I received my Evolve series 2 figures from Amazon yesterday (8/19/20) and I have to say: I love them. I'm going to write a detailed review of all three new figures.
First of all, these figures actually scale with one another as well as the SSB Goku from series 1 (and I guess SSB Vegeta from series 1 if you can get over the fact he is too tall). SS Broly from series 1 is never going to scale well with 5 inch figures; he scales decently with Shodo or the old Hybrid figures though.
Let me talk about the quality of this set first, because this will be the most negative part of the review. I broke Golden Frieza's neck peg the first time I turned his head, which was really disappointing. I believe the gold metallic paint made it stick, and I've had difficulty getting it to glue properly. Epoxy wouldn't hold it, and super glue isn't doing a great job either. They shouldn't have painted the inside of his head gold nor the ball on the neck peg, because I believe the paint caused this issue. Furthermore, my UI Goku's head seemed to be sticking as well due to the silver paint (on an unpainted neck peg), so instead of trying to turn it, I heated up some water in the microwave and left him in the water for a minute. Then I pulled the head off and put some Vaseline (petroleum jelly) on the neck peg to make sure the head would not stick. Additionally, there was a small amount of casting flash on the left arm peg and left leg peg of UI Goku preventing the upper arm and upper leg from fully inserting. I trimmed that off with an X-acto knife and the problem was fixed. I would suspect Bandai will fix these issues later on, as the issues will surely receive complaints (and I will let them know about these issues). If I cannot keep Frieza's head from breaking off, I am going to have to request to return it to Amazon and have them send another. My complaint about UI Goku is minor for the price of these figures, but the issue with Golden Frieza sucks.
Series 1 did not have quality issues like this. The main quality issue with series 1 I know of is some (if not all) of the early SSB Gokus have hip joints that won't swing forward whatsoever. Perhaps the later releases of SSB Goku have this issue remedied (please let me know in the comments below), but even boiling and gently prying the joints with a small screwdriver isn't enough to get the hip joints on my SSB Goku to work.
Moving on...
These figures are overall excellent for the price and make me incredibly happy. Not only are these characters we have never seen before in 5 inch scale, but they scale beautifully with old Irwin and Jakks DBZ figures. Most people know I don't care very much about playing with figures or posing them, but these are heavily articulated and really cool. They are tricky to pose in a photogenic way standing straight up because their articulation (particularly the shoulders) have to be carefully positioned to not have gaps. But these are truly excellent and I highly recommend them.
Golden Frieza
Beyond the issue with his neck peg (described above), the Golden Frieza is awesome. The sculpt of his face is perhaps a little too similar to Frieza's 4th form, but it's still very good. The paint colors they used look nearly identical to the SH Figuarts Golden Frieza, except his face is painted metallic purple. The only missing painted details are on his hands and feet which I believe deserve some shading by collectors who like to improve their figures. Mine seems to have a slightly longer right leg than left, but it's probably due to some part of the articulation being 0.5 mm too long and not inserting completely. I would say this is an EXCELLENT addition to a 5 inch scale collection and a very worthy alternative to the MUCH more expensive SH Figuarts Golden Frieza. The SHF Golden Frieza is far better than the Evolve one, but at 5 times (or more) the price, it isn't THAT much better. The Evolve GF lacks an upper arm swivel, which all other Evolve figures (so far) have. However, he has slightly different shoulder articulation than any of the 5 other figures, and so he is still able to rotate his arms in a different way.
This is a minor complaint, but I do not like how far forward Evolve's Golden Frieza's neck sticks out. I have his head tilting upward as much as possible right now in the photo and his ab crunch tilting very far back to give him an upright appearance. It looks pretty good like this, but it's not a very natural position for the figure to be in.
The tail on the Evolve GF is excellent! It does not affect his ability to stand nearly as much as the tail on the other two Friezas in this picture. They did a really good job on this and the tail's extra articulation has a very natural look to it when rotated which is VERY uncommon with tails. I can't think of any Frieza I own that has a better tail than this Evolve one.
Ultra Instinct Goku
The UI Goku is incredible. The way they sculpted him looks perfect. It's like they looked at the SSB Goku and decided to fix every single thing that made him a little bit awkward. UI Goku's neck is longer, his upper arms connect more naturally to his shoulders, the additional articulation in his shoulders actually works really well (similar to how much better SSB Vegeta's shoulders work compared to SSB Goku's shoulders), he is MUCH more flexible in the lower abdominal area, his upper legs connect to his hips more naturally, he can kick forward with both legs without restriction, and his legs pose better (less awkwardly than SSB Goku's) enabling him to stand up straighter without looking awkward. His only flaw is something that customizers will want to fix: the details are missing on his boots. And (like I said above) mine had a head sticking to the neck and the pegs on his left arm and left leg had some casting flash on them I trimmed off because the flash was preventing the upper arm and leg from inserting 100%. He scales extremely well with SSB Goku and my Jakks SS Goku.
As you can see, they did not directly reuse the arms from SSB Goku. The upper arms look similar but appear to be resculpted, and the forearms are much more muscular (so definitely resculpted). His neck is a more proper length and looks better than SSB Goku's. The hands are interchangeable between SSB Goku and UI Goku, so you can swap them easily.
His hair is amazing and perfect. I love this figure. The legs are similar to SSB Goku's but resculpted and better.
The UI Goku looks amazing. He's a 10/10 for sure.
The two Gokus can swap parts quite easily. The color of orange does not match 100% between them, but I don't think it was supposed to. Bandai pays a lot of attention to clothing color changes (due to transformation states of characters) and UI Goku has an awesome hint of a lavender (purple) tint to everything.
The only thing that does not swap well without customization is the head. The UI Goku has a longer, much improved neck. I don't know if making the peg larger was necessary, but it does make head swapping without customization impossible. You'll see here that I have Vaseline on UI Goku's neck peg to prevent it from sticking to the head's metallic paint in the neck joint.
With some work, UI Goku's head would look good as SS God Goku if you resculpt the hair a little bit. You'll have to sculpt the neck longer and peg larger though too.
Final Battle Jiren
Let me just say this... I don't see a single flaw with Jiren. He's the right size, mine didn't come with any articulation or assembly problems whatsoever, and I think he looks excellent! Here he is compared to the unlicensed Jiren I bought from Argentina and the Evolve SS Broly. Jiren is clearly a retooled (resculpted) Broly and they did a fantastic job.
I'm surprised he scales so well with my low quality Argentina bootleg Jiren. The Evolve figure is gorgeous.
Do you see a flaw? I don't. They managed to improve the way his arms join his torso compared to SS Broly. The way they did this is identical to SS Broly, however they did a much better job this time, preventing large gaps.
Jiren is clearly a retooled Broly. Is that a problem or complaint? Absolutely not! He is perfect and an improvement over Broly. His torso is entirely new, his arms are retooled Broly arms, and his legs are definitely based on Broly's as well, but resculpted.
You can see in this photo that the shoulders are quite similar, the upper arms are retooled Broly arms (less muscular and with a much shorter elbow), the forearms are similar but retooled, and the hands are either identical or very slightly smaller.
On this side, you can see that the upper arms are definitely not identical (for those of you who are skeptical and can't see the differences easily in the previous picture) because Broly's scar is not present.
Overall, these figures are incredible for 5 inch scale collectors and I highly recommend them. They are only $10 and are awesome. Just don't let a baby play with Evolve figures, because they are a major choking hazard. The pieces come apart without much effort.
