Yuffie is from Final Fantasy VII Advent Children - you know, the 100-minute CGI fight scene? I had a blast watching it - bought it on DVD, in fact - but it took me several viewings, all the documentary features, and a lot of wikipedia research to figure out what the heck was going on. Anyway, Yuffie's just one of the random game characters who shows up to fight the big dragon, so it's not like it matters.
She's a terrific figure though - a bit more pricey than your average Marvel Legend or DC Direct figure, but she's so worth it. She stands 7.5" tall (and the other Advent Children figures are in scale to her, so they're even taller), and her sculpt and paintwork is phenomenal - admittedly it helps a bit that the movie was all CGI, but she looks like she could have just stepped out of the screen and onto my desk. Even better, she's articulated like you wouldn't believe - a true three-axis ball joint neck, swivel/peg ball joint shoulders mounted on secondary peg joints - she can hunch or stretch her shoulders - swivel biceps, ball joint elbows, swivel wrists (two swivels for her left arm, with the bandage over her hand), another three-axis ball joint in her mid-torso, mounted on a peg-jointed arm - she can twist her body as much as any figure I've ever seen - ball joint hips, swivel thighs, peg knees, ball joint ankles and swivel feet to keep her soles flat to the ground, so she can do Crazy Ninja Poses without falling over. And even more even better, the articulation is really well hidden - as you can see, only the hips really stand out, and them far less than is usual for a ball joint. Whoever designed this figure did it with dedication - for instance, the left arm swivel joint is hidden at the ribbon tied around her bicep, but the right one is lower down, so as not to break the sculpt of the bare bicep on that arm. The secondary shoulder joints are almost entirely hidden inside her jacket, the enormously flexible mid-torso assembly is completely concealed by her costume, even the swivel feet have the sole of the heel attached to the front of the foot, so you don't get that effect you do on most foot swivels, where the ball of the foot ends up tilted compared to the heel. I didn't even realise she had foot tilts until I moved one by accident. The engineering of this figure is terrific.
Sadly the paint on her giant shuriken is a bit off - the metal is great, but the pink on the handles is sloppy. It's a damned shame on such a fine figure, but if there was going to be a mistake, it's good that it's such a small one. Aside from the shuriken, she comes with two extra hands - clenched fists vs open hands - and a base with a waist clasp, so you can have her leaping around and defying gravity like everyone in Advent Children did.
The price tag of AU$40-45 (for comparison, Marvel Legends and DC Direct are usually about $20-25) initially made me a bit hesitant to go for the Final Fantasy range, but after having seen what they've done with Yuffie, I'm definitely going to hunt down a Tifa, and pay close attention to any new series hitting the Final Fantasy shelf at the shop.
