If you’ve been following the site, then you probably already know how I’ve become more interested and excited about World of Nintendo figures over time.  While they first started doing figures that were either staple Nintendo characters I already owned in other forms or franchises I wasn’t interested in, they’ve slowly branched out and are now releasing some Nintendo figures nobody else has made.  A great example of this is the Cat Luigi figure from Super Mario 3D World.  As soon as I saw that this figure was coming out, I have been dying to get it and I finally found it at a local Toys R Us.  While this is only my second World of Nintendo 4″ Inch figure, I really am impressed by it and I think this is a better figure than the Tanooki Mario which I reviewed recently.  Let’s take a closer look at this figure and see what makes it special.

Size – One thing that I noticed right away is that this figure scales well when compared to the Mario figure.  Luigi looks a bit taller and skinnier just like he should.  With Jakks releasing both 2.5 inch and 4 inch figures, this is encouraging and means there should be some cross product appeal for collectors.  As I obtain more World of Nintendo products, I will talk about this more and show how some of these figures can be combined to cool effect.

Articulation – One of the greatest appeals of Cat Luigi is that he has 14 points of articulation compared to the 10 of Tanooki Mario.  Some articulation is what you would expect like his rotating arms and his elbows bend, but Cat Luigi’s head can also rotate easily which is a nice upgrade from Tanooki Mario.  Also, his legs and knees bend which lets you make him look like he is running.  It is hard to get Luigi to stand up in this kind of running pose, but as you can see in the pictures below, he still looks great with this articulation.  I took a number of pictures of Luigi and had fun posing him in some different ways.  I think he definitely has noticeably better movement than Tanooki Mario and I suspect Cat Luigi will be showing up in other reviews and displays I make in the future.  I’m very pleased that Jakks Pacific is improving their figures over time and Cat Luigi is one of their best yet.

Paint – Cat Luigi has a simple paint job which makes Jakks Pacific’s job easier, but I’m happy to say they still did pretty well on this figure.  If you’ve ever painted before, you will know that white paint often takes several coats to cover something and there are almost no spots where the white paint is not well applied.  My figure has one spot on his ear and a few very small spots on his legs where a little more paint is needed, but otherwise, Cat Luigi looks great.  I looked at a couple Cat Luigis in the store and while each of them had a small spot here and there, I did not see any that I thought a Nintendo fan would be disappointed by so that is great news if you’re thinking about getting this figure.

Accessory – Another area where this figure is better than Tanooki Mario is the accessory.  One noticeable change is that Jakks Pacific is no longer doing mystery accessories and you can actually see what you’re getting before you buy it.  This change makes sense the internet ruins the surprise for most of us anyway.  Cat Luigi comes with the bell that gives you a cat suit in Super Mario 3D World.  Not only is this one of the better accessories Jakks Pacific has made in terms of taking a unique item from a game and creating a figure out of it, but the bell looks really awesome.  It has a glossy paint and the bell looks just like the game.  While it is not easy to get Luigi to hold it, he can do it as you can see in the pictures above.  My only wish for the bell is that the bottom piece was flattened to help it stand on its own.  While that would have made it look less realistic, I think the accessory would be more fun if it could stand on its own.

Closing Thoughts – Cat Luigi is a fantastic figure that highlights how cool the World of Nintendo figure line can be.  If Jakks Pacific can bring obscure Nintendo characters to collectors that fans have only dreamed of owning, this line of figures will be very successful and can last a long time.  While I haven’t reviewed many World of Nintendo 4″ Inch figures, this is easily my favorite thus far and I hope we will see more quality releases like this in the future.