Super Saiyan 4 Goku by Giochi Preziosi

Italian toy manufacturers Giochi Preziosi may not be the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of Dragon Ball merchandising, but Japanese animation TV series are hugely popular  in Italy so it isn't actually that surprising to discover Anime action figures appearing here. And what a great job they've done by the looks of this fabulous Goku I found on a market stall the other day, outdoing even Irwin and Jakks in turns of sculpt and articulation.

This is Goku in his Super Saiyan 4 transformation, as he appears in the anime-only sequel to Dragon Ball Z - Dragon Ball GT – you won't see this Goku in any of the original Dragon Ball manga comics.

Monkey-tailed Super Saiyan 4 Goku

This beefed-up Goku has red fur on the top half of his body, black hair and Tokio Hotel haircut, and golden-yellow eyes, details that have all been rendered faithfully in this action figure – the textured red fur sculpt is particularly good, as is Goku's fine shock of spiky hair.

Standing just shy of 6 inches, this is an impressive looking figure, but where it beats similar lines is in the amount of articulation. Okay, so his head can't move much with all that hair, but with balls joints at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees and ankles, as well as extra cut joints in the upper and forearms, along with his waist, which allow for 360° swivelling, you can pose this figure to your heart's content! Oh, and his tail can also turn a full circle. A ball joint at the waist might have been nice, but now I'm just being picky!

I'm not entirely sure when this figure was released – there is a code number GP 1486/07 under one of his shoes, which might indicate that this was a 2007 release, but I'm really not sure. A similar line called the Electron Series featuring this figure, but with feet that plugged into an electronic base was also released – see the video accompanying this post – but this is the simple, non-electronic version of this figure. A great Dragon Ball find!

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