Di:Stage Review

Ive been pretty sceptical when Max Factory announced the Di:stage system since Ive had my fair doubts about it considering its usefulness and price.I nevertheless ordered 6 pieces of them when they were released and finally got around doing an review of them.Check it out after the Jump!

Di:stage is basically an action stage thats concepted for use with figmas,but it basically works with any small scale action figure.The basic set consist of one poseable arm for figures, 3 arms for speech bubbles/sound effects + addons,4 plastic pins,a vertical base connector,a horizontal base connector, four frame pieces and of course the stage itself.Theres also an di:stage extension set avaiable for further enhancement wich I didnt purchase.Both come at a price point of about 550 Yen which seems like a cheap price but youll have to keep in mind that youll need several sets to really use the advantages of the di:stage line.Like Ive mentioned before Ive ordered 6 di: stage basic sets and even those are far from enough to make any sophisticated stages.Lets say you want to make a very simple,straightforward stage where 2 figures are simply fighting each other…Youll need to buy 2 stages simply because you need 2 arms to pose your figures with…

I didnt find that idea too great and tried out the arm that figma figures come with and SHAZAM! they do work with di:stage but offer a smaller range of movement than their big brother.Id prefer to use one of those anytime over buying a second stage simply for another arm though.One thing I noticed while playing around with the di:stages is that a more than one figure per stage ratio isnt really looking good since it looks far too crowded.This means youll probably end up buying 2 stages even though you have an extra arm from your figma…

You probably already guessed where Im heading here but Max Factories di:stage system is quite an expensive product in the long run since youll have to buy several pieces of it to get any satisfying results.

Ill give another example to show how many di:stages you actually need for a very simple setup.Max Factory is offering some templates for use with their di:stage for download on the figma homepage.I thought that the release of the system would soon spawn many fan templates but sadly there havent been any noteable releases yet.I wish that the figma homepage would atleast offer some blank templates to make your own custom templates but nada.Lets say youll use the classic japanese home template for your di:stage.Youll need 2 stages for the floor and 2 for the walls.Thats already a whopping 2200 for a diorama that 2 figures can use.Lets assume youre doing a classroom diorama and its already adding up to 8 stages…

Theres the option to use thicker paper so that the walls stand up by themselves but I couldnt get this to work.The paper youre using for the templates has to be rather thin or otherwise it wont fit into the designated slits of the di stage frames.Another annoying thing I noticed about the templates is that Max Factory made them a tad too small and the dotted line that idicates where to fold the paper is actually visible on the floor.It could be that they fixed this issue with their 2 newer releases but the older templates have this flaw.

I know that this review has been rather negative so far but the distage has its merits aswell.The stage allows some kickass poses with your action figures that would be rather hard to pull of without it.The poseable arm has a adjustable claw thatll snuck nicely around the usual suspects like petit nendoroids,figmas,Revoltechs,Fräulein Revoltechs and probably Yamatos Figutto line.

In the end I can only say that I am still skeptical when it comes to the Di:Stage System.It simply isnt offering value for money in my opinion since youll need quite a few sets of it and those 550 yen do add up quite fast.Im pretty sure that therell be further addons to the di:stage line but right now I wont spend more cash on this.Right now Max Factory is offering some sort of cabinet set that well keep your action figures behind plastic besides the basic and extension set .I prefer my figures readily avaible to play around with but im sure some might find this interesting.