Kingdom Hearts is receiving a retrospective showcase at D23 2026, Disney's massive celebration for all the magic it's had its hand in creating, and I'm very excited. I've been obsessed with the series ever since a friend at school whispered to me in maths class a whole 22 years ago, "Hey, you know there's a game that crosses over Disney and Final Fantasy into one, right?"
That blew my mind as an obsessive fan of both, and ever since, I've longed to bask in as much Kingdom Hearts-ness as I can get my hands on. Yet, out of all the games and best toys that have alluded me the most, it's Bandai's Proplica Key Blade Kingdom Chain that I covet every single day. Like the rest of the Proplica line, it was a replica of Sora's iconic weapon that launched in April 2018 for 20,350 yen (roughly $127.80), and it not only looked like the real thing, but it lit up and even projected a key hole on the wall, so you could pretend you were sealing your own Disney world. It doesn't get much better than that.
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Bandai went the extra mile by equipping their Proplica Keyblade with three modes: attack mode, magic mode, and key mode. Attack mode made the replica emit sounds from the game, so you could swipe at the open air and pretend you're Sora, hacking and slashing your way through hordes of Heartless.
According to Bandai's official blog post shared on April 26, 2018, holding down a button on the blade would result in a flow of sounds, or pressing it continuously would allow them to emit randomly. I'm not sure if, like the brand's Proplica Master Sword that I do have in my collection, the sounds correlated to your every movement, but if they were to give this a re-release, that'd be a neat upgrade to have from the get-go.
Besides attack mode, you had my favorite mode of all, magic mode, which is one of the key reasons (excuse the pun) why I covet this toy. With this mode, pressing and holding the button hidden within the blade's hilt would allow you to cycle through spells from the game, including Fire, Blizzard, and what the English-text version of the site calls sander, aqua, cial, and gravide. I can only assume that they're referring to Sora's Thunder, Cure, Aero, and Gravity magic. For the spells, the base of the blade glows the corresponding color, eg red for fire, blue for blizzard, and plays their in-game sound effect simultaneously. It's an incredible feature judging from the Bandai Tamashii Nations Proplica Keyblade YouTube video I was able to find online, which I only wish I could witness in person.
Key mode is likely the one other fans will fawned over at the time. As I mentioned above, it projected a keyhole on any wall or surface. That's not the best part, as holding the button will project it and play the sound effect that emits in the original game whenever Sora seals a Disney world. I'm a full-grown 35-year-old adult, but I can entirely foresee myself welling up with tears if I were to get this toy and witness this in person.
In fact, the entire thing would likely result in me becoming a teary mess, as I adore Kingdom Hearts and have dreamed of owning this piece of toy history. At the moment, my Proplica collection consists of Sheryl Nome's microphone from Macross Frontier, and the Master Sword, but it's the Proplica Keyblade that I've been yearning to own the most. The only problem is that it's long out of stock, is no longer being manufactured anymore, and can reach close to (and even over) $1K on eBay, and other second-hand websites. I don't have a thousand Munny to drop on a piece of merch alone, so instead I dream for a re-release that I can pre-order to prevent giving resellers the time of day.
If you thought you did see a re-release of this toy last year, you aren't entirely wrong. Bandai released a smaller, 20-inch Key Blade, which was available to pre-order for $146.99 at BigBadToyStore and comes with its own set of lighting and sound effects. While smaller than the older release, this version's Magic Mode emits lighting at the end of the key and has a Music Mode, which felt sorely missing from the older version.
The Music Mode allows the prop to play the iconic Dearly Beloved track, along with the 'Sora' song from the game series, which is pretty neat. I've known about this version for a while, but as much as I long for an official Key Blade replica, I ignored pre-orders simply for the fact that I wanted one that felt more true to size. Really, I should have just gone for it, as this is likely to become another Kingdom Hearts collectible destined as reseller fodder on eBay, but it just wasn't what I was looking for.
I have a dream of displaying my Proplica Master Sword alongside a realistically sized Keyblade crossed over one another on the wall, and something smaller just won't do the job. It's a silly nitpick, but here's hoping that if they can release another one, and Square Enix can release a replica of Kingdom Hearts Donald Duck's Mage Staff for $62.13 at Aitai Kuji, they can give the original another go. With D23 2026 incoming and Kingdom Hearts 4 on the horizon, who knows what the future holds.
- View all Kingdom Hearts merch at Amazon
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