I already used up the joke about the unhelmeted figures having other massive improvements in my Unhelmeted Kat review over the weekend, so suffice it to say, Jun is exactly as you remember him–but with a new head. Of all six members of Noble Squad, Jun is the only one I really connected with and formed a real attachment to in the Halo Reach video game. While the other squad members struck me as the stoic, mostly silent types, Jun was the talkative near-comic relief member of the group. I love the refreshing irony of the fact that the squad’s sniper, who’s traditionally portrayed as the team member most obsessed with being silently covert, is actually the chatty member of the group. I was psyched when Jun left Reach in the game, as I relieved and happy to know he’d be the only surviving Spartan of Noble Squad. Jun is the last member of Noble Squad to die, and the last to be released with an unhelmeted head. As luck would have it, he’s also easily my favorite figure of the bunch…

The Right:

The big innovation here is the head, so let’s talk about it first. Jun has an extremely game-accurate head sculpt, and sports the traditional military shaved head look. Jun was almost certainly the hardest member of Noble Squad for McFarlane Toys to paint the unhelmeted head of, due to the huge and highly-detailed tattoo on his face of a fist holding arrows (which is apparently the Bungie Coat of Arms).The scuffs on Jun’s face are well-done, and I thought the paint department did a fantastic job with the quality of the work on Jun’s facial tattoo.

Paintwise, this Jun is almost exactly the same as the original (except for the head, obviously). This time out the “caution” stripes on Jun’s feet are in duller collars and there are a few more details on the armor around his butt, but otherwise he’s painted identically. If you stuck a needle rifle to my chest and demanded I tell you which Jun had the better paintwork, I guess I would go with this Series 6 one. The paint is really terrific on either Jun, however.

Jun comes with the same two accessories as the original Series 3 Jun did. Although I faulted Kat for the same reason, this release falls into “The Right” for two reasons: 1) One of those two accessories is the huge frickin’ sniper rifle, which is a rare and coveted weapon release in the Reach Line; and 2) There’s legitimately nothing else that would have logically come with Jun, as he never even wields a knife in the video game. In addition, Jun’s sniper rifle has a darker grey paint used on it that makes the rifle look much more realistic, and I really appreciate the improvement to its deco. I could do without the frag grenade, but I’ll lose it into a black hole with all the other ones in a few days, so I don’t care all that much.

Not surprisingly, Jun has the same articulation (and body for that matter) as the original Jun. Unhelmeted Jun features 28 points of articulation including a ball-jointed head, double-jointed ball-joint shoulders, double-jointed ball-joint elbows, double-jointed wrists, swivel hips, ball-jointed thighs, ball-jointed upper-torso, double-jointed ball-jointed knees, double-jointed ball-jointed ankles, and swivel feet. The $11.99 MSRP is a really sweet deal for such a well-articulated 6″ figure that you can get into such a huge array of poses.

I also wanted to mention how much I love the backpack and shoulder armor pieces (sheathed knife and artillery clip) that Jun comes outfitted with. The pieces look sensational and excellently differentiate Jun from all of his fellow Spartans. I also appreciate that Jun is one of the few Spartans sporting the cool dark-bronze colored visor on his helmet. Of the members of Noble Squad, Jun is easily the one that I think has the coolest set of armor (Sorry, Emile).

The Wrong:

I never reviewed the Series 3 Jun–I just stuck the Sniper Rifle in his hands and put him on display. So while I was examining this Unhelmeted Jun, I was really surprised to discover that you can’t peg his sniper rifle onto his back. Jun’s backpack gets in the way just enough that the cumbersome sniper rifle pushes against it and can’t properly insert into the peg on Jun’s back. I tried moving it around every which way for about 5 minutes before I gave up on this. I’m pretty baffled by the way this is designed, and I think it’s pretty lame that Jun can never put his Sniper Rifle away. If anyone has a way of getting this to work without removing the backpack, leave me a comment. I’m really curious.

Also, this isn’t a complaint about the figure itself, but rather its distribution–I don’t know about anybody else, but the original (and more desirable) Jun warmed the shit out of the shelves at my local stores. He’s mostly gone now–mostly–but it took close to a year for that to happen. So for McFarlane Toys to be shipping the Unhelmeted Jun at two-per-case in Series 6, well… let’s just say, I don’t think this is going to end well. There’s already a blight of Unhelmeted Carter and Jorge figures near me, so I really hope that Jun isn’t going to be the same level of pegwarmer. That can’t be healthy for McFarlane Toys’ Halo brand.

“Where Can I Buy It?!”

Unhelmeted Jun is part of the Halo Reach Series 6 case assortment shipping to all retailers, and is packed at two-per-case. So far I’ve only spotted the wave at Toys R Us, though I expect Target and Wal-Mart to carry it as well.

As far as online options go:

As usual, the first place Halo Reach Series 6 hit online is ebay, where you may be able to get a good deal.You can check out the current listings for the Unhelmeted Jun directly on ebay by clicking here!

Amazon has the Unhelmeted Jun from a variety of sellers at right around retail price, some of which offering free shipping. You can click here to check out the current Amazon specifics.

BigBadToyStore has the Unhelmeted Jun available at the regular retail price of just $11.99, and they also have a TON of other Halo Reach Series 6 items available at the best prices of any online store.

Overall: Jun is my favorite Noble Squad Spartan, and the only one that I was really anticipated the unhelmeted version of. McFarlane Toys didn’t let me down, as I feel that the head that they sculpted for Jun is ideal, and the paint deco on it is just as perfect. There are some ever-so-minor paint improvements on the body as well, although absolutely nothing groundbreaking. The sniper rifle is more realistically painted now, although it still can’t be stored on Jun’s back due to the backpack getting in the way. McFarlane Toys didn’t reinvent the wheel here–this is still the same figure that was released almost a full year ago with some minor tweaks, but the improvements to the figure are good enough that I’m more than satisfied I got my ~$12 worth. If you’re the kind of Halo fan who’s hardcore enough to care about unhelmeted variants of Spartans like Jun, you’re going to love this figure, and it’s whole-heartedly recommended.