Pop! Vinyl (Fairy Tail): Natsu and Lucy by Funko

It’s hard to believe that I haven’t looked any Funko Pop!s since the very beginning of the year. Especially considering how many of these damn things I have stacked around the place. I swear, they multiply like Tribbles or Gremlins or some other fictional critter that breeds out of control. Anyway, I thought I should check some more of these things out before the end of the year, and what better occasion to look at some Fairy Tail Pop!s than on a lazy Anime Saturday! It’s also a convenient excuse to look at something pretty quickly because I’m heading off to the Medieval Fair today!

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If you’ve seen one boxed Pop! than you’ve more or less seen them all. Natsu and Lucy hail from the Pop! Animation line, one of the approximately two billion categories of these adorable little plastic figures. Indeed, I would not be surprised to learn they have an entire line of Hungarian Cabinet Maker Pop!s. While a lot of my Pop! buying comes from impulse buys, I actually sought these two out, because Fairy Tail is awesome and sadly there just ain’t a lot of merchandising around these characters. Let’s start with Natsu

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Natsu Dragneel is immediately recognizable to me thanks to his hot pink spiked hair and his somewhat iconic outfit, which has been faithfully recreated on his tiny little body, from his white checker-patterned scarf and little belt buckle to his sandals. He even has a ball of Fire Dragon Slayer Magic boiling in his right hand. The paint on this one is fair by Funko Pop! standards. To be honest, every time I buy one of these, it’s like rolling dice. I’ve had ones with near perfect paint and others where they look like they were painted by blind hamsters. Here, the orange striping on the outfit is pretty good, but there’s some rubbing on the brown sandal straps. On the downside, this one is a bitch to keep standing. I actually had to put a spot of tape on his foot to keep him from falling over for these snaps. Considering Natsu has a problem with motion sickness, we’ll just call this an action feature. Moving on to Lucy…

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Lucy Heartfilia isn’t quite as instantly recognizable to me, but in fairness she changes up her outfit in the series quite frequently and her Pop! form loses some of her womanly features. Here, the best details to identify her with are her whip, coiled on her belt and complete with the little heart finial at the end, and the keys on her belt that she uses for her Celestial Spirit Magic. She also has one of the keys in her left hand and her Fairy Tail Guild stamp on the back of her right hand. Knowing who she is brings the head into a more recognizable light, but this is one Pop! where you really need to know the character pretty well to recognize her outside of her box. Like Natsu, the paint on this one has its highs and lows. There’s some chipping on her boots and her right bracelet, but otherwise nothing too bad. I actually really dig the colors on her. The bright yellow, blue, and white look great together. Ironically, Lucy comes with a stand to keep her upright. Natsu could have used one of these.

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So, Fairy Tail Pop!s are a thing and now I do indeed have a pair of them on my shelf. There are three figures in this little series, with the third being Happy. I haven’t picked him up yet, but I probably will at some point just to complete the set. I doubt I’d review him alone, so if I do wind up getting him, I’ll just tack him on here in an Edit. As for Lucy and Natsu, these are actually a decent pair of Pop!s and I’m glad I picked them up, but they don’t quite scratch my itch for owning some actual figures or statues from the Fairy Tail anime. Nonetheless, I guess they’ll have to do for now.