Review – RealXHead Next Man

My toy collection has a very small number of RealXHead (website) designs, too few if you ask me. And nothing drives this point home more than a visit to Matt Doughty’s wonderland of toys (otherwise known as the offices of Onell Design) and it was while at Matt’s earlier this week that I came across this Next Man toy. And since there was time I took some pics and played with him, pitting Next Man against a Real X Nibbler (review here) that happened to be close by at the time.

Between the Mini and Full-Sized Vinyl Toys

Next Man is from the mid-scale line and comes at a height that fits nicely between pieces like Pheyaos (review here) and Pheyaos Man (review here). More substantial than the minis but more affordable than the full-sized figures, this size is good for collectors on a moderate budget who still want some Japanese vinyl in their collection. I personally don’t have much in this scale — I think I prefer the minis — but I can say that Next Man has a good weight and fits well in my hand. A great play size and decent display size.

Three Points of Articulation

Next Man uses the standard plug-in-socket method common to Japanese vinyl toys and swings at the shoulders and rotates at the neck. I miss the waist articulation that we get on pieces like the Mini-Pheyden (review here) and if I had to say one bad thing about Next Man I’d say that the missing waist joint is a damned shame; this poor guy just isn’t as dynamic as little Pheyden and at his size Next Man should have at least as many points of articulation as the Mini-Pheyden.

Phenomenal Paint

Cast in pale tan vinyl, Next Man gets the bulk of his color from the spray effects across the body. Green, silver, gold, yellow and purple sprays all come together in a way that is tough to describe — and, as the pics show, tough to photograph. Red detail work in the open mouth wraps up the paint, and while there’s not as much detail work as we see on mass-market action figures there’s enough paint here to keep the toy from looking flat and featureless.

And Speaking of Features . . .

It’s gotta be Next Man’s sculpt that makes me love the character. It’s a fairly standard RXH body design — the more I play with these the more I like the figures — but that cyborg/mechanical head/mask with the organic mouth is what really sells me on the character and makes me think I need to keep my eyes open for another release of this mold; while not as cool as the RXH Chaos I think I can safely rank this as my second-favorite pure RXH character design. Maybe . . . after all, who knows what I will be thinking the next time another RXH toy crosses my path.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve certainly grown to love Japanese vinyl toys over the years that I’ve been running battlegrip.com, and a lot of that love is because of the opportunities I get to play with pieces like this Next Man toy. There’s something innocent and exciting about these vinyl toys that doesn’t really start to come through until you spend time with them.

Thanks, Matt, for letting me play with your toys. I hate you, because each time I find myself spending money on something from a company like RealXHead it’s all because of your influence.

And as you all know, these toys can get expensive pretty damned quick.

Philip Reed wonders if it would be cheaper to buy these toys in Japan than it is to buy them in the US. Maybe he needs to go to Japan on a “fact finding” mission and check into the costs. That’s important work, right?