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Blue Spirit

August 27, 2010 | By Errex More

The Blue Spirit is another character from Nickelodeon’s successful Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon that makes it to M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie project.

Not knowing a lot about the series, I assumed this figure was to be an army builder, given the fairly impersonal nature of the costume, but after a quick research, it seems I was wrong on that account and it is an individual character. Of course, that has never stopped me from getting multiple copies of any single figure, but I digress.

The Blue Spirit was the single figure I actually wanted from this line mostly because it looks like it could complement several other lines in this scale. It is like a Scooby-Doo villain in the way it’s fairly generic in it’s appearance.

The blue spirit is molded mostly from deep blue plastic. The head seems to have been molded from flesh colored plastic, but you couldn’t tell because most of the visible surfaces are painted over.

The sculpted detail remains on the basic side of things, with only the broadest of shapes to denote folds in the clothes, although some more intricate detail can be seen at bracers and greaves. Like the Aang figures, the most detail can be found at the head sculpt.

Most of the head is composed of a really huge mane of hair that has a heavily textured surface. The face is shaped like a Japanese oni(demon) mask, complete with a very fierce, menacing expression. While the figure has very little paint apps going on, the mask is painted in a deep metallic blue, with small golden accents for eyebrows and mouth, with the eyes painted bright orange.

In terms of articulation, the Blue Spirit complies to the standard for the line with:

• Peg & hinge shoulders. Excellent motion range on both sides.

• Hinged elbows. These bend up to 90°.

• Swivel wrists. Free 360° rotation.

• Swivel waist. Since the cut is made above the belt piece, rotation is 360°.

• Peg & hinge hips. Great rotation but not much in terms of bending, due to the unusual configuration.

• Hinged ankles. Fairly decent motion range here.

Although the joint design looks sensible on paper, the unusual hip configuration and the slightly cumbersome costume design prevents the Blue Spirit from achieving kneeling or sitting poses, although it is still possible to have some very dynamic fighting stances.

The Blue Spirit comes armed with one sword, split in half. The weapon pieces are molded in the same blue plastic used for the figure, with only some brown and gold decorations at the hilt. Both pieces have pegs and guides in their inner surfaces, so it’s pretty intuitive to press them together and produce a single, thicker blade. The idea is interesting, although the execution could have been better, since both halves are not an absolutely perfect fit and they needed to be. Of course, if you leave them separated then the Blue Spirit can be twice as scary, grabbing one blade in each hand.

I actually liked this figure better than the Aang I reviewed before. The overall look is still very simplified, but the darker colors actually seem to work better with the sculpting style.