S.H. Figuarts Ultraman Belial Atrocious Gallery

"Demonic Fusion unleashed!"

The greatest evil in this universe and all others, Ultraman Belial has risen again! Harvesting Kei Fukuide's Sturm Organs, and using the Dark Lugiel & Alien Empera Capsules, Belial attains his most powerful form ever. Powerful enough to destroy the universe for real this time, stronger than Ultraman Geed's own Royal Megamaster, Belial may finally be unstoppable. His body has obtained supreme power in our gallery of S.H. Figuarts Ultraman Belial Atrocious!

Packaging
Belial's packaging is just gorgeous, such a departure from the old Ultra-Act days. Belial came out in that line when plain black boxes were it. So this is radically and fantastically different. The design is elaborate, the stock photos are gorgeous, and the spine art is superb. More of this please.

Main Figure
Belial Atrocious is the first new collector themed figure the character has received since the original Ultra-Act Belial from 2010 & subsequent Kaiser Belial from 2011. Quite a gap for a character that I personally find to be the best villain the franchise has ever produced. Clearly Tsuburaya sees his popularity as well since Belial has made some sort of cameo or appearance as a power-up, been given a full return, or a new form numerous times in the last decade. But Atrocious is the first of Belial's myriad of forms outside his most iconic to get the Tamashii treatment. Given the general quality and design issues that many Ultra-Act suffered from, especially in the early days of Belial, I had hoped that this figure would be quite the improvement. There are some issues however.

Undoubtedly Belial Atrocious is an insanely gorgeous form. A devilishly decadent design, Atrocious looks like the reanimated monster that Belial has continued to be for years. The entire suit takes it's major design cues from a skeleton, or at least a monstrous skeletal bone structure of some sort, and it honestly almost tops the original Belial design for me personally. It's a really great, imposing, and menacing form. The figure is intricately detailed, and has a dark paint wash to bring out more of the grit and grime of this form, and it does so quite nicely. Functionally however, I'm not a huge fan of this figure.

This mold sadly suffers from the overly ornate design, being designed with pretty standard articulation. The ankles are standard fair and don't really have much issue with the shin parts. The knees are sadly limited to about a 90 degree angle thanks to the thickness of Belial's legs. The biggest issue with the lower body however, is the way the hips interact with the waist. Each leg has a built in thigh swivel and is attached to the interior of the waist. Frankly I don't care for the design of the hips though because it really breaks up the lower body sculpt. But these joints are also frustratingly tight and don't have enough clearance. The bone protrusions on the outer thighs are a real pain. If you aren't careful when spreading the hips out, you'll inadvertently nearly break them off as they stick right into the waist parts. You can angle the legs so that these parts go inside the waist, but that isn't the correct way for them to look, and you still can't get the full range out of the joints either.

Now the upper body has issues as well. The upper and lower torso are separated in way that does doesn't draw your eye's attention. However they're also very very tight, and there isn't a ton of range in how the upper part can float around the lower. The waist connector is similarly a bit limited. This whole chunk of the body is gorgeously sculpted and painted though. In particular I LOVE Belial's back. The bone protrusions are organized in such a way that they almost look like a crude monstrous face. There's something about that design that I just love. The arms are fairly standard for an Ultraman figuart with functional elbows, wrists with pretty great clearance, and bicep swivels as well. Though these are a little too tight. The shoulder pads however are garbage, plain and simple. The hinge which holds them together is made from absolutely the flimsiest plastic possible ensuring there's no real tension holding them together. Even if you take the time to arrange them out of the way before moving the arm, the slightest nudge will send them off.

Finally, that Atrocious head. I meant that in a good way! Atrocious has a magnificently malicious head sculpt. The classic Reionic/Belial eyes have never looked better than in this devilish form and generally light catches them in just the right way to make them look as though they're glowing. I still think of the original Belial as a tough design to beat, but this one certainly gets close. I just hate to say it, but the figure itself is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I absolutely love Belial as a character. But being his first figuart, I did expect better. I feel that some of the design choices were poorly thought out, while others were just poorly executed.

Accessories

1 - set of Giga Battle Nizer parts. Belial's most iconic weapon, the Giga Battle Nizer has been with him since his early days. This go around, the device functions exactly the same way as the old Ultra-Act. It's packaged in it's more compact form but the staff extension is included. In fact, the sculpt of the figuart version seems nigh identical to the Ultra-Act weapon, simply downsized.

4 - sets of hands. Included are two types of open palms, one slightly more menacing, the other more of a general open stance. A pair of open fists for holding the Battle Nizer, and lastly
a dark black pair of hands. This pair is meant to represent Belial Atrocious' Astros Hell Claws. They aren't quite claw-like enough for my tastes, especially given the original figure's giant poseable talons. But they work fine.

I wish this figure had come with some form of energy effect to replicate any of Belial's numerous moves. Even some scaled down versions of the Battle Nizer parts the original Belial came with would have been nice. But that's really the only omission I can come up with for this release. Otherwise the accessories are fairly standard and acceptable.

Final Thoughts
Ultimately if you were a big fan of Ultraman Geed, or of Belial in particular, then this figure may still be for you. Coming from someone who's an absolutely massive fan of Belial, I really am quite disappointed by how this figure turned out. It's sad when the loose, kinda gap-y, and a bit awkwardly sculpted Ultra-Act of the original Belial from 8 years ago is still what I consider his best figure. S.H. Figuarts Ultraman Belial Atrocious just misses the mark enough to head to my regret pile. For now, I'll try to look at this as a test bed for what we can expect from from an eventual (hopefully) Figuart of his most iconic form.

Part 2

As Belial forms go, this one is definitely one of my faves. It has that perfect vibe of evil "Next". So much so, it makes me kind of want to see a sequel to that movie with with more done in this kind of style.

IT'S a shame this figure is a let down, it was absolutely gorgeous

Just realized this design is another case where the father figure has a skeleton motif implied, the other being Kamen Rider Skull/Shokichi.

hey even if the figure's not that great that's no reason to call him Atrocious

Yeesh! The paint seems pretty sloppy for such an expensive figure. Glad I passed on it. I hope they reissue the old Ultra-Act Belial figures instead.

That's, not going to happen. Ultra-Act is a dead line. Totally phased out of production. A reissue of that 8 year old figure is not happening. A new S.H. Figuart of the design could happen for sure, but that would likely be based on well Atrocious sold as well.

Personally, I don't have any problems with this figure. Yes, the paint could perhaps be better, and there could have been more accessories like the Atros Burst or an effect for the Giga Battlenizer, but it's still a highly detailed figure with excellent articulation.

The paint job does look odd for the price, Belial has such good designs but this one doesn't really get me as much as the others.