Bandai Marvel Heroes 3 Wolverine: The End

Around 3 years ago when i went to Macau, i spent some money on those toys on the round balls called gashapons. I bought some Dragon Ball gashapons, thinking that i might want to start collecting them, and those sexy female things..since i am a man. After coming back home, i lost interest in them afterwards. Never buying another piece. But when i started collecting Wolverine figures one of the first things that really caught my attention was the Marvel Heroes Wolverines that might or might not have been gashapons but pretty much everyone in the forums call them that. Those figures never reached our shores so people who bought those things resorted to buying from hobby shops that inflated their prices. I saw these once but the problem was that they sell it by set so i never bit. But then last night i went to this hobby shop i frquently visit that sells a Bowen Brown Wolverine Bust Replica, i always try to haggle for that bust but the owner of the shop just won't give. When i came there last night i decided to look at the other things them BOOM, i saw one of the Wolverine (3 have been produced) figures there together with the others from the series Blade, Spidey, Black Cat, Psylocke and Elektra with the white Elektra variant, they were selling it for $8 (P400) which was pretty much a lower price compared to what the other shops were selling it at. I didn't buy it since i tried to get it with the replica bust for P1000 ($20) but the owner didn't want to give it to me at that price. When i got home i realized that i should've bought it already! I went back there only to find out that the owner was willing to give those items for P1000, but i only brought enough money for the gashapon.

The Wolverine gashapon was produced in the year 2005 and it was part of the 3rd series of Marvel Heroes which was produced by a Japanese company called Bandai. They specialize in anime action figures (duh?) such as Dragon Ball and those Gundam figures. All my past gashapons were made by them too. This specific figure was based on the cover of issue one of the mini-series Wolverine: The End. In this mini Wolverine was way past his prime already and then he gets to meet his older brother, John. I won't go into detail over the mini-series since i'm here to review the figure but i found it quite entertaining.

the cover, from the net

As you can see the details on the figure is VERY GOOD. For such a small figure which stands around 3" tall, they were able to cram a lot of sculpt details in it. The details go right down to the down to the holes in the belt and the rips on the pants. Just awesome detail, not even some 6" figs have details like these. Even though they tweaked Wolverine's pose to be able to fit this figure together with the base, the only things that could have made the sculpt closer to the cover was the name "Howlett" on the tombstone and the hair on Wolverine's body, though they were able to create a good looking set of chest hair. The standard problem for Wolverine figs apply here, the class of Wolverine are very soft and easily malleable so it might bend out of shape when not handled or packed carefully. Though this can easily be solved by the hot and cold method.
But i do have a problem with the face sculpt, i remember Wolverine: The End having Wolverine with a long face and small eyes but this one added a bit of anime style in it and made the eyes bigger and the face a bit rounder but it's good that they didn't go all out and went all anime on him. Still nice though, with the sculpted wrinkles adding to the old weathered look.
In terms of paint applications, the figure i have is very nice. The only problem i have with mine is a possible paint chip or smudge on the left knee. Not that noticeable but very irritating once you see it. I just wanted to rub on it until it came out but it just didn't. Other than that, no other problems. For such a small figure they were even able to do things correctly on those parts that are usually problem areas for mass produced figures such as the face and the belt and pants area. The one i have had no such problems and generally all gashapons i had before didn't have this problem either so i'm guessing paint apps for these things are really good.
The figure i got had not so tight sockets, they were in no way loose but they weren't that tight anymore, though i don't know if this is a problem for most of the figs or just mine since it may have gone through quite a lot of building and rebuilding. I think that if the sockets were tight, the places where they are located are very unnoticeable. It's located on the neck, the arms (kinda noticeable on mine), the part that separates the body from the belt and pants, the feet from the base, the tree separates into three and the tombstone from the base and the tree. Overall the locations of the sockets are not distracting enough and i think it's even less if the figure you have doesn't have them loose.The base is very nice too, the only thing i would've changed here was they should've placed a name on the tombstone. Other than that, it's great. There's real nice detail in them too, the cracks on the tombstone, the lines on the tree and even the ground he is standing on itself.

Overall, this figure is actually worth the $7 (P350) i spent on it. Great paint apps and very impressive details that you wouldn't believe would be able to fit into a figure that's around 3-4" tall. The fact that it's actually very hard to find right now makes it all the more worth it. Though action figures collectors might not like this since it has 0 articulation. Another added reason as to why i think this guys are a bit rare is that I actually tried searching for it on ebay and only 3 wolverine gashapons came out (this one and the ultimate version) came out. Google didn't fare much better, after 20 pages the only thing i saw was this gashapon being sold on ebay malaysia. I finally found what i was looking for at the 21st page. Here are the other two Wolverines available together with the other Marvel Gashapons it came out with.

Wolverine came out on the first three Marvel Heroes sets, i have never seen the Tigerstripe Wolverine gashapon in person, the Ultimate one i think i saw being sold together with the Ultimate X-Men as a set.