So this is a stunning piece made in honour of a game that is very special to me. Ho-Oh has been my favourite Pokémon since I was 10 years old, I am an avid collector of models and figures of all kinds, and I love cool lights. This statue got me hook, line, and sinker. I pre-ordered at full price. I picked the shiny version. I had no qualms. I was ready to love it. Here’s what I found. (TLDR at the bottom.)

THE GOOD

The Pokémon figures are beautiful. They are vividly coloured and perfectly preserve the original designs, without even a smudge or airbrushed speck of colour out of place. The legendary beasts look dynamic and powerful, and shiny Ho-Oh makes for a glorious crown and centrepiece. The little Slugma is especially very cute (and seems to have some very powerful friends).

Assembly was unbelievably easy. In the past I have spent hours skinning my fingers raw while trying to cram segmented bits of disassembled models into their narrow little slots, usually to have them fall out at the slightest touch afterward, so I was genuinely filled with dread when I first opened this box and saw all the disconnected pieces. However, the magnets made putting this together absolutely painless. Thank you to whoever came up with that.

The overall composition and arrangement of the statue is stunning. The fire, ice, and electric effects, plus the lighting, are so fun. The LEDs are impressively bright. Suicune’s crystal with the icy blue lighting is especially impressive.

THE BAD

The base is not as pretty as I might have liked. It’s a bit incongruent with (and its lesser qualities possibly exacerbated by) the impeccably beautiful figures arranged on top of it. Stripped of all the figures and effects, it looks a bit like a cheap fish tank ornament. Of course I recognise that the figures and effects are the stars of the show, and the base is just the base, and where it matters — like the tower and most of the rock texture — it does its job. It’s just that the lava is so shockingly bad.

The lava pool below Entei (pictured) is painted in stark bands of fluorescent ugly-bright yellow and orange. It is hideous, and I can’t imagine it was intentional. Compared to the preview images, it looks to me as though some greater blending was supposed to happen between these colours, but that perhaps this step was missed on my piece. This might sound like a minor nitpick, but the lava occupies a large portion of the front, and overall I just don’t find this kind of quality fair for this price tag. I have not even shown this model to my friends yet because I am actually too embarrassed for them to see the lava treatment while knowing how much I paid for it. Maybe that’s silly! But at this price, I don’t think I should feel embarrassed to show this to people for any visual reason, nor should I have thoughts like “cheap fish tank ornament” enter my head at any point.

WISHES

Some LEDs on the front would have been nice. The lights are brilliant, but because they’re so bright, all of it behind the statue, the piece ends up a bit backlit in dim light. In particular, another line of LEDs along the front bottom rim to light the flames below Entei would have been perfect.

More light for Raikou and Entei in general would have been a plus, since it’s a bit dark over where they are compared to Suicune’s radiance. I would have loved some blue light for Raikou’s lightning. That said I recognise it’s physically much easier to light something like a big crystal effectively, compared to a dark cloud and several thin and jagged strands of resin, so it’s not a huge deal.

TLDR

Beautiful figures, beautiful arrangement, painless assembly. Pretty lights, especially by Suicune. Good quality magnets and LEDs. A bit backlit when the LEDs are on, with Entei and Raikou especially in the dark. Intrusively poor quality of painting for the lava on the base is hard to overlook considering the price.

Though this statue is 5 stars in my nostalgia-baited heart, I am giving it 3, because at the risk of seeming unreasonable I don’t think 4 would effectively communicate just how distractingly awful the lava is. I could put it up on a high shelf to hide the eyesore, but I don’t think it’s fair that I should feel the need to hide an eyesore or really any part of something that I not only paid hundreds of dollars for, but purchased at such a price for the express purpose of displaying it in its entirety. Especially when said eyesore was not expected based on the preview images. The more I think about this, the less unreasonable I feel for the 3, actually.

I actually would recommend this model to anyone similarly in the target market as I am. It is stunningly beautiful in almost every way. You just have to gamble $500 + shipping that your lava will turn out better than mine.