expressions go, it does look fantastic with the thumbs up hand! I can easily see this being the way I display him most of the time.

Pac-Man does feature a socket where his Pac-Anus should be, and that’s to attach him to a standard SHF-compatible figure stand. No, he doesn’t come with one, which feels kind of like a big omission, but I’ll come back to that at the end of the review. He absolutely does not need support to stand in most poses, but it’s a nice option for some more dynamic stuff.

Pac-Man does come with a couple of simple accessories: Some pixelated cherries and a Ghost. The cherries are a nice display piece, and they have a socket in the back to suspend them using an SHF stand. The Ghost is just too small to be any fun, but it looks good displayed beside him, and it can also be socketed into a stand. No pellets are included, but I found that Airsoft pellets are a decent stand in.

Honestly, the only downside to this set is that I want Ghosts! I’m actually kicking myself for not picking up the Funko Pop! Ghosts, because they would have displayed pretty well with him and now they go for crazy money. I’d love to see them get the SHF treatment, even if the only articulation would be in their arms, and how about a Ms. Pac-Man? And while we’re on the subject, I would be all on board Figuarts doing similar figures based off the Saturday morning cartoon designs. Sure, I griped about not getting a stand, but not really, because this figure cost $20, and that’s a pretty amazing deal for this quality of toy. I’ve wanted a figure like this my whole life, and to finally get it for so cheap, I can’t be anything but happy!