Yuji Nagata is known mainly for his time spent in New Japan Pro Wrestling. He is the longest reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion with a reign of 392 days. He is also the only wrestler to have won all of Japan’s biggest single tournaments and, notably, spent a few years wrestling for American wrestling promotion WCW during 1997 and 1998. He is known for his stiff, shoot-style wrestling technique.
Name: Yuji Nagata
Line: Super Star Figure Collection 44
Manufacturer: NJPW/Tohkon Shop
Released: 2001
Price: Then: Unknown, Now: 1500 Yen MOSC
Scale: 5-6 inches in height
Accessories: None
There’s no particularly interesting story behind buying this figure of Yuji Nagagta. I just bought it online for a pretty reasonable price, but I have been a Yuji Nagata fan since his days in WCW, but mainly due to Japanese wrestling video games that I’ve played. Still, if you’re collecting Japanese wrestling figures, you tend to buy your favourites first and normally get sucked in after you find out how badass all the other wrestlers are.
SCULPTING
This is easily the best part of the figure, the great thing about these Japanese wrestling figures is that they appear to have 3-D scanned the whole wrestlers body and added minimal articulation, it’s definitely the biggest draw card these figures have as it makes them very realistic and as close to match thing wrestler in real life as possible, so with all that said, with is a very real looking figure of Yuji Nagata!
PAINT
Paint is kept to a minimum and where it is used, it’s normally very neatly applied, this is one area you will seldom have to worry about for these figures, unless it’s loose as it might have been roughed up a bit. With earlier releases in the series you would get the card backer rubbing off some of the paint on the rear of the figure, but, later releases fixed this issue.
ARTICULATION
A grand total of three points of articulation for Nagagta: swivel joints at the shoulders and waist. That’s not really that much and you can’t do too much with the figure beyond it’s pre-set sculpted pose, but you can get some nice, slight variants to that pose, by simply moving the arms or waist a little bit.
ACCESSORIES
Yuji Nagata unfortunately doesn’t come with any accessories; some different arms would be nice, but this figure is as basic as Japanese wrestling figures get.
POTENTIAL PROBLEMS
The only problem you are going to encounter with these figures is plastic discolouration, which can happen depending on how the figure has been looked after; even MOSC samples can have problems if left out in the sun in a shop display. So, be very careful when buying any of these types of figures.
PRICE
I paid 1300 YEN using a bidding service to get one for myself and a heap of other figures, so it worked out to be pretty cheap. There are a few Japanese websites that sell this type of wrestling figures and there are also a couple of great stores in Tokyo, too!
OVERALL
This is a great figure if you know what to expect from it: It’s going to look amazing, but it will have very limited articulation, and you are pretty much buying a realistic statue. There are also a few variants of Yuji Nagata, so it can be fun chasing down the other ones if you are a big fan of the wrestler. It’s a bit of a niche market for Westerners, but they are still fun to collect!
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