Tag: Mordred

Mordred Nendoroid

Mordred Nendoroid

#FigureFriday

It’s been a while since my last #FigureFriday, but I’ve acquired a new anime figure so I’m bringing it back this week while there’s no JoJo’s Part 5 episode in the way. For those of you who may not be familiar, Figure Fridays are when I showcase one of my figures, historically Nendoroids, and briefly discuss them.

As the name implies, they’re also always on Fridays, because otherwise I couldn’t use that fancy alliteration.

Today I have the Saber of “Red” Nendoroid from the anime Fate/Apocrypha. Now, I haven’t seen Fate/Apocrypha yet, mainly because I’ve heard it isn’t good so it’s not really a high priority, but I do know this character from Fate/Grand Order.

Saber of “Red” is also known as Mordred, and (s)he’s the bastard son(daughter) of King Arthur(Artoria/Altria). As her title implies, she’s a part of the saber class and is the five-star saber I use in FGO.

While she may not be my favorite servant to use in FGO, she definitely has one of my favorite character designs. I’ve actually been eyeing some other Mordred figures, and even have one pre-ordered already, which I’ll talk about a bit more later on.

Packaging

The first thing you’ll notice when looking at the packaging for this Nendoroid is that it’s pretty plain. This is what I like to refer to as the standard Nendoroid box. Other figures in my collection with similar boxes are Aqua, Megumin, and Mayoi Hachikuji.

On the other hand, Kyouko Sakura, Sayaka Miki, and Sakura Haruno all have boxes with a bit more decoration, which I think makes them look much nicer. I’m not quite sure how it’s decided which Nendoroids get fancier boxes, but if you’re the kind of person who leaves them in the box, this may be more important to you.

Mordred, Saber of "Red," Nendoroid Packaging (front) from the Fate anime series
Mordred, Saber of “Red,” Nendoroid Packaging (front)

The box for Mordred is also the same size as that for Sakura Haruno, which is to say that it’s thinner, shorter, and deeper than the boxes for the others I have. Considering these two are the newest Nendoroids in my collection, at least from a release date standpoint, both being numbered in the 800’s, this may just be the new style of box.

However, Mordred, like Sakura Haruno, doesn’t actually come with all that much, and so this too could be part of the reason their boxes are smaller than the rest. For example, Megumin has the largest box, and this is likely due to her hat being just as big as the rest of her.

Mordred, Saber of "Red," Nendoroid Packaging (back) from the Fate anime series
Mordred, Saber of “Red,” Nendoroid Packaging (back)

As for the back of the box, again, it’s just as standard as the front. The only real distinction here from other generic Nendoroid boxes is that in the background of the large image of Mordred there’s a command seal design.

I also have to say that I’m not really a fan of that greenish-blue color used for the background behind the picture of Mordred on the front and the outline of the main image background on the back. It doesn’t have anything to do with her character design and makes the box feel even more generic.

Mordred

Taking a look inside the box, we find that Mordred comes with a second face plate, two versions of her sword Clarent (one being her Noble Phantasm, Clarent Blood Arthur), other arms, hands, and legs, her helmet (Secret of Pedigree) and another shoulder piece with crossed arms.

Despite these surprisingly few pieces, she can actually be manipulated into a wide variety of different poses. With Nendoroids that have a lot of pieces, only a relatively small amount of them can ever be used at one time, and so they don’t really have any advantage over Mordred.

Mordred, Saber of "Red," Nendoroid Pieces from the Fate anime series
Mordred, Saber of “Red,” Nendoroid Pieces

What I found most interesting about these pieces were the extra shoulders piece and the detachable spiked pieces on her original set of shoulders. As for the extra shoulders which feature crossed arms, this would normally just be extra arm pieces, but I like how it’s one whole section of her body rather than multiple.

Because the arms are already crossed and attached to the shoulders, you might think this is bad because they aren’t as posable as you may at first want. However, crossing individual arms on your own would be a real challenge, so I like that it was made easier in this way.

As for the detachable shoulder spikes (which unfortunately you can’t see in any of these pictures), I believe you’re supposed to take them off when equipping her helmet so they don’t get in the way. That said, I tested it, and the helmet doesn’t seem to have any issues regardless.

Mordred, Saber of "Red," Nendoroid Assembled from the Fate anime series
Mordred, Saber of “Red,” Nendoroid Assembled

Pictured above is the setup I opted for in the end. I prefer Clarent over Clarent Blood Arther simply because it’s coloration makes it more recognizable as a sword, and I prefer helmetless Mordred as far as the Nendoroid version of her is concerned.

While the helmet is an entirely separate head and so doesn’t actually fit over the head you see in use in the picture above, it’s still extremely large. It seems as though they made it large enough to fit her head inside of instead of simply making it the same size, and I think that makes it a bit too big compared to the rest of her body.

That said, the other Mordred figure I have pre-ordered is a Figma, not Nendoroid, and I do plan to have the Secret of Pedigree helmet equipped on that figure. So, in the end I’ll have versions of Mordred both with and without her helmet on.

The final thing I want to say about the Mordred Nendoroid is probably my favorite part of it overall, even though it’s nothing exciting. Mordred’s hand actually wraps entirely around the hilt of her sword!

I’m not sure if any of you have had this issue, but most of my Nendoroids which hold props can’t actually do so reliably. For example, Megumin and Sayaka Miki drop their staff and swords respectively any time there’s a small bump, despite Sayaka Miki’s sword supposedly sticking into her hand (it doesn’t).

When I saw that Mordred actually had a closed fist that the hilt of her sword fit into, I was amazed at the advances of Nendoroid technology. Hopefully all future Nendoroids which hold props will have hands that grip like this instead of the old model.

Conclusion

Overall, I’d have to say that Mordred is probably the most well-made Nendoroid I have in my collection, which should be the case since she’s also the newest. All of her pieces fit together well and she was extremely easy to assemble, which isn’t something I can say about all of the others.

If you enjoyed this “episode” of Figure Friday, then be sure to let me know by clicking the like button ❤ down below. I’ll leave links to the other Figure Fridays at the end of this post in case you want to go back and check out some of the other figures in my collection.

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