Charaction Cubes: your fave characters, with multiple twists
Well, it’s a great way to discover ‘new dimensions’ in characters you know and love…
Go on then, what’s a Charaction Cube?
Charaction Cubes are 3D puzzles by Rubik’s Japan that look like mini collectible figures. ‘Charaction’ comes from shoving the words ‘character’ and ‘action’ together.
But whisper it – Charaction Cubes aren’t cube-shaped. At all. They have massive round heads, teardrop-shaped arms, and no proper legs or feet. Look:
They’re heavily based on the Rubik’s Cube, true. And sold in Japan by the same company. But that’s where the similarity ends. No pointy corners or square stickers on these.
Twistier than most toys, from head to toe
These look so much like figures, there’s no real need to mess them up. You could collect them all, pop them on a shelf, and leave them there. But let’s assume messing them up’s what you wanna do.
You’ve got 7 moveable parts to play around with. Even the head splits into 3 different bits, which is kinda creepy at first. Flip, twist and turn at 90-degree or 180-degree angles all day.
We heard they’re designed to be fairly simple. Don’t worry about boredom, though – if you want a challenge, we think you’re gonna get one. Moving the pieces around gets kinda confusing. We’ve watched this video about 20 times, and we’re still not totally sure what happened.
Ah, they make it look so simple… if you already know your way around rotating puzzles.
And we’ve found the step-by-step instructions – with pics! – showing how to twist a Charaction Cube around. Not much Japanese to translate, which is a relief. But in any language, these diagrams need some interpreting. Which way up’s it meant to be again?
So yeah, these are cute toys, but that doesn’t make them super easy to solve.
Only the best characters become cubes, y’know
You can tell Charaction Cubes are gonna be a big deal. Just look who they’ve picked to start.
Sanrio’s repped by Hello Kitty and Gudetama. Spot them next to famous faces from the biggest hit anime shows: Naruto, One Piece, Dragonball Super, Gundam, and Gegege no Kitaro.
That’s an all-star team. And maybe also the ‘top 10 characters people want to twist into weird shapes’.
The final ‘character’ is Bone Black, with a skeleton design and a Charaction Cube logo face. Hey, maybe moving bones around is a bit like stress ball therapy. None of us are trained chiropractors or massage therapists.
Every design looks great, especially the faces. And at nearly 2,000 yen each, you’d expect the finishes and quality to be decent. Almost makes you feel bad for messing around with them. Almost…
The ones with funky hair look harder to twist, but they’re not really. Spikes on characters like Goku and Luffy are fixed to the front of the head, the bit that doesn’t split. They’re not gonna snap off by accident.
Solve that ‘how do I buy stuff from Japan?’ puzzle
The 1st wave of Charaction Cubes launches late September 2018 – so they’re on pre-order now.
Here’s the full list of the original 11, so you can see who’s popular and/or still in stock:
- Hello Kitty
- Gudetama
- Son Goku
- Frieza (final form)
- Naruto
- Monkey D. Luffy
- Tony-Tony Chopper
- Kitaro
- RX-78-2 Gundam
- MS-06 Zaku II
- Bone Black
Drop by the DEJAPAN website from time to time to find new Charaction Cube designs.
