If there’s anything we’ve learned from trying to split one of Nintendo’s amiibo in half, it’s that they’re damn tough. This was supposed to be a simple assignment - cut an amiibo in half, and document the results for the world.

We've since learned the hard way that Nintendo's line of interactive figures are made of near-impossible to cut polystyrene mixtures, unless you’ve got a hacksaw, some pliers and a lot of willpower.

Lucky for us, we had all of the above:

After securing Kirby in some pliers, we hacked through the middle of his body, just in front of the arms to avoid overly tricky thickness. His insides more clearly show the joints holding his 7 parts together: his two feet, two arms, bottom, front and back.

Kirby has some interesting shaping on his insides - though he’s curved on the outside, his insides are largely flat and angular. The bottom was the hardest part to cut through, since he’s a pretty bottom-heavy amiibo, and this is where most of his parts join together.

Most of Kirby’s joints are notably shiny, due to the strong adhesive holding them together. Theoretically, you could pry these parts apart individually with some controlled heat to melt that adhesive, a flathead screwdriver and a lot of patience.

The base itself is the easiest thing to open, by putting a neat cut on the side and digging between the two parts with a screwdriver until they snap apart. Pulling the gold and black base parts apart reveals the silver NFC chip - the life of an amiibo.

So, with Kirby in half, his base disassembled and the NFC chip (which comes glued to the black part of the base) ripped off, does he still work?

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Tapping Kirby’s NFC chip, by itself, onto the Wii U GamePad controller’s NFC reader, still successfully unlocks the Kirby Mii racing suit in Mario Kart 8

Meaning, even after brutally sawing Kirby in half, then cutting him from his base and breaking that base in two, Kirby is still fully functional in terms of read-compatibility with Wii U software.

Of course, cutting your Kirby’s face off isn’t recommended, even if he does function perfectly fine without it. If you’d like to try modifying one of your own amiibo, you might want to check out our amiibo Rarity Guide for details on which characters are more expendable than others.

Alanah Pearce is a toys and culture editor that would never cut an amiibo in half, unless her editor made her. You can find her on Twitter at @Charalanahzard.