[a-dog-reviews]

X-Plus Gigantic Series “Neo”vinyl figures

Pokemon isn’t a series I normally follow, but when X-Plus, a manufacturer from whom I’ve never previously purchased products, announced their “Gigantic Series,” and that it would be 30 centimeters in height, I had to check it out. 

Of course when the box arrived in the mail I could see that X-Plus wasn’t messing around when they chose the title “Gigantic series.” The shipment boxes were ginormous to say the least. Thankfully, upon opening the drama slightly reduced, and the product boxes were actually quite reasonable for display purposes.  The boxes are also really well designed; sturdy and elaborate. These figures would display very well unopened. 10/10 box design! 

One of the most prominent features on these figures is the eyes. Unlike most vinyl figures on the market, they are not painted onto the surface. Instead, white is painted onto the surface of the head sculpt, and then a clear chip with the iris and pupil painted on it is placed over the eye white. This creates a feeling of life and depth, an impressive feat for a material that doesn’t normally allow for much detail.

For Charizard, even the dark teal under the wings has airbrushed shading. 

The main thing, however, for these unboxed figures, is they photograph extraordinarily well. The vinyl bodies are cast in their basic color, with airbrushed shadows and significant markings painted on in a thick durable coat. The painting of parts such as the eyes and belly is very clean and very skillfully executed. For how simple these character’s color designs are, they are extremely well done. 

Individually, these figures are stunning. The series is supposed to be “Gigantic,” so I understand aiming for robust statures, but I don’t know why they decided to make MewTwo even slightly larger than Charizard. Charizard is advertised as 30 centimeters tall, while MewTwo is advertised as 32. For a series focused on specific size versus accurate scale, I’d have expected them to be more consistent. It creates a strange feeling between the two characters when they stand next to each other. Charizard becomes a bit of a midget considering his general outward appearance, so they don’t really display well together.

Because of the strange sizing, I wouldn’t recommend displaying them together. However, with the quality of these figures; their stunning outward appearance, and not to mention how sturdy they are, I feel like the sizing is rather forgivable, and that X-Plus deserves 10/10 for this product design.  These figures are a bit pricey as an international buyer, their size really hikes up the shipping cost. However, it’s fairly easy to say that they are definitely worth it, especially if Pokemon is a series you are already previously interested in. 

Edit:

Thanks to user ayumu77 for the correction of my sizing information!

[a-dog-reviews]

Upcoming in July: Kotobukiya To Release Exclusive Liger Zero Empire Version

Image (c) Kotobukiya  In July of this year, Kotobukiya will be releasing Liger Zero Empire Version, a Kotobukiya direct exclusive, and I wanted to take some time to make comments now!

I am using the proxy service FromJapan. It is my first time using them, but I’ve heard good things, and it looks like possibly the lowest charges for a proxy service I’ve used so far, so if proxy services have scared you in the past, I recommend giving taking a look at their website! 

What originally drew my attention to the Liger Zero Empire by Kotobukiya was their claim to use a molding method new to Zoids in particular. Because this design has armor in multiple colors, by original Zoids standards their choices would either be to make new molds for duplicate parts (as was the method used for Iron King Schwarz) or paint them. Instead, they’ve chosen to go the route of actually molding different parts of the same injection mold in different colors. I’ve heard this has been used in Gundams before, but I haven’t yet owned a model in which this method was used.  There has been speculation that some of the parts of the original Liger Zero by Takara Tomy had some parts like this, but whether it was lamination or actual molding variation is not known. 

Understanding that international shipment, VAT, and proxy charges normally double the price of a release, I decided that so long as this order was under $100 I’d go for it for the sake of examining the multi-colored sprues. At about $60, this was more than low enough for me to feel okay with it so it has been preordered! 

Having visited Kotobukiya’s website to get the link for FromJapan to use, I noticed the promotional images had been released, and that’s when I felt the need to comment! 

image (c) Kotobukiya

For me, the original Liger Zero when released by Kotobukiya was very much a conceptual disappointment out of the box. The color issues could be fixed with paint, of course, but out of the box it has sky blue, brown, and other strange colors in the mix, really throwing off the uniform and artistic negative space Liger Zero normally has. 

The first thing that really stood out to me in these promotional images was that the Liger Zero Empire Version color scheme works extremely well for Kotobukiya’s version of this beast, and it looks quite nice. The armorless body looks quite sleek in comparison to it’s standard counterpart, and has made me quite interested in this build. I had originally planned to keep this model in package or save it for later, but I might change my mind! 

image (c) Kotobukiya 

This model is only available through Kotobukiya Direct, so again, proxy services are necessary. When this beast arrives I’ll let everyone know how it went with FromJapan!

Thanks for viewing and have a great day!

All the above images are from Kotobukiya’s official website, and are NOT taken by me! 

[a-dog-reviews]

IMPORTANT EDIT: Hasbro Jurassic World Dino Hybrid “Hybrid Rampage” Indominus Rex

IMPORTANT EDIT: Today, in the same day I opened this, as I stated seemed a bit weak, the neck HAS broken. I have made a few attempts to fix it, and it seems like an easy ish fix but it involves disassembling the entire toy. This has not changed my opinion on the figure but it’s very important to remember! 

Today we're looking at the Jurassic World: Dino Hybrid series Hybrid Rampage Indominus Rex. If you're familiar with my previous Jurassic World reviews, you'll know I haven't been historically pleased with Hasbro. Despite their financially based intentions to drop the Jurassic World Line, they have minutely redeemed themselves with this particular model, and I've been looking forward to writing this review.

Note: My standard release Indominus Rex by Hasbro is at my mother's place in Canada as it waits for me to be able to afford shipment here, so I cannot make direct comparisons, only from memory!

The box design greatly resembles that of it's predecessor, the standard Indominus Rex as released by Hasbro in 2015, the only major structural difference being the corner at which the T-rex portrait is located is cropped instead of the far corner near the dinosaur's head. 

A major difference for this model, as reported to me by my friend before it was even passed onto me, is it includes batteries. It also loves reminding you that those batteries are included, as any minor movement makes the robust roaring, crunching, and grumbling ring out. So shipment of this becomes quite chattery. However, as I'd stated in my standard Indominus Rex review, I feel including batteries much improves the presentation of the figure and is a good move on the part of the manufacturers.

As with all the Jurassic World toys, the figure is held in the box using a seemingly biodegradable twine. There is a plastic bubble to keep the figure in position.

Upon opening, I found the Bermuda triangle of twine, twisted and wrapped together quite elaborately. Not keen on cutting any of it, I spent some time briefly studying how it was exactly tied together so I could potentially replicate it should I put the figure back in the box. Considering how previous figures were packaged, I find this work of art to be quite unnecessary.

The simple, bold presentation the Jurassic World line's packaging provides is still quite strong in my opinion and is great for a try it before you buy it type sales pitch. Not so great for putting away in storage should you be a mass collector, but we're trying to sell to children here! Packaging gets 9/10. The only improvement I can think of would be to put a secondary inner box like some older toys have, so you don't have to dismantle the entire box to get the figure out.

Now of course, the part I was really looking forward to; the design. From one Indominus to the next, the improvement on proportions has been drastically improved. The largest improvement that stands out the most strongly being the head's size in comparison to the body. The standard Indominus Rex could almost fit it's entire torso inside it's own mouth. As you can see in these images, the Hybrid Rampage Indominus Rex is proportioned much more closely to it's design influence Tyrannosaurus Rex. While Indominus Rex is portrayed as being able to rest on it's arms in a kneeling position, the arms on the original figure were actually thicker than it's  own legs, and the choice of shrinking the arms down to nearly half their original size was quite a good choice.

The original conceptual presentation of the Dino Hybrid Rampage Indominus Rex showed a potentially rubberized head like it's standard predecessor. The figure presented at Toy Fair 2016 as can be seen on 16bit, showed yellow external back spikes, red markings outlined in white, black claws, a more rosy shade of pink inside the maw, and slightly more detailed eye painting.

The most noticeable variations from the Toy Fair presentation and the production run I have here, is that the sculpt is a lot softer, the details less saturated. The external back spikes have been changed to red, the hip spike are now white, the red markings are no longer outlined in white, the eyes are lacking the red highlight, and the claws are not individually painted. The red markings also don't continue onto the tail and hips as one might have expected from the initial images and presentations, leading me to believe they chose the most simple, quick, and honestly lazy path to finishing this figure. Which is unfortunate considering the sculpt and general design is such a drastic improvement from everything else they've released for Jurassic World so far.

Upon opening the box, this Rex's tail is separated much like it's precedessor, to which it is also extremely close in resemblance. At this point was the decision if I really wanted to rebox this figure or not, knowing how hard the tail is to get out. Seeing the sheer size and appearance of this piece unboxed, I've decided to keep it unboxed.

Despite the desaturated details in reference to the Toy Fair presentation, this figure is still extremely detailed, especially in comparison to the rest of the figures produced for Jurassic World in general. The only spot really lacking in detail is the bottom of the feet, which unfortunately, does not assist in it's ability to stand. However, that is a very forgivable move, considering you really aren't paying attention to the bottom of the feet while the figure is shelved, or if you are a child playing.

Now here's where things become very interesting. My Omega T-rex is in the storage unit upstairs in the apartment complex, so I used my Chaos Effect Thrasher T-rex for size comparison. While the Jurassic World line is more 'cartoony' in general, the Dino Hybrid Indominus Rex is the closest to matching the Thrasher T-rex in detail and design I've seen since the '98 Chaos Effect line itself. Considering how toony the Chaos Effect specific dinosaurs were, for example Paradeinonychus and Velociraptoryx, makes me think that had Thrasher been sculpted for Chaos Effect specifically, the design would have been in VERY close proximity to the Indominus we see now. And this is where I felt Hasbro had given themself a slight bit of redemption. It's true, most of the Jurassic World figures suck, but I must say the Hybrid Rampage Indominus Rex is quite a special piece by itself.

I think I'll go with an 8.5/10 for this one visually. It's a great design, but they did cut a few corners and make a few strange choices for the production run and that is rather disappointing. I think had they gone with the initial paint job I could have pushed for a 9 or even 9.5, as this design is so much more well thought out than the rest of the Jurassic World toys.

As far as play-ability I'm a little on the fence about this one. I'm impressed with the jaw chomping feature they have added on this, where you basically "crank" up the arm, release it, and the head makes a series of animations instead of following the exact motion of the arm like on older designs. This explains the choice of a fully plastic head instead of the rubberized head we'd seen in the conceptual images. While this is a very fascinating and unique animation design, the mechanics feel very fragile, and if you don't crank it down all the way, it starts to catch and the head gets stuck and starts to click and not close all the way. You can fix this by cranking the arm fully down, letting the animations run without the movement of the head, and then letting everything pop back into place and resetting it like that. You will then get clean, fresh movement next time around. Why this I find this disconcerting is that if a child is playing with this, it doesn't only seem potentially frustrating, it seems extremely sensitive and easy to break. I didn't try this of course, but it seems pushing the arm upwards or too far down could potentially break the whole thing. The neck segments also seemed to be held together by very thin pieces of plastic, so the figure has a high risk of unintentional decapitation.

Animation aspect aside, the rest of the figure actually seems quite sturdy. The body and head are made of a hard plastic of a more brittle consistency, while the limbs are softer and have a slight pliability to them, reducing the risk of lost fingers, toes, or even limbs.

The general structural durability of this toy seems pretty good and seems it would hold up decently to moderate child's play. I think for play-ability, with the risk factors in the head region, I'd give this a 7/10. Yes, less so than it's predecessor, but they took a gamble with the head mechanism, and while it's a great design I think it's a lot higher risk factor for children who may not understand the limitations of more delicate parts.

Despite the few flaws I do see in this model, I'm very pleased to say that this is by far the best design in the Jurassic World lines so far, and that I even personally believe it's comparable to some of the older designs, which is excessively pleasing and satisfying for me personally.

With a retail price ranging from $30 - $40, I have to say this is actually a really great buy, and if you feel like you want just ONE thing from the Jurassic World lines, I'd highly recommend choosing this one.

My average rating comes to 8, but I think based on just the drastic improvement I've seen from the previous toys to this one, and the robust and dramatic size and color and unique animation, I have to actually give this toy a 9/10. So, hat tip to Hasbro for upping their game, at least for this one model.

Thanks for viewing, I hope this information is helpful or at least interesting!

[a-dog-reviews]

Zoids Genobreaker RDK Custom

Understanding that most of Takara Tomy’s original Zoids have been reviewed multiple times each, this will not be a complete build review, but more focus on the Raise of the Dark-Kingdom custom aspect of this Genobreaker model. Note: Since this is a semi-unique piece, I’m not going to rate it in my usual manner, and it will be a simple and mostly photo based review!

The Genobreaker is packaged in a unique RDK box. It is actually too large for the kit to fit inside and required quite a bit of bubble packing within the box itself, so a little bit of a strange choice on their part. It looks really fancy though, and the embossed logo is really neat! 

For anyone who’s owned a Genobreaker before, opening this box will be a familiar sight. However, there is one small addition, there is an extra set of green decals as well as the original color printed decals. You’ll also find that the Shadow figure is not chromed, but Raven is due to being suspended on one of the part trees. 

There are many parts simply floating, they were wrapped in bubble wrap but they must have fallen off of their trees during the chroming process, because the gnarly flash was chromed too! On one of the jetpack pieces they had actually deflashed it before chroming so that one actually didn’t have the ugly scars as most parts do, but unfortunately they only did that for one piece.

I don’t know how common it is for chrome Zoids in general, as this has been my one and only, but I noticed that they did not ´fully chrome the trees. A lot of the metal plating under the chrome shows through very clearly and uncovered on the trees and even a lot of the parts. As I expected, once the entire Zoid was built up it becomes less noticeable, but I think that is poor performance on the part of RDK.

The breaker claws, as attached to the Genobreaker’s backpack and as anyone who has owned one of Tomy’s Genobreakers before will know, are made of a flexible material. This makes the chrome coating EXTREMELY delicate. It’s SO delicate you can feel it coming off simply attaching the part into place, and it easily came off the peg in just a shell when the peg slides into the breaker unit. Basically it seems to be one of those parts you pick a pose and leave it there unless you want it back in it’s original lightly glittered state very fast. 

The copper showing through is clearly visible on the lower jaw.

Hearing from other collectors how the chroming process makes pegs impossibly large for the holes they are supposed to go into, I came prepared. I used a simple small hobby file to start chipping away at the chrome, then peeled it off. It came off the peg alone just fine! However, part way through the body assembly I decided I would go with not having this Zoid functional to any extent, and not go too crazy with the filing to not risk making more flash mistakes than I already had, since chrome parts will flake when removed from the tree regardless of how well it’s done. 

The nose horn, on the same tree as the breaker claws, is also an extremely delicately chromed part, and I made a few flash mistakes while cutting it out. You can see one in this image! I still felt this was an opportune moment to get a good head photo, before the model was fully assembled. 

Of course, the drama of building these things (the living room is now very sparkly with shards of chrome) results in quite a visually stunning beast. It will not walk, nor can it be customized to post, but honestly when you buy a chrome Zoid, it’s for the looks anyway and I feel no remorse for it’s lack of mobility. 

Is it worth the price they go for on ebay? Honestly, I cannot come up with a good judgement for that. Basically, you have to buy it knowing what you are in for, which I did and had mentally prepared for: The chrome WILL flake, it is very likely it will not walk, and, depending on who you buy it from, the chrome will not be that greatly executed. For me personally, it being Genobreaker in particular made it worth it, but I’m fairly certain that as well as being my first, it will be my last shop chromed piece. I am considering getting a model chromed in the future at a shop who may spend more time doing it properly, but even the best chrome jobs will have some flaking.  In conclusion, I neither do or do not recommend this piece, but I personally am glad to have it in my collection. Thank you for viewing and have a great day!

[a-dog-reviews]

Zoids Aggressive Blade Liger and Geno Breaker

I’ve been looking forward to how the Zoids Aggressive line produced by Kotobukiya would treat Blade Liger and Geno Breaker, and looking forward to creating this review! Note: New camera! But unfortunately significantly impaired vision, so please be patient with mistakes or poor focus in images!

The Blade Liger’s box was exactly the same as the box to the Genesis Ligers, so I felt it unnecessary to go through the unboxing of that one. Geno Breaker’s was similar, but it’s an entirely different shaped Zoid, so I thought they would be interesting to include! 

Of course, like the rest of them, Geno Breaker’s box is silver and colored foil with a window display showing the fully completed 1/100 scale model inside. While these boxes are great for display, I am opting to go with keeping Blade Liger and Geno Breaker out of box.

Upon opening, you find yourself with a set up extremely similar to the ligers’, but with some differences. The first difference is there is no extra plastic holder, the backpack and stand attachment are packaged in the same plastic sandwich as the rest of the Zoid. The second difference is the Zoid is wired right to this plastic sandwich. I ended up having to cut mine out because the wires were twisted so strangely. I’m sure with more fiddling I could have done it better had I wanted to save all the original packaging, but I wasn’t feeling too desperate.  Lastly, the instructions are just floating in the box, not taped to anything. 

Note: Since I have not purchased any stands personally, I will not be including the stand part in this review. Again, Zoids Aggressive by Kotobukiya has some impeccable packaging design, and I have to give it 10/10.

Upon initial holding, I have found the Geno Breaker is of medium quality when it comes to this line. The legs can’t really hold up the model when it’s wearing the backpack, and they tend to bend out of position when being handled. Knowing how joints deteriorate, I don’t expect this one to last particularly long. However, it’s not terrible. It has so far held a significant number of poses.

Reminiscent of the Takara Tomy Gun Sniper, the thumb claws are not poseable, they are part of the wrist to which the other claws are popped onto. So the large claws can be positioned around the thumbs which are otherwise stationary. The claws are incredibly sharp, and stabbed into my finger a few times when trying to get them into a decent base position. They came a little wonky in the packaging, nothing a little posing wont fix. 

The head can be extended outwards, allowing the flat head-to-neck “charged particle” position that the older models can’t properly manage. There are good things and bad things with the neck. Firstly, it looks great, it’s MUCH MUCH better sized in comparison to the model than the kit from Kotobukiya’s original Zoids line, HMM. Unfortunately, this sacrifices move-ability, and the neck can only swivel upwards and downwards. Considering Geno Breaker never really pulls of any poses where that movement is necessary in any images or scenes, I don’t think that’s a big sacrifice considering how much better it is visually. There is a combination of a ball joint, a swivel joint, and that extending neck piece at the base of the head, making mobility for the head itself extremely versatile.  

The tail has brought me both happiness and sadness with this model. The first thing I noticed when I got this kit in the mail was how long the tail is, that looks wonderful. Upon opening, I noticed the tail can only bend upwards and side to side. It cannot go down, so you can’t get the natural upward and eventually downward slope look of a dinosaur tail. Why they would do that when their model kit version had such a diverse joint system, I have no idea, but it was a fairly significant disappointment. One bonus to kind of band aid that, they actually went ahead and made the tail have those familiar fans under the vents as seen on the show! To finally have a model that actually included that is pretty amazing. 

Visually, this beast is stunning. It’s the closest to show accurate that I have seen so far. I’m thinking of going as far as making a new review type, “Nitpicker’s review: Zoids Aggressive. . .” for those who are as aggressively obsessed with detail as I am. However, for this review, we’ll keep to the basics and just go by this model’s quality alone. That aside, Kotobukiya has not been neglectful with detail, but they have also not gone over the top as they had a tendency to do historically. 

The backpack’s claws, while on this 1/100 scale model, are nearly as large as the original 1/72, making them quite the whopper on this model, but it suits and it’s very menacing.

The backpack is also extraordinarily large, nearly double it’s original counterpart, which may have something to do with why the model struggles to stand while wearing it. 

In conclusion, I’m glad to see the ZA line going the direction it’s going. There have been significant quality improvements along the way. A few important things were unfortunately looked over for posability with this kit, so for articulation and function i’d give it 8/10.

However, I must say this is one of my favourite Geno models I’ve owned and this is as close as you’ll get to a show accurate articulated piece, visually it deserves a 10/10. I highly recommend this piece for Geno lovers especially, but if you are new to the Zoids Aggressive line produced by Kotobukiya, this could be a great starter as well. 

This had to be the most pleasantly surprising of the models to open so far. There have been significant improvements since the Genesis Ligers, and the design is as close to show accurate as you can get for a fully articulated kit. It’s not as accurate as the Takara Tomy kit, but it’s pretty dang close considering the articulated kits we’ve seen over the years. 

The most unique and interesting thing so far with this kit has to be the neck. It is the most versatile Blade Liger neck so far. It swivels outwards and down, allowing a very broad range of head motions, which are complemented by the head’s ball joint attachment and the fact the neck pipes are made of a very soft rubber and follow the movement extremely well. Major kudos to Kotobukiya for this neck mechanism. 

The canopy is very basic, but sits very nice and flush against the head, no gap as seen on many past Blade Ligers. 

The arm and leg vents pull outwards from the body and then swing forward, a mechanism Kotobukiya uses quite frequently and works extremely well in these situations.

The same mechanism is used on the cheek vents, making them have an extremely versatile range of motion. Not necessary, but also not a bad thing!

Much like Geno Breaker’s backpack, the AB unit on this Blade Liger is outrageously large, and unfortunately in this model it just doesn’t suit in my opinion. They feel to me nearly the same in bulk as the 1/72 AB unit, though I cannot make a direct comparison at this time.  That aside, the design is nice, it’s very similar to their original 1/72 counterpart.

The AB boosters can be removed and replaced with caps, as it comes in the package. However, the attachments for the arms that hold them seem very weak, I would recommend choosing whether or not you want a Blade Liger with the AB unit and just stick to that to avoid breaking them. 

And of course, the original Blade Liger boosters are included!

A rather significant downside to this model is the lower jaw. Not only does it not open particularly wide, but it’s hinged right at the edge, right where it disappears into the head. I would think having it hinge somewhere in the back of the head so it would swing down would be better and more accurate. They seem to have limited the design by making the neck flap come up too close to the mouth, where on the original blade liger it was small and there was a drastically larger gap between the neck armor and the chin. Besides the 'ooo’ mouth, the Liger’s teeth are too large and too many, and it has no lower fangs. In comparison to the kits in their HMM line though, it’s a significant improvement so I’ll give them that. Considering Ligers rearing their heads and roaring is such an iconic and repeated Zoids scene, I would have thought they’d put more effort into this part, so rather big thumbs down here. 

However, don’t be deterred by a distracting mouth. Left closed, it poses no threat and the rest of the Blade Liger is absolutely great! 

While joint stiffness I’d directly compare to the Zoids Aggressive Mugen Liger, the range of motion Kotobukiya has allowed with the articulation of vents is significantly better. The neck’s ability to swivel up and down has added a vast amount of character expression to this piece.

My final comment about Blade Liger would be that it has a great paint job. All of my Genesis Ligers suffered from minor paint imperfections Blade Liger’s paint job seems to be perfect and I’m glad to see Kotobukiya opting for paint versus colored plastic when it comes to blades, teeth and claws. It’d be nice if they’d take that a step further, but that’s not really a thing that has been done with Zoids historically so I definitely don’t hold it against them at all. 

In conclusion, I’d highly recommend this to any Zoid’s collector. It is a great representation of the Blade Liger, and a great pre-built piece in general. For both function and visual appeal (even with my EXTREME pickiness about Blade Ligers in general) I believe the Zoids Aggressive Blade Liger deserves a 10/10. 

Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoyed!

[a-dog-reviews]

Kotobukiya Zoids Aggressive Genesis Ligers (all three)

I’ve had the 3 generations of Liger from the Genesis series, produced by Kotobukiya, sitting on my shelf for quite some time. Finally got around to taking them out for a review!

Again, terrible phone photos until one day I buy a good camera!

The Zoids Aggressive line, produced by Kotobukiya, has some very nice display packaging. The outside is silver and colored foil with, as you can see, a window showing the completed 1/100 scale model inside. Since these models are complete upon purchase, I will be keeping them in these nice boxes for display. I must say for this type of collectible, the boxes are pretty stunning and high quality. 

Upon opening, you get a briefcase like container made from vacuum formed plastic. The figure sits in the middle, with all the accessories in one side. Everything is carefully packed, plastic is put around the neck and limb joints to prevent scuffing of the surface of the model while in packaging. 

Each one of these kits comes with a small attachment for a display stand. I have not purchase any stands, so I will not be using this part in this review.

I will be keeping these models in their boxes after this review, as that is how I feel they are best displayed. The boxes are very nice looking, and removing all the plastic barriers makes them easily viewed through the boxes’ windows. For packaging, I have to say this line deserves a 10/10.

I started my review journey with Murasame Liger of course, it being the first in the series and first incarnation of the beast. My expectation was about met upon initial examination; the joints are so-so. It cannot hold any dynamic poses without a stand, and even then the body is too weak to really hold up to it’s own weight, but not to a drastic extent. It works, it’s about the same as an HMM kit and considering it’s from the same company, that’s fair and expected.  However, the deeper I got into the rabbit hole, the less I felt myself being impressed by this miniature monster. The body consists of 3 sections, true to Kotobukiya’s kits throughout history, but instead of ball joints as we’ve come to enjoy supplementing our spinal needs, there are only swivel joints between these sections. The chest can move left and right, the hips move up and down. That’s all you get. 

The neck is also on a swivel joint, it can only go side to side, and to be honest, I really can’t get to move side to side at all due to the head shape, the long golden mane blocks the head from really moving at all. The head itself is on a ball joint, as you can see the up and down mobility range leaves much to be desired. 

One of the biggest surprises to me is that there is almost no real range of motion to the front leg. Most of Kotobukiya’s larger kits have an extra joint in the middle of the leg that can swing outwards, and I thought the middle joint here would be have in the same way. I understand that at 1/100 there is far less you can reasonably manage compared to a 1/72, but I found this a little strange regardless. 

The paw however, is neat. The extra bit of arm there really adds a variety of positions you can achieve with the paw, far more than just a regular ball joint. The paw itself is even on a ball joint though, so don’t expect to be trapped into merely back and forth swivels! 

The leg joint, much like it’s larger cousins, consists of an outwards swivel joint ball joint combination. While that is a great concept, the armor on the Zoid really prevents this from ever getting close to it’s full potential. If the socket could slide in and out from the body to extend the length of the joint for certain positions, this could have worked better.

The tail is a PVC cord that very much looks like a power cord; containing a bundle of small wires. The tail is a pretty good design, while you have to push it fairly hard to get it to hold any positions, it is much nicer than any hinge, swivel, or ball joint could ever achieve visually. I very much appreciate the tail designs here!

The canopy, following a rather common Zoids trend in the past few years, comes upwards on a double hinge joint, then can swing up from there. This is very necessary due to the mane, and works well. 

Visually, despite the rather glaring and bold color scheme, the Murasame Liger is pretty stunning. Kotobukiya’s re-imagined beast is a lot more sleek and fierce, making this beast a lot more intimidating than it’s original countepart. Colorwise, I think we could have done without the cheese yellow, and maybe gone with the more golden look of the older version, however I have noticed Kotobukiya goes by more show accuracy in this regard, and some of the Ligers in the anime have very very yellow features.  Visually I’d give this beast an 8/10. I’m not a fan of the cheap look of the stock plastic parts, but barring that the basic design is great. 

When it comes to functionality as an articulated collectible, I think this one deserves 7/10. It’s worth the $60 or so I paid for it, but unless you are collecting ZA or Zoids in particular, don’t stress if you miss this one. 

Hayate Liger is the next generation or evolution of Murasme Liger, and the beast gets quite souped up. There is a lot going on here. Covered in golden fans, bearing a sword at each wrist, and a double engine jetpack, Hayate is a lot more eager to fight than his blue predecessor.  I particularly enjoy Kotobukiya’s rendition of Hayate Liger. As much as I would love to own the original Genesis Ligers, the Hayate Liger’s head has always been a hard face for me to love. I don’t know why, it comes across very strange looking on the original kit. Kotobukiya’s Hayate has a noble ferocity that I can eagerly appreciate. 

Unfortunately, the Hayate Liger became so increasingly frustrating, that I barely took any photos at all. I am hoping it was only mine, but the figure’s joints are so loose they literally hang when the model is lifted or moved. I started to become fearful for the next box I would be opening; Mugen Liger. But don’t stress, I bear good news soon to come~ 

Like it’s blue predecessor, Hayate Liger, ignoring the floppy joints, also can’t achieve particularly dynamic poses due to it’s own armor. However, the jetpack unfolds quite far and can be moved around quite a lot, providing a real visual transformation of the model just based on that alone.

The blades on the ankles are attached via a peg with a little key notch. Despite the look, the blade can be fully rotated, as the notch sits within the swivel joint, it will not interrupt you when posing, but it will prevent any unwanted removal of the blade. You can easily match the notch up to the slot when you want to remove the blade though, so I thought this was a pretty clever design. 

Visually, Hayate Liger is very striking. The yellow parts are actually glittery on this one, making it look more like a bright gold than cheese, and it suits the red a lot more than it does the blue. So the colors on this one are, to me, actually quite appealing, on top of a very nicely designed basic model. For visual design, I give Hayate an 8/10.

For functionality of the Hayate, I must stress that I HOPE this is only the case with my personal copy of the kit, but it was absolutely terrible. As much as I want to love this model, I have to give the functionality as an articulated kit a 4/10. Even if I had a stand, there is no pose I could achieve with this Hayate that would be worth photographing. Even getting it back into it’s own original packaging was a nightmare due to it flopping around. I do not regret buying this kit, but I dearly hope that mine’s poor function is unique to this particular copy. 

Bracing for impact, I opened my favourite of Murasame’s generations by a longshot. Mugen Liger is by far one of my favourite Liger looks out there and I was far from disappointed with the beast Kotobukiya produced in it’s name. Again, the ferocious outlook the Zoids Aggressive line gives these beasts is greatly appreciated, and on Mugen Liger it is absolutely stunning. Not only that, but on this model almost all of the armor is airbrushed. The white parts are more of a pearlescent and everything silver and gold is metallic. A lot of the base model is unpainted, but it doesn’t glare out in any way. 

The biggest breath of fresh air here was that Mugen Liger’s joints are all nicely stiff, it can achieve a variety of poses and actually hold them. It has the same limitation as it’s red and blue counterparts, the head is stuck in this one position save for some minor rotation, all the underlying joints are the same design wise, however they hold so much better. I was very very thankful for this, as Mugen Liger was the top model I was looking forward to when it comes to ZA.  My Mugen Liger has a small scar on the face shield, not sure why that is. It may not show up in the image but it’s on the front of the black part, vertically slashed on the nose of the armor.

For visual appearance, I’m particularly fond of this one not only because Mugen Liger is practically a dragonized version of Liger Zero, but Kotobukiya’s development of this one included a very good basic but visually appealing paint job. I don’t see and lumps or lines in the paint like on the Murasame and Mugen Ligers, so that’s a good plus too. I’m picky about my Zoids, and Mugen deserves a 10/10 on the visual scale. 

Functionality is relieving to report as great. While the range of motion suffers due to the choices made by Kotobukiya, the joints are at least stiff and hold well, still easily moved but will actually stay where you want them to. So, balancing motion to be desired and quality, I’d give Mugen Liger an 8/10 for functionality. 

In conclusion, I am at a basic level of satisfaction with the ZA line so far. I will continue to collect them, upcoming models including Blade Liger and Geno Breaker, and hopefully we’ll see a continuation of improved quality as they go along! Based on Mugen Liger, I am feeling pretty good about it. Hayate, I am hoping was merely an unfortunate copy. Murasame Liger is comparable to Kotobukiya’s existing model kits. So for ZA, I say a solid 7/10, I do recommend if you enjoy the aggressive and fierce look these models are getting and enjoy the 1/100 scale. 

[a-dog-reviews]

Takara Tomy Zoids Masterpiece Saber Tiger

Been a while since I posted a review! Today’s review is from Takara Tomy’s brand new Zoids line, Masterpiece, the Saber Tiger. These new designs are supposed to be a bit more animated than their 30 year old counterparts, including lights and sounds, and aimed to be more realistically proportioned. 

Photos are taken with my phone, so apologies for lack of quality! Hit read more for full review, a rounded summary is included at the end!

First of all, I love the new box designs for this series, the Saber Tiger a bit more than the Shield Liger as unfortunately the Shield Liger’s head looks a bit ginormous on the box art. It is rather simplistic, but tidy and sleek.  Upon opening, the parts are organized by sprue size, with the largest actually laying slightly under the dividers. The long slim box on the side contains the motor. 

The cardboard itself is very sturdy, Hobby Search packs well but I believe this box would be able to take quite a bit and maintain a decent displayable condition.

Simple, quality model kit packaging, much appreciated and easily 10/10!

The first thing I remove from the packaging is of course the motor, and upon testing it is identical to the Shield Liger’s motor, except for the coloring. It is a very rich and deep clear red. The head light glows green, while the body lights glow orange. Like the Shield liger, the motor sequence is started with the body sort of ‘heaving’ through four cycles, then the head moves and it lets out a roar, then the walking sequence starts. 

In the instruction manual there is a little guide to show which part of the motor should move upon testing, that’s kind of nice to include as I do like to test the motor before putting everything together. 

The first thing I noticed upon opening the part bags is that most of this kit is really brown. Not maroon, brown. The outermost shell is maroon, so the overall theme of the kit is a dark red as it should be. The nice thing is while brown isn’t exactly historically accurate, the depth of the color scheme is very dynamic without straying too far from the original design.

The building process starts with the head. I’m a sucker for chrome, so I really appreciate that both kits in this line so far have had chrome pilots, Shield Liger’s being gold. The pilot seat is green and clear, much like the Shield Liger’s clear orange seating, due to it being the base to the eye piece.  The head is pretty basic, but in a good way. There aren’t a lot of pieces, just enough for what is necessary, the only thing that seems slightly frivolous is the separation of the fangs and the rest of the mouth piece. Nothing too crazy. 

Before moving onto the lower jaw, I quickly popped the head halves together to compare it to the Shield Liger. The heads are actually quite different from each other even under the armor, partially due to the Shield Liger being a two seater, but the Saber Tiger also has an canopy door even under the armor. The nose is a bit more blocky and chunky. So, glad to see some variation in the parts that don’t even normally show. 

Onto the lower jaw. Even though the plastic cap that has replaced the rubber cap on the original design now fits through the hole in the bottom jaw, it sits nice and securely and seems highly unlikely to ever fall loose on it’s own accord. 

The head looks a little strange at this point . . I’ll try to be patient!

Not really sure why these two parts are black, as they are part of the chest armor on the original kit. Oh well! The rich deep black is nice, as most Zoids have gray as their secondary colors, so I can appreciate it for that. 

It was during this phase I noticed the gray parts have the slightest sparkle to them. I’m also a sucker for embedded glitter, so I was happy to see this~ 

Upcoming: more brown! These shell parts, the black chest thing, the brown sides, they are all moving parts later in the process. While they are only held on by one peg, they stay on very securely. 

The legs are identical to the Shield Liger’s underneath all the armor, the only difference being the color.

The feet consist of two middle halves, with claws attached via a hinge/socket joint combo. The socket part is very loose and the toes flop freely once popped in place. The hinge however is very sturdy and you can position the toes in or outwards from the foot.  The foot design is a little strange to me, mainly because the inner most toes don’t do anything at all. I don’t understand why two toes per foot would be movable, and not all of them. The outer toes are floppy so that there is some movement in the paw as it lifts from the ground, however the two inner toes are completely stiff even during this time, moving with the whole paw. 

Attaching the feet introduces a new technology in the Zoids model universe, the cap winder. The caps fit into sockets that look a bit like Kermit the Frog’s pupils, they are then turned like keys until popping into position, securing them tightly in place while allowing the joint to move freely. 

I only remembered to take a picture of the other side of the cap function later:

Construction of the forearm. There are some slim and small pieces here, but everything fits together very securely and nothing is too much here, every part is needed for the function of the leg. During Shield Liger’s construction, I faced some issues with the movement of the small pieces along the back of the arm, I did not run into this problem with this kit. As you can see there is a metal spring in the wrist of the paw, this prevents the paw from swinging too far back during motion, so it doesn’t end up looking broken with the arm is raised up, keeping a more natural position. 

The hind leg comes next. Similar to the front paws, the hindpaws outer toes are movable and floppy, while the inner toes are entirely stiff with the foot. There is no spring in the hindpaw, instead there is a bit more support within the leg mechanics preventing any unnatural positions. 

The small gap in the foot pieces really bugs me, thankfully on this kit, unlike the Shield Liger, it gets covered by armor later!

The fully assembled hindleg then has the traditional mechanical attachment the helps the motor move the entire chain of parts, much like the old kits. 

The legs are all attached to the body using very large hollow caps, into which the pegs from the body fit in with the same key like functions as the small caps. There is however, no cap winder for these large ones. Thankfully, there is only four so not too much fussing. 

Unfortunately, the tail is again attached with a poorly functioning PVC type plastic. The “H-1″ part as seen in this image, is not only fragile, but on my Shield Liger it has already deteriorated on it’s own accord and broken. So I’m not really a fan of the tails on either of these kits and I may replace this attachment later. 

After the tail is attached, in the booklet you reach a portion of “completion.” So here we see the Saber Tiger in it’s full form, without armor. There is some little sketches and little information boxes in the booklet at this stage, which are interesting. 

After that page, the armor is attached. The order is a little bit random in the booklet itself. 

This part on the back of the neck confused me at first. There is nothing holding it in at all, I tried to get a picture to show. It turns out a few pages later you attach armor that holds it in, however there was no clear indication of this at all so I thought I was doing something wrong for quite some time. 

Early on in production I had thought this entire part was going to be clear, I appreciate that it is not as it could have looked a little strange. Instead only the front portion is clear, a lot easier on the eyes. 

The butt however, has a very large clear part on it that I do not understand~

Naked arm, then full armored arm. It goes from brown to the nice red colors Saber Tiger should be, with some of the brown showing through for depth. I also enjoy the contrast created by the black foot cover against the silver claws. 

Naked leg, then fully armored leg. I really started to enjoy tank-like armor this Zoid has! It started to really show up with the thickness of the hind legs. 

The only thing that came across strange about the foot armor, is that it looks upside down in comparison to the armor on the front paw. I double checked the manual, they are correctly placed~

The final phases include placing various weapons, including the very much familiar back weapon set. The details on this one however, are very sharp and precise without being many parts. It’s a great balance of visual quality and structural integrity, much appreciated! 

Looks a little goofy when the ears are first attached. The ears are actually on ball joints and quite posable without looking all that strange. 

Turns out the head halves hold that neck armor in I mentioned earlier! Also the armor is very very shiny, I noticed on the cheeks in particular. 

The canopy moves upwards, on a little stick, then can swing forward, removing the need for any unsightly gaps in the nose! Much like the hinge feature on the Yamato Shield Liger. 

As everyone had suspected, the ability to make the Saber Tiger ‘snarl’ is in fact separate parts. My only complaint about this is I am not a fan of removing and reattaching parts repeatedly, wearing out the pegs. Turns out I’m not a fan of the ‘snarl’ look either, they really pushed it too far, so guess it doesn’t really matter in the end! 

So, snarl aside, here is the model in full completion!

So let’s talk about the build process a little. Everyone who has been collecting Zoids remembers what it’s like to build an original Tomy Design. Fast, basic, but very effective, and fairly sturdy. Toys, of course.  The new Takara Tomy designs are very reminiscent of that but with an added complexity. Instead of being an hour build, as an original Saber Tiger would take should I focus on clean cuts and such, the Masterpiece Saber Tiger took about four hours. So it’s not an HMM as made by Kotobukiya, but it’s not particularly toyish either. You get a balance between nostalgic simplicity with a modern twist. A complex model with the benefits of structural integrity and firm part fits of the older kits. 

One of the things I like best about the build of this Saber Tiger is there is some large improvements in comparison to the first model in the line, the Shield Liger. Takara Tomy was paying attention to what went right and wrong with their first rebirth kit, and the kits are far from suffering. While Shield Liger has some flaws about it, besides the minor tail attachment, they are not the case with the Saber Tiger, showing the company is focusing on improvement as they go along.

As far as build goes, this has been my favourite so far, only second in line to what my dream build would be; a 1/72 tomytec kit. So, I have to give this one a 10/10, maybe my only 10/10 build so far! 

Design-wise, I am very pleased with this kit. I for one am particularly fond of screen-accurate depictions, however, this is supposed to be a second generation Saber Tiger so to speak. The “new and improved,” it’s not the same thing, and in that regard I very much appreciate it for what it is. The design is a mix between tank and mobility, with a fierce expression. Although, the snarling is taking the fierce thing too far. Despite that, the design is true to it’s old self with a new edge. Considering the ease of removal of the snarling face, I don’t hold it much against the model itself. I do appreciate the consideration of the build of real animals while designing the new kits, and the balance of the old school look with the modern complexity of mech designs.  All in all, I’d give the general visual appearance a 9/10.

In conclusion, this Saber Tiger is one of my favourite kits I have bought so far if not my favourite, and in my opinion, is well worth the near tripling of the price since it’s Shield Liger predecessor. 

[a-dog-reviews]

Hot Toys 1:6 Scale Kylo Ren

After a long review dry spell, my latest mail time brings us Hot Toys 1:6 Scale Kylo Ren, my first 1:6 scale collectible figure! Plans are Captain Phasma will be the second in July or August!  Now, that said, it’s a little hard not to be overly excited, as this is the best quality figure that’s come into my collection. The photos, even some of the professional photos I’ve seen, do not do this figure justice. My photos also don’t do this figure justice. However, I did the best I could with my Ipad, but this review will be focusing on the more technical aspect, like unboxing and posing. I hope to do second, photo based review if possible to gush on about the looks. Enjoy!

First things first, Kylo Ren is concealed in a very appropriately sized box reminiscent of a shoe box with a crisp matte black laminate embossed with foil lettering. The box’s outer shell is humble with merely a portrait of the figure, but once you remove the top, you get a significantly more elaborate “Stormtrooper Burlesque” cover. I love the inner cover, at first I thought it’d be nicer than the outer cover, but considering the standard and intent with these figures, perhaps the original cover is the best choice.  The cardboard the box is made of is very sturdy, not corrugated but more like a thicker cardstock. It holds its shape very nicely and arrived in great shape considering the lack of shipment cushioning.  

And of course... the licensing! ;°3

Opening the inner cover reveals the snugly fit character behind a vacuum form window. Is that Chinese lettering on the sticker? At this stage the lightsaber surprised me with it’s sheer size! The vacuum form packaging slips out of the shoe box, and is popped together with no tape, so no cutting to open this part and no damage is done to this chamber by opening it. During the next stages, however, there is much, much tape, so don’t think much about repackaging this guy if you open him!

The two lightsaber handles, the blades, and the secondary battery operated forearm come in their own little bubble, which is also not taped closed, so pop it apart with no damage. 

Kylo Ren himself seems to have found himself in quite a unique and kinky situation! This is where you’ll find yourself either doing a lot of careful peeling or a lot of careful cutting. The plastic is very snug and tear resistant, so I found myself cutting all but the plastic on his head and waist. 

The stand comes with a plastic protection sticker, which once removed reveals a very, very glossy surface. 

Now, that is a lot of packaging, but it’s pretty much all necessary. No wasted space, everything fits snugly in place and is well protected. The box is slim and very appropriately sized, so whether you plan to collect these in box, or if you are like me and stow the boxes away in a closet somewhere, you won’t find yourself frustrated with trying to hide it.  Considering there isn’t any other way I’d imagine this box could be better, I’m cornered into giving it a 10/10!

Of course upon opening, the first thing I notice about Kylo Ren is the amazing helmet. I understand that in small scale plastic, it’s hard to achieve a perfect realistic, battle worn metallic helmet, but this is as close at it gets, especially for a mass produced collectible. 

At first I was a little confused by their choice of what seemed to be nylon mesh for the visor, but a very short research showed me Kylo Ren in fact has a bit of mesh in the eye-portion of his mask. Perhaps metal mesh? Or maybe we’re seeing his kinky side yet again and it is a nylon hood. Either way, this toy is still accurate yet again. 

The only downside to the helmet, which is very minor, is that it’s hollow. If you were to raise Kylo Ren’s head above it’s standard forward position, he appears to be a bit of a terminator or something. However, his hood really makes it hard to raise his head back anyway, so you wont be running into this problem very frequently and lest you undress him, it’s easy to avoid. 

Kylo Ren comes with assortment of leather clad hands. A stunning 5 left hands and four right hands, there’s a lot more available expression using hands alone. 

All of the hands are made of a sturdy, flexible plastic. It is flexible enough that the gap in the gripping hands is slightly smaller than the handle of the lightsaber, so when the handle is place into his hand, there is a nice strong grip. Everyone who’s owned a sword-wielding figure knows the pain of a poor grip. While I can’t compare to other sword-wielding hot toys figures, I can say that this is an amazing breath of fresh air compared to any other accessorized figure I’ve owned, whether it be guns, swords or tools. The grip is impeccable, and I can easily say I’m impressed. 

One of these hands is his glowing saber-bearing hand. The handle of the saber is glued in place, as necessary to power the LED that, once the removable blades are attached, will light up all three of the saber’s iconic blade parts. Much to my pleasure, the hand and the saber are apparently molded and painted separately, and then glued together. So there are no messy paint seams between finger and handle, and it passes off just as believably as the hand in which you can place the separate saber handle.  Oh yeah, and this figure’s batteries are INCLUDED. How about that? Hunting down button cells for my Threezero Team Fortress Robot Heavy was an adventure, so I’m thankful the microscopic batteries are already included with this figure, even if they aren’t already inserted for me. 

The only shame with Kylo Ren’s majestic overcoat is the fact it covers up the layers of detailed clothing included on this figure. From the accordion style hoodie, to black slacks, to a secondary underlying cape, Kylo Ren is wearing a lot of clothes. The fabric overcoat seems to be infused with rubber, it feels rather high friction to the touch and “wiggles” a bit with movement. There is wire in the hood and around the base of the cape allowing you to sort of position the clothing, however it’s so fine that for the cape, it doesn’t really do much. The over coat is really nice, but unfortunately it’s too sturdy to sort of push back or pose him in a way to really see all the layers of detailed clothing concealed beneath.  All of the clothing is fabric, and according to a small zipper on his back and the sale of his naked jet black body on ebay, is removable. The only inaccuracy that stands out is the zipper on the back of his right arm, but that’s just so you don’t have a fit or end up having to entirely undress him to remove the LED bearing hand.  The accordion style hoodie is actually all tiny folds, so you can run into the problem of them becoming unfolded, but just push it back into place with no problem. That’s a lot of tight little folds! The boots are actually impressive on their own, being made of what seems to be a flexible plastic, you can actually bend the ankles through the boot. Too much and they will distort, but it’s enough to allow for some dynamic poses even with the boots showing. Despite having only just been released, it’s labelled 2015, and no place to write Andy on the bottom! ;°3

While I haven’t fully tested it yet, the overall poseability of this figure is really nice. The elbows and knees are both “double jointed” as you can see on the LED bearing hand in the packaging images, which allows for more realistic and more deeply bending limbs. Unlike I’d originally expected, the hands and feet are not on ball joints, but instead on multi-directional revolving joints, able to twist side to side and bend up and down, and also making the removal of the hands quite user friendly. Each replacement of the hand I tried, I didn’t fear snapping the pegs that hold the hand in place, and I don’t fear the breaking of pegs while moving the wrists and feet. And should you snap the pegs, two spare joints are included along with the many hands! The head appears to be on a ball joint, but I won’t remove it to find out. While the hood is very limiting to the positions the head can achieve, it also helps conceal the strange neck associated with the empty helmet and really, humans don’t take to many extreme poses naturally, even in intense situations. So even despite the limitations caused by the hood, I would still call this realistic save for maybe the up and down motions, which in reality may be limited by the helmet anyway. 

I haven’t yet entirely tried out the movement available with the body, but according to hot toys promotional images and images of body designs, I believe the thick layers of clothing limits the posing capacity of Kylo Ren’s body. 

Overall the joints are stiff, and make that clicking sound that locks the joints into each pose. While I’ve only owned this figure for a few hours, I’m satisfied with the strength of the joints, which hold poses very nicely under his own weight.

So to wrap this all up, I have to say this has been one of the most satisfying unboxings I’ve experienced yet. Having recently moved to Sweden, VAT of course is included when purchasing, so at a whopping $300, I was definitely holding my breath and the quality I was exposed to upon opening this box was very much a relief.  In conclusion, if you are a fan of Kylo Ren and planning to buy a figure for your collection, especially if you plan to take detailed photography, I’d definitely recommend Hot Toys 6th Scale with a rating of 10/10, based on comparison to other collectible figures.

[a-dog-reviews]

Jurassic World Electronic Chomping Indominus Rex

A trip to the local Target today brings us a few of the toys from the line produced by Hasbro for the 2015 movie Jurassic World, yet another film in the line of Jurassic Park. Judgement for the movie itself will not be found on this blog, I’m just a big fan of Jurassic Park toys. Of course, then it had to be that I at least get my hands on some of the new line, as much as pre-judgement discouraged me.

The last in this series of reviews is the Jurassic World Electronic Chomping Indominus Rex. 

Typical of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World toys, the electronic Indominus Rex comes in a standard open window try-me box. The part I find a bit unusual about this figure is that it comes without any batteries. It advertises “lights and sounds” and yet you can’t actually test out the lights and sounds until the toy is purchased, opened, and the batteries, purchased separately, are inserted. I find this a bit of a flaw. It is common for batteries to be sold separately, but the way this box is set up and the way this toy is advertised, and considering the fact that this is the ‘biggest and baddest’ in the series, I find the lack of batteries quite odd. 

Again this toy is held into it’s windowed box with what seems to be a possibly biodegradable string. There is some plastic support inside this box though, so it is not 100% cardboard like the spinosaurus box is.

Despite the lack of batteries, the simple and yet showy box design is pretty nice. So for packaging design, I give this guy an 7/10. I really think the lack of batteries takes away from this dinosaur’s general shelf quality.

Indominus Rex is a bad ass dinosaur, from his gripping hands to his thick knobby tail, and massive, erratically placed teeth. Unfortunately, his anatomy is a bit lacking on this version.

The most glaringly obvious anatomical anomaly is the fact this dinosaur’s head is the same size as his entire rib cage and chest area, and the closer to the tail you get, the smaller the body gets. He’s forever trapped in a “running at you” perspective, I guess. Both of his feet could fit in his mouth with plenty of room to spare. 

The problem along with his over sized head is the big arms and tiny legs. It is cool that this design has the large arms, it really makes for a menacing look, but the legs were very much neglected. They are pretty much the same size as the arms, which would be fine for a four legged dinosaur. And to make him even more imbalanced (even for just having the toy itself stand) the tail is extremely small. As I said before, it tapers from big to small from head to tail, as if he was in 3/4th perspective constantly. 

The paint job on this toy is fair, a solid gray color scheme with some shading here and there. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely not exciting. The eyes are nice, there is a lot of painted on detail, giving it a bit of “toonish” aggressive look. The mouth is a solid dull magenta, so lacking in detail but not all that bad. 

The scales are nicely sculpted, and this guy’s skin folds actually follow the hips, elbows, and other things like that. The leg scales are less sharp/crisp than on the smaller counterpart, but the back and head scales are better. 

The light up back is a bit poorly executed, but it’s a cool touch. It’s supposed to be the skin changing color, but it definitely just looks like a light. It’s a cool touch though, it’s decent quality LED in yellow and red, it lingers for a while after the action so you don’t have to hold down anything to have him lighting up during play time. 

I should mention, again this toy line goes with the screw holes~ No plugs, just deep holes with shiny, visible screws.  For over all look, this is a great toy, but his anatomy is pretty shoddy, so he get’s a 7/10. Better than spino, but not as good as his mini-me.

Of course this guy has great play-ability, this toy is a beast. 

The jaw is activated by pulling the arm down, but the arms are attached to each other. So when you pull one arm down, both arms come down and the mouth opens. This dinosaur seems very expressive about his outrage with whatever the current situation is. Alongside making him look like he’s more outraged at someone’s parking job than he is hunting prey, the arms are also very tough to pull down, it takes a lot of effort to push the arms down to make the head come down and the mouth open. 

The action is still cool, the mouth opens horrendously wide, which creates a rather dramatic and intense look, someone is very hungry.  The legs can be swiveled back and forth, however they are extremely loose, so they don’t hold their position and this dinosaur can’t stand without some sort of support (leaning on a wall or something, or staring up at the sky as he leans on his tail). The tail comes separate and is popped into place, and boy does that thing pop in good. It wiggles a bit when it’s in, it doesn’t sit snuggly, but getting that thing back out to pack it up for display, it was a tough job. I had to unscrew his body a bit and take the tail out that way, so at least you know the tail wont be popping out every time you grip it for some action time. 

In the end, that’s really all this toy does. There’s not a lot to it, but what it does is pretty dramatic and the size of it really adds to the thrill. So for play-ability, I give this a 9/10.

p.s. My apologies but I was recording with one hand so I had to push the head down instead of demonstrating the arm pull.

I’ve added some comparison shots to the 1998 Chaos Effect Omega T-rex, which anyone familiar with the long heritage of T-rexes in this series will know is the same as bull T-rex to give an example of what I feel are anatomical issues with the Indominus rex. While the hands facing inwards are more believable of Indominus rex, I think Omega T-rex’s head-to-body proportions, despite being chubby as hell, are more realistic and more balanced. The claws are too big on Omega T-rex, but the big feet also lend to his ability to balance as such a beast.  One thing that stands out to me is Omega T-rex and Indominus Rex’s heads are about the same size, but the bodies are drastically different. In hand, Omega T-rex feels about twice the size of Indominus rex, it was a bit hard to portray the feeling honestly in photographs, so they look more evenly matched in the comparison photos. 

I have a few points to make about my conclusion on this toy. First of all, the $34.99 price tag is not all bad for such a toy these days. Had I choice, equal price between say, Indominus Rex and what I consider to be his Lost World equivalent, Bull T-rex, I’d definitely go for the Bull T-rex as realism is an important factor to me when choosing toys for my personal collection. The loose legs and ginormous head are a minor let down to me, so in general I’d say this is not up there in my list of favourite Jurassic Park toys. However, as mentioned in previous reviews, the going price for something like a Bull T-rex or a Thrasher T-rex is a bit astronomical. For collection purposes, I’d say pay the extra and get an oldie but a goodie, but if you’re buying something for a young fan, or you’re not super picky about proportions and realism and instead want something flashy, the Indominus rex is a good toy, just for $34.99 I’d prefer something along the lines of the older toys. In the end, I’ll give this guy a 7.5/10 rating. It’s a great toy, but it’s just not up to par with the oldies I feel. 

[a-dog-reviews]

Jurassic World Jaw Chomping Indominus Rex (vs Gyrosphere)

A trip to the local Target today brings us a few of the toys from the line produced by Hasbro for the 2015 movie Jurassic World, yet another film in the line of Jurassic Park. Judgement for the movie itself will not be found on this blog, I’m just a big fan of Jurassic Park toys. Of course, then it had to be that I at least get my hands on some of the new line, as much as pre-judgement discouraged me.

Next in line is the medium sized jaw chomping Indominus Rex. I put “Vs. Gyrosphere” in paranthesis because I’m going to ignore the Gyro, despite it being part of the set. 

First things first, the box is a pretty standard try-me style, rather reminiscent of Jurassic Park 3′s Re-Ak A-tak line. In my opinion the design is pretty cool, one thing that sells is letting people touch the thing you are trying to sell, and there’s no B.S., you’re looking at what you’re buying.

Unique from previous lines, no twisty wire was used to hold these guys in place. Instead it seems to be a possibly biodegradable string. The only plastic on this entire box is the sellotape holding it closed. A major plus to this is you can simply cut it with scissors and get right down to business!

As for box design, I’d say 10/10. Unfortunately, before Indominus Rex was unpackaged and modification began, I forgot to take a picture of him in his package not in a group photo besides the back shot! 

Now of course the selling point for Indominus Rex as a toy and a character is the fact that, much like the 1998 Chaos Effect series, it isn’t a real dinosaur but a combination of dinosaurs. This one is aimed specifically to look intense and ferocious as more of a show beast than anything.

So with that in mind I give it very little judgement in comparison to other dinosaurs. I do compare it to a tyrannosaurus for general proportion and realism. I would consider the sculpt fair for this medium sized toy. Unlike the giant battery operated Indominus Rex I’ll review later, there is a lot of attention to each individual spike on his arms and the scales on his knees. The spikes going down the tail are pretty well defined, for example. Considering how round and soft this line of toys is generally sculpted, Indominus Rex is a pretty crisp and clean sculpt. 

Unlike the medium sized Rex in this series, the jawline defines the joint in the toy, giving his mouth a rather realistic movement and not taking too much away from the face aesthetically.

For a tremendous beast, I must admit the feet are a little small. Personally, I would like the feet to be at least a bit larger than the hands, they are about the same size on this figure. Nonetheless it doesn’t take too much from his overall look. For this dinosaur, I actually prefer this medium sized figure’s look vs. his larger battery operated counterpart, as there is a lot more attention to anatomy and realism vs. the action of the larger one.  The wound is pretty drastic, shown in a video later in this review, a spring loaded trap door reveals muscles, guts, and bones in a gaping open wound. This dino would be dead meat with a wound like that. Perhaps that is the intention, considering the trap door, you could have “living rex” and “dead rex.” I find that a tad bit gruesome for a toy, but in general the quality is fair. 

The paint job on this guy, unfortunately much like the spinosaurus, is fairly lazy. They picked some nice tones, the swamp green and cloud gray fit nicely and are a pretty good choice for a natural look. The airbrush job makes it at least have a bit more natural feel than the spinosaurus’s stamp job, but it’s easy to see a quick swish of paint had this guy in the ready, no bother to add any sort of stripes or patterns, besides what seems to be a line of magenta lipstick around the mouth. Considering no other Jurassic Park toy in history has had a bloody mouth, I am really uncertain as to what the pink is. The green, despite being a quick spray, is at least a big bonus over his battery operated counterpart, who didn’t get a color job at all. 

The mouth is quite an odd color, it is somewhere between magenta and red. Despite this, the wound is still a rich maroon. In general, the small details on this toy are actually pretty good.  The screw holes in the side not presented by the box take away a lot for me. In older toys, screw holes are often filled by little plugs, or toys are simply glued together and screw holes don’t pose any sort of problem, but these are pretty obvious.  For general looks, I’d give this guy an 8/10. 

Now, along with the general looks of this medium sized toy being pretty nice, the play-ability is pretty good too. It’s not as elaborate as the spinosaurus, but it’s good. 

Like the spinosaurus, you push the tail down, but instead of the head going up, Indominus Rex’s head goes down and the jaws snap shut. Simple and clean and all around pretty nice. It seems the designers wanted to make up for the lack of head turning with another action; the wound on the side is spring loaded. This is kind of a cool and unique idea, I definitely haven’t seen this done before. The down side is, it’s poorly rigged. The door isn’t really in like a groove or anything, it’s just kind of held against the opening with a spring. So when then wound is open and you try to close it, it pops out of place and keeps popping back open over and over, it’s really hard to close. Once you get it closed, the faintest tap will make it spring open again. So while I do like it as unique and new idea, it also could have been executed a lot better.  Again all four limbs pivot on peg joints, allowing for some simple but very much appreciated pose-ability. 

A bonus for this toy is the size, it’s not too big to become unstable in small hands, but also not too tiny to become boring. The downside to this one is, despite being double the price of it’s fellow dinos in the line, it’s really not any better design-wise.

So in the end, for play-ability, I’d give this guy an 8/10. The trap door’s mechanism is just a bit too annoying for me to see anyone getting much fun out of it, despite it being a cool idea, it could quickly become a frustration. 

I decided to include a quick comparison picture since this guy is a bit bigger than the small toys in this series. 

In conclusion, I think the $19.99 price tag on this toy is a bit on the steep end for it’s quality, but not to the point of “don’t buy.” It is a pretty good toy, it seems rather sturdy and the spring loaded mechanisms are pretty interesting gimmicks. 

All in all, in my opinion, this guy gets about an 8.5/10. Again, considering the prices you’ll pay for the old Jurassic Park Toys, if you are just looking for a pretty cool dinosaur toy with some decent quality and a fair level of exciting play, I’d recommend this one. 

[a-dog-reviews]

Bad Dragon's 'Waterhorse'

Mail time today brings us Bad Dragon's Waterhorse that was put up for sale during Shark Week. Interestingly enough, during shark week there was no sharks on sale, no new shark toys, just a bunch of mammals. So.. Interesting Shark Week special. Due to it not being a shark, I had expected it to become available for several months, and ended up missing out on the custom runs. This one came from a later 'ready made' sale. Which, by the way, they put out only a few at a time, so buying one when you see it is a bit of a gamble, a color or firmness you like better may show up just after you order yours. But of course, if you don't buy it, being limited run, it could disappear. Happy Hunting!

'Ready Made' does not signify 'Ready to Ship,' and my $38.41 international two day shipping took about 10 days including the time I ordered the toy itself because it took Bad Dragon that many days to get it out the door. Fedex took about 3 days including the intial "pick up" date, which is normal for any carrier. 

I opened a trouble ticket regarding the slow shipment, and was informed their ticket system was backed up five whole days, and I got my reply a few days after the item had finally shipped on the 7th day. 

Warning!!! Please understand this is a toy intended for adults only, and this review should only be viewed if you are 18 years or older, as my blog has been marked for. 

When you get a limited run from Bad Dragon, you get this fancy bag which has one black half with a red foil emblem. My limited run Wolf Dragon came in a similar package. It is sealed closed like an envelope, allowing you to just peel it open fairly easily. If you are too rough with it, it will rip, so just be careful. It's kind of a cool bag. 

Being a left over, I did not have a choice of firmness, and the first thing I noticed is that soft for this toy is way too dang soft. This is a medium toy, so 10 inches total, 8 inches of usable length. It is so soft that if you hold it horizontally, it hangs down. Sitting upright, any bump or shift of your desk leaves it wobbling for quite a while. 

I have not yet tested this toy so I do not know if this will cause a problem, but it just seems to me that something so soft will be a bit of a challenge to use. 

The next thing I notice is the shape, the perspective at which Bad Dragon took their promotional pictures implied a more uniform thickness through the entire toy, with the sheath being mildly thicker. This turned out to be quite false, as you can see from the direct profile, the tip is very very thin compared to the rest of the toy. However, it makes for a very interesting design so I am not complaining. 

The softness would be great for the sheath itself, what would be really great is if the core and the phallus were made from firm silicone, and the sheath stayed soft. I know Bad Dragon no longer does firm cores, but one can dream. 

This is my first size medium toy, that Flint and David are both small. The sheath on the Waterhorse is considered useable length. Had I a choice I definitely would have picked full firmness for the waterhorse, and would highly recommend that if you ever get the chance to pick up a custom.

In conclusion, I am glad I went ahead and grabbed this one, since I had missed the custom run I figured I missed out so the left over was a bit of a relief. However, I don't feel it is worth the $150 I paid for it, I would rather have paid $75 I believe.  Time and experimentation will tell.

To give it a rough scale rating; Design would be 7/10, the whole reason I bought this was for the look, but it definitely doesn't work for anything but firm. 

Customer service would be 5/10, I was left in the dark for 7 days, and got a reply to my question after about 5 days when I had sent my question about half way through the wait for shipment. All of this after paying the $150 is not very comfortable. 

I hope you find this review helpful or at least interesting!!

To finish up this review, have a glory shot of my entire fantasy dingle collection: 

[a-dog-reviews]

DVC Large k9 Resin Base and Other Parts

Today my Large k9 Resin Blank kit, feral paw pads, 1" fan, and 18 claws arrived in the mail. I have wanted to test out what it was like using a resin base and DreamVisionCreations has a great reputation and are extremely easy to work with. If you are interested in purchasing anything from DVC, you can find it in their Etsy shop!

Note: DVC has no allergy warning and NONE of the parts had cat hair when I opened the box. Any hairs that show up in the pictures are from my own cats!

Onto the review!! I laid out all the parts for a nice overview picture as I took them out of the box. The fan came in a plastic bag, I just didn't take any pictures of it.  The HUGE, darkest paw pads are from a flaw/overstock lot left over from anthrocon and were discounted, as were the super tiny tiny tiny hand paws I got the feral pads to replace. Everything else was bought in the same lot through their Etsy store. 

Silicone easily picks up fibres, dust, and various other lightweight debris, it's just how it is. It is also easy to clean up, so please excuse my dirty silicone parts they will be cleaned when I use them. 

Pretty straightforward, clear plastic eyes with a nice half circle outward shape to it, with a dot of black  paint on the back. I will probably be painting these and attaching them to the head with epoxy before I send this off to my mate in Sweden. 

This shocked me quite a bit but I'm starting to figure out DVC parts are extremely randomly proportioned, even though they fit into each other. This tongue is very, very very small and that is because in order to fit into the jaw without bumping into the wearer's mouth, they made it short enough to fit in the front of the lower jaw. But instead of just making half a tongue or something, they made a full sized canine tongue just scaled down, making it look a bit weird. Subsequently, the teeth are the same, instead of just making front teeth only, it's a whole jaw scaled down to fit. 

These jaws -are- hand sculpted and made to fit into the head, so the weird sizing poses no problem.

Bottom jaw aside, the top jaw is actually a realistically sized and still fits in nicely.

,

Inside the head may look rough, but it's actually because this company takes the time to file down the inside of the head and make sure there are no sharp parts that are going to irritate or damage skin should the buyer choose not to line the head with anything. It is actually really smooth with only a slight grainy feel to the touch.

The eyes sit nicely into the provided holes, with the slightest gap around them allowing for people to add eyelids. Unfortunately in all the DVC heads I have seen finished by customers, no one I have seen so far has bothered to add eyelids and they can look a bit neurotic. I plan to add epoxy eyelids with the hopes I don't make it look neurotic OR give it the 'sleepy' look of a Muppets character.

Lastly for the resin base, there is a signature on the lower jaw signifying who made it!

The nose is solid silicone and it is super squishy. I will have to cut the nose out of the head myself because I forgot to specify that in my order, but I probably will go ahead and do that because the squishy nose is awesome.  I added a picture of me stretching the edge around the nose because I always wondered how well silicone actually stuck to the fabric, because in my experience silicone doesn't really stick to anything. I can assure you, it's very well stuck!

The 9 volt required to power the fan does NOT fit into the hole provided. I have yet to figure out how to permanently solve this problem, to test the fan I simply crammed a wad of duct tape into the hole. I will figure this out when we actually get around the putting the fursuit together later this year. 

A major plus side to their fans is it runs almost silently. We are going to put it inside the mask as they recommend in a youtube video, and I was a bit worried about having a constant "whirring" sound while in use, but it actually is almost completely silent while running.  It did make a bit of a buzzing sound when running on the table, so I'm hoping that doesn't happen while in the head. I'll probably put a ring of foam around it or something to sort of insulate it and prevent it from vibrating the resin.

The claws are light-weight and really smooth to the touch, so no fear of cutting people if you are horsing around.

 If you are a perfectionist, there is a SLIGHT sideways curve to the claws that barely shows, it merely exists if you happen to worry about that sort of things. I personally don't care and I really like the claws. 

Edit: DVC contacted me to inform me the thick feet paw pads are a rubber other than silicone, in case anyone is curious!

Onto the feetpaws. I got the thick k9 pads in an overstock/flawed lot left over from anthrocon. The "flaw" is that the fabric on the back had become totally soaked in silicone, and this is a very very hard silicone. So getting it to attach to the bottom of the feet is going to be a real challenge. I am not yet sure how I will do that, but I'll figure something out. I got them for only $25 so I am not complaining. DVC is picky about their final products and that is why there are 'Comment to Claim' discount frenzies every now and then available through their FA page, Dreamvisioncreations

My favourite part about these thick pawpads is they are basically the same material as a shoe-sole. They are thick and hard, but flexible, they feel extremely durable and I think that is great for the part of the suit that is going to take the most stress out of the whole costume. 

Remember, these pawpads were flawed and if you buy them from the Etsy store yours will have  a fabric back on it. 

The next pawpads, the feral k9 pads, were bought from the Etsy store and have no flaws, and have a soft fabric backing that will allow me to either glue or sew the pads into place.  The small anthro k9 I bought from the flawed lot were SO very small I can't use them, but the feral paw pads are PERFECTLY sized for anthro hands, considering how much size fur adds on when you make gloves. 

Here are some pictures of the flawed/discounted small anthro k9 versus the feral k9. 

Here is why I can't use the small anthro k9, not only are my mate's hands bigger than mine and this will be his suit, but even for my own hands they start out small, with fur on top they would disappear. 

To conclude pawpads, have a picture of the feral and thick pawpads compared. I am not worried about the color/sheen difference as they wont be next to each other and I wanted extra durable pads for the feet and different materials have different sheens. 

Left: Flawed/discounted, Right: From the Etsy store, just showing why the thick pads were discounted. 

In conclusion, I am very excited to start working on this! There is close attention to quality, despite the rather odd proportions of the mouth parts.  Customer service is really good, no trouble even when I caused some trouble editing orders after having already placed them TWICE. Through the whole process they were very patient with me and made sure I got what I wanted and really quickly. Their shipping information says expect three weeks, it took only one, and they ship it via Priority 2 day, and it only took two days for this one to arrive.

For a very rough scale rating, I'd say 9/10 for design, 10/10 for customer service!

I hope you find this review helpful or at least interesting!!

[a-dog-reviews]

Funko Vinyl Collection Big McIntosh

Note: there will be some repetition if you have already viewed my Applejack figure. 

On July 4th, 2014, I went to a mall with my friends and everything was on sale. Including in Hot Topic, buy one get one free that affected every item. So I picked up Funko’s Applejack and Big McIntosh vinyl figures. I already reviewed Applejack, now time to take a look at Big Mac!

The box as you can see is dense cardboard with a window so you can see the product directly. Nice, but could have been a bit broader of a viewing point, the darkness created by the window size on such a dark box made me miss some very important points about the figure.  I do love dense cardboard for boxes, and I especially love the lack of tape. Tape seems to always destroy a box at some point. On the negative side I have a Rubber Duck in the same type of packaging I have had for almost 10 years, and the glue no longer exists, so the box just fell apart. If you don’t mind altering it from it’s factory-fresh state, you can just glue them back together when this happens and it won’t really cause any visual harm to the packaging. 

All in all, I do love Funko’s box designs, it is a bit of a selling point for me in this series.

Much like the Applejack figure, the solid feel is quickly noticeable when taking this figure from the box. It is a bit different from the traditional hollow feel of a My Little Pony, and also lacks the original head-turning capabilities we've known for many years. However, I do like the solid feel to it. 

A nice change to this one is the seam in the neck is down against his yolk, making it far less glaring than the around-the-neck seam on Applejack, and gives less of the "this head should turn" illusion. 

Another positive is that the seams on this one are a whole lot tidier too. Big Mac doesn't look like he's had a face-lift, which I hadn't expected to be a problem on either of them. His seems exist but they are pretty smooth as I would have expected with an original retail price of $18.50.

Then of course, you take a closer look at the figure. Being a mass-produced (even if it was 'exclusive') figure, I do expect things to simply be stamped on instead of painted on, but I do not expect said stamp to have slid from the figure during the stamping process. At least, that is the best guess I have as to why his cutie mark is so messed up on the right side. On the left, the figure was obviously touched while the paint was still drying.  Unlike the original My Little Ponies, there are seams on the hooves, but it is something I expect with figures made from a harder plastic. However, it seems someone tried to correct a seam during the making process, because there is a big slice out of the front of his back right hoof. It was very very hard to photograph, so please forgive the blurriness of the picture. 

Of course, these ponies have a branding stamp on the bottom of their hoof just as we'd expect from any My Little Pony figure, however this line has "bonus licencing text" coating the entire belly. This doesn't pose too much of a problem though, considering the text isn't too pronounced and doesn't cast a very hard shadow.  And you can see, our Big Mac has a bit of a wrinkling issue with his bottom right hoof, the same one that has the slice out of it. That foot just has back luck!

  Drawing the same conclusion as last time, if a barrage of minor flaws bothers you, I'd recommend staying away from this line. However, if you aren't paying attention to tiny details like that, these figures do look great, the solid feel and the new toon-style look to them are quite appealing. I would personally would never pay the original retail price of $18.50, but I am glad I grabbed these when I did. 

To make up a rough scale, I'd give these figures a 7 / 10

[a-dog-reviews]

Funko Vinyl Collection Applejack

On July 4th, 2014, I went to a mall with my friends and everything was on sale. Including in Hot Topic, buy one get one free that affected every item. So I picked up Funko's Applejack and Big Macintosh vinyl figures. I'll make a separate post about Big Mac, let's start with Applejack.

The box as you can see is dense cardboard with a window so you can see the product directly. Nice, but could have been a bit broader of a viewing point, the darkness created by the window size on such a dark box made me miss some very important points about the figure.  I do love dense cardboard for boxes, and I especially love the lack of tape. Tape seems to always destroy a box at some point. On the negative side I have a Rubber Duck in the same type of packaging I have had for almost 10 years, and the glue no longer exists, so the box just fell apart. If you don't mind altering it from it's factory-fresh state, you can just glue them back together when this happens and it won't really cause any visual harm to the packaging. 

All in all, I do love Funko's box designs, it is a bit of a selling point for me in this series. 

The first thing I notice about this figure is it's solid and heavy, which I love. The squishyness of original ponies is great, but I do love a solid figurine. However, I was quickly disappointed by the lack of joint in her neck. The rough, deep seam gives the illusion her head can turn when it really can't. I did, however, expect the hat to be part of her head, and it is, and it is securely glued in place. 

The next thing that very much stands out about this figure is how terribly the seams are done. Selling originally at $18.50 per figure, I would expect a smooth surface for the most part. I do allow for some visual seams with my expectations because these are toys, but it looks a bit like Applejack got a face-lift. 

Now, once you get past the very noticeable seams, there is a bit more to discover, which the box nicely concealed in the dimly-lit Hot Topic setting. That would be the very interesting glue method for putting together the tail, which for some reason is made of two parts, and the peg which fits into the rear-end is smaller than the hole it needs to fit in. However, as glaringly obvious as it is up-close, this doesn't take too much from the overall look of the figure and is only a minor complaint to me. 

The tiny black stain is a mystery to me, and was also there upon opening the figure. 

Lastly, much like Ponies of every era, you get a branding logo on the bottom of the foot, but this line of ponies has "bonus licencing text" coating the entire belly. Again, not a big visual problem as it is not too pronounced and the text doesn't cast a very harsh shadow. 

In conclusion, if minor flaws here and there are something that bothers you I'd recommend staying far from this line. However, I personally do love them, I would not pay the recommended retail price of $18.50, but I am glad I grabbed these. The solid feel and the new toon-style look are really enjoyable to me. 

To make up a sort of rough scale I'd give this figure 7/10~