Toybox REVIEW: Star Wars Black Series Kit Fisto

Release Date: July 2020

RRP: $19.99/£19.99

The Star Wars Black Series has been showing a great deal of prequels love in recent waves, so it's about time that Hasbro filled out the ranks of the Jedi Council a little bit more. Joining Plo Koon in one of the most recent wave of releases is the Nautolan Jedi Master Kit Fisto, who appeared during the Battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones before being struck down by Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith. Fisto also appeared in both the 2d animated and CGI Clone Wars series, with both depictions helping making him a firm fan favourite.

Kit Fisto’s wave is the last hurrah for the rectangular black and red boxes that have graced the Black Series for the past few years, and given that this packaging style has lasted the longest out of them all so far change was probably long overdue. Kit Fisto is the 112th and final numbered figure in the assortment, and that number doesn’t factor in any sort of exclusives either so if you’re a line completist that’s an awful lot of figures. The front of the box features some nice art of the Nautolan Jedi, which as usual is also printed on the back along with a short character bio. Inside the figure and his sole accessory are stored on a moulded plastic tray. While I’m likely to go back and review older figures in the Black Series that I previously missed out on, this will be the last new figure I review that features this packaging type. It’s almost enough to make you feel a little emotional.

Despite being a brand new character for the line, Kit Fisto is in fact another easy repurpose for the Black Series - with the head and hands being the only new pieces involved. The body is a recolour of the prequel Obi-Wan Kenobi figures, the Attack of the Clones version appearing in this very same wave. It's a very passable likeness, but not 100% accurate as the collar isn't quite right. The hands and head sculpt are both of extremely high quality though, really capturing Fisto's Nautolan features with the pea green plastic and blue/brown detailing. The care gone into the tendrils is very impressive, sprouting from Fisto's head and draping all the way down his back. It's worth noting that there seem to be two paint variations of Kit Fisto on the market, one of which lacks a lot of the brown wash/detailing on the face. While the Black Series tends not to give their head sculpts anything other than a neutral expression, Kit Fisto is one character that could have really benefitted from a massive grin. His most iconic moment in the films involves him grinning like a loon, and even in The Clone Wars he's generally seen as being more upbeat than your average Jedi. Sure he's seen with a neutral expression in the film (and the sculpt was likely based off these scenes), but personally I find the mask looks kinda terrifying with such an expression and it really doesn't convey his character at all. What Hasbro have done here certainly isn't bad and doesn't ruin the figure in any way, but what would have been a little change would give it so much more character.

Articulation on the figure is generally very good, but as you can probably tell just from looking at it head movement is almost entirely nullified by the tendrils hanging from the back and over the shoulder. There's a ball joint connection so you can get a little wiggle, but it's not really enough to put his head in any other pose than facing forwards. Body articulation includes swivel hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips and ankles along with butterfly shoulders, double hinged knees and ball jointed waist. Unfortunately the joint cuts don't do wonders for the sculpting of his robes, but as far as movement go it's about as good as it can get. It's nice that the left hand was moulded in a force move pose instead of just another gripping hand too, as it means you can get some good Jedi mind trick/force push poses out of him in addition to traditional lightsaber wielding. 

Keeping things extremely simple, Kit Fisto's only accessory is his lightsaber, which has a removable green blade. As was the case with Plo Koon, the hilt is a reuse of one that was previously included with General Grievous. But whereas Plo Koon's was the correct hilt but with slightly wrong colours, Kit Fisto's is completely wrong. The lack of attention to detail would be disappointing enough on its own, but what makes it even worse is that Hasbro already have sculpted his lightsaber hilt in the past - and that also came with Grievous. The paint job is slightly wrong, but it's unmistakably the same design. So not only did Hasbro give Kit Fisto the wrong lightsaber hilt, but they gave him one from a figure that already had the correct one. While this figure might be a heavy parts reuse for the most part, such sloppiness when they already had the correct parts from exactly the same figure is pretty ridiculous. If it really bothers you that much than you can obviously swap it out with Grievous', but then Grievous will have two identical lightsaber hilts (less of an issue, but it still might bother some). While the blade can be removed, the hilt cannot be attached to the figure despite the socket on the belt. A little disappointing, but not all that surprising since the hilt was never moulded with the intention of plugging into anything. It's a shame because for such a solid figure otherwise, Hasbro really dropped the ball on one simple accessory.

Although someone at Hasbro needs to have a serious conversation about lightsaber accuracy, Black Series Kit Fisto is a really great figure if you can look past some of the minor inaccuracies. There's no getting around how ridiculous the lightsaber issue is, but the reused body is still a pretty great approximation and the newly sculpted parts really help sell this as a "new" figure. While Hasbro tried to aim high with Plo Koon and ended up missing the mark somewhat, they kept things pretty simple with Kit Fisto and the end result is a much more enjoyable figure overall. The Black Series is moving into a new chapter so it's not surprising that the last wave of this assortment featured a lot of repurposed parts, but for the most part this is a good example of what you can do with recycling to get a beloved character out there who might not have had a figure otherwise.