Plamatea Thanatos Model Kit Review- Buy Or Pass?

Sometimes, you have to justify a purchase. In this case, one September evening, I'd found myself in Tokyo picking up the new Plamatea Thanatos model kit, recreating one of the coolest Personas from Persona 4 Arena, cool enough that apparently it became plot relevant in Persona 3. 

Admittedly, I'm one of those whose primary exposure to model kits is Bandai's Gunpla line. And with good reason- they've set a veritable gold standard, hittng all the issues that matter to the most people- price point, out-of-the-box quality and ease of building. Do they necessarily hit them well? Not always. But I feel like having spent almost half my life now building plastic mecha has given me a pretty good idea for what to look for in model kits. 

Out Of The Box

So, it's very hard to talk about this without clarifying that I don't think kits that require a lot of external work are inherently bad. I'd recently learned about the term Modeller's Kits from the community- the kind where having to do extra things like repainting or sanding parts is practically necessary for the kid to look good. It's not a negative, however. This community revels in the work, every detail added being an act of devotion to your plastic kit. However, it can be hard to get newer fans in as a result. 

Thankfully, the Plamatea Thanatos kit seems to, for the most part, have stayed away from this ethos. This isn't really a model kit for anyone who's ever said the phrase "I can airbrush this". Right out the box, the kit is immaculately detailed, with details like the trim on Thanatos' coat or the straps on its many floating coffins all pre-painted- an amazing amount of detail. 

In essence, it's a kit you can almost entirely straight-build. Being more organic in shape means you don't have to worry too much about panel lining, and everything you might have worried would be a sticker ended up coming pre painted. 

Thanks to its own lanky design though, a base is entirely necessarily. Thankfully, the Plamatea Thanatos kit includes this too, though the particular way it poses can feel limiting since the base connects via the massive coffin wings that have made Thanatos so beloved to begin with. 

The Build

Overall, the Plamatea Thanatos kit is a fairly simple build, though that mostly comes from it not being some kind of giant mech. There's some genuinely cool engineering behind the figure, too- the double jointed neck allows for some really dramatic poses, and the four skirt pieces rotate freely enough to free up its legs.  

I do have some gripes with the build itself though. I am a child of the age of rubberized polycaps, and I'm not sure if Bandai has some kind of patent on them but you can clearly see the Thanatos kit struggle to make do without them. A lot of the pieces are designed to fit snugly into each other, which can make the occasional QC failure all the more frustrating- in my build, one of its arms just wouldn't take into the torso hole, and after considering the possibility I might break the kit I ended up sanding the hole just a little bit bigger to fit the joint instead. 

Some of the connection points are just weird as a result- the neck is another particular hazard, where the port itself you plug the head assembly into can rotate from inside the torso, meaning you might need to use your tweezers just to rotate it back. Even though I stand by this being a really good beginner kit, investing in more tools is definitely recommended to save yourself from the potentially kit-breaking side effects of elbow grease.

On the other hand, there are also some genuinely cool features: the chains holding up the coffins are a real chain, and once you get over the process of literally threading it through the shoulders and every coffin before needing to apply the hooks to hold it in place. You'll need to feed the chain according to how you want it posed- there's always a little more than expectied, so if you don't like droopy chains ruining the silhouette on your build you'll either want to try cutting the chain yourself or just finding a clever corner to have it droop more. 

Verdict

If you're looking for a pretty cool representation of a great Persona, you'll probably really enjoy the Plamatea Thanatos model kit. It's not an overly complicated build- though because of its lanky appearance you're going to have to deal with some thin parts to keep that sleek silhouette. I love that it keeps the Eva-style monster hands too- I think everyone's main image of Thanatos is from its debut cutscene, and it feels almost wrong to not display it in that cool, more feral pose. 

Admittedly, the big issue comes down to price- at 8800 Yen you're neither getting size nor features. It's closer to an MG Gunpla in price or a really elaborate HG but doesn't include anything like effect parts or option parts outside of the closed fist vs monster hands. 

Still, if you're coming at it from the perspective of a Persona fan looking for a cool piece of merch to celebrate beating Persona 3 Reload, it's a very good figure for its asking price. Immaculately sculpted, amazingly detailed and fairly posable. It's also basically to scale with anything around the size of an SH Figuarts, so it sits well in any collection. 

Now here's hoping we get something of similar scale for Elizabeth so this goes from being P3 Thanatos and starts being P4 Arena Thanatos.