Aug 4 2016

Transformers Unite Warriors: Combaticons (UW-07) Box Set by Takara, Part 3: Swindle and Brawl

Folks, it’s been a loooong and thankless week at work. I’m exhausted, and I almost didn’t have it in me today, but the show must go on, and so here we are with another Transformers Thursday Feature. I also just spent a shit ton of money on new sneakers for my car and no small sum at the bar around the corner while I was waiting for the work to be done. I am quite tired, fed up, and most definitely inebriated. I picked up the car and literally screamed at the new tires, “I HATE YOU, YOU’RE MONEY I COULD HAVE SPENT ON TOYS!” Anywho…. today, I’m continuing my leisurely (now going on three weeks!) stroll through Takara’s big imported box of Combaticon goodness. So far, I’ve checked out Onslaught, Blast Off, and Vortex. Today I’m finishing up the individual bots with a look at the Deluxe figures that will form my Bruticus’ legs: Swindle and Brawl. What’s that? You can make them into arms too? UNACCEPTABLE!!! Once again, I’m looking at the alt modes first, so let’s jump right in and start with one of my favorite Decepticons of all time… Swindle!

Oh, Swindle, what have they done to you? G1 Swindle was originally a yellow and purple military jeep and now he’s ahhhhh… well, I guess a modern yellow and purple military sort of jeep looking thingy? With no place to sit? Yeah, there’s a little half sculpted blob in there that’s supposed to be a steering wheel, but I have to be honest here, this alt mode is a goddamn ugly mess. Some of you may remember me looking at Warbotron’s version of Swindle a while back and being content with them making him into a Humvee. Granted, that was an $80 Third-Party Voyager scaled figure, but I still think a Humvee might have worked better here. How could it have been worse?

In fairness, there’s a decent amount of sculpted detail here. You get shock absorbers inside the wheel well, pouches along the sides, and some vents and panel lines. Swindle gets by with minimal paint apps in this mode. His roll bars are painted silver, as are the wheels, and the conspicuous robot hands inside what would be the cabin. You also get some rather striking purple paint showing on the hood and the tailgate.

Swindle comes with a gun that can be mounted on his rear section, either left or right. You can also mount his combiner hand/foot on his roof to make a formidable double barreled cannon. Normally, I’m not a fan of using these pieces with the alt modes, but it worked alright for Vortex, and I think it works fine here. I mean, Swindle’s alt mode is already f’ugly enough, might as well stick a big foot cannon on top of it, right? Look, it sounds like I hate this thing, I don’t. It’s a passable Deluxe alt mode. It does what it needs to do. But as a devotee to my main man, Swindle, this alt mode could have and should have been better. Let’s see if Brawl’s alt mode fares any better…

Yes it does! It’s Brawl. He’s a brown tank. It doesn’t take rocket science to make this alt mode work. You get sculpted treads, some decent detailing, which includes hatches, vents, and, bolts, panel lining. Other than some black, a little silver, and Decepticon insignia on the sides, there’s nothing in the way of paint apps. The turret does not turn, but the gun can be raised a bit. It’s frightfully simple, but it works for me. It is clearly Brawl.

Brawl doesn’t come with a gun, but you can stick his foot/hand part on top of him for added firepower. I can’t say as I’m a big fan, but it’s not terrible. Also, so long as we’re looking at him from the front, his combiner port sort of looks like a third middle tread. Just saying. If this were a contest between the two alt modes, Brawl is the clear winner for me. He looks a lot more like what he’s supposed to be than Swindle does. He’s a tank, not some modern abstract realization of a tank. Maybe Swindle’s Jeep mode has a little more play value, but that’s about it. So, how about them robot modes? Well, let’s turn our attention back to Swindle…

Now we’re talking! The only think keeping this from being the Swindle I know and love is the lack of arm cannon, and you can always plug one of Onslaught’s guns into his shoulder to try to make it work. Otherwise, this figure hits all the right points. He’s got a pretty clean robot mode with loads of sculpted detail showing in his legs and arms. The upper chest is made up of his actual alt mode front, while a faked out Jeep front is situated in his pelvic region to drive home that G1 homage. And speaking of G1 homages, just look at that head sculpt! It’s love. G1 love. I love it.

From the back, we can see the hood and roll bars of the alt mode peg in firmly to his back. The whole assembly sticks out a bit behind his head, but it’s not terrible as far as kibble goes. If it really bothers you, you can drop it down to form a butt flap, but I’d rather not. I also really like the wheel placement on this figure. Two wind up in his armpits, without being cumbersome to the articulation, while the other two wind up on his ankles. The deco here is perfect. You get all that lovely yellow-tan Swindle-y plastic with a little more purple and silver paint showing. Was it worth getting a ho-hum alt mode for this kind of robot delight? Yessir, it is. But I’d still argue they could have done this with a cleaner and more accurate Humvee alt mode.

Swindle comes with a very sweet gun with three barrels. This is the first time I’ve seen this gun in the CW/UW line and I absolutely love it. Let’s move on to Brawl…

OK, so I sense a flipping pattern going on here. Swindle had an iffy alt mode and a rock solid robot mode. Brawl had a decent alt mode, and this as his robot mode. I’ve been playing with it off and on for an hour now and I still can’t make up my mind. Like Swindle, he’s a pretty solid representation of the G1 alt mode. You’ve got the treads facing front on his upper arms, you’ve got the turret on his back with the cannon sticking straight up. You even have those circular hatches sculpted into his lower legs like the Sunbow model showed.

On the other hand, those puny little forearms! Oh, how I wish they could have fixed those. If only they could have cut the arm hinge a little higher. And then there’s that mid section. It’s sort of just a big hinge above his pelvis. It doesn’t really ever lock in securely enough for my satisfaction, especially when I pick him up from the chest and his lower half flops down a bit. It’s not something that really bothers me until I start playing around with him and then it just doesn’t feel right. But… all these quibbles, and I’m still nowhere near to saying I dislike this figure.

The deco here is mostly what you get from his tank mode. There’s a lot of brown and black with a little more silver exposed. The deco is drab and dreary and looks perfectly suited for Brawl… until I get to the head. A fantastic head sculpt, but that neon orange paint is a bit much. I wish they could have toned that down a bit. Here’s an instance where I prefer the Hasbro paint to this one. With all that having been said, when I stand Brawl on the shelf beside Swindle, he looks just fine.

Brawl doesn’t have a gun, although you can angle that turret cannon over his head into a firing position. You can also attach his hand/foot part to either arm to give him a weapon. It looks about as good as one might expect it to look.

Both of these figures get a passing grade from me. Where Swindle stumbles in his alt mode, he soars in his robot mode and becomes my official Generations-Classics-Whatever version of the character. And Brawl sports as solid an alt mode as I would expect, but experiences some design hiccups in his robot mode. It feels like these could have used another trip across the designing board, one for alt mode and one for robot mode, but then if you count the limb modes, these are essentially Deluxe Class Triple Changers, so sacrifices are going to be made. In the end, these compliment the rest of the team nicely and I’m rather excited to get them cobbled together into Bruticus. And I’ll do just that next week in Part Four!

Jul 30 2016

Figma “Arpeggio of the Blue Steel” Iona by Max Factory

By now, y’all know how much I love me my Kantai Collection and the exploits of the Fleet Girls. Well, then it should come as no surprise, that I’m also extremely fond of Arpeggio of the Blue Steel. It too has WWII style ships, a naval war against alien fleets, and some adorable girls at the helm. In reality the two series are really quite different, but they’re both near and dear to my heart. Figma didn’t go too deep with AotBS, but they did produce a figure of Iona, the Mental Model of the renegade Fleet of Fog submarine I-401. Not to be confused with the I-401 from KanColle that I looked at last week. See? Similar, but different.

Iona is #263 in the ongoing Figma line. She comes in one of the smaller and more compact window boxes with a blue and black deco. The window gives you a glimpse of the figure and all the goodies inside. As always, it’s collector friendly and even has one of those branded Figma ziploc bags to help you store all those parts if you don’t want to keep the box. I’ve been really pressed for time this week, so today’s Feature will be relatively quick, but Iona is a fairly simple figure, so I think I can do her justice in a short amount of time…

Here she is out of the box and looking pretty sweet. If you’re familiar with the anime, than the obvious thing to point out here is that this is not her better known, dark blue outfit. I actually like this look a lot, but I think it was an odd choice to go with for what will likely be her one and only Figma. Her outfit and hair consist of a matching powder blue, white, and lavender, all of which conspires to give her a very pale and almost ghostly appearance. That having been said, the detail here is quite nice, particularly on the laced boots and the straps that hang off her top and down across her hips.

Of course, you get a standard Figma stand with the articulated arm. From the back, you can see that her long hair is articulated to allow the arm access to the peg hole in her back. If you look closely, you should be able to make out the Fleet Insignia printed just above her butt.

It wouldn’t be a Figma figure if it didn’t come with a whole bunch of hands. In this case, there are four pairs, including: Fists, relaxed hands, splayed finger hands, and accessory holding hands. You also get a pointing right hand, and another right hand that is permanently attached to a little tea cup. One thing to watch out for are her teeny-tiny wrist cuffs, which will fall off when you swap out the hands. Iona also comes with three different swap out faces, which include a surprised expression, a neutral expression, and one with a slight smile. Switching these is as easy as always, you just pull off the front hair piece, pull off the face, tab in the new face, and replace the hair. All of the expressions are pretty damn adorable, and her large green eyes are immaculately printed on each portrait.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Iona also comes with an alternate lower half, which has her sitting down. This piece requires you to pop the boots off of her legs and attach them to these legs, then pull the figure apart at the waist and attach the upper half of the figure to this piece via a ball jointed peg. Here’s where I like to use the teacup and saucer that she comes with to have her taking some time off from running the I-401 and enjoy a nice cup of tea. Fair warning, the “tea” in the cup isn’t fixed in place and will fall out if you turn the cup over. If that happens, good luck finding it again!

Iona comes with one other accessory and that’s a little pink starfish. She was rather obsessed with the squishy little animals in the series and those accessory holding hands work pretty well with it.

And last, but not least, Iona comes with a complex system of parts to replicate her holographic interface with the I-401. In the series, this consisted of three bands of data displays, which encircled her. Here it’s recreated with three translucent plastic strips that are attached to a special arm on the back of the figure stand. It works… sort of. I give Max Factory major credit for trying, but in the end, I had mixed results with this set up. It’s also extremely frustrating to work with and I could never get the data rings positioned just the way I wanted. A cool idea, nonetheless.

Iona is a very nice figure and I’m glad that the Figma line threw some support behind this anime, because I really do enjoy it a lot. At only 12 episodes, It’s a short run, but I’ve probably been through it three or four times. If you want more, there’s also a Manga and a couple of films. Obviously, I would have liked to see more of the Mental Models recreated in figure form, or even some of the crew of the I-401, but if they were only going to do one figure, Iona was the logical choice. She doesn’t come with as much stuff as a lot of my other recent Figma purchases, but at around $35 the price certainly reflects that. If I had one gripe, it would be the choice of costume, but I’m already eyeing some other figures of her, to get that more traditional look.

Jul 28 2016

Transformers Unite Warriors: Combaticons (UW-07) Box Set by Takara, Part 2: Vortex and Blast Off

It’s Transformers Thursday again and I am continuing on with my look at Takara’s Unite Warriors Combaticons box set. Last time we looked at the packaging and Onslaught, today I’m starting in on the limbs, or more specifically, the Deluxe Class bots that will make up Bruticus’ arms. Let’s kick it off with the alt modes, and I’ll start with Vortex…

Originally released as Alpha Bravo for the Aerialbots and then Blades for the Protectobots, it should come as no surprise that this mold is being recycled yet again for Vortex. That’s not a bad thing, as I like this mold a lot and all of my original hostility toward it was fueled by the fact that he was a helicopter standing in for a jet on my Aerialbot team. I’ll even go so far as to say Vortex is probably the best use for this mold to date, seeing as how it comes armed to the teeth with a pair of rocket clusters. Structurally, the only real difference between Vortex and Blades is the new four-bladed rotor, which looks great in the chopper mode, but I’ll have some unkind things to say about it when we look at his robot mode.

The new color scheme is pretty nice. The primarily dark gray and black deco certainly gives him a sinister Decepticon look and I really dig the faction symbols near the doors to the cockpit. The lighter blue striping on the nose and rockets is an interesting choice. I wasn’t so sure about it at first, but it’s growing on me.

Vortex is one of the few instances in the Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors line where I find value in attaching one of the combiner parts to an alt mode. In this case, plugging the hand/foot with the twin chain guns into the bottom not only gives him a platform to rest on, but adds some major firepower without looking too stupid. Moving on to Blast Off…

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Hasbro likes to substitute impostors into our Combiner Teams and release the real ones later, or just leave it up to Takara. With the Aerialbots, Protectobots, and Stunticons, they did this by introducing an all new character. With the Combaticons, they just made Blast Off a repainted jet from the Aerialbots. And while a combat jet makes more sense in the team than a space shuttle, it was still unacceptable to me because I’m an unforgiving middle aged fan who does not want my childhood re-written. Sometimes, folks, you should be careful what you wish for…

Enter Takara’s Blast Off, a brand new mold and a proper space shuttle, yes, but not an alt mode that’s going to win any awards. This thing is actually pretty ugly with obvious arms running down the sides, a tail fin that doesn’t always stay pegged together, and a patchwork deco that isn’t helping the mold any. Am I being too hard on him? Probably. Truth be told, I’m happier having this toy, with all its flaws, in my Combaticons, than I would be having a repainted Aerialbot. I actually think a more reasonable deco could have helped this shuttle mode out a lot. In the end, I’m going to give it a pass, but just barely. Let’s move on to the robot modes, and we’ll jump back to Vortex…

As with his vehicle mode, Vortex’s bot mode is just a repaint of Blades with a new head, at least from the front. The coloring doesn’t change much from the chopper mode, although you do get a little more blue exposed in the upper legs and chest. And while the coloring overall looks pretty good here the paint on my figure has a few flubs on the right arm. The paint just doesn’t look as premium as I’m used to seeing in a Takara release. That having been said, this is still a huge improvement over the crazy coloring on Hasbro’s version. Besides the coloring, I still dig this mold a lot. You have the option of pivoting the tail boom left or right behind his head, but I prefer leaving it straight to preserve symmetry. The new head is absolutely fantastic. A solid tribute to the G1 version of the character.

From behind, things get a little shaky, thanks to the new set of rotors. With blades, you could fold up the two blades and tuck them neatly between the stabilizers on the tail boom and for the most part they stayed out of the way. Here you have two additional blades to deal with. The official transformation just leaves the bottom two blades flopping off to the sides. I’ve found that if I squeeze them in a little further, I can get the bottom blades to stay in position roughly in line with the top two blades. It’s possible, however, that this is causing some stress to the plastic, as they aren’t meant to be placed in that position, but it helps solve what is otherwise a detriment to the figure.

Vortex comes with a repaint of the same rifle as Blades, and it remains among my favorite weapons in this line. Of course, he also has a full bank of rockets mounted on each arm. When it comes to attack power, Vortex has got it covered. In the end, Vortex still feels like a relatively fresh figure to me, but a lot of that probably has to do with me skipping Alpha Bravo. The color scheme works well, the new head sculpt is perfect, and so long as I can get the rotors situated on his back just right, he’s aces in my book. So how about Blast Off’s bot mode?

Well, I’m surprised to say that despite the iffy shuttle mode, Blast Off’s bot mode is pretty damn great. I really dig the way the nosecone of the shuttle packs up so neatly into his chest. Yeah, it juts out a bit, but it still works for me. Likewise, the wings all pack up nicely on his lower legs and the thrusters as feet are a nice nod back to the Sunbow version. As far as the coloring goes, it’s easy to see they sacrificed any sense of coherence in the alt mode for a pretty spiffy deco in robot mode. I guess I’m OK with that. And like Vortex, Blast Off’s head sculpt is simply superb.

It’s interesting to check out Blast Off from the back and see how his backside looks pretty similar to the fronts of a lot of the CW/UW Deluxe limbs. Indeed, if for some reason you don’t like the chest, you can just spin the lower half around, re-position the arms and legs and have a more familiar looking bot that wears the nose cone assembly as a backpack. Me? I’m fine with the official mode.

Blast Off comes with a little black pistol, which isn’t as impressive as Vortex’s rifle, but it suits him just fine. And since he has thrusters in his fists, I like to think that those would serve him well as additional weapons. As much as I dig Vortex, Blast Off takes the prize as my favorite of this pair, at least in robot mode.

And there you have it, a couple of solid Deluxe Class figures who I am very content to call modern updates to their G1 Combaticon namesakes. If the snazzy paint job on Onslaught hadn’t already convinced me that Takara was the way to go here, this pair has even more so. Getting a proper shuttle mode for Blast Off is a treat, even if the shuttle mode ain’t all that great, because his robot mode more than makes up for it. I think he’s one of the more interesting Deluxes to come out of this line. And as for Vortex, even if the paint here doesn’t feel as premium as I would have expected out of Takara, the alternative deco on the Hasbro version is an absolute tragedy. So far I’m digging this set a lot. Next Thursday, I’ll be back to talk about Swindle and Brawl!

Jul 23 2016

KanColle: Aircraft Carrier Submarine I-401 (Day Off Figure) by Taito

Hey hey, it’s Saturday. Anime Saturday. And that means more KanColle! Ok, I’m done rhyming now. I had originally planned on looking at a new Sailor Moon Figuart today, but time caught me up, so I had to fall back on another Prize Figure from Kantai Collection. This Saturday, I’m back to Taito and another “Day Off” Figure, and like the last “Day Off” Figure, this one is from the Kantai Collection video game and not the Animation Sequence. She’s Aircraft Carrier Submarine I-401… but you can call her Shioi!

As usual, Taito presents the figure in a colorful, fully enclosed box, which gives you plenty of shots of the figure inside. There’s not a lot of English, but the figure is identified on the top panel. I have to say I think this box is especially cool. There’s something about the art style that makes it look like a vintage pin-up and reminds me a bit of the old Vargas Girls art. As a character from the game, I’m not as familiar with her as the anime characters, but I tend to go in and read some of their dialogue as an indicator. In this case with phrases like, “CAN I DIVE YET? CAN I DIVE YET?” and “Please don’t touch my hangar tubes that much!” indicate that she’s adorable.

It doesn’t take long to get Shioi ready for display. You just peg her feet into the base, peg her submarine gear into her tushie, and peg each of the tiny planes onto the carrier deck. Toss the tiny crab (which I already lost!) onto the base and she’s ready to go! The “Day Off” figures are pretty self-explanatory, as they depict our fearless Fleet Girls enjoying some down time. In this case, Shioi is strolling along the beach in a one-piece swimsuit with a cover up that resembles the school uniforms they usually wear. She shoots a side glance as she brings a bottle of icy cold water (or perhaps Ramune?) up to her lips. The sculpt here for the costume is very simple, but the colors are excellent, particularly the soft skin tones, the deep blue, and the bright white of her cover up.

I was particularly anxious to get this statue because there aren’t any submarines in the anime and that seems like a missed opportunity. At the same time, I get excited whenever I see a reference to the Japanese I-400 Sub Aircraft Carriers, because they’re such a wonderful curiosity. As I understand it they saw virtually no action in the war and even as someone who enjoys doing a fair amount of reading about WWII, I rarely ever encounter any mention of them. The very concept of a submersible aircraft carrier still sounds like something out of science fiction. It’s just damn cool.

The sculpt for the submarine component is solid but not exceptional. It looks a little soft, and there isn’t a whole lot of detail on it, but there’s enough here to get by, and it’s perfectly acceptable to me for a figure in this price range. On the other hand, they did a very nice job sculpting the three tiny Aichi M6A Seiran aircraft that perch on the launching gantry. Most of the Sub Aircarft Carriers were designed to launch recon planes, but these babies were meant for attack!

The portrait here is very simple and functional, She’s cute, but nothing fancy. Shioi features large brown-printed eyes, short hair, and a wide smile. Her bottle is cast in translucent blue-green plastic.

While the majority of the Taito Prize Figures in my collection have simple, featureless bases, Shioi’s is crafted to look like a stretch of beach, half sand and half water. The water surface has sculpted ripples and is cast in transparent blue plastic with the sand painted and textured. I haven’t lost hope in finding that tiny crab, but alas he remains MIA for this review.

The I-401 “Day Off” figure set me back just under $20 shipped and I’ve got no complaints. In terms of sculpt, Shioi herself is probably the least impressive of my KanColle Taito figures. There’s nothing bad here, but the sculpt just isn’t quite as sharp and detailed as the others. On the other hand, the paint is quite solid and the execution of the submarine component with the planes and the beach environment on the base takes what could have been a very average figure and raises it up a couple of notches. Not too shabby!

Jul 21 2016

Transformers Unite Warriors: Combaticons (UW-07) Box Set by Takara, Part 1: Onslaught

I was going to make such a big deal about having new arrivals for Transformers Thursday, but then I see so many pictures of Titans Return figures in peoples’ hands and suddenly I don’t feel so special. But I do have a holdover from Combiner Wars… or, excuse me… Unite Warriors, in the form of the Japanese Combaticons box set! I can’t tell you how hard it’s been to keep passing up the Hasbro Combaticons on the pegs, knowing that I had this on pre-order. Thank Primus, it’s finally here! I’m going to use the same formula here as I used for the G2 Menasor set. Today I’ll look at the packaging and Onslaught, next week I’ll tackle the limbs two at a time, and we’ll wrap it up the following week with Bruticus.

The box design is very similar to the one used for the Unite Warriors Aerialbots, so if you’re a stickler about matching sets, you should be very happy to sit them next to each other on a shelf. There’s some absolutely bitchin’ and gritty artwork on the front of the box showing Bruticus stomping through a city and there’s a front flap that lifts open to reveal a window showing the goodies inside. Seeing the toys all laid out in their vehicle modes really takes me back to the glory days of the G1 giftsets. I never owned any of those, but they sure were pretty to look at! The back of the box has a large photo of Bruticus as well as photos of the individual figures in their robot and alt modes. The set is collector friendly, although getting everything back in place can require some patience. An instruction booklet is also included in the box. Let’s start with the alt mode!

Onslaught is obviously the Voyager Class figure in the set and he’s built off of the Protectobot Hotspot mold. I don’t think that’s as apparent in his alt mode as it is his robot mode and the use of shared bodies here seems like a good choice. The alt mode is pretty true to his G1 roots, at least in the sense that he’s a military truck. The cab is more modernized and he lost a pair of wheels along the way, but I still have little trouble identifying the homage here. He features two large cannons, but don’t look too closely or you’ll see Bruticus’ head peeking back out at you trying to not be noticed. It’s not one of the most outrageous alt modes out there, but all things considered, I think it’s pretty solid even with the combiner head sitting up there like he’s on a parade float.

Unfortunately, Unite Warriors Onslaught’s alt mode is not as versatile as his G1 namesake. I’m sure I could work out some iffy fan modes, but he’s not really designed for much else besides being a truck. With the pegs on the top of the cannons and the multiple peg holes on the bottom of Blast Off, I was hoping there would be an official way to make Onslaught carry him, but it looks like I’m out of luck unless I want to balance him up there. There’s sort of a flatbed area on the back, but it’s not really big enough to comfortably carry any of his chums. Ah well, sometimes a truck is just a truck… and a robot… and a torso. Never mind.

The coloring here is quite nice, with the blue and brown doing a fine job of representing the G1 toy’s deco. I’m not going to spend a lot of time comparing the coloring between Hasbro and Takara on the limbs, but I will do it here because Takara’s Onslaught is just such a huge improvement over the Stateside release. The blue is much darker and richer here than on the Hasbro version, I like it better, but that’s really just a matter of taste. The biggest difference in paint, however, is the beautiful work Takara did on the package of torso parts that sits on the vehicle’s back. These parts were left as bland off-white plastic on the US release, whereas here you get some beautiful coloring, along a very striking shade of silver paint. The same goes for the guns. It really looks fantastic here, and as we’ll see in a few weeks, this will make an even bigger impact in the combined mode.

Transforming Onslaught should be very familiar if you’ve spent any time with Combiner Wars Hotspot. If anything, Onslaught is a little easier because all those extra torso bits just stay where they are and are worn as a backpack. And obviously there’s no ladder to mess with. Yes, it’s always worth pointing out that despite the need for add-on hands and feet, these combiners are otherwise self-contained. The only other thing worth noting are the knees. As with Hotspot, there’s a trick to locking these in, and if your Onslaught’s knees keep buckling, it’s probably because he isn’t transformed properly.

In robot mode, it isn’t too difficult to pick out the parts shared with Hotspot. The forearms and the legs are most obvious to me, although he does have new feet and the new deco helps fool the eye a bit, particularly around those knees. Regardless of the recycling, however, I think he works quite well as a send up to G1 Onslaught. Some high points for me include the detailed sculpt and paint in the chest panel, the painted coils in his arms, and the crisp Decepticon logo on his chest. The two circles painted on his pelvis area are also nice nods to the Sunbow animation design.

All looks pretty good from the back too. Yeah, his lower legs are hollow, but I do like how all that combiner stuff packs neatly into a backpack. I also get a chuckle out of the fact that he wears Bruticus’ head on his ass. The guns store nicely on his back and help hammer home the homage of having the twin guns rising up behind Onslaught’s shoulders. Onslaught is a bit back heavy, and while those heel spurs help a bit, he’s still prone to toppling backwards. Now is as good a time as any to mention that Onslaught suffers from the same rather unforgiving ratchet joints in the hips. There isn’t a lot of finesse there, so posing him and getting him to balance in those poses can be an exercise in frustration.

The head sculpt is pretty straight forward, and he has a painted visor instead of light-piping. I will say that it’s a toss up for me as to whether I prefer the black head on the Hasbro version or this blue one. It’s too close for me to call. Here you can also get a better look at the distinctive paintwork in the chest panel. The colors on this guy really are beautiful!

Of course, Onslaught can dual wield his twin guns in his hands in order to live up to his name. Since these serve as Bruticus’ weapon too, they can be connected together to form a bigger rifle, and it isn’t too big for Onslaught to use. Ironically, the extra paint apps on the guns make it really apparent that the larger weapon is just two of the same gun stuck together. For that reason, I think the combined guns worked better for Hotspot, as those are all black.

Onslaught has a few issues, but overall I like him a lot. In my mind, he’s definitely the best modern version of the character that we’ve seen from either Hasbro or Takara, but then I suppose that isn’t saying much. Nevertheless, it’s easy for me to overlook some of the flaws while admiring the fact that he’s a partially shared mold and a pretty clever one at that. To me that’s even more impressive when you see him in his torso mode. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Next week, we’ll bust into the Deluxe Class figures and check them out, starting with Blast Off and Vortex!

Jul 16 2016

KanColle: Aircraft Carrier Akagi “Premium” Prize Figure by SEGA

What’s that? You can’t get enough of me droning on about Kantai Collection figures on Saturday mornings? Well, alright then, let’s check out another one! Today I’m turning my attention back to SEGA and the first Aircraft Carrier in my KanColle collection… Akagi!

Akagi comes in a window box, with just the one window on the front panel. This makes the box fairly durable, but without the top or side windows to let the light in, it’s hard to really scrutinize the figure from inside the package. You get the Kantai Collection logo on the top panel and character art on the side panels. I really like the gradient pink to blue coloring on the box. Other than “Aircraft Carrier” there’s virtually no English copy on the box at all, not even Akagi’s name. Before opening her up, it’s worth noting that this is a Premium Figure and not a Super Premium, so she is not in scale with the Destroyers from SEGA, which I looked at a little while back. Those were full on 9-inches, where Akagi here is closer to 6-inch, putting her more in line with Taito and Furyu’s KanColle releases.

And… here she is! Besides the usual plugging her feet into the base, Akagi involves some assembly before she’s ready to go. She comes with her Yumi (bow) in two pieces, seven arrows on a sprue, a packet of fishing line for her bow string, and a sheet of stickers for the arrow feathers. I’ve heard horror stories about setting up the bow and how fragile it is, but I didn’t have any issues. You just feed the larger piece into her left hand from the bottom and tab it into the grip. The shorter bow piece pegs into that one. You pass the string through the notch on one end, wrap it a few times and pass it through again, draw it as tight as you want it, and then do the same on the bottom. The excess that I snipped off is enough for another bow string should I ever need it. The stickers for the arrows are easy to put on. One arrow is meant to be held in her right hand and the others go into her quiver. If you aren’t familiar with Kantai Collection (I’m sorry!) the Aircraft Carriers fire their arrows into the sky, which then turn into squadrons of airplanes (bombers, fighters, or scouts) to engage the Abyssal forces.

Akagi stands at attention with her Yumi held at rest in her left hand and her right hand clutching an arrow to her chest. I strung the bow a little snug to show its curves. Like all the Fleet Girl Carriers, Akagi’s costume is strongly influenced by Kyudo garb, which ties in with the fact that the Carriers in KanColle function as archers with long-ranged attacks. Sculpted details feature some nice touches, including the strings that hold the armor pieces in place, the ruffling of her loose top, and even little wrinkles in the knees of her stockings. The coloring here isn’t terribly vibrant, but the combination of red skirt and quiver with the slightly off-white blouse and stockings is attractive enough. You also get some very neatly applied silver fixtures on her belts and straps.

Her quiver has the mast aerial attached to it and it’s sculpted with a strap that “holds” it in place around her shoulder, although in reality it is permanently attached to her. Unlike the Destroyers and Battleships, Akagi doesn’t have a lot of bulky ship parts on her. Besides the quiver aerial she just has a component on her right hip that she wears almost like a handbag. The quiver itself is a simple tube and all the arrows can easily fit inside. On her feet, she wears a pair of Zori (sandals), which have what look like miniature super-deformed carrier hulls under them, allowing her to skate across the surface of the ocean.

On her right arm she wears her Carrier deck in place of a shield. These are also used to recover her planes, assuming they survive their sortie to make a return trip. The printing on the deck looks particularly nice.

I do have one little quibble about this figure and that’s the look of the plastic in a few areas. The feel of the quality in hand is fine, but it does give her face and blouse a waxy complexion in certain light. Granted, this is a pet peeve of mine that I point out whenever I see it, even though it’s hardly noticeable when she’s standing on my display shelf under normal room lighting. There’s also some rather obvious seam lines throughout, but then I have to keep reminding myself that this is a relatively “low end” piece.

The base here is a simple black plastic disc, which is rather compact, so it doesn’t hog up a lot of real estate on the shelf. Of course, the Yumi extends out pretty far, so this is a figure that’s still going to need some space to display.

While the quality of the plastic here feels like a notch below Taito’s work in this scale, it’s really a minor quibble over a figure that goes above and beyond to impress. The figure itself is fine, but it’s the gear and extras that makes Akagi such a noteworthy piece. Besides the great sculpt and nearly flawless paint, the extra bits like the strung bow and the arrows for the quiver are just fantastic. Keep in mind, this is an import that usually sells in the $20-25 range and I got mine for $22 shipped. Besides being a great showpiece, Akagi was an important and memorable character in the anime series, not to mention Fubuki’s girl-crush, so adding her to my KanColle shelf was a huge win! And maybe someday I’ll pony up for her Figma too!

Jul 9 2016

KanColle: Repair Ship Akashi (Day Off Figure) by Taito

Yup, Anime Saturday may stray now and then, but it’s going to keep coming back to Kantai Collection quite a bit for the foreseeable future. I’ve gone on before about how enamored I am with Taito’s line of Prize Figures and today I’m looking at another one of their KanColle releases, this time with Repair Ship Akashi, a character from the video game rather than the anime series.

Boy, do I love these packages. Simple, attractive, enclosed boxes. There’s no windows to scratch or dent and the boxes are made of pretty heavy stock so they will actually protect the figure if you need to pack them up. There’s hardly any English on the package, but I know who I’m buying, so I actually prefer it that way. It adds to the charm of the import. Inside, the figure comes wrapped in plastic and this one requires just a little bit of assembly as well as the placement of some accessories.

It’s Akashi’s Day Off, so she’s taking some time out from repairing and upgrading her fellow ship sisters and just chilling out a bit. She’s seated on a bit of repair gantry, which pegs into the base. Her feet also peg into the base and between the two she’s quite stable. While she only measures about 5-inches and change, she is reclining and that puts her in scale with Taito’s other KanColle Prize Figures. She’s winking at you while enjoying a tray of dumplings, with her equipment strewn on the floor beside her.

Akashi is wearing the typical sailor-inspired school uniform, which includes a white blouse with blue collar and cuffs, along with a pleated blue skirt with red trim. She also has white and black thigh-high stockings with pink bows at the top. The sculpting here is very well done, particularly the ruffles in her blouse and the pleating on the skirt. The paint is also a solid effort. If I get in close enough, I can see a little bit of spray or inconsistencies, but for a piece in this price range, I’m very happy with the quality.

The portrait is very charming, thanks in part to her wink and beaming smile. Her one open eye is beautifully printed with a fetching shade of green. Her pink hair is tied into two bunches in the front with red ribbon and cascades out the back and fans out around her. There’s some really nice work on the bangs. The general wildness of the hair adds just the right amount of energy and excitement to a statue that is otherwise very relaxed in its composition. I will say that the skin tones on this piece are a little bit on the waxy side, but considering that she isn’t showing a lot of skin, it doesn’t really detract from the figure too much.

Akashi holds a small bowl of dipping sauce in her left hand and is holding a dumpling in chopsticks in her right hand. Damn, now I want to go drive around the block and get an order of steamed dumplings.

The figure comes with three loose accessories, and by loose I mean they don’t attach anywhere, so you can place them wherever you want. The first is the tray of dumplings, which in the box art is just sitting on the gantry beside her. A peg or something to secure it would have been helpful, but I’ve found as long as I don’t bump the shelf, it will stay put.

You also get a wrench and welding mask, which can just be placed anywhere on the base. The base is a simple, black base, although it is rather large to accommodate Akashi’s outstretched legs. She takes up a fair amount of real estate on the shelf, but that’s usually the case when the figure is orientated in this fashion.

Akashi set me back a whopping $16 shipped, which I think is a fantastic value for an import of this quality. She displays very nicely beside Taito’s Light Cruiser Yahagi. And while I’m not nearly as familiar with the characters that didn’t appear in the anime series, I really like the idea of having a Repair Ship in my KanColle display to offer a little variety among all the Destroyers, Carriers, and Battleships. In fact, I’m kind of bummed now that she wasn’t included in the anime. I think she would have been a good addition to the cast of characters.

Jul 2 2016

Figma “Gargantia on the Verderus Planet” Amy by Max Factory

I find it terribly frustrating when I love an anime and there’s so little merchandising connected to it and that’s certainly been the case with Gargantia. There was potential for several characters to get figures, not to mention Ledo’s mech (which, admittedly did get a rather limited and pricey release), but in the end, Amy was really the only breakout star to get the plastic treatment and even there we just got a statue from MegaHouse and today’s featured Figma figure. Wow, try saying that five times fast! And while I would have loved to get Figmas of Ledo or Bellows, I’ll happily take Amy because she remains such a tremendously endearing character.

The packaging here is fairly typical for the Figma line. It’s a simple window box that manages to be pretty compact, despite the wide range of stuff inside. The deco is a lot more conservative when compared to the Sword Art Online figures. It’s not flashy, but it gets the job done and is totally collector friendly so you have somewhere to store all of those extra goodies. The figure and accessories come on one tray with a second tray for Amy’s hang-glider behind it.

Amy looks as adorable as ever and comes donning her little tribal outfit with cut-off top, skimpy dress, sandals, and shoulder wrap. There’s nothing terribly complex about her costume, but they certainly nailed it for this figure. The shoulder wrap is made of soft plastic and the strap that is meant to hold it on is only attached to one side to give it a little more leeway when posing the arms. The paint here is nice and clean and the skin tones are warm and consistent.

In addition to a whole passel of hands, Amy comes with three different portraits. The standard one features a big open-mouth smile, large beautifully printed eyes and perfectly captures the character. The second has her eyes closed and another big grin, this time showing her sparkly whites. The final one has her looking slightly perturbed, which is about as angry as Amy gets. While three portraits are standard for your average Figma, I would have liked something a little more neutral in there, but then again, I wouldn’t swap out any of the ones she came with to get it. Besides, who am I kidding? The standard face is going to stay on this figure most of the time, anyway.

Amy features your standard Figma articulation, which means it’s pretty damn great. The skirt is a little bit more restrictive to the hips than I would like, but you can still get a decent range of motion out of them. In fact, the only thing I really couldn’t get her to do is stick her hands through the shoulder holes in her wrap like she does a few times in the series. If this was a Figuart, they might have included a pair of static arms to swap in for that pose and it would have been cool, but I’m not going to knock off any points for that. Besides, I don’t even give points!

In addition to all the hands and extra faces, Amy comes with her messenger bag and her faithful little buddy, Grace. The bag is cast as a single piece of plastic with some excellent paintwork. It can be slung comfortably over her shoulder, allowing her to make her deliveries to the different ships throughout the flotilla. Grace the squirrel is a remarkable piece of work simply because she is so damn tiny and yet features so much detail. She’s posed with one paw stretched ever so slightly out and her bushy tail up.

And then there’s this beauty! Max Factory could have easily packed in everything we’ve seen so far and Amy would have been a solid release, but nope. They decided to cram a whole hang-glider into that box as well as some extra components to the stand to allow for different display options. The glider itself is composed of three pieces that easily tab into each other and can easily be taken apart. There’s a special clear connector that goes into the middle of the glider to hold it up, and a second connector to plug into Amy’s back and clip onto the arm of the stand, allowing it to support both the figure and glider. It’s clever and the whole thing goes well above and beyond.

Amy comes with some gripping hands that can be wrapped around the bars, but I’m happy enough just using her pair of relaxed hands for it.

I think she looks great posed coming in for a landing, but the extra stand bits make it so you can also get her horizontal and in mid flight. Working with all these connectors and getting the figure posed just right can be rather fiddly, but the addition of this glider takes what was a solid release and dials it up even higher.

It should come as no surprise that I adore this figure. Sure, I would love to see more figures from Gargantia, but if they’re only going to focus on one character, then it might as well be Amy. She’s been on the market for a little while now, but unlike a lot of Figmas, her price has remained ridiculously reasonable. I paid $40 for mine, which would have been a great deal even if it weren’t for the giant hang-glider accessory. I honestly feel like I’m in the minority when it comes to my love for this series, and while it’s a shame it doesn’t get more appreciation, at least it means I was able to get this Figma for pretty cheap!

Jun 25 2016

Strike Witches: Charlotte Yeager 1/8 Scale Figure by Furyu

It’s been a bitch of a work week for me, but now it’s Saturday and that means I get to open another anime figure! Today I’m trying to mix up the nearly unending flood of Kantai Collection with some Strike Witches. Because what’s better than a bunch of chicks with warship parts stuck to them? A bunch of magical chicks with animal and fighter plane parts stuck to them! OK, not really better, but still plenty cool! There’s a fair number of companies that have done Strike Witches merch, but today I’m checking out Charlotte Yeager from Furyu.

The packaging is pretty typical for this kind of thing. You get a window on the front and top panels and shots of the figure on the side panels. I particularly enjoy the 501st Joint Fighter Wing / Strike Witches insignia on the bottom. Alas, my box is really beat to hell. Apparently good packing is a trade off for bottom feeding on the price. But, so long as it’s authentic and not a bootleg, I don’t care. Charlotte comes between two plastic trays and there is a little bit of assembly required on the base as well as putting her Browning Auto Rifle in her hand. I’ll confess, I was pretty surprised at the size of the box and figure when I got her. At $23, I wasn’t expecting a full 1/8 Scale figure of this quality.

And what a beauty she is! Shirley dons her brown jacket, green tie, and very little else besides her Striker Unit, which is based on the P51D Mustang. She poses proudly with her left hand on her hip, her Browning Auto Rifle resting on her right shoulder and her chest puffed out. Little details like her belt buckle, the wings pinned on her chest, are nice touches. The girls of the 501st don’t believe in pants, which helps facilitate the copious amounts of fanservice shots that pepper every episode. I’d suggest a drinking game based around that, but it would probably kill me, and I ain’t no lightweight when it comes to booze! The M1918 BAR is a separate piece that fits in her hand. It’s not easy to get in there, so I doubt I’ll be taking it out again. It is a nicely sculpted and painted piece, but the barrel is made of pretty soft plastic that is prone to warping.

Her portrait is solid, although the skin tone on her face and elsewhere is a little pale and flat. It just doesn’t have that soft and realistic skin coloring that I see on a lot of better statues. She does have perfectly printed eyes and a cute little smile. I think they did a very nice job on her hair, which blows off to her side, and is, of course, topped off by her rabbit ears. I never did quite understand why she doesn’t sport a little cotton tail instead of the rather long bushy one she has, but to be honest, I’m willing to suspend a lot of my questions while watching an anime like this one.

The paint on the upper body isn’t terrible, but there are a few flubs here and there. There’s an obvious spot on a couple of her blowing strands of hair, the necktie could be a little sharper, and there’s a little bit of spray here and there on her jacket. These things would be unacceptable on a higher end piece, and to be fair companies like Taito and SEGA can pull off better paint at this price point, but I’m still really picking at things.

Down below, the Striker Unit mostly impresses with sculpted and painted panel lines and rotating propellers. In fact, there’s only one area where the paint lets me down and that’s the black and white stripes on her left knee area. They’re notably fuzzier than the ones on the right. Other than that I love what they did here. The silver paint looks particularly nice and shiny and the registry numbers and star emblems are sharp, as is the yellow and orange deco near the props. I like the fact that they went with actual propellers, rather than the clear discs to make it look like they’re spinning fast. I just prefer it this way. The base is clear plastic and designed to hold the figure and be noticed as little as possible. The simple disc cradles the left tip of her Striker Unit in a little cup while an arm holds the inner leg. It works well and allows the figure to be removed and held fairly easily.

While there are a few areas for improvement here and there, it’s hard to complain when you’re talking about a fully scaled 9-inch figure for under twenty-five bucks. And as far as the few areas of problem paint, well that could admittedly just be on my piece. It’s not like I can go into a store and scrutinize three or four different ones and choose the one with the best paint. The truth is this is a great looking piece and she has definitely encouraged me to continue collecting this line. I don’t have the budget right now to be hunting down the Bandai or Figmas of these characters, but Furyu’s line will do quite nicely.

Jun 18 2016

Figma (FigFix #001) “Kantai Collection” Shimakaze (Half Damage Version) by Max Factory

It’s an exciting (and somewhat delayed) Anime Saturday today, because not only am I checking out a new KanColle figure but also my very first Figma FigFix! FigFix is a relatively new(ish) line, which I believe started in 2014, and the best analogy I can make is that these are sort of to Figmas what Figuarts Zeros are to Figuarts. In other words, non-articulated. But keep in mind, that’s coming from someone who has yet to own a Figuart Zero, so that analogy could be flawed. Anyway, I picked up Shimakaze because she’s a real hoot in the series and right now her actual Figma is netting prices that are a bit too rich for my blood, so I thought this would be a good way to get her into my collection, at least for now.

The package is very similar to that of a regular Figma and distinguished mainly by the brighter colors. You still get a window looking in on a tray with a lot of parts. If it weren’t for the FigFix on the box, I’d be hard pressed to identify this as something different, at least at first glance. Shimakaze is the very first release in this series! Let’s get it open and set her up.

Shimakaze is displayed on a standard Figma stand, which is necessary because her pose has her hovering with legs bent and not able to stand. I really enjoy the fact that Figma went with the “half-damaged” version here, because it still allows room for this and the regular Figma release in any display. Speaking of which, Shimakaze is not only perfectly scaled to display with regular Figmas, but her face is also removable and compatible with the faces of the regular Shimakaze Figma, so if you have the other figure, you can change her expression. Again, I really dig the way they made the two able to interact and compliment each other.

Shimakaze is clad in what’s left of her familiar uniform. Her top has mostly been obliterated leaving behind just enough for a smidgen of modesty. Her low riding skirt shows that one of the straps on her underwear has snapped, and her colorful, candy-striped stockings have holes in them. About the only thing that’s survived intact are her rudder boots and her gloves. As always with Figmas, the paint is bright and clean.

On her back, Shimakaze is armed with her five-tube torpedo launcher, which sets her apart from Fubuki, Mutsuki, and Yuudachi who all wear their torpedoes on her hips. This also makes her attack style rather distinctive and I love the way she drifts to the side and bends forward to unload these babies into the water. The launcher assembly is removable from the figure and the arm for the stand pegs right into it.

The portrait is excellent. She has a hilarious surprised expression as if she still can’t believe she got hit. her detached anchor is sculpted to part of her hair as if its been blasted off. Even her bunny ear hair ribbon is tattered. The skin tones on the figure are smooth and even and she even has a little bit of red in her cheeks showing that she’s embarrassed the enemy scored a hit on her. The neck is the only articulation on this piece, and once again, you can change out the expression if you own the regular Figma of the character, although I think the expression here is perfect.

Of course, you can’t have Shimakaze without her posse of Rensouhou-chan backing her up. These adorable little animated gun mounts come in three different sizes and have some articulation in their heads and guns. The smallest pegs into an arm that curves up from the main stand to allow him to hover just over her shoulder.

The other two have their own stands with ball jointed arms to allow you to customize your display exactly the way you like. Each of these little buggers are also depicted in damaged mode with their guns bent and the look of anguished defeat on their adorable little faces. The crossed band aids on the biggest of them is a wonderful little touch. Of course, these little buggers will make excellent accessories for the regular Shimakaze Figma as well.

I really had no idea what to expect when I ordered this, but in the end it really is exactly what it claims to be. It’s a Figma without the articulation. It sounds like a ridiculous concept, since Figmas are all about the pose-ability, but I’m proof positive that these serve a purpose. Shimakaze’s regular Figma tends to go for around $75-80 these days, whereas I was able to pick up the FigFix for closer to $40. I wouldn’t normally find these non-articulated versions to be acceptable replacements for the regular ones, but it does offer a nice alternative in this case. I haven’t actually featured any of the regular KanColle Figmas here yet, but I have a growing collection of them and at the very least now I can display Shimakaze with them and she’ll do fine until I can track down the regular version.

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

Tag Archives: imports

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KanColle: Aircraft Carrier Akagi “Premium” Prize Figure by SEGA

KanColle: Repair Ship Akashi (Day Off Figure) by Taito

Figma “Gargantia on the Verderus Planet” Amy by Max Factory

Strike Witches: Charlotte Yeager 1/8 Scale Figure by Furyu

Figma (FigFix #001) “Kantai Collection” Shimakaze (Half Damage Version) by Max Factory

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