Pac-Man merch is never a bad thing, especially when it's an item you didn't get back in 2021 initially. Now you may be familiar with Bandai Spirits and Tamashii Nations for their brilliant work on the Figuarts, Monsterarts, and Chogokin lines. There's so much to go over for people like me to be lost in. Luckily, getting a Chogokin Pac-Man was easier than, say, anything from Tokusatsu or a niche IP with longer names like a lot of modern anime. So thanks to a good deal from Mercari, I got the Pac-Man from their line, but I want you to look at the one on the box, as it is in the traditional deco...
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Because the deco we have here is actually that from the Chrome Noir repaint made as a pre-order bonus in Pac-Man World Re-Pac! This makes his yellow body black, his eyes a faint yellow, and his previously orange gloves and red boots are now black, matching the body; the arms and legs remained silver like in the original version. A mechanized take on the Namco mascot, the figure has rivets, panel lines, and metallic colors to convey this being less like the...organic?...take on the character and more like a stone-cold mech as the intent goes. I've seen similar things like this from other mascot-themed products made by Bandai, including the Chogokin Mickey & Friends set, there were two themed after Toy Story, and as far as I can tell, there was a non-Disney one made for Doraemon...a franchise I don't know much about, sorry. Anyways, Pac-Man's Chrome Noir deco works for this mech, making it feel more like it's a new Toc-Man he'd pilot in a World 4 after seeing 2 designs that looked like hideous caricatures made by Orson (3 if you count the Re-Pac version) and the version from World 3 being more of a Model 420 tri-cylinder micro-tolerance combat mechanoid rather than an imposter. His articulation is very limited, with shoulder rotation as outward arm movement, while the legs can move outwards or swivel at the boots with some ratchet joints. You can pose him recreating the victory fist pump he makes in Re-Pac if he still had the DLC-skin Chrome Pellet power up.
For a size comparison with another Tamashii Nations-themed Pac-Man, here is the Figuart. The two of them are not too far off in their scale if you want to pretend this is your Chrome Pellet Pac-Man. It's not as articulated but it is accurate to the DLC skin...or rather, the DLC skin is accurate to this repaint. Also is it me or did the sound effects that are applied for this skin similar to the Chrome power-up's sound effects in World 2.
One of the features you can do is a mobile mode by rotating the feet 180 degrees and splaying the legs wide so it can roll on its wheels. You can also turn a dial on the on the back if you want to give him his signature wink. The boxing gloves can launch like missiles with a button on the back.
The Ghost Gang is represented here as smaller bullets, but not Banzai Bills. They're the same sculpt as expected, with their eyes being the only reference to their signature colors: Blinky Red, Pinky is self-explanatory, Inky Blue, and Clyde Orange. Weirdly, Blinky and Clyde's eyes are more metallic than the matte paint of Pinky and Inky. Might be due to how pastel the two latter ghosts are by comparison.
You can replace the punching gloves with the ghosts if you really want to, which surprised me that they're used in this context, but I think the original colors made it more effective. With a display base, you can have the ghosts present with small pegholes for them to fit in, with the back having a cradle of sorts for the Pac-Mech to rest on while his feel simply rest in the designated grooves.
The stand even has the embossed Pac-Man maze retooled to fit with the context of the logo. And we have a mini Pac-Man that can stand in front of it, giving his signature wink and thumbs up. But that's not all, because opening it reveals a cockpit with silver paint, a High Score maze on the back, and more maze and dots embossed into the surface area. You can press a button behind the seat to have it raised up a bit to have Pac-Man more accessible. So overall, this is a pretty nifty seat that I find worth getting if you're a big Pac-Man fan. Whether you like this deco or the regular yellow, this is a neat item to get in the somewhat-growing stream of Pac-Man merch that isn't just T-shirts or exclusively based on the arcade. If you see this set for a lower price, I recommend you get it because while it is a good item, it's more of an item you'd want to display like a trophy rather than a figure you could mess with like the Masterpiece Transformers or even the Soul of Chogokin mecha but to a lesser extent if the reviews on the SOC Dinozords are anything to go by.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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