Bigite certainly looks the part of a menacing, bipedal Coelacanth. Although his colors are a bit pastel for my tastes, I think it's pretty accurate to the original toy. The line work is done pretty well - the scale detail towards the head is a nice touch. I like his proportions much more than Unique Toys Alberich and I love the use of transparent plastic for his fins and eyes and toes, but I wish the hinges were regular plastic. My only complaint is that a large gap is visible behind his jaw.
He can open his lower jaw very wide. His canines are on hinges. His arms are on ball joints, with hinges at the knuckles and elbows. His legs are on ratcheted swivels, with double jointed knees and toe tilts. There are three ball joints in his tail and a swivel for the tail fin, providing a ridiculous amount of articulation. Every beast mode tail and neck should have this design.
After a simple transformation, you get a large double barrel rifle. Although I have no biases against parts-forming, I do find it aggravating when pieces don't fit together well. The port on the connector piece seems a bit too small for the rifle peg. I found it easier to shove (really hard) the single rifle into the connector piece before squeezing the connector piece between his head and attaching the other rifle. In the end, I still couldn't get the barrel to point straight and level. Make sure the tab for the handle piece is towards the rear of the gun. It's not the prettiest looking rifle, but it serves its purpose. I doubt I will be using him in this mode.
Transformation to robot mode is simple and straightforward. There is no parts-forming if you skip rifle mode. Instead of simply standing him upright on his rear beast legs, the head becomes his robot legs. I worry about the folding panel in front of his neck. Stress marks are already forming on the hinge. The head panel doesn't lock into place so the weight of the tail backpack causes it to detach sometimes. The tail is removable.
Robot mode is suitably chunky. The line work translates very well to this mode. He has a well-designed head sculpt. The yellow light-piping for his eyes works very well. He's only slightly shorter than the TFC Hades figures and other Voyager class figures.
His head is on a ball joint. His shoulders are on hinges with ratcheted swivels. He has double-jointed elbows and single-jointed knees. There are ratchets in his knees. He swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs. He has fixed hands with 5mm ports. His thighs are on ratcheted universal joints. His feet and heel spurs are on ball joints.
His accessories include two rifles, two swords, a combiner hand, and some connector pieces. The rifles are blue and gray with some silver highlights. They are not symmetrical and can peg together. The grey parts can flip out to give the rifles longer barrels. The 5mm connector pegs allow for storage in beast mode, but they don't stay very well. They do fit his fists well. The swords also have some silver highlights. They are identical. He holds them fine in his fists, but I don't think there is storage in beast mode. The combiner hand has no paint detail. It comes as a right hand. The fingers are hinged at the fist and second knuckles and articulate individually. The connector pieces are used for weapon mode. The handle piece fits securely in the port of the combiner hand.
If I don't display the complete set as Piranacon, I would probably enjoy them on my CHUG shelf in beast modes. Despite a couple of faults, there is much to like about this figure. I look forward to completing the set.
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