I don’t think it is an understatement to say that the Open Hands Mario that I reviewed relatively recently was a revelation for World of Nintendo figures.  Open Hands Mario felt much more poseable and easy to display with the new hands.  So when I saw that Open Hands Luigi was coming out, I was definitely excited.  When looking over my collection, I was surprised that I only have the Cat Luigi figure so getting another Luigi seemed very worthwhile.  Is this Luigi’s chance to shine or will his brother get all of the accolades and attention yet again!?

Box – While I’ve long said Jakks Pacific should come up with other Mario themed packaging art, when opening this figure, I realized that they really need to do a Luigi design.  It can be green and Luigi can replace Mario’s picture on the front.  That would be a nice way to spice things up and pay tribute to the other plumber brother.

Paint and Details – As you might expect, there isn’t a ton to say about Luigi.  It is the design we all know and for the most part, Jakks Pacific pulled it off pretty well.  My Luigi does have some weird plastic stress marks on his helmet where the plastic has turned a light green color.  The stress marks look a little odd when viewing the figure from the top but beyond that it isn’t too noticeable.  That is really the only flaw I found with mine which is a sign that Jakks Pacific did well with this figure. The paint job is solid and while not super exciting, Nintendo fans are going to be happy with Luigi.

Articulation – This is where things get interesting.  Luigi does have the open hands and because both his elbows bend and his hands rotate, it is easy to think you’re getting some nice poseability when you pull him out of the box.  However, I noticed after posing Luigi a bit that the poses look kind of weird and Luigi looks a lot like a Cactaur from Final Fantasy because it is hard to get his arms to rest naturally at his side (this is a problem Mario did not have).  There are some wacky and fun poses you can achieve like a goofy running pose and “Touchdown Luigi” but on the whole, I found the actual displays you can get with Luigi to be slightly disappointing and not as good as Mario.

Accessory – It is unfortunately true that sometimes the accessories in World of Nintendo are not too exciting and getting a question block, which is something other Mario figures have also come with is a good example of this.  Luigi can hold it but just barely because of how wide his upper sticks out.  The question block is nice if you don’t already have one but its usefulness with Luigi is somewhat limited.

Closing Thoughts – Not unlike Luigi himself, this figure is a bit of an odd one.  The articulation and open hands are there but the actual ability to pose Luigi in interesting ways is not quite there.  I like this figure and I’m glad I have it since I don’t have a regular Luigi but I can’t give it a glowing recommendation like I had hoped.  The old Luigi was common when it was released but I have not seen one in stores for quite some time so if you missed out on that figure, this is certainly a nice alternative.