VioFitz

[viofitz]

Review: Storm Arena Street Fighter Zero 3: Ryu

Introduction:

Storm Collectibles (SC) is a Hong Kong based designer and manufacturer of action figures. Known for making officially licensed, collectible action figures, most notably from video game series and iconic figures. Storm Arena (SA) is a toy line from SC which features an actual 6-inch figure and economic versions of the regular line, which ironically in the very early of regular line they claimed regular line as 6" but, for many people including me the regular line is indeed way too big. Aside Street Fighter Zero/Alpha 3 (SFZ3/SFA3) series, Storm Arena also expanded to the other series such as King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Match (KOF98UM) and Baki Hanma action figures. The figures were made into 1/12 scale which exclusively to fit with those like Hasbro Marvel Legends (ML) and Jada Toys (JT), like the regular line they still feature numerous points of articulation, interchangeable head sculpts and pairs of hands, special fighting effect parts and display stand set. However due to their economical price, they feature lesser accessories than the regular line. The review is going to focus on Ryu from SFZ3, he was given with a purple and black with pixelated worldwide sprite from SFZ3 boxart with a visible large window plastic, we can almost see the whole contents. The front part was printed with SA logo above the window, SFZ3 logo with Ryu name as well as his SFZ3 artwork portrait with Z-ISM gauge bar below the window and SA with Capcom logo prints on the upper card. The background inside the figure there's actually a background paper of Ryu's stage from SFZ3 game but, due to their extensive amount of plastics packaging we can barely see the background. While the back part is mostly shown the figure's promotional photos showing how the figure works with some pixelated sprites and Ryu's winning artwork from the game and printed SC's informations with Age 17+ and barcode numbers of the product.

Contents:

Ryu comes with 1 alternate Head Sculpt (HS), 1 alternate headband tail, 2 option hands, 1 Hadouken effects and a display stand set.

Character introduction:

Ryu is the main protagonist of the Street Fighter (SF) series, first appearing in the original SF (1987). He is an experienced martial artist, highly focused on his training, aiming to become the strongest he can. He was created by the game designer Takashi Nishiyama who was inspired from a real life Korean-Japanese Karateka Masutatsu Ōyama (Mas Oyama) and a fictional character Yoshiji Soeno from Karate Master (Karate Baka Ichidai). Ryu appears as the game's lead character in many games even the crossovers such as Marvel VS Capcom (MVC) series, Capcom VS SNK (CVS) series, SNK VS Capcom (SVC) series, Namco X Capcom (NXC), Street Fighter X TEKKEN (SFXT), Tatsunoko VS Capcom (TVC), Project X Zone (PXZ) and Super Smash Bros (SMB). Ryu also appeared in other medias such as the animes, short web live action series and even the mediocre 1995 cartoon series including the pathetic live action 1994 movie. Ryu in this incarnation was based from his appearance in SFZ3 series which features his younger looks.

Ryu is a Japanese fair skinned man with muscular stature and medium length dark brown hair, his attire consists of a white karate gi with the sleeves torn off, a long white hachimaki (headband), a black martial arts belt and bare feet (a choice he makes of his own, believing it to be more comfortable). In many of his appearances, Ryu carries around a large, white duffle bag containing items important to his travels. But, in SFZ series he never carry that bag except in SFZ3 and Marvel crossover series endings. Ryu's hachimaki tail, wrist gloves and upper gi are removable along with his belt so you can make him shirtless and you can clearly see his detailed body as well as diaphragm and ab-crunch joints. What surprised me, his overall clothings got sculpted textures which made this figure feels premium, I think Storm kinda outdone on this since that textures are not really present in the game since you know... Anime style but, I really like this attention of details.

Ryu's articulation points are movable head, neck, diaphragm, ab-crunch on the lower torso, arms; butterfly joints on the shoulders, bicep cuts, double jointed elbows and wrists, legs; thighs, thigh cuts, double jointed knees and ankles. He got quite wide range movements as you can spread his legs into a complete split pose; side and front. Ryu's headband and belt tails can be rotated 360 degrees so, you can create his pose more expressive. Ryu's upper gi and chest were made from soft rubber plastic which they're flexible for posing his butterfly joints, especially if you want to recreate his Hadouken pose.

Atlast, I have waited a looong time for this anime styled Ryu face! I gotta admit it's not actually accurate to the artwork of SFZ games but, more resembles to SFZ the animation. Either way, atleast he still got SFZ style Ryu's likeness such as that thick eyebrows and despite his anime face, Ryu's face got extended details such as sculpted nostrils. Ryu comes with 2 HS in total; one would be his neutral serious face for battle stance and angry face with his mouth open showing his teeth to recreate expressive battle poses. His upper hair, bangs and hachimaki tail were made from soft rubber materials. I like how they uses this since he'll be much safer from breaking. His headband also got sculpted textures similar to his gi and both HS comes with their own headband tail but, they're the same sculpted so, it won't really necessary if you use the attached one from neutral head to his angry head. I guess, since they're easy removable and even sometimes loose, Storm prepared a spare for us to use this incase we missed one. But, I was hoping they'd make a variant like waving back for like Hadouken pose or spread wide for other expressive poses. And I really wished Ryu would atleast comes with another head for his notable shouting/yelling face during the battle since SFZ Ryu is seen many times with that expression especially in Marvel crossover series but, I take it that another head it would be overbudget for them.

Ryu only comes with 4 hands in total, the one that already attached is a pair of fisted hands for recreating his battle stance or punch poses, while the optional is his open splayed hands for Hadouken poses mostly or other pose that require this hands. Well, okay... I think these 2 hands are more than enough for recreating Ryu's poses, unlike the regular line his hands were made from soft rubber materials instead of semi hard plastic. I don't against with it but, I'm not quite fond on how his hands are much lighter than the rest of his body even his gloves between the wrists is a bit lighter as well.

Ryu also comes with a clear colored display stand set and a clear blue colored Hadouken effect piece with its own stand. Display stand comes with 2 variant mandibles/waist grip which can be put into the stand tower's box hole; clear plastic which already hooked to the stand and black metal. The black metal blends well for Ryu's black belt and much sturdier than the clear plastic one but, both still very useful depending on your preferences. The box hole on the tower uses ratchet joints to move them up and down and you can even remove them easily. The box hole also got articulated ball to allow positioning the figure, of course you're going to need to attach the tower on the circular base but, in certain poses sometimes the base couldn't withstand the figure's weight. Yes, the Ryu figure himself is heavy, even slightly heavier than my Marvel Legends Wolverine yellow suit. The Hadouken effect piece is given with 3 pieces of plastics to make them stand for Ryu to unleash his Hadouken with his hands. However, 3 pieces attached is a bit too tall, whereas 2 pieces fully attached is a bit too short Ryu so, I used 2 by loosen the stand pieces. Maybe I'm wrong at posing his Hadouken pose but, I actually using his SFZ sprite as my pose reference but, the 3 pieces of plastics are still useful for recreating like aerial Hadouken attack just like in Marvel crossover series. One more thing, you're going to need 2 base display for this, I actually borrowed from SA Ken's base just to make this. Hadouken effect is an energy ball shaped with aura and another interesting thing is the Hadouken piece is actually 2 pieces of plastics which you can remove them into front and rear part, with the front part you can fit them to Ryu's wrist to recreate Shin Shoryuken in Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter (MSHVSF) style. Wow, the effect fits perfectly to his hands, it's like it was meant to be used like this as well. I'm surprised no one in the video review ever mention this.

Lastly, like regular line Ryu also comes with his own background called "The Road". It is Ryu's stage in SFZ3, which seemingly just printed pixelated background depicting the road to Suzaku Castle in sunset view. Hmm... not really a big fan of it since it has no base for the floor.

Man... Ryu and Psylocke stands pretty much the same height despite both are Japanese (since it's Kwannon's body) but, they're different line so, can't really complain to it but, comparing to Psylocke's HS, Ryu's head looking small which kinda off for them to be paired like this. Oh, well... Ryu has never partnered with her in all of their appearances and considering Psylocke is a side character compared to Ryu.

Thoughts:

SA Ryu is one of the decent made Ryu figure from his SFZ incarnations, though JT also teased their own SFA Ryu for next year release which I do not interested to get another regular Ryu. And to be honest, I'm more than happy with this SA and I'm planning to get the characters that I like if SC still continuing the line. This Ryu is pure satisfactions and it was a blast playing the figure, I made tons of photos of this figure. And the figure goes really well with Hasbro ML so, you can recreate your own Marvel series crossover. The cons would be his hands that I mentioned earlier, stiff joints on the left sides of arm and crotch and loose headband tail. There's another but, it came from my own mistakes so, I won't mention it. Overall, I've waited decades for this Ryu figure from hoping to GoodSmile Company (GSC) Figma then to Bandai S.H.Figuarts (SHF), Jada and finally Storm did it! Now, I'm interested to make my own SF crossover with Marvel.

Thank youu for reading!😁🙏🏻

[viofitz]

Review: Hasbro Marvel Legends Gamerverse 2-Pack: Psylocke

Introduction:

Hasbro, Inc. or originally named as Hassenfeld Brothers, is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herman Hassenfeld and is incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Marvel Legends is one of Hasbro's action figure line based on the characters of Marvel Comics, initially produced by Toy Biz since 2002, then by Hasbro in the beginning of January 1 2007. Today's review, will be all about Gamerverse 2-Pack VS line which there're 10 variant released figures; Wolverine VS Silver Samurai (Amazon Exclusive), War Machine VS Omega Red (Walmart Exclusive), Psylocke VS Thanos (Target Exclusive), Captain America VS Venom (Regular release), Shuma Gorath (Amazon Exclusive) and Juggernaut (Amazon Exclusive). However, Shuma Gorath and Juggernaut was released as single character due to their massive size, and some of the products were sold exclusively in certain stores in America (mentioned above). In this review it's going to be Psylocke only, she along with Thanos were packed with purple colored boxart in overall with window box that reveals the whole contents packed inside the blisters, Psylocke was packed in the left side while Thanos on the right. Below the window there're printed logos of "Pslocke VS Thanos" with Hasbro logo on the bottom right, while the upper left corner above the window got "Marvel Legends" (ML) logo, center is Marvel's Gamerverse logo and left is warning sign. The rear part is mostly showing render art of Psylocke VS Thanos in the Training stage background of Marvel VS Capcom 2. The upper part, there're ML Series logo and character explanations. The lower part is showing Gamerverse, Marvel as well as Hasbro logo, warning and attention sign in multiple languages. Funny, they clearly based this 2 figures from Marvel VS Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes but, they never mention Capcom at all despite it was a game developed by Capcom. Perhaps, they want to avoid Capcom's involvement but, I'm pretty sure Capcom's designs were exactly based on Marvel Comics. In this 2-pack Psylocke and Thanos are the top billed figures but, despite this many people (including me) only gets their attention on Psylocke figure compared to Thanos. In many cases, Psylocke uses brand new mold without recycling from her old versions, or you can say renewal in Bandai while Thanos is a clear reused from his old versions (mainly his body). But, in my case I simply don't like Thanos and... actually I'm not a big fan of Psylocke myself as well but, I bought her because of other personal reasons. Well, time to separate Psylocke from Thanos!

Contents:

Psylocke as the main figure comes with alternate Head Sculpt (HS), 3 hands and 4 Psychic effects.

Character introduction:

Psylocke, real name Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock, is a character from the X-Men series by Marvel. She is a mutant with telepathic and telekinetic abilities, and can focus her psionic powers into "psychic blades", and a twin sister of a mutate brother, Brian, also known as Captain Britain. Although originally Caucasian in appearance, she is depicted as Asian in most of her media appearances due to being body-swapped with a Japanese ninja assassin named Kwannon. She debuted in X-Men: Children of the Atom and has reappeared in Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (MVC2). She is also an assist character in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (MVC). She also made a very brief appearance in X-Men VS Street Fighter (XVSF) and Marvel VS Capcom 3 (MVC3), she is usually portrayed as one of the X-Men hero. But, in other media such as the X-Men movies; she always been depicted as a minor villain (mainly henchmen) in the movies. I guess she's one of the underrated Marvel characters but, funny thing her figure became a target for stupid scalpers which causing her figure alone to be overpriced.

Psylocke is a woman with black with purple highlight long hair that long enough to her waist, she got curvy body and thick legs, she's donning dark blue one piece swimsuit with sculpted belt which has X buckle painted in magenta and black, bands on her biceps and thighs, long gloves that reaches to her knuckles and long boots. None of her getup parts are cast-off including her belt but, I like how they cleverly hides her articulation cuts using her clothings such as blue bands on her biceps and her long boots. Unlike the old versions or even most of female ML, Psylocke is now included with butterfly joints. Gotta be frank, quite bold hanging around with that one piece swimsuit but... I guess it's kind of tolerable with that long gloves and long boots so, she got less skin exposure.

Psylocke's articulation points are movable head, ab-crunch on the torso, arms; butterfly joints on the shoulders, double jointed elbows and wrists, legs; thighs, double jointed knees and ankles. Her head couldn't move to look up or rotate well due to her long hair but, using her alternate HS would atleast make her head move easier though you can't still make her look up. Since she got no separate part on her getup so, there's no other obstacle on her overall articulations other than her long hair. One thing to be note that, since her crotch were made from hard plastic so, becareful when posing her thighs not too close to her crotch since it may left a light scratch coming from her crotch.

Unlike her past releases where she is usually have comic face, in this figure Psylocke got a strong Asian looks but, since she's a body-swapped this means this is not her actual body. Using the latest face print her face is looking like a real Asian lady, you can clearly tell from her round face and that slight squinty eyes but, she kinda reminds me of young Natasha Yi face. I like how her eyes got some eye shadows but, gotta admit those dark red lipstick kinda looking too standout. Her hair material is seemingly purple colored since the inside part of her hair is just simply purple which they didn't even bother to add the black highlights on the other side, probably she was meant to be like that but, eitherway they didn't really bothering. She comes with 2 HS, one is her neutral serious face with straight long hair that covered her ears which is already attached to her main figure and the other is her angry head with her mouth open showing her teeth and different hair sculpt which the rear hair flows to the right side. The alternate head is compatible to attach her butterfly psychic effect to recreate her Psi-Flash attack. If I'm gonna be frank, if they really based her from MVC2 game she looks nothing at all from both artwork and especially the missing face mark which she was supposed to have but, I don't care about the face mark.

Psylocke comes with 5 hands in total, the one that already attached is right hand grip for gripping something but, this is kind of awkward that she doesn't come with any weapon and in the games she never even wield any weapon other than her psychic blades though, in the comics she wields katana so, I guess it was a creative liberties coming from them. The left hand is a fist hand while the rests are ninja finger gesture left and right hands for her ninja techniques such as Ninjutsu and Kochou Gakure and last one is open splayed left hand. To be frank, I'd rather her to come with a pair of fist and open splayed hands, because if you don't have any katana accessory it would be useless using those hand grip unless you have something else in mind. Luckily, I got one for my custom figure Evil Kunoichi so, I can borrow that for my Psylocke.

Lastly, she's included with 4 effects in total, 1st would be her Psi-Flash effect specs that have to be attached to her angry head; which you just simply put the frames on her face. Each frames got different shape to fit into her hair but, attaching the effect is pretty frustrating for me since the effect always fell easily. Maybe it's just me that not used to handle this figure. 2nd is Psychic Blade effect that can be attached on one of her wrist to recreate her using her psychic blade and 3rd-4th is a pair of Psi-Blade effects to recreate her swinging her psychic blades. You can either attach them on her wrists or on her hands but, the effects are kind of confusing me. In the render art, she is shown to be using the effects on the wrists with her both hands attached so, I tried their way but, the effects always appeared to be in slanted positions due to the hands obstacling the effect's position. So, I decided not to use her hands on using this effects, I know it looks like she lost her hands but, I'll take it her hands are fully covered by her effects.

Thoughts:

Eventhough, I'm not a fan of Marvel comics nor even Psylocke but, I really like this figure. Though, not quite happy with her paintapp quality especially the slight different color tone of her skin paint on her blue part on the torso with her arms and thighs. Also, several paintapp appeared to be sloppy such as her thigh bands. And I never thought she would suffered few scratches from certain posing and even from attaching her effects, which she's the first ML figure to be quite frail unlike other ML figures I owned which they're more durable even on extreme posing. The only reason I get her is because her HS reminds me of young Natasha Yi which she used to be one of my actress crush, for sure if this Psylocke got the same face like her past releases I probably not gonna buy her.

OMAKE:

Yup, that's Kou the KibaRanger for sure.

[viofitz]

Review: Jiepin Mini 4WD: Asurada

Introduction:

More of Mini 4WD model kit review but, not Tamiya nor other Japanese brand. It'll be Jiepin, seemingly another Chinese third part company that produced their own Mini 4WD kit. However, aside being another Tamiya knockoff, I don't know anything about Jiepin as I haven't found their company information but, I think they're fresh company for Mini 4WD. I gotta admit to be called as a knockoff is quite unfitting, since the boxart design is looking pretty luxurious and good quality of paper and print they used. It shows promotional photo/art of Asurada model in frontal angle, unlike Tamiya they put +14 ages for this. Meaning, they could be quite dangerous for children without adult's supervision. But, I think every Mini 4WD products needs adult supervision for children. In this representation; despite being named Asurada, the car is shown using different livery/decal and the sticker/decal was included exactly the same like the one depicted in the boxart. The kit got cockpit that shows the driver driving the car, which once again piqued my interest to get this. And yes, the kit does have driver figurine inside.

Contents

Inside the box, we get 1 bodyshell runner, 1 chassis parts runner, 1 main chassis, 1 cockpit visor, 1 rollers runner, wheelsets, gear set, motor set, sticker and a screwdriver.

Asurada:

Asurada a fictional super Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the anime Future GPX Cyber Formula. It is a highly advanced artificial intelligence that acts as a navigation and racing system for the Sugo team's Cyber Formula cars, also known as the Super Asurada. The Super Asurada, is the name of the car equipped with the Asurada AI, there are multiple versions of the Super Asurada that is; the GSX, 01, and AKF-11. In this conversion, the bodyshell is seemingly based on The Super Asurada AKF-11 (pronounced Double One) model. It is the third Asurada vehicle to be introduced in the franchise and the first to operated by two teams (Sugo Asurada and Sugo Winners). It made it's first appearance in Episode 3 of Future GPX Cyber Formula 11. The actual AKF-11 got different livery compared to what the actual Jiepin's included, it seems like they included different decal to avoid license infringement.  Depending on the type AKF-11 used in the series, the car may have different livery as the series progressed but, most of them are only differ in the numberings. AKF-11 features a futuristic yet, dynamic and robotic design of formula one car, it was supposed to have 6 wheels but, since this was designed for Mini 4WD so, having 6 wheels is impossible but, in this review my friend did his best to give the accurate decals from Cyber Formula counterpart instead of using the actual decal. The livery is now very different from what Jiepin's included, originally this Asurada got yellow and red decals on several part of its body and they gave them with their own sponsors logo. But in this review, the car depicts greatly to the actual AKF-11 in the anime where the red and yellow parts is lesser and the sponsors are different as well. The car is still white in overall but, added with metallic blue trims. There's also metallic maroon red color on the twin exhausts pipes, for a knockoff they looked pretty neat and even precise. Loving the details they put on the bodyshell, feels like a legit Tamiya release I gotta say although, I'm not sure about assembling them because it was all my friend who did the full works. But, he said assembling them was fun and safe enough, no fragile parts.

Driver:

The Super Asurada AKF-11, also got driver figurine which is one mold with the main bodyshell but, the cockpit visor is a separate part. The driver shown in here was painted to resemble Hayato Kazami as the driver, he's shown to wear blue suit with white gloves and red helmet. The overall cockpit navigator is painted black and I loved how they're sculpted neatly. The driver figurine looks similar to Cross Spear 01 and 02 drivers.

Super XX Chassis:

The kit uses Super XX Chassis, which is a replica of Tamiya's Super XX Chassis. Super XX was originally released in November 2009 by Tamiya which debuted with the release of Max Breaker Black Special. It is the improved version of the Super X Chassis, sadly I don't have the original Tamiya version of Super XX chassis so I cannot make a comparison photos. The overall chassis is black color, it has the rigid, wide multi-subframe chassis frame. It has the wheelbase of 84 mm and the tread of 70 mm (when equipped with with large-diameter narrow wheels), which makes the chassis more stable on cornering and jumping as well as increases the straight line speed, at the expense of cornering speed. An additional front nose guard can be attached to widen the front bumper as well as provide frontal protection. The center parts and the side-guards were strengthen and in case of the side-guards, additional attachment holes has been added. Instead of the two-hardpoint rear stay, it comes with the newly-designed one-hardpoint rear stay with additional attachment holes. I gotta say, the chassis looking pretty complex somehow but, I'm sure assembling them is still easy to do.

Thoughts:

Honestly, for a knockoff the quality of this toy is pretty solid and I loved how they sculpted the bodyshell very clean and precise, they feel like a genuine Tamiya release. Jiepin did a great job on this one I gotta say, although there're many people shared their positive thoughts and experiences on owning Jiepin, for collectors or Mini 4WD racers. I like everything from this kit and will probably interested to get another if they made another with driver figurine.

Thank youu for reading!😁🙏🏻

Repaint & detail by Archyd

[viofitz]

Review: Blokees Pocket Monsters/Pokémon Classic Version: Prologue Of Adventure Lizardon/Charizard

Introduction:

Blokees or sometimes known as Bloks, is a Chinese toy company that produces a range of buildable action figures from different licensed properties including Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Marvel, Naruto, Sesame Street, Transformers and Pokémon. Their Pokémon effort launched in late 2024 with the Classic Class Version S and Version L lines of buildable figures. Their product range has expanded rapidly ever since, with new releases dropping every few months. Outside of China, these figures have seen distribution across territories such as Southeast Asia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. For this review it's going to be Lizardon/Charizard which belongs to CV-L (Classic Version L), tbf I'm new with this line so, I don't really know much about it and since Lizardon is my first Blokees collection so, apologies if I made some mistakes. The figure itself was packaged in stylish bright red colored boxart, which the front box shows the main figure of Lizardon with its fire accessories, and there's data Pokémon numbering of him  and the logo of "Classic Edition CV-L Prologue Of Adventure". Blokees figures needs to be assembled but, they are not model kit like those of Tamiya or Bandai/Goodsmile Company (GSC) Plastic Model kit that requires our own paintapp, glue or cutters. All you have to do is just snap and fit them together sounds easy, right? The figure also has genuine license of Pokémon Company approval as well as "WARNING" sign and the rear box shows mostly promotional photos of the figure's capabilities and features. This looks very interesting, similar to what S.H.Figuarts (SHF) would be given, only the exception is their price point are crazy. Unlike Blokees which you can get them less than $15, alright! Let's unbox this guy!

Contents:

Out of the box, Lizardon comes with part of its body figure unassembled along with fire effects in main blister, while its belly and legs are packaged in a plastic bags along with fire/flame effects, the same goes to its joints, stand set and base stand. It also comes with Lizardon data card.

Character introduction:

Lizardon or known as Charizard is a Pokémon in Nintendo and Game Freak's Pokémon franchise. Created by Atsuko Nishida, Lizardon first appeared in the video games Pokémon Red and Green (Pokémon Red and Blue in English) and subsequent sequels. Lizardon is an orange, dragon-like Fire/Flame and Flying type Pokémon, Lizardon is the evolved form of Lizardo/Charmeleon and the final evolution of Hitokage/Charmander. It also has two "Mega Evolved" forms, Mega Lizardon/Charizard X and Y, Lizardon also has a Gigantamax form in Pokémon Sword and Shield, which changes its appearance and size. Lizardon is featured in the Pokémon anime series, with the most recurring being owned by the main character of the series, Satoshi/Ash Ketchum. It is also featured in printed adaptations such as Pokémon Adventures. Lizardon is regarded as one of the most famous and popular Pokemon, and has received positive reception from fans and the media since its debut into the series. Well, that goes to me too since I also like Lizardon.

There you go, this is the fully assembled Lizardon and it's easy peasy! Lizardon is a winged dragon fire type Pokémon which has flame on its tail as a visual indicator of its health and emotional state. The color is dominantly orange with yellow on the belly to its tail, whereas its inner wings are dark teal color. The articulations points doesn't seem to be quite bothering in eyes (at least for me), except its neck and tail. We can create many poses for it, even his articulations works similar like D-Arts/SHF version so, you can also pose its wings, tail and even its tongue whatever you wanted. The figure's materials is surprisingly heavier than I thought, and the size is 1/12 or 6 inch scale which the same to D-Arts/SHF scale. Unfortunately, some of the articulations can be a little slippery due to its heavy materials but, atleast they're not easy to loose since they uses snap and fit ball joints. Sculpt work also looking pretty accurate to how Lizardon looked in its recent appearances. Its eyes, inner mouth, claws, wings and belly were painted, which made this kinda unique coming from Blokees.

Lizardon's head sculpt (HS) is looking smooth and very accurate, especially on its brow which I like how smooth they looked. Its head looks more faithful to its latest game and TCG counterpart compared to the anime version which its face looked blocky. Lizardon's mouth is also movable as well as its tongue, which allows you to recreate open mouth pose for spit fire ball/fire blast. I love how his eyes looking calm when its mouth closed but, looking fierce when its open mouth.

Lizardon also comes with its own base display stand and fire/flame effects for recreating expressive poses as a fire Pokémon. It is consisting a black pedestal that must be attached with its fiery ground sticker which I don't do this since I'm bad with attaching stickers. Lizardon's fire/flame effects has 6 pieces in total; with 4 of them must be attached to the edge of base pedestal while the other 2 must be attached with a clear stand. The clear stand is also articulated so, you can adjust their position as you like. The fire/flame effects was done in semi translucent materials of red and yellow for like fire ball, daimonji/fire blast and even Lizardon's tail. I gotta say, they're sculpted nicely and really fitting for Lizardon's accessories however, I'm sure the younger me would have been thinking these are pointless since I can do this digitally but, at my current thinking... I just appreciate on what Blokees gave to us, of course Lizardon really needs this fire effects for its actual display.

Comparisons:

Comparing between the SHF Lizardon, both got its own uniqueness, Blokees was based on its later appearances while SHF was more likely classic anime based, which you can tell from their head. SHF tends to have blocky shaped head than Blokees which is smooth shaped. Well, another unique differences that Blokees got neutral looking eyes expression while SHF tends to have stern looking eyes as its shows more angrier expression. While their overall coloring, Blokees is clearly orange while SHF is more orange to yellow-ish. Both versions are not wrong since they're based from different series but, I saw in some old review that the orange color of Blokees looks kind of similar to D-Arts version of Lizardon. Though, I don't have my own D-Arts but, I saw their huge color differences between SHF version. Still in articulations, SHF still hold this game thanks to its extended wing and tail articulations. Yes, I'm aware of their price point is not a fair game for comparisons but, I'm still amazed how Blokees made this looking similar to SHF caliber despite their economic price point.

Thoughts:

This is pure satisfactions for me, this figure is fantastic I gotta say. I love everything of this figure, it's like buying an SHF in a bargain sale price. Though, it's still has it's own lack but, very tolerable for it's price. I personally like this better than SHF one because I prefered its HS better and the durability of this figure. If you're having a problem getting your own fully poseable Lizardon, this would be my recommendation considering how SHF being so expensive and hard to get today but, the choice is yours to decide. However, these Lizardon's price could probably be potentially rising up someday due to its quality and popularity so, it is best to get them while they're still reasonable to buy.

[viofitz]

Review: Bandai S.H.Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Kamen Rider 1 and Cyclone 1 (THE NEXT Ver.)+Bonus Part. 02

The first helmet is called Arai Classic SW, a black colored helmet Hongo formerly wore in THE FIRST movie, before he received Cyclone 1 Hongo uses Honda Shadow Slasher as his motorcycle. Perhaps the iconic scene for this helmet is when Hongo tried to rescue a little girl from being hit by a truck then accidentally demonstrating his immense power by stopping semi-truck by one hand. And 2nd helmet is SZ-F Retro red variant, this was used by Hongo after receiving Cyclone 1 by Tobei Tachibana. Since then, Hongo would use this helmet until THE NEXT movie ended. I love how the color blends well with Cyclone's color but, these helmets are actually not fit for Hongo's head, though his face still fit so I used quite amount of sticky tack for attaching Hongo's face then wearing his helmet.

Thoughts:

Honestly, I'm more than satisfied with how these turned out although there's still some part that Bandai missed which clearly gives them an opportunity to renew Ichigo again in the future. If that time really comes, I'm not sure if I can still buy that since I gotta admit, I'm getting too old for this... I mean just how many years that it took just for this renewal? However, in terms of quality they may be looking realistic but, they are also very frail to handle and I'm afraid of breaking them since I can be reckless enough sometimes but, it's a good thing they're pretty much still doing okay; no broken part or anything. Lastly, I don't want to expect from Bandai anymore whether they want to continue this or not just suit themselves, I'm done with the hopeless wait.

OMAKE:

Now, they're made for each other... Though, poor old Ichigo....

It stopped?

Lol... Kyodai Ken Byclosser reference?

Special Thanks:

Cyclone 1 decals by Archyd

Custom SHF Hongo skin and undershirt paint by Ridho Bengkel Toys

[viofitz]

Review: Bandai S.H.Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Kamen Rider 1 and Cyclone 1 (THE NEXT Ver.)+Bonus Part. 01

Introduction:

Bandai S.H.Figuarts (SHF) is a popular line of high quality collectable figures made by Bandai. The toyline debuted in 2008 and is targeted towards the adult fans of the series with its higher price and show-accurate detailing of the figurines. The line started in Kamen Rider THE NEXT series and has expanded to many franchises. In this review, it will focus on Kamen Rider THE NEXT again after their long release, they finally renewed their first figure which Kamen Rider 1 (Ichigo) a.k.a. Takeshi Hongo and his motorcycle Cyclone 1 in Shinkocchou Seihou line to celebrate total 100 released figures of this line. This series uses one of S.H.Figuarts's new ways of manufacturing figures to powerful action, the dynamics of that soul reproduced in the palm of your hand, SHINKOCCHOU SEIHOU is a process that starts from the skeleton instead of the surface and pursues both the original presence of the hero and the natural movement of the figure. Well, this means this line is focusing on making a realistic proportions and following how the actual source materials more intense than the regular SHF line. So far they focused on Kamen Rider series then followed by a few Super Sentai releases, this will be my very first review of this toy line since I haven't got a chance to review any SHF SS figure until now. Although, Ichigo THE NEXT isn't my first SS figure since I got SHF SS Kamen Rider BLACK and ShadowMoon but, I'm not happy with those two since they felt too fragile to handle and what's worse they got one of the worst QC issues from most of reviewers. Therefore I refrained myself on reviewing BLACK and ShadowMoon and there's another particular reasons why but, I do not want to mention it. Okay, from packaging themselves, both Ichigo and Cyclone is unfortunately a Premium Bandai releases so, they're included with that dirty brown case. While his main packaging, he was packaged with removable styled boxart, which was divided into 2 part; box for figure contents and a cover for the inner box. Similar like a smartphone boxart, which I hate it so much because I can't see the contents to inspect the QC issue. Thankfully, there's no big issue on my Ichigo so far, the same goes to Cyclone 1 which seems to be okay to my eyes atleast. Despite made for SHF SS but, they don't have their own specific name since they're still only considered as SHF Cyclone 1. They're packaged very similar to the old class SHF EX but, with SS styled boxart design. Both Ichigo inner rear and Cyclone 1 rear boxarts were also featuring the figure's capabilities and their required accessories in their promotional photos. Seems to me, they're only exclusive to P-Bandai Japan since there's no other regional releases as far as I seen, though not sure for those like in the China.

Contents:

Out of the box, Ichigo comes with his main figure, Takeshi Hongo head sculpt (HS), 3 pair of option hands and a pair of preassembled spare antennas. While Cyclone 1 comes with the main bike figure, mouthless Ichigo helmet, 2 pair of option hands and 2 bike stands.

Character introduction:

Takeshi Hongo is one of the two main protagonists of Kamen Rider. He is a young student who was kidnapped by Shocker and turned into a Cyborg/Remodeled Human, unlike the main series he was briefly brainwashed and active as Code-named "Hopper" until he reclaimed back his sense of humanity, which later betrayed Shocker and deciding to use his powers for good as the Kamen Rider. in THE NEXT movie, he is a returning character which he is working as a science teacher in a Japanese high school but, get involved again with Shocker. Having a fascination with science, Hongo is shown to greatly appreciate the beauty of life, expressing it in his study of snowflakes. He also harbored a crush on Asuka, but expressed her finding happiness in her upcoming marriage with Katsuhiko. When mind-controlled by Shocker, Hongo became a ruthless figure, until breaking free. Hongo relies mostly on his superhuman in physical prowess which fights bare handed, in this incarnations he is never seen using any weapon. His only weapon used was rather his own motorcycle Cyclone 1 which he always using his Cyclone's speed to power up his Rider Kick attacks. Cyclone 1, is a high-performance motorcycle ridden by Hongo and its base model from Honda CBR1000RR. Unlike the original, in Kamen Rider The First, the bike was designed and created by his mentor Tobei Tachibana. Tachibana seemingly had long been known with Hongo since he's seemingly impressed with Hongo's motorbike skills, and the bike was given a special tune-up. Its extraordinary performance was a great help to Hongo in his battle against Shocker. It has speed of up to 400km per hour, it is durable enough to withstand a body ramming into a motorcycle ridden by a Shocker Combatant or even Shocker Rider, and is stable enough that it will not tip over even if Hongo stand on it while it is moving. It has extremely high specs, including the ability to run underwater and even jump out of the water.

In "THE NEXT" representation, Ichigo's suit in here was depicted to have more sleek looking like a biker compared to main counterpart. He appeared to have darker color tone than his "THE FIRST" appearance as a sign of the fierce battle, his rider suit has changed since it was worn two years ago, with the color of his chest armor, gloves, boots, and mask now a dark dull blue to green-ish, and his glow-in-the-dark eyes, which used to be pink, now turns into a bright red. Also, there used to be inconspicuous black lines on the sides of his body and on his arms, but now they're changed into double dark dull blue green-ish lines engraved into them. Unlike the old version, his gloves and boots nolonger have metallic paintapp anymore. While undoubtedly agree the renewal outclassed the old version but, sadly this Ichigo still lacking something and even there's a tiny bit of missing design on his suit. But, I won't be mentioning this since it's something minor and barely noticeable but, I'd rather let you to see for yourself by looking at my photoshoots and see if you can tell which part that I mean. From here, I'll be focusing on his mobility on his articulation works. SHF SS articulations supposed to be working even better than your standard SHF figure. So far he got over 35 points of articulation in total, which is the same like his old version but, with updated technology of using SS carving. So far, the mobility of his articulations does indeed worked better than his old version but, there're some part that is hard to execute or I'm just not used to playing this SS figure since I'm not really fond with their price point. But, atleast you got what you paid and what you expected to have a total movie accurate, whenever I posed this Ichigo he's looking very dynamic and alive like how he looks in the movie despite all that visible joints. His scarf is made from wired fabric which allows us to adjust their position for expressive posing purposes, though... I'm not really fond with their obvious different materials between the tied plastic choker and that fabric loose parts. His butterfly joints can go up as close to his head but, he cannot cross his arms lower like how the old version did due to limited butterfly joints. His legs however, can move very dynamic and long range of mobility and there're few part that surprised me as well that allows me to make his posing looking more dynamic such as thighs and knees swivel. Though, posing him riding his Cyclone proved to be a bit challenging to me since, I had a hard time making him to actually sit on the saddle. And I'm always wary of myself if I accidentally breaking them since this SS line is known for their frailty compared to the standard releases. Seriously, if only Bandai did not charged him way too much, I'd have more guts to take the risks.

Ichigo's grasshopper shaped mask appeared to have battle damaged like small scratches and dents as a result of his fierce battles he had been through during his time on the run since. However, despite this looks... His sculpted helmet feels smooth as there's no scratches or something protruding, it seems like that battle damaged effects were simply digital painted. This is contrast to the old version which they sculpted an actual sculpted battle damaged on his helmet, not that I dislike the smooth feel but, gotta say that painted effects kinda did the trick. His helmet also comes with rear lower hair part for showing Hongo's hair. The antennas are removable so, if you ever miss then you can use it's spare for backup. Aside mask/helmet, he also comes with Takeshi Hongo HS, which feature Masaya Kikawada actor. I gotta say, this Hongo HS got the actor's likeness accurately which he is shown with neutral serious expression and interestingly, his head can be cast-off into 4 parts; faceplate, fringe, upper rear hair and lower rear hair. Not sure why they did this but, it could be a hint for future release where they'll renew Ichigo THE FIRST, they'll probably also include him with another Hongo HS that would probably face swappable. However, this cast-off parts atleast kinda helped me for making some extra stuff for him, it'll be a bonus for this review. And another interesting part, Hongo's HS also fit to the older version of Ichigo THE NEXT body. With Cyclone 1, he also comes with mouthless mask/helmet for his unmasked scene. The overall sculpt and paintapp and even removable antennas is the same like Ichigo's helmet but, made to be hollow and missing it's mouth plate. It's a little bummer this helmet isn't wearable even for Hongo's faceplate, I was hoping to recreate Hongo HS wearing this helmet that reveals his mouth like in THE FIRST movie.

Cyclone 1 was designed to be more like a racing motogp instead of the usual Kamen Rider motorcycle which got their own unique modifications. Its overall body color consisted metallic maroon red, white and black for underneath body part. Its exhaust is rainbow colored and the inner parts are mostly black and silver with some red and bronze color on the front spokes. The design may have changed for modern looks (atleast back in 2005) but, made to be more realistic looking without any distinctive part of being a Kamen Rider motorcycle. Its design remained the same from "THE FIRST" to "THE NEXT" movies without any change at all so, if you miss this one you can just use the old version for alternative. Originally, this Cyclone's figure is lacking it's livery sponsors which, I personally unhappy with it because it feels like it has no different to it's older version which already missing those sponsors. I can understand of the licensing issues but, this is for SHF SS so it had to have that exact looks. However, I asked my friend to implement that missing sponsors including its speedometer and now, my Cyclone is now looking movie accurate. There're changes between the old version but, I'm not gonna point out one by one since it'll make this review too long. But, one thing that differ them by physic is the renewal one is very lighter than the old version.

Cyclone also comes with alternate stand for maintaining its position without sidestand, this is mainly used for Ichigo for either riding or Rider Kick pose or even standing on Cyclone. Interestingly, it also comes with stage act piece for jumping pose, there're atleast 2 scenes involving where Cyclone jumping but, only in THE FIRST movie. I gotta say, it's a very nice addon despite they never actually show a jumping pose even in the promotional photo but, deattaching the stand piece is a little troublesome so, I won't be using this again for future pose.

Ichigo comes with 8 interchangeable hands but, with Cyclone 1 he gets 12 hands in total that would be: a pair of relaxed open hands which already attached to the main figure for his relaxed pose or certain Henshin or battle pose, a pair of fisted hands for battle stance or Rider Punch pose, a pair of open splayed hands for various poses, a pair of chopping hands for recreating his Henshin sequence pose, a pair of grasping hands for gripping Cyclone's handgrip, and a pair of grasping hands with 2 fingers gestures for handling the Cyclone's clutches. I like how Bandai generously gave him these amount of hands, albeit you'll have to buy Cyclone for another 4 hands. Well, the positive thing of these hands are not only being more than convenient enough for recreating various poses but, the sculpting of his hands are looking realistic as well, whatever hands I uses, Ichigo's hand posing looked so fitting.

Comparisons:

Comparing between old SHF Ichigo THE NEXT and SHF EX Cyclone THE FIRST and even Motion Revive Series (MRS) Ichigo THE NEXT and my customized Cyclone 1, the SHF SS outclassed them all in terms of quality and moldings but, when it comes to durability, old versions still holds since there's no frail part such as hard plastic spikes or antennas. Tbf I still love the old one since it's easier to pose, the same goes to MRS one but... All 3 of them still got their own charms for me.

Bonus: Custom S.H.Figuarts Takeshi Hongo

The bonus for this review is none other than a stand alone Custom SHF Takeshi Hongo! In this custom recreation, Hongo uses SHF Shin Dan Kuroto's body, which skin tone is repainted to fit with Hongo's HS skin tone. As well as his undershirt repainted into white to fit with Hongo's suit design in THE FIRST movie. His overall getup is black jacket, white undershirt, black pants and black double monk strap shoes. And the good thing that their heights also stands equally. The figure's articulations works much the same like Bandai's civillian SHF which, appeared to have limited articulation in several part, that is; single jointed elbow and knees. So far, Hongo got 20 points of articulation. Well, SHF Shin Dan Kuroto is quite an old release so, not to be expected much but, atleast he can still pull it off to recreate Hongo's poses. Mainly also works for riding Cyclone.

Contents:

He comes with 2 wearable custom made helmets that he wore in THE FIRST and THE NEXT movies and one pointy finger right hand for recreating Hongo to be more heroic feel like his main counterpart when shouting to Shocker. Actually Dan Kuroto comes with more hands but, I'm gonna use other hands from other random SHF figures, specifically grasping hands for riding Cyclone.

END OF PART. 01

[viofitz]

Review: Bandai F-エフ Gunma Akagi and Kazuto Hiziri's F-3

Introduction:

Bandai Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California, and Richmond, London. Since 2005, Bandai is the toy production division of Bandai Namco Holdings, currently the world's second largest toy company measured by total revenue. In this review, it's not about Bandai's action figure but, their discontinued products which is an F-1 miniature 1:24 scale model. At the time Tamiya is booming, Bandai also tried to produce their own Mini 4WD, which they released several series of their own Mini 4WD, including this. It seems like back in 1988, the manga/anime of F-エフ became popular which piqued Bandai's interest to produce their own F1 cars in Mini 4WD style eventhough, they're actually F3 cars. However they only released 2 line and 2 series, 1st they created the car based on the F-エフ in 1/32 which the same scale to regular Tamiya Mini 4WD but, instead of using motor battery powered they made pull back feature. There were 2 model cars released which is Gunma Akagi and Hiziri Kazuto, then Bandai also made their own Mini 4WD style in 1/24 scale. Of course, the same 2 F3 cars featuring Gunma Akagi and Hiziri Kazuto, they are characters from F-エフ manga written and illustrated by Noboru Rokuda. It was serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Big Comic Spirits from 1986 to 1992, with its chapters collected in 28 tankōbon volumes. The story follows Gunma Akagi, a country boy who fulfills his dream by racing in a Formula One car. The series has been followed by FRegeneration Ruri (2002–2006), F Final (2009–2011), and Final Complete (since 2020). It also adapted into anime series aired in 1988 for 31 episodes in total, however the anime only follows the rivalry of Gunma & Kazuto. In this conversions, the models were based on their manga counterparts, which Kazuto got blue colored car instead of black with red in the anime. The product numbers started from 1/32 versions which Gunma as number 1 while Kazuto as number 2, whereas 1/24 versions continuously Gunma being number 3 while Kazuto as number 4.

Contents:

Like every Model kits, the kit came up to be preassembled which we have to assemble them first.

Gunma Akagi F3:

In overall, Gunma's car is white colored with some very few livery, which made the car almost looked no different with/without stickers/decals. I gotta say, the bodyshell especially it's sidepods looks pretty thick and also precisely made. Due to some little red colored sponsors, they kinda gives a bit of McLaren F1 vibes. Judging by the airbox thing, the car is a fictional stylized of F3 cars made in 1987-1988. In the box representations, the car was used by Gunma for racing with Kazuto but, after reading the manga this is not the actual car Gunma used for racing with Kazuto, not sure why but, probably following how the anime was made despite they straightly using Noboru's manga artworks for the box art. However, this is still Gunma's car but, he used this car in later chapters post Kazuto race. The original car of Gunma during Kazuto arc has more resemblance to Kazuto's car and it has very different livery. Both 1/32 and 1/24 are the same model but, there're several differences such as in the 1/24 version, the driver's body is clearly visible even in the side view due to it's sitting quite higher while 1/32's driver is sitting deeper. Another funny thing that the 1/32 got "Toyota" sponsor decal on the airbox while the 1/24 didn't. As for the wheel sets, both of them are almost identical but, 1/32 uses rubber plastic tires while 1/24 uses sponge tires. I gotta say, I prefered the 1/32 alot better since they looked more accurate.

Kazuto Hiziri F3:

Kazuto got a blue colored F3 car, it's sidepods are made to be thin and asymmetrical compared to Gunma's car, once again it has very few livery which the car almost looked no different with/without stickers/decals. In both manga and anime this car was supposed to run faster than Gunma's car since the machine was handled by Tamotsu (Gunma's best friend) but, due to Kazuto's falling to his illness and dying, he didn't make it to finish the race. However, since Gunma's car was based from his post Kazuto arc so, both car's machines were handled by Tamotsu. I'm gonna be frank on this one; while the design may looking slim and good but, that rear wing thing looks unsafe for run, given the rear part appeared too exposed and that pole looking breakable. Here, I'm referring to the 1/24 one and I actually changed the sponge tires with my spare since I accidentally broke one of the original tire when I put them into the velg, probably due to old age. I'm glad the spare fits well, although it's a little different type. I gotta admit, I still love this since it's my favorite color. There're several minor differences between 1/32 and the 1/24; the rear wing in the 1/32 is a little wider compared to the 1/24 one, and the rear wing's pole in 1/32 is much thicker than the 1/24 one. Interestingly, the 1/32 got exhaust mold while 1/24 don't. The wheel sets also got different type of velgs but, Bandai didn't even bother to give a unique velgs for 1/24 version to equalize both versions. The rests I think it's pretty much identical except some minor paint details but, overall decals looking similar for both versions. Once again, from looks I prefered the 1/32 better.

1/24 Chassis:

The chassis surprisingly works the same way like Mini 4WD since they got their own Mini 4WD propeller shaft but, that thin lower bumpers below the bodyshell made them not recommended for run yet, even the rear wing's pole connection seems to be frail enough. Mainly on the Kazuto one. The motor they included is labelled as Hyper Engine, assuming it's like a ripoff of Tamiya's Hyper Dash but, it was Bandai's standard motor for their own Mini 4WD. Their size is surprisingly longer and bigger than Tamiya's Mini F1 but, I don't like how they made the wheelsets being too thin for their size. I gotta admit it has no appeal to how an F3 wheels should looks. Unlike most of Mini 4WD conversions, the rollers are using pin-shaped plastic parts instead of using metal screws which I'm already feeling skeptical if I ever want to make them run. Batteries are inserted underneath the chassis so, there's no need to remove their bodyshells. Because the bodyshell was designed to be attached firmly to the chassis for monocoque structure. However, if the instalation is not done properly this may lead to a trap, it ends up being a three-point installation. Their overall mechanism was quite different compared to any Mini 4WD companies.

1/32 Pull Back Feature:

These versions works just fine but, I don't like on how they made the whole plastics being all same color to their respective body color including the chassis and their velgs so, my friend had to paint the whole chassis and wheels to make them right. While their size are very much the same like most of Mini 4WDs, I really wished they're the one who would be given with Mini 4WD feature instead of the 1/24 one.

Thoughts:

I never expected Bandai would be making F3 cars instead of F1, gotta admit their designs are unique but, I heard from a Japanese reviewer that these products were known to be criticized harshly but, I don't know the details although, I can tell why judging by the looks of the kit. Despite this I still appreciated Bandai for recreating an actual manga character into their own Mini 4WD counterpart. It's so rare to see F3 representations since most of companies were too focused on producing F1 at the time. So, I'm happy to have this as my collections.

Repaint and details by Archyd. Thank youu for reading😁🙏🏻

[viofitz]

Review: Bandai S.H.Figuarts Elsha Lean

Introduction:

Bandai S.H.Figuarts (SHF) is a popular line of high quality collectable figures made by Bandai. The toyline debuted in 2008 and is targeted towards the adult fans of the series with its higher price and show-accurate detailing of the figurines. The line started in Kamen Rider THE NEXT series and has expanded to many franchises. This post will be reviewing Back Arrow character named Elsha Lean. is an original Japanese mecha themed anime focussing on set in the fictional land of Lingalind, a continent surrounded by a massive wall. The story follows a young, amnesiac man named Back Arrow who believes he is from beyond the wall. The series produced by Studio VOLN, directed by Goro Taniguchi and written by Kazuki Nakashima. The series aired from January to June 2021. Elsha is a regular Bandai releases, and I bought her brand new in box. Her box art is design quite simple and got window styled box which we can see the contents but, only halfway to her lower torso since most of the box is covered by her artwork with drop shadow of her. The overall box art is white colored with some yellow border and drop shadow of Elsha's artwork in yellow to green color reflecting her Briheight Shadoh form color, even the window also features Shadoh artline in white. The front part features Elsha Lean artwork instead of promotional photo. This takes me back where the very early SHF figures features original photo/art of their source materials. with magenta colored star background as well as her name and the brand and the line logos. The rear part we get to see promotional photos of the figure's overall capability as well as the accessories. There's also the warning sign and the figure is for 15 years and up due to their small and sharp parts. So far so simple but, I still could get behind it.

Contents:

Out from the box, Elsha comes with her main figure, 1 alternate head sculpt (HS) attached with her face part, 1 option face part, 5 option hand parts and 2 handgun parts.

Character introduction:

Elsha Lean, is the Granddaughter of Burk Lean, chief of Edger Village. Her Briheight is the yellow and green Shadoh, a feminine form equipped with basic blasters mounted on the forearms and wings. She is depicted as a cowgirl/gunslinger, she wears a maroon with light gray trim cowboy hat, brown with orange trim and yellow tassels wristbands, dark red vest with white trim along with yellow pockets and gold sheriff badge on the left. Her crimson vest is tied at the bottom and reveals her belly. As for lower part, she wears dark teal jeans with white trim on the missing right sleeve. While the left side there's a brown string that tied on her thigh. She also wears 2 belts; dark red colored belt for handgun holsters and brown belt with 3 silver buckles. Lastly, dull yellow shin cover with cream colored tassels on both sides and dark brown shoes with gray soles. I gotta admit, it's a quite revealing cowgirl getup indeed. She is voiced by Ari Ozawa. Elsha is shown to be a protective character, shown from how she care and worry so much for her village. She can be quite wary and cruel to strangers, shown from how she did not care at all to Back Arrow and instead allowing the bad guys to capture him. Since it's their very first encounter and Back Arrow had already destroyed houses (by accident though), I guess it's kind of obvious if she's mad on him. Atleast that's what I thought first but, Elsha was rather naive by accepting her people's decisions over Back Arrow despite the villagers being saved by him. And even unhesitant to sold him to the Iki president but, later Back Arrow saves the day again after she and the villagers were easily tricked by Iki.

Eisha has orange straight long hair with twin small side tail hair on both side of her head, while the lower one was divided into 2 tip. She is included with 2 variant HS, the first one is for her hat mode which there's a peg ontop of her head for attaching her hat. And the other one is for hatless mode, simply swap her head by removing her lower hair part and her actual head from her neck. You can also remove her hat so, you can make her holding her hat.

With her revealing costume, her articulations is works nicely to recreate any desirable poses you want. She got over 19 points of articulation in total, she still got single jointed elbow and knee but, she's still pull a good work to make dynamic poses. However, like many revealing designed female action figures, you may not quite fond with her visible jointy looks. And unlike most of SHF releases, her wrists joints are peg shaped like Figma. Another interesting thing, her wristbands are removable so, you can also make a bare wrists for her. Unfortunately, her skin tone appeared to be yellow-ish in this actual product instead of flesh pale orange in her promotional art but, I don't really mind with it.

As for facial features, Elsha got green with pink lighting eyes. She comes with 3 interchangeable face parts in total; the one which already attached to her hat mode head is a standard smile expression, 2nd would be her angry yelling expressions with open mouth which attached to her hatless head and 3rd is a happy expression. First face is obviously based from her promotional artwork of the anime, which her smile is showing a little smugness. 2nd face is for her battle/action mode when using her gun and 3rd face is like she's in happy mood, showing a feminine expression.

Elsha is included with 86 handgun parts, a stylized sawed-off revolver shotgun, which fits Elsha's aesthetic as a military officer and Juggernaut pilot in the series. The guns consisted 2 parts; full shaped one for Elsha holding them with her left grasping hand and the other half shaped one for to be holstered. With this, you can recreate Elsha using her gun in action and she is likely a left handed since she was only given with left grasping hand for holding her gun. At the beginning of the series, Elsha is shown using her gun hunting animal for food albeit it was supposed to be Bit's hunt. For the later, she uses her gun for shooting Briheight which appeared to be futile moves as it didn't affect the Briheight.

Elsha comes with 7 interchangeable hands in total, that would be: a pair of fisted hands which already attached to the main figure, a pair of open splayed hands, a pair of different sculpted pointy finger hands; right for recreating her sticking up her lower hat and left for holding her 86 gun. Funny thing, her pointy finger was sculpted pointing forward not, pulling the trigger as in her artwork. And 1 right hand which already sculpted holding bind warper, to recreate her for showing off or wearing them to her left arm and the hole fits.

Comparisons:

Comparing with SHF Makoto Kikuchi, Elsha looks short because of her small head despite they stand equal from shoulder to shoulder. Elsha's HS is around shodo scale head while Makoto is a little bigger for SHF standard.

Despite being a Bandai product, Elsha's neck joint shares the same type of joint with Figma figures so, we can do headswap to any Figma HS. I gotta say, Chihaya's HS works great for this body but, Elsha's HS is a bit too small for Chihaya's neck.

Thoughts:

Frankly, this feels more like Figma instead of SHF, I'm not sure if Bandai actually hired ex Figma employees or what but, it's strangely enough she's compatible with any figma figures. This is actually convenient enough since we can make any figma girls using this cowgirl body. My only complain is her waist pants sleeve is a little baggy and since her holsters got a peg attached on the side of her belt, we cannot move her belt at all, which is kind of bummer since she's stuck like that. Her character is seemingly nothing special and infact useless except piloting the Granedger, which I can understand why her figure's price dropped so much. I even bought her for only $6 but, the good thing is this is still a solid figure. I have no joint issue other than weird gloss on her fringe but, it is now fixed and her tied vest is loose and since I don't like those oversized tie, I asked a friend of mine to remove the joint on her vest and I like it even better without a tie. Well, since it's a $6 figure I don't mind risking on customizing her.

Thank youu for reading😁🙏🏻

[viofitz]

Review: McDonald's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie Toys

Introduction:

Happy Meal Toys are the prizes that McDonald's Happy Meals would have inside the kid's meal box. Power Rangers, being a children's staple of pop culture, gained sponsorship and licensed toys from the fast food company. Starting in the second season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and continuing until 2019. In this review, it's from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, aired in 1995. The line up had 12 toys in total counting from the rangers and their ninjazords, it was released in June 30th 1995 celebrating the movie release. This toy set was technically not Happy Meal related. They could be purchased with any meal order, similar to the way adult aimed collectibles normally work. Okay, that explains why they got intense details than most of Happy Meal toys but, the toys were still aimed for children aged 3 and up. The set features Red Ranger with Ninja Apezord, Black Ranger with Ninja Frogzord, Blue Ranger with Ninja Wolfzord, Yellow Ranger with Ninja Bearzord, Pink Ranger with Ninja Cranezord and White Ranger with Ninja Falconzord. All toys has the same purpose, the rangers are 10 cm/3.75 inch size and they're semi articulated; from head, arms and legs. These features allows them to be put into their ninjazord's cockpit as they serves as the ranger's vehicles to ride. All ninjazords got wheels underneath that allows them to roll by push forward/pull backward them. Of course, the toys doesn't have any electronic gimmicks which I don't mind with it.

Red Ranger with Ninja Apezord

The Red Ranger in here was sculpted very close to how the movie suit looks, which has armoric appearance and Red Ranger originally comes with Tyrannosaurus emblem on his chest but, I replaced it with Ninjetti Apezord coin to make it more faithful to his zord. Both of Red Ranger hands are in fist pose. The helmet appeared to be stylized on their own which is inaccurate to the movie but, understandable since it's a McDonald's toys. While his Ninja Apezord is a wheelie toy, the Red Ranger can be inserted into the hole on it's back while half raising his arms without bending his legs since he just literally hanging on the zord with his arms. The Ninja Apezord in here is depicted more like a gorilla instead of ape since it was made like how a gorilla would walk, it's design was likely mixture between movie and it's Sentai/TV counterpart, can be noted from it's "Saruder" emblem on it's chest and some several details. In the movie version, his chest is a visible cockpit where Red Ranger piloting the mecha and got different head as well as having metallic color and silver arms instead of solid red and black. However, still appreciate on how McDonald's put up a good effort on this.

Black Ranger with Ninja Frogzord

The Black Ranger in here was also sculpted the same like how the movie suit looks, originally comes with Mammoth emblem on his chest but, replaced it with Ninjetti Frogzord coin. Both of his hands are in chopping pose. The helmet once again made to be stylized. Ninja Frogzord also got wheels underneath and like Ninja Apezord, it's position is shown like an actual frog pose but, it forms more like a vehicle instead of a standing bipedal animal. Black Ranger can fit into the hole on it's back while half raising his arms and bending his legs into sitting positions since he's sitting in the zord's cockpit with his arms resting on the zord's legs. The Ninja Frogzord is depicted more like a frog but, it's eyes are on the side instead of binocular vision like how it's depicted in both movies and Sentai/TV counterpart. It was again designed to be mixed between movie and it's Sentai/TV counterpart, though both versions are still quite similar except in the movie, it has black metallic color instead of solid black. So far, I still like this conversion, because it was once few of the toyline that features an actual movie suits instead of recolor of the regular suit like how that lazy Bandai America did.

White Ranger with Ninja Falconzord

The White Ranger also made the same like how the movie suit looks but, the suit still got Kiba Ranger element. Aside the helmet and armor there're bicep straps, wrist bands, shin bands and Dairanger square shaped buckle. His armor was actually the same armor like how other ranger suits but, he got long shoulder pads that made him special. Unfortunately, this shoulder pads limits his arm movements. He was originally comes with Kiba Ranger emblem on his chest but, I replaced it with Ninjetti Falconzord coin. Like Red Ranger, both of his hands are in fisted pose but, his right arm was shaped slightly bending his elbow. The helmet once again made to be stylized but, I'm surprised that my friend was able to add lines on his eyes thus making him atleast almost close to how the movie looks. Ninja Falconzord is also formed the same like Ninja Frogzord which made it looked more like a vehicle but, bigger due to it's wings. Its wings are shown to be either in resting position or flapping down. White Ranger can be inserted the same way like Black Ranger did since it was designed to be a sitting cockpit with his arms resting on the zord's back. Like its name, the zord is depicted as a hawk/eagle/falcon and out from all this was the only zord that was done very similar to both movies and Sentai/TV counterpart. Except, the movie version has metallic color feel. It's quite interesting they tried to add more Kiba Ranger elements on his suit than in the actual movie, the original toy actually got gold painted bicep straps and belt. But, I tried to follow how the movie suit looks where White Ranger doesn't have that straps and his belt being simply white and got Dino Buckler instead of Dairanger belt. For sure, since his belt is white colored he looks kind of naked somehow but, gotta follow how it should be. Back in the day, Tommy's popularity overshadowed the whole rangers presence. This was thanks from most fans who wanted Tommy's comeback. As a result, Tommy became a legend of all rangers.

Thoughts:

Back in 1995, I didn't know this existed in McDonald's because I never even get to see their ads in my place, except the Texas Fried Chicken's MMPR pullback motorcycles, Kentucky Fried Chicken's MMPR tumblers and Texas Chicken's MMPR megacept mugs. Sadly, these McDonald's series was never released in Indonesia... I think it's because they're not considered as Happy Meal Toys or some other reasons. Probably this was a thing back in 1995, considering the hype of Power Rangers back in 90s. I found this out somewhere in 2009-2010, and I honestly fell in love seeing them and hoping to get mine. And I did bought them in 2018 as loose junks from several thrift sellers. Of course, due to their old age they're restored and also slightly customized to make them faithful to the movie. It's a good thing that they don't have exclusive region releases like Despicable Me/Minions series. Don't ask about Blue, Yellow and Pink because I don't like them.

[viofitz]

Review: Bandai S.H.Figuarts Makoto Kikuchi

Introduction:

Bandai S.H.Figuarts (SHF) is a popular line of high quality collectable figures made by Bandai. The toyline debuted in 2008 and is targeted towards the adult fans of the series with its higher price and show-accurate detailing of the figurines. The line started in Kamen Rider THE NEXT series and has expanded to many franchises. In this review, it will focus on Idolmaster character after for so long that Figma discontinued the line. From Figma to Bandai it's no surprise since idolmaster was originally owned by Bandai Namco, I'm guessing Good Smile Company discontinued the line because of either license problem and for sure low sales. In this release, Idolmaster is commemorating the inauguration of the Tamashii Nations ambassadors. Together with the producer, a special project to decide which members will be made into figures. The five members selected for the "Dancing Idol" theme are Makoto Kikuchi, Seira Mizuki, Ayumu Maihama, Ren Kizaki and Asahi Serizawa. Makoto Kikuchi is unfortunately another Premium Bandai (P-Bandai) releases so, she gets that brown case but, in this review I bought her second handed so, her actual brown case is a mess from the previous owner. Her main packaging, she was packaged with removable box sleeve in which features a gorgeous art of Makoto Kikuchi in both sides, the front part is mostly featured Makoto Kikuchi in the spotlight black with magenta gradation background with magenta layout. While the rear part also featured 2 identical Makoto Kikuchi artworks bust and full body with magenta and white colored background and there's a gold printed sign of Makoto Kikuchi herself. I know it's a gorgeous piece but, it's kind of boring to only feature a multiple same identical artwork front and rear. Her main box art is a classic window styled box which we can see the contents. The overall box art is black colored, the front part aside the window there's the usual promotional photo of the figure of Makoto Kikuchi with magenta colored star background as well as her name and the brand and the line logos. The rear part we get to see the entire background is mostly magenta and white, and features the product's promotional photos showing the figure's overall capability as well as the accessories. There's also the warning sign and the figure is for 15 years and up due to their small and sharp parts. I like how they kept the traditional looking box art on this one tbh, and unlike the box sleeve the main box art is mostly showing her promotional photos of the figure instead of her artwork.

Contents:

Out from the box, Makoto comes with her main figure, 4 option face parts, 8 option hand parts, 1 microphone and dedicated stand set. Pretty standard for a P-Bandai I gotta say.

Character introduction:

Makoto Kikuchi is an idol from 765 Production who lives in Shizuoka. She was introduced in the arcade game. She has made appearances in every console game that features 765 Production. Makoto is known as "The Pretty-boy Idol" and prince of 765 Production. She has more female fans than male ones and is very popular at her all girls high school. She is an energetic, determined and honest girl who deep-down wishes to make herself more feminine. She is very confident in her dancing skills, and though being self-taught, she is known to be one of the best dancers in 765 Production. Makoto also loves to do sports, in fact before her idol debut she used to train at an Aikido dojo near her house, leading her to also be physically strong. Makoto's family consists of herself and both her parents. Her dad is a professional race car driver who wished to have a son, and therefore has raised Makoto as a boy, leading to her tomboyish demeanor. After Makoto one day discussed with her dad how she wished to be more feminine, her dad came to the conclusion to make her an idol, and introduced Makoto to 765 Production. She is voiced by Hiromi Hirata. Well, despite how tomboy she became, she's still wanting herself to be feminine in her heart.

Makoto's hair has always been depicted to have dark grey short hair with side layered bangs, in this conversion I gotta admit Bandai did quite well but, not really a fan of her rear hair which looks like a bunch of leaves. Her proportions is shown to have slender body and she's wearing an original Tamashii Nations costume, which mostly feature black colored costume with red and some gold trims, it is inspired by the Tamashii Nations brand. Her costume consists of hair pin, choker, semi long sleeved vest with red and gold trim, sports bra, a pair of gloves, skirt with belt and ornament, spats with choker, two thigh chokers on her right thigh, long boot that stands to her lower right knee and long boot that stands to her left thigh. Gotta say the costume looks typical to idol getup which is very stylish and stand out but, kind of elegant because of the color.

Despite her costume, her articulations is pretty easy to move around so, we can make tons of pose for this figure. She got over 21 articulation points in total but, what surprises me she's given with a double jointed elbow despite the small size of her arms and articulated lower neck. Also, part of her costume cleverly hides her articulations such as choker that hides her neck cut, spats and boots that hides the cut of her legs. Since Makoto's characteristic is a tomboy and she had been portrayed as a martial artist, recreating a battle pose for her would be convenient enough especially with those pretty boy expressions.

Makoto comes with 5 interchangeable face parts in total; the one which already attached to her face is a standard smile expression, 2nd would be her tomboy/pretty boy expressions with open mouth smile, 3rd is the same like 2nd but, winking her right eyes while her left eye is looking to the left, 4th is special grinning expression with closed eyes showing her feminine side for the producer and last one would be her expressive face during her certain pose which I'm not quite familiar if this is her usual expressions from the game, since I only watched first anime and read certain mangas. Her expression is shown to have surprised eyes with a smile that barely exposing her tongue. Frankly, her standard smile and that expressive face are not that great with her mouth being light colored, because she looks mouthless in certain lighting and unfortunately I don't have a proper lighting for my photoshoot. But, her other faces are pretty good and convenient to make 2 side of Makoto. Makoto's neck joint is stuck on her neck which is hard for me to pluck her head out, and I wouldn't want to risk myself considering she's very expensive.

Makoto is included with a microphone to recreate her singing pose and 8 interchangeable hands in total, that would be: a pair of open palm hands which already attached to her figure, a pair of pointy finger hands for recreating certain idol pose or other purposes, a pair of grasping hands for holding her microphone or you can even use this hands for holding a gun since she got pointy finger slightly open like for pulling the trigger, a pair of fisted hands for recreating idol pose that uses her expressive face part or you can also use them to make a fighting pose for her, a left relaxed chopping hand for making her looking over and a right open splayed hand for shake hand with another Dancing Idol figure, in the promotional photos Makoto is shown to shake hand with Ayumu Maihama. But, in my photo session she's handshaking with my custom Takeshi Hongo a.k.a. Kamen Rider 1 figure.

Lastly, a dedicated stand set is included as well for her to display the figure without worrying to fall. Her stand set consists articulated clear pole and clear mandibles, while her base stand is clear dark red instead of magenta, the base is printed with a symbol for Makoto herself depicting like a Makoto's head as an angelic girl, I'm not sure with the actual ACG stands for but, could be Anime, Comics and Games? Her base also printed with her name and probably product code as well as ©T.K. (Toru Kitajima?) ©BNEI (Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.) China.

Comparisons: Comparing between Figma Idolm@sters, SHF Makoto appeared to be taller than both Figma Chihaya and Hibiki, not only being taller but, bigger in several part. Which made them not compatible to be paired together. Especially, this became inaccurate as well since Makoto was supposed to slightly shorter than Chihaya since Makoto stands around 159 cm while Chihaya is 162 cm and Hibiki is 152 cm. However, this is a different company so, it's kind of obvious for Bandai to make their own scale.

Thoughts:

As one of collectors who used to collect SHF and Figma, this Makoto is a big improvement compared to SHF SailorMoon. Although still not quite a fond of her head and face compared to Figma idolmaster series but, I can see their improvement which is good. For a second hand, she plays pretty solid so far, my only issue is only on her standard smile face part which I spotted black dots that cannot be cleaned somehow. Luckily, the spots are located where her fringe covered her face so, when attached the spots aren't noticeable  but, still bothersome to see when I remove her fringe. I got this second hand for $32.16, complete with her brown case but, I didn't take photo of her brown case since it's slightly peeled and there's alot of seal traces. Tbh aside her luxurious packaging and being a Premium Bandai, she's pretty standard like shf sailormoon which they originally cost $25-30. Thus buying her retail price at $83 would be too much for her standard... Like Figma and previous releases, Idolmaster's price tends to drop. Therefore, I kinda predict these line would also drop and I was right eventhough I bought second handed but, she's still good as new.

[viofitz]

Review: Aoshima F-1 series 1/32

Introduction:

Aoshima Bunka Kyozai Co. Ltd., commonly truncated to Aoshima, is a Japanese model manufacturer based in Shizuoka Prefecture. It produces plastic modelkits of a variety of vehicles under Aoshima brand along with some other brands. The company was founded by by airplane pilot Jiro Aoshima in 1924 which named Aoshima Airplane Research Institute. In 1932, model-airplane was designated as an educational material in Japanese schools, and "Shizuoka model-airplane association" was established. Jiro Aoshima acceded to the chairman's post. There are many lines established by Aoshima brand but, in here I'm going to focus on their F-1 series. Judging from their respective boxarts, the cars were seemingly based on the 1987 Formula One World Championship. Which pressumably released way earlier than both Tamiya, ARII and Fujimi released their own Mini F-1.

1. Lotus Honda 99T (Ayrton Senna):

As depicted from the box art, Aoshima produced the legendary Lotus Honda 99T owned by the late Ayrton Senna. The car was designed by Gérard Ducarouge for use by Lotus in the 1987 Formula One World Championship. The overall car's bodyshell color is yellow added with extensive sponsors livery, they even added some decal that was barely visible in the narrow position. The bodyshell was separated into 2 parts; main body and rear wing. Finally another car that belongs to Senna that is not McLaren or Williams, the 99T also proved to be competitive in Senna's hands; the Brazilian won twice and scored six. Thus earning the title as one of Senna's iconic car.

2. Williams Honda FW11B (Nelson Piquet):

Yup, another Williams car but, belongs to Nelson Piquet. It was designed by Frank Dernie as a serious challenger to McLaren and their MP4/2C car. The car took over from where the FW10 left off at the end of 1985, when that car won the last three races of the season. The bodyshell was originally white colored plastic but with added livery details, the car mainly got 3 colors; white, dark blue and yellow but, there're red and black colors in several parts such as livery trims and sponsors. Like 99T, the car also got extensive sponsors livery which made the bodyshell looking like an actual FW11B car. The car won first time out in Brazil with Piquet in 1986, before Mansell laid down a title challenge with four wins. Well... Atleast, there's an achievement for this car from Nelson Piquet himself. Although, the decals was also included with Mansell's numbering car so, you can actually make Mansell version as well. However, in this review the conversion of this model kit is more focused on the box art depiction, which is Piquet version.

3. Lotus Honda 99T Nakajima Version (Satoru Nakajima):

Another variant of 99T which was based on Satoru Nakajima car but, you can still make Senna's version by using his numbering decal. This version replaced "Camel" font with "Lotus" but, the Camel picture logo remains there. Aside from the livery, there're several body mold differences; specifically on the rear wing, front wing and there's extra accessory for the hole part near the roll hoop. Nakajima was overshadowed by his teammate but, proved to be steady if the unspectacular driver. Nakajima's best finish in his first season was a 4th at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.

Aoshima F-1 Chassis:

The chassis was build to fit with the bodyshells; which you'll have to fit the rear body's pegs into the front part of the gearbox's peg hole and snap in the front part of the gearbox with matching chassis peg for the hole on driver's interior, while the rear wing's location is right behind the gearbox. The chassis only got 2 gears which for motor and rear wheels so, there's no 4WD feature since they're not mini 4WD. The overall chassis is similar to Mini F-1 chassis but, slightly sturdier. Despite this, the front part is still the most fragile one due to many thin parts, which I accidentally broke some thanks to my carelessness. The good part for this chassis is; they don't look stand out thanks to the body almost fully covering them.

Driver parts are actually the only thing they didn't do much but, they still added decals for them. My friend did most of the helmet livery such as Senna and Piquet one.

Thoughts:

Unlike Tamiya and other brands, Aoshima seemingly fully licensed this model kit with extensive sponsors livery that pretty closely resembles their actual cars, seen from this conversion. They also included rear view mirror for this model kit, making this more detailed than what Tamiya, ARII and Fujimi did. However, for a 1/32 they're way smaller than I thought but, with that amount of extensive livery details I gotta admit Aoshima really nailed this conversion perfectly. This looks more like an actual miniature instead of your regular mini F-1 toys. Unfortunately, the frustrating part was on assembling 99T's bodyshell; which I had a real hard time dealing with the small parts and ended breaking several joint parts due to small peg holes but, gladly they didn't really stand out since mostly on the peg joints. You'll need to scrape the hole to fit the pegs, mainly on the roll hoop and driver holes. However, despite how detailed they looks, they're still overshadowed by Tamiya.

Repaint & detail by Archyd.

[viofitz]

Review: Hasbro Marvel Legends Wolverine and Marvel's Logan

Introduction:

Hasbro, Inc. or originally named as Hassenfeld Brothers, is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment holding company founded on December 6, 1923 by Henry, Hillel and Herman Hassenfeld and is incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Marvel Legends is one of Hasbro's action figure line based on the characters of Marvel Comics, initially produced by Toy Biz since 2002, then by Hasbro in the beginning of January 1 2007. In this review, I feature you on Deadpool & Wolverine line which there're 3 variant figures that is; Deadpool, Wolverine and Headpool with Marvel's Logan but... I will only review Wolverine and Marvel's Logan. Both figure is packed with black colored boxart in overall with window box that reveals the whole contents packed inside the blisters, then below the window there's a large printed logo of "Marvel Studios" "Deadpool & Wolverine" movie with Hasbro and 14+ logo on the bottom, while the upper left corner got "Marvel Legends" logo, left is warning sign and the character's names on the right side which printed in red with white frame. The rear part is showing black colored box with the respective character's artworks, figure informations, and Indonesian's safety info sticker and importer. In Logan's case, the box was meant to feature Headpool as the top billed figure and Logan as his bonus accessories which, kinda awkward to actually treat a fully articulated figure as accessories but... I'm not even going to review headpool himself, since I will only focus on Logan accessories lol. Okay, going to unbox this two!

Contents:

Both Wolverine and Logan comes with their main figure, they're included with 2 pair of hands in total. Wolverine also comes with with 1 interchangeable head sculpt. Although for Logan, his figure was supposed to be the accessories but, I omitted the Headpool figure.

Character introduction:

James "Logan" Howlett, also known as Wolverine, is a Canadian class 3 mutant. His mutation granted him a number of animalistic attributes including three retractable razor sharp claws on each hand, and heightened senses, which allowed him to track people through scent and sound. He also has superhuman strength, reflexes, stamina and highly developed accelerated healing abilities, allowing him to heal injuries almost instantly, while also rendering him agelessly immortal. He is usually depicted being a tall angry fellow with contentious hair and muscular proportions, in his movie incarnation he has always been played by Hugh Jackman. The actor also played several Wolverine variants as well. In this variant, he's known as the worst wolverine due to his neglections of not being wanted to be part of the X-Men and instead chose to drink alcohol in bars. One night, while he was out getting drunk, the "humans" attacked the X-Mansion and killed the mutants, including the X-Men. Consumed by his rage and grief, Logan went on a killing spree, turning everyone against the X-Men and earning him this epitaph. Well, this was meant to be a reversed achievements of this Wolverine since he let down his entire world instead of being a hero in the past but, after meeting Deadpool from Earth-10005, things changed drastically as he finally earned being the best Wolverine instead. Although imo, all Wolverine variants are the best, including the short king and the crucified one.

Wolverine:

In this figure, Logan The Wolverine is donning his trademark comic book yellow spandex. Which took 24 years for Hugh Jackman to finally wear this. For a glimpse it looks really classic and very homage to his comic version but, stylized to make the suit more modern like every movie adaptations. You can see there's many crafted clothing details on his suit which made the suit looking armoric and a bit distant to be called spandex, his suit consists of full yellow suit with some blue and black colors, black and yellow hooded mask, blue colored shoulder pads with black and yellow trim, black and blue colored gauntlets with yellow trim, yellow belt with some black and red colored X-Men logo with black border on the buckles and blue colored boots with black trim. He also got his adamantium retractable claws colored in gray instead of shiny silver. His claws were made to be slightly different, which the claws have sculpted garment holes from his gloves, these holes allows him to retract his claws out of without tearing them apart and reducing the pain of retracting from the skin. However, despite looking great there's always inconsistencies in this figure as in the movie Logan never wear his hoodie mask until the last fight with hundreds of deadpools, and by that time his suit was already torned badly after his two fights with deadpool. While this figure is showing his suit in clean and perfect condition, I know this was inaccurate but, I think this figure was based on either concept art or something from other promotional merchandises. I don't really mind on this, I'll take it like this is how he fully armed with his yellow spandex which it's still cool for me but, if hasbro include him with alternate sleeveless arms that would be great but, it'd probably increasing the price for standard hasbro figure like this.

Logan:

This one is his casual wear version, where he wears rather odd and bland colored getup such as solid bright gray jacket, dark gray checkered dirty white colored shirt with gray tanktop underneath the shirt, light brown belt, cream colored rugged pants and his wolverine black and blue boots as his shoes. One of his jacket pocket got partial exposed blue colored wolverine gloves, meaning that this Logan actually brought his yellow spandex for him to wear. The figure reused several body parts from his leather jacket version such as his underneath shirt with tanktop, his rugged pants but, the belt was altered with simple looking buckles instead of native indian chief head belt like in the past releases. And lastly, his flesh hands with claws. The only thing new in this figure is his head, jacket and shoes, this version of Logan only appeared very briefly, thus made him less memorable nor iconic in the movie. They could have instead make someone else but, probably it's just for a simple recycle cash grab for promoting the movie. However, I can tell this version of Logan won't sell as much as his yellow spandex one.

Articulations, materials and accessories:

Both figure articulation points consisted movable head, ab-crunch on the torso, arms; butterfly joints on the shoulders, double jointed elbows and wrists, legs; thighs, double jointed knees and ankles. On yellow spandex body, his belt is a separate part which you can hardly rotate it due to being tight fit. His shoulder pads are not movable at all since they're glued with large bump on his shoulders. His gauntlets however is separate pieces but, they're glued to his arms so, they're not rotatable nor removable. However, you can still remove them by using heat gun or hot water, with this you can probably attach the bare arms from his tanktop version. For casual wear body, since he got rubber jacket, his movability can be limited due to the material's issue obstacling some articulations, you can see that his relaxed position arms appeared to be still a bit flare out due to his jacket bulks out the underside of his arms. Both figures were made from hard and durable plastics and rubbery plastics for some parts like shoulder pads, X-men belt, jacket and his claws. So you got nothing to worry about this figure if they fall. Most of Wolverine and Logan's accessories are their alternate pair of hands, both of them comes with a pair of hands that has no retractable claws. Wolverine is given with right fist hand and left with slightly open splayed hand, while Logan is all fistful hands. Also, sorry for the pathetic pose on Logan figure because I cannot think of a perfect epic pose for him since in the movie itself, this Logan appeared to be a heavy drinker so I used another hands for him to recreate that drinking poses.

Head Sculpt (HS):

Wolverine comes with his hooded masked on hs, which the black pointy ears is shaped like a bat ears, this black cowl part dominates mostly his front face, while the overall upper and rear head that connects to his suit is yellow. His front mask was made from soft rubber material and has exposed mouth part which painted flesh with slight beards and his eyes are painted white. However, I find it funny to see his side jaws being cleaner than his unmasked nor his casual wear hs, his masked face is like a stunt double face instead of Hugh Jackman's face. His alternate head is Hugh Jackman Logan's head in his neutral expression, his head is shown he has spiky messy hair that slightly pointy on both sides and... pompadour like bangs. When I looked his head on the side, I cannot unsee him as Suneo like hairstyle. The same goes for his casual wear hs but, his face is shown to be more rugged and angrier than the alternate yellow spandex one. Which is better suited for his unmasked version of yellow spandex since he looks spot on to one of Hugh Jackman's photo as Wolverine. Both hs were made from hard plastics material while his hair was made from hard rubber plastics material. With his unmasked head however, his neck was supposed to be slightly exposed rather than fully covered but, I think that's kinda unnecessary since people won't even bother with it. Since the casual wear used his leather jacket torso so, his neck appeared to be bigger than the yellow spandex one.

Body comparisons:

Body comparisons:

Comparing both figures, the casual version appeared to be chunky due to his thick wear. Whereas the yellow spandex looks sleeker despite their armoric feel. Their heights are the same however, depending on what head you're using they can be vary; the casual wear hs he appeared to be tiny bit taller due to his head sits a bit higher than his unmasked head. One thing that bothers me is the casual wear despite being thicker on his getup but, part of his exposed body is chunkier compared to his yellow spandex body. Notable part is his exposed neck like I mentioned earlier and his hands which appeared to be buffed as well than the gloved hands. Their shoes/boots are the same but, oddly painted differently. The yellow spandex boots straps are black colored and his soles are blue with black borders. While the casual wear, some straps are left unpainted but, their soles are fully black.

HS comparisons:

Comparing to past releases Logan HS, they're all spot on to Hugh Jackman's likeness. The yellow spandex hs is a bit oval compared to the rests while the casual wear version, his front nose seems a little shorter than the others. However, it surprised me to see side by side both hs (unmasked & casual) colors are very identical, including his hair. I saw in several reviews the casual wear one appeared to have more darker hair color and another thing is I also saw someone put casual wear hs into yellow spandex appeared to have loose ball joint which the head spins instead of being fit. I guess I was lucky enough to get them in perfect color and fitting joints. It is interesting that, despite being a neutral expressions they got their own uniqueness so, they're not just simple face reuse since there's a little expressions shown on them. The Amazon one is completely neutral expression, the jacket one is shown to have a little smirk, the unmasked yellow spandex is serious but, with sadder looking eyes and his casual wear looks angrier which more fitting for his unmasked body. The 2 new hs were made to have more fleshy skin tone compared to the past releases. I did not include the old man Logan in here since his hs are entirely different due to be made into older version.

Swaps:

All head swaps are surprisingly perfect for this 2 new hs despite their slight different skin tone. However, the past releases hs somehow looks a little off with yellow spandex body but, on the contrary they looked much better with the new casual wear body.

Thoughts:

I never been a Marvel Comics fan in my life but this one is an exception for me. The movie did real justice on this Logan, despite the inconsistency of this figure I'm very happy with how he turned out to be great. This Wolverine became one of my favorite figure of this year but to be frank, these 2 hs of Hugh Jackman is the only reason why I bought both figures. I usually prefered Bandai S.H.Figuarts better over Marvel Legends and I know Bandai also made their own Wolverine figure but, without unmasked head is instant no for me. My only complaint is the yellow spandex figure's paintapp suffers easy paint chip which in some certain pose, I noticed there're paint chipping on the blue part of the arms so, watch your six if you're planning to make something like crossed arms pose. Other than that, he looks pretty clean although he appeared to be a bit too bright since the movie suit got their own finishing effects even in the very first scene of the yellow spandex. But, you get what you paid for unless you want a perfection.

Thank youu for reading!😁🙏🏻

[viofitz]

Review: Fujimi Super Tune Up F Series

Introduction:

Fujimi Mokei Co., Ltd. is a Japanese model manufacturer based in Shizuoka Prefecture. It produces plastic model kits of a variety of vehicles, including model aircraft, model cars, model ships and model armored vehicles along with historical structures and science fiction kits. Since "mokei" means "model" in Japanese, "Fujimi Mokei" is often called "Fujimi Model(s)" in English. Due to the popularity of Formula One cars, they also produced their own 1/32 scale F-1 cars. Judging from their respective boxarts, the cars were seemingly based on the 1989 Formula One season. Which probably also released that year, a year earlier before Tamiya or ARII released their own F-1 cars. It seems like there're 2 versions of this series, since I got 2 variant colored boxarts. The white boxarts version, they're included with large rear velgs, small front velgs and plastic tires. While the dark colored boxarts was included with gold plated wheelsets and sponge tires.

No. 01: Mclaren Honda:

Once again due to the popularity of Mclaren, many toy companies including Fujimi took the chance to make their own product for money making. The car was based on Mclaren MP4/5 judging on the artwork and the year they released this line. However, this conversion wasn't inspired from the Legendary Ayrton Senna version but, rather Alain Prost.

Design thoughts: Unlike Tamiya and ARII, this representation of Mclaren appeared to have blocky shape on it's side fairings and the nose is very thick. I like Fujimi's representation of Mclaren car as well.

No. 02: Benetton Ford:

The car was based on B189 and most likely based on either Nelson Piquet or Emanuele Pirro version and unlike Tamiya & ARII, B189 has bright green colored bodyshell. Although, the actual car has 5 color schemes.

Design thoughts: Also digging on this. Perhaps, out from all release, this is the most colorful livery coming from Benetton Ford since both Tamiya and ARII made B190B and B192 versions which only got less colorings on their livery.

No. 03: Leyton House March:

Well, pretty unique Fujimi actually released something different than both Tamiya or ARII. The car was based on March 881 driven by Mauricio Gugelmin and has turquoise colored bodyshell.

Design thoughts: I gotta admit, despite being underrated, this is one of the cool yet unique. Unfortunately, the side part of the rear nose was made to be quite narrow, thus hinders fitting into it's chassis since the battery locker will blocking the bodyshell's side rear nose. You'll have to remove the battery locker of you want to fit the bodyshell into the chassis

No. 04: Ferrari:

Well, other than McLaren, Ferrari is the 2nd that caught attention to even Fujimi to make their own. It was based on Ferrari 640 and like every Ferrari cars it has red colored bodyshell and it was inspired from Gerhard Berger's car instead of Prost, since Prost is still on McLaren team back in 1989.

Design thoughts: I like how this car appeared to be the slimmest of all but, it's nose is quite bold. This is pretty different representation since both Tamiya and ARII made the Ferrari cars looking very broad.

No. 05: Black Special

Unlike the others, Black Special is a fictional car made by Fujimi and after a close inspection from me, the black special is literally McLaren Honda bodyshell in black color. It seems like it was meant to be a special release from Fujimi.

Design thoughts: Well, despite being a recolor but, this car is looking pretty wicked and badass, I love how Fujimi also went wild on producing their own original design instead of referencing another F1 cars.

No. 06: Lamborghini:

To be frank... I couldn't find an actual car that has livery like this but, since it was called Lamborghini, it can be assumed the car was inspired from Lola LC89. However, the bodyshell wasn't even based on Lola but, it was a reused of Leyton House March bodyshell in navy blue color. I guess this is just another one of Fujimi's special release. Unlike the others, the car's livery doesn't even have any numbering.

Design thoughts: I personally like this one most, it's simple and I really like the color, eventhough it was loosely inspired from a certain F1 car. Like Leyton House March, it's bodyshell won't fit if the battery locker is attached on it's chassis.

Super Tune Up F Series Chassis:

The chassis was build similar like the old class tamiya mini 4WD chassis however, despite the looks it doesn't have any 4WD features. Even the kit only got 2 gears to attach, and each kit was included with 2 types of gear, red for standard run and black for speed run. The gear box appeared to have exposed view on the motor and gears. The terminals are silver color, I gotta say the chassis mechanism was designed to be way too simple. Each kit were included with 2 types of keylock; the standard one and the one with rear bumper. I know the photo contents are inconsistents, since one of them were already half assembled and the Ferrari one was already fully assembled while the rests were still in unassembled condition but, to tell you the truth it took me 3 years to complete this Fujimi kits. They're way harder to find than Tamiya or ARII, which I don't really care anymore getting them unassembled or fully assembled or even what versions that I got.

Thoughts:

I love the colorful bodyshell of these compared to ARII which mostly only got 4 colors although, it surprised me a little that some of the bodyshells are simply a reused from certain previous kits. But, the variable colorings helps to hide their similarities vaguely. And... I never expected that they're not designed for mini 4WD despite they looked like one. Gotta admit the driver cars they picked are nothing famous except Alain Prost. It's no wonder the line became so underrated and not many people know this but... Atleast, I'm happy enough to be able to complete them all. The main problem from this kits, several kit with white boxarts suffered breakable plastic tires, I guess it's pretty understandable since they've been aged so long thus making them brittle eventhough I bought them brand new unassembled. And the Leyton House March/Lamborghini bodyshell would be reused by Academy Model Kit (Korean plastic model company) to make their own Mini 4WD car called Hot Wings with slight alterations, mainly for fitting their own Super-1 chassis.

Paintapp and decals by Archyd

[viofitz]

Bandai S.H.Figuarts Jin Kazama (TEKKEN 8)

Introduction:

Bandai S.H.Figuarts (SHF) is a popular line of high quality collectable figures made by Bandai. The toyline debuted in 2008 and is targeted towards the adult fans of the series with its higher price and show-accurate detailing of the figurines. The line started in Kamen Rider THE NEXT series and has expanded to many franchises including TEKKEN 8. The review is going to discuss on Jin Kazama, he was given with a red and white colored boxart. With visible window plastic, we can see the figure contents. The front part was printed with large promotional photo of SHF Jin Kazama and small "TEKKEN 8" logo below the photo. While the window was printed with "S.H.Figuarts Jin Kazama". The box also has printed Bandai, Bandai Namco and Tamashii Nations as well as hologram sticker logos. While the back part is mostly shown the figure's promotional photos showing how the figure works and warning with several informations in Japanese.

Contents:

Jin comes with his main figure, he's included with 3 interchangeable head sculpts in total and 4 pair of hands in total. His background paper inside the box is a diorama stage of Yakushima.

Jin is a muscular young man of Japanese ethnicity. He has black hair that spikes at the back of his head like his father Kazuya Mishima. He also sports a fringe like his mother, Jun Kazama. Jin's face also strongly resembles his mother's. One of Jin's most prominent aspects is the black tattoo-like mark on his left shoulder, a mark that Devil branded onto him. Unlike, the Storm Collectibles I used to review, this Jin is wearing black and white jackets which has wing motive with black, white and red trims. Inside his jacket there's a red color part while his main shirt is grey. He is donning wearing white colored belt with long straps, black pants and black boots. His gauntlets are also there but, in red and white color still has Mishima style's triangular pattern of metallic studs on the back of the hands, resembling his father's gloves. I gotta say, in terms of design and physical appearance he felt a bit chunky on his torso but barely visible but, unlike Storm his face is actually spot on to how he looks in the game.

His articulation points consisted movable head, torso, arms, double jointed elbow, wrists, legs with thigh, double jointed knee, ankles and tiptoe part. His white straps belt has removable part which I think it's kinda unnecessary but, I somehow understand it's for safety posing instead of accidentally breaking it. His gauntlets has movable cut which you can rotate them. His getup are mostly sculpted on his overall body and some parts were done with soft rubber. But, despite that several articulations can be hindered by those getup which kinda bother.

Jin was included with 3 head sculpts (HS) in total, first would be his standard serious expression. Second HS is his angry expression with open mouth and the last one is the same standard serious expression but, his eyes are looking to the left. Yeah, the purpose of these expressions are for recreating how he expressed himself in the game. His head and hairs are single mold and made from hard materials excluding his bangs which made from soft rubber... So, you don't need to worry on breaking his fringe if you're being careless. I gotta admit, Bandai nailed this one. Jin looks exactly like how he was portrayed in the TEKKEN 8 game. You can tell Jin definitely has his mother looks except his spiky backward hairstyle and that bold eyebrows that resembles his father. (Kazuya Mishima)

Jin comes with 4 pair of hands in total, that would be: fisted hands which was already attached to his main figure, 2 finger gesture hands. Open splayed and open palm hands for his necessary battle poses. His hands were made from hard plastic material like his overall body. These hands are more than enough to recreate Jin's iconic poses and even his move lists. I gotta admit, it's very similar to what Storm included for him.

His diorama stage was a printed of the Yakushima background which split into 2 part, you're going to need a paper clip to merge that paper. Yakushima is home of the Kazama Clan, and birthplace of Jun Kazama and Jin Kazama. A fitting background for both mother and son, also Xiaoyu if you want to recreate Xiaoyu VS Jin. That if Bandai made SHF Ling Xiaoyu someday....

Thoughts:

While Jin is not my first SHF figure collection but, I personally think his mobility is pretty good as SHF standard but, he lacks some SHF old passion which used to put detailed shading paintapp. If you compared the figure with the actual game artwork render you'll see he lacked some paintapp details but, most people won't even bother with this kind of details which I'm sort of understand that bandai seen this so decided to lower the cost work but, they also doubling the price. While recreating several poses can be easy but, he felt very fragile especially his armpit and crotches joints. As for accessories, It'd be better if they also give him a devil jin face but, I'm guessing they'd probably make a stand alone Devil Jin figure which he has entirely different design from normal Jin. But, my wishlists are Jun Kazama and Ling Xiaoyu for Jin and that... If Bandai still making more TEKKEN line-up. However, I've been collecting SHF long enough and Bandai is known for their inconsistencies which they usually tends to discontinue their line-up so soon so, I nolonger expecting much from them.

[viofitz]

McDonald's Happy Set: Universal Studios Japan (USJ)

Introduction:

The Happy Set is a set meal sold by the hamburger chain McDonald's. It is called Happy Meal in English-speaking countries and has been available since 1979. In Japan, it was introduced as the "Children's Set" in October 1987, and became the "Happy Set" in June 1995. Although it is targeted at children, it is popular among a wide range of age groups describes McDonald's Japan's "Happy Set." For this review, it's a lineup from Universal Studios Japan (USJ), in which they're only exclusive to Japan's McDonald's. So far there're 2 lineup of USJ Happy Set series which first released in 2021 and the current one released in 2024. In 2021 lineup there're 10 toys while in 2024 they expanded into 12 toys featuring several characters from Universal Studios productions, they are; Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Toad and Donkey Kong from Nintendo games, Rexy from Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movies, Bruce from Jaws movie, the Minions from Despicable Me/Minions movies, George from Curious George series and Kitty White from Hello Kitty series. However, in this review I'm going to review Mario Kart, Rexy, Bruce and Minions only. The packagings of the happy set is different than the usual happy meal, which they instead uses solid colored plastic bags instead of clear plastic bags. Both lineup was released in July, precisely at the summer season, the 2021 lineup for 3 minions has variant packagings which Stuart (the one eyed minion that holding a camera) has gray packaging while the rests is dark blue, Nintendo series has turqouise green colored packaging, while Rexy, Bruce and the 3 minions for 2024 release has blue colored packagings. Aside of the lineup matter, the different colored packagings is because McDonald's Japan released both lineup in 2 periods of time. While I can appreciate the uniqueness but, the minus we cannot tell what's inside except, each happy set got their product code numbering located on the information/warning part.

Throw The Shell! Mario Kart WBE-0123

Yeah, another happy set Mario Kart, the design is looking very similar to the Mario Kart 8 lineup but, the gimmick of this toy is not a wheelie toy since it was made to be a shooting toy. This is to recreate how Mario throwing the shell in Mario Kart games. Before you play the toy, you'll have to apply the stickers provided for this toy but, I plan on painting them someday since I also want to add some itsy bitsy details on the car. After this attach the green shell part into the front hole of the car, then press the button on the right side of the car to shot the shell out of the car. A typical gimmick for most kid's toys indeed but, It'd be even better if they actually made a 3D shaped green turtle shell instead of embossed picture. I gotta admit the mario figurine in the toy is looking great, although I've seen similar like this in most mario kart toyline. The toy is slightly bigger than both Hot Wheels and Dream Tomica, pretty understandable since this mario was designed for happy meal standard scale while both diecast miniatures were made for 1/64 scale.

2. Grab And Catch! Jurassic Park T-Rex CBG-7890 This is the iconic Rexy the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movies in her happy meal toy made for this lineup in brown color and yellow paint for her eyes. Her gimmick is simply grabbing something by using her open mouth feature by pressing down her tail. This way, we can recreate her grabbing something by biting the object. But, she can only grab something flat such as paper or plastic bag. Comparing to Snap Squad toyline, this Rexy is slightly bigger and despite being a happy meal toy. Her head sculpt is really spot on to how the actual Rexy was portrayed in the movies. Though in front angle she looks flat.

3. Jaws Water Gun CBG-8901 Well... Bruce the shark from Jaws movie made a second appearance in this happy set lineup, this shark shaped water gun toy is colored sky blue and white in overall while his mouth is red. There's even an embossed logo of "JAWS" movie logo on the right side of his body painted in red. In order to play the toy, you'll have to sink his mouth underwater then pull back his tail fins to fill the water. When it's done you shoot the water by pushing his tail fins back to his body.

4. Minions

Seems like these tiny yellow creatures were also popular in Japan since they even made Minions for the whole 2 lineup and, there're 3 of them included on each lineup:

Minion Stuart's Water Gun 6789-HXT

In this toy, Stuart the minion is depicted to wear his usual blue jumpsuit getup with black gloves and gray colored goggles. He is shown to have a michievous expression since he's holding a squirt water camera prank in green plastic materials thus, making the toy got 2 separated plastic materials. To play the toy, slide the button ontop of the camera to open the hole, then fill the water. Press the button on the front lower part of the camera and water will come out from the camera lens hole. Since the toy is off balance due to the large camera, they included a base display stand so, you can insert it into his footing pegs to make it stable.

Minion Bob the Float's Water Gun 5678-EBD

Bob the minion is made to be wearing gray goggles, black gloves, blue swimsuit shorts and orange colored floats. His expression is shown similar like Stuart but, Bob has bigger eyes and his lower eyelid was half closed. Bob has movable right arm which you can rotate it, and for the gimmick; you simply put the toy in the water and press the button on the back. If you release the button while in the water, water will enter. Press the button and the water will come out from the front part of the floats 2 holes. Well, Stuart with one hole and Bob with 2 holes... That kinda represents their eyes lol.

Minion Kevin's Rotating Waterwheel 1234-EBD

Unlike, Stuart and Bob, Kevin is an embossed toy on a sky blue colored disk. The embossed Kevin is painted yellow with gray colored goggles, he is wearing the same blue jumpsuit getup like Stuart, while his posing is shown like he's stuck in that disk. He is depicted to have a silly expression, probably dizzy because of the rotating waterwheel. The main toy is a transparent blue tube, while the inside has orange colored waterwheel for spinning disk mechanism. To do the toy's feature, attach Kevin's disk on the peg on the blue tube. Then pour the water ontop of the tube and when the water goes down, the waterwheel will spin which you'll see Kevin spins. Water comes out from the holes under the toy like a shower.

Agent Minion's Water Gun CBG-0987

This Minion is wearing AVL agent suit in navy blue color with white undershirt. He's holding a gun which actually a grapple gun in the movie but, it works as a water gun in this toy. Another same gimmick from the early lineup, in order to fill the water you'll need to sink the toy while pressing the button on his back to fill the water. Then you can shoot the water out from his gun. He looks similar to Stuart but, in the movie it was Dave who uses this gun for a short time. So, it's understandable if some people wouldn't even notice this as a grapple gun.

Let's Make A Wind! Pit Crew Minion CBG-1098

The Minion in this toy is wearing a pit crew getup like in the 4th movie and depicted sitting on a large blower fan by holding a wrench, in mini size due to the toy is mainly shaped as a blower fan and wrench. The minion toy is actually a single mold of the red plastic part of the toy and the blower fan is yellow colored with some embossed words which says "Gru's Pit Crew". While the wrench part is painted metallic gray, and the overall minion is painted yellow for skin color, metallic gray for goggles and wrench, white with brown for eyes and, black for foot and goggles headband. To play the toy, just press the button located on the right side of the wrench but, sometimes the fan won't spin since there's a little trick on pressing the button. When you made it, you can press the button repeatedly for more faster spinning and more wind. But, I gotta admit... the wind blow that came from this toy wasn't that strong since I can barely feel the wind and it couldn't even blow a thin paper. For the character, I think he's supposed to be Ron since, the minion depicted in here is short with 2 eyes and he's not plump.

Shake! Party Minion CBG-9012

This plump minion is wearing his usual blue colored jumpsuit attire but, he also wearing a yellow duck lifebuoy as his head accessory and there's a pink colored connector for star shaped keychain with clasp ontop of his head. Of course, the purpose is to make him into a keychain and another gimmick of him is he'll make a giggle sound when you shake the toy. This is the very same gimmick to Despicable Me 2 lineup of Tim Giggling/Giggle Grabber/Evil Purple Minion Giggling.

Comparing between 2013 till 2017 line up, the USJ set quality is closely similar to the 2017 lineup. The minus from this line is; their goggles were painted inconsistent, the 2021 one appeared to be solid gray like the DM2 lineup while the 2024, the goggles were painted metallic gray. But, it's a happy set toys so, you cannot expect much.

Thoughts:

Well, I guess 2021-2024 wasn't a letdown afterall thanks to this lineup because, I'm utterly disappointed with the downgrade quality of happy meal Minions: Rise of The Gru and Despicable Me 4. The minions in this USJ set was done so much better, the sculpt work and even the gimmicks are top quality. Although... Most of these toys gimmicks require water to play them, which I'm not going to demonstrate it in video test. T-Rex and Jaws are my personal favorite for this lineup, they're very well made despite the simple moldings. As for Mario, the design of his car may be too identical to Mario Kart 8 lineup but, this can probably be an alternative Mario Kart toy if you missed on collecting Mario. I like the shooting gimmick anyway.

[viofitz]

Takara B-Daman Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Introduction: B-Daman is a marble shooting toy franchise produced in Japan by Takara. It was originally based on the Bomberman series, but later expanded into other franchises and its own original designs. That includes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) as well which released in Japan around 1994 and would also released by Playmates Toys in 1995 as TMNT action figure subline and the line was called "Ninja Shooters". The toy's design is a humanoid figure, with a round cavity in its abdomen that houses a specially made marble (though other marbles of the same size may be used). The marble is launched by pressing a spring-loaded trigger on the back of the figure. Different attachments and accessories can be used to change various traits of the B-Daman, such as its accuracy, power, balance, control, and firing rate. They are customizable, and each have their own special gimmick. In the Japanese language Battle B-Daman toys, the marbles are referred to as "B-Dama". In all cases they are simply called "marbles", hence the name "B-Daman") in Japan. In the English language B-Daman toylines and media, the marbles were originally called 'B-DaBalls", but was later changed to "B-DaMarbles" for safety reasons. In this review, I will review the TMNT original release by Takara. The series only has 4 characters with a generic design due to being identical quadruplet turtles but, each turtles was included with their own respective weapons and of course… a shiny blue colored marble.

Leonardo: Leonardo or commonly called as Leo, is the eldest and the leader of TMNT, he dons blue bandana as well as arm bands and kneepads and he's using twin katanas as his signature weapons. In this figure, Leo is colored dull green and he only dons bandana and armbands due to the limitation of the toy design. He and his brothers shells were painted in black green-ish while their plastrons were painted in yellow. Aside marble part, he's only included with one katana in solid black color which he can grip them with his right hand.

Raphael: Raphael or usually called as Raph, is usually depicted wearing a red eye mask, armbands and kneepads; in this regard, he is the only turtle to retain this color since the original incarnation of the characters, as the remaining turtles received different colors at a later time. Raphael wields twin sai as his primary weapon. His figure is colored green, he's included with marble part and one sai in solid black color which he can hold them with his right hand.

Donatello: Donatello or nicknamed Don or Donnie/Donny, is the smartest and often gentlest of his brothers, wearing a purple mask over his eyes as well as his arm bands and kneepads. He wields a bo staff, his primary signature weapon in all media. Unlike the rest of his brothers he has dark brown skin color, he's included with marble part and one bo staff in solid black color which he can hold them with his right hand.

Michelangelo: Known as Mikey, the youngest and known for his wisecracks, quick-wit, optimism, and love of skateboarding and pizza. He is usually depicted wearing an orange eye mask including his arm bands and kneepads. His signature weapons are dual nunchaku. He has dark green skin color, he's included with marble part and one nunchaku in solid black color which he can hold them with his right hand.

Thoughts: Ah, yes… The classic TMNT yet the most overrated from 1988-1996 cartoon show. It's pretty understandable even for Japanese company like Takara to take this chance to make a cash. I'm new to this B-Daman line but, I remembered I used to own a counterfeit version of Bomberman series as a kid. When I'm searching TMNT toys in Japan, I came across this and instantly interested. Well, like most of 90s generations, I also used to collect classic TMNT toyline by Playmates. This figures may have generic sculpt work but, the coloring is what matters to differentiate them. Atleast, Takara still included them their own weapons but, the problem is… attaching the weapons can be tight fitting and I'm not fond of how the weapons sticked to their right cheek. Still, I gotta admit this is a pretty decent toyline, the paintapp are clean but, the turtles eyes and teeth are simply added by stickers and the mechanism for this toys are fun to play. I'm a bit surprised on how Takara added irises for the turtles since most of Playmates TMNT toys doesn't have irises.

[viofitz]

McDonald's Happy Meal Despicable Me 3

Introduction:

A Happy Meal is a kid's meal sold at the American fast food restaurant chain McDonald's since June 1979. A small toy or book is included with the food, both of which are usually contained in a red cardboard box with a yellow smiley face and the McDonald's logo. The packaging and toy are frequently part of a marketing tie-in to an existing television series, film or toyline. In this review, it's from Despicable Me 3 (DM3) movie aired in 2017. The line up had 22 toys in total counting from every region releases, unlike it's predecessors the line up expanded by featuring several human characters and a robot with different functions. It features Gru, Lucy, Agnes, Balthazar Bratt, Clive (there's Dru, Margo and Edith as well but, there's no physical toys of them), 12 minions figures, 2 kinds of board games, dominoes and a playing card game. Their gimmicks are very different compared to the predecessors such as shooting toys, wheelie toys, movable parts by button or just simply tapping their head, passing toy, hockey game, board games and playing card. The whole toys doesn't have any electronic gimmicks anymore which I'm quite okay since replacing the battery are kinda pain in the butt.

Human

New to this line, there're 6 human characters in total which 5 toys riding/driving their own vehicles (animal for Agnes). However, I don't have 2 Balthazar Bratt's toys including his robot sidekick Clive since I don't like them. In this review, only 4 of them that I will show, most of them are wheelie toys but, each of them got their own unique feature:

Gru's Hydrocycle, has a shooting feature which you need to attach Gru's Hydrocycle with his sub-marine cover then pull the button to shoot him out of the sub-marine. Gru's head is movable very little due to his head is close to both of his hands. This gimmick was made to recreate when Gru emerges out with his hydrocycle from the sub-marine (Although, we only get to see Lucy performed this while Gru and his minions are shown offscreen). In Indonesia, he can be bought by mcdelivery only.

Lucy's Hydrocycle, is a pull back bike which you only need to roll its rear wheel backward then release it to go forward in fast motion. Lucy's head is also movable and can rotate 360 degrees. Until now, this is one of the few toys made for her. Lucy is only exclusive to Australia and Canada.

Agnes' Rockin' Unicorn, it's Agnes riding her fluffy Unicorn doll. It has one wheel underneath the unicorn, when you roll them, Agnes toy will wiggles due to the mechanism made for this toy. Agnes head is also movable slightly.

Despicable Duo, a wheelie car toys that has rolling drill part by rolling the front wheels. The cockpit can be opened to reveal the interior and there's an attached sticker featuring the twins; Gru and Dru. The actual name of this car is Villain Wheels and was originally belongs to Robert Gru (Gru and Dru's late father). While the car is cool looking but, I really wished they'd made a mini figure of Gru and Dru for driving the car instead of a sticker but, it's understandable for a happy meal toys.

The Minions

There're 12 kinds of minion toys in total:

Minion Tongue, has tongue out feature by the button on his jumpsuit pocket, and he also got movable arms. Most sources claimed it's Dave but, he can be anyone that has similar looks to Dave. The toy packaging doesn't mention the minion's name.

Banana Launcher Minion, it's a shooting toy that is similar to Gru's Hydrocycle and Crab Bite Minion but, this has longer range. While I like the gimmick of this toy but, the banana design is kinda lame despite it fits for them. I was hoping like a gadget just like they did on Despicable Me 2 series. He has combed hair similar to Dave or could be his lookalike.

Crab Bite Minion, has a jumping hat gimmick by pressing the button on his backpack. I think this was meant to be Jerry since he's the only one who wore this kind of hat in the 3rd movie but, the toy got combed hair decal like Dave.

Minion Hydrocycle Surprise, has open lid part on the rear part of his hydrocycle to show an art of presumably Jerry. Which you need to push the button on the front wheel. This toy features Minion toy in mini size due to his large vehicle. They would later released more mini minion toys in Minions: Rise of the Gru line up. Minion Hydrocycle is exclusive to Asian region.

Rocket Racer Minion, this minion has wheels underneath his butt and pull back feature but, you'll have to slide the toy forward to make him go backward and will spin several times showing like a rolling rocket. The minion in this toy got also got messy hairstyle which presumably meant to be a spiky hair so, he could be Carl. I think they don't want to waste more materials to make a separate buzz cut hair part like they did in the previous releases.

Pumping Iron Minion, the feature is simply moving the peg on his back right to left to swing both of his arms to show he's having arms exercise by lifting heavy metal dumbell (since the dumbell was painted silver). This minion is shown with angry expression and he got a tattoo on his left temple. Despite having jail uniform, the uniform still got sculpted "Gru" initials on his pocket. Meaning this was supposed to be a minion with his usual jumpsuit. He looks similar to Stuart since he has combed hair.

Minion Antics, similar to Pumping Iron but, the gimmick is to spin his right arm like he's spinning a chain by pressing the button on his back. This Minion also has messy hairstyle so, he could be either Tom or Phil.

Groovin' Minion, this plump minion is given a swinging 2 arms gimmick by pressing his head to show like he's dancing and his legs will also shrunk down to his body. But, you can still make various position arms for him like dancing or playing DJ. He's wearing green colored headset and has buzz cut hair similar to most of fat minions, he's the only fat minion included in this line up. He could be Jerry the fat one or anyone.

Hillarious Hockey Minion, it's an air hockey toy which has 2 minion toy sitting as paddles and a hockey puck inside the paddles. The 2 minion toys are similar to Dave and Stuart.

Banana Flipper Minion, this toy is kinda special I think... Since he is included with 3 accessories; that is a red hoop and 2 bananas. The purpose of that hoop is for Tim/Kevin holding the hoop for us to flip the 2 banana accessories into the hoop hole. This tall minion can be either Tim or Kevin or anyone that has their looks. He's only exclusive to America and Australia continent.

Pass The Minion, like the name you play pass the toy with your family or friends. In order to determine the winner and loser, there's a wind-up gimmick located on his back which you'll need to spin, then toss the toy to your opponent's hand then your opponent also do the same to you. If the toy starts vibrating on you or your opponent's hand, you or your opponent lose. The vibration came from the wind-up's mechanism but, the trick on how the toy was able to hold up the vibration is because it was locked by the minion's hair sticking up. Another tall minion that has Tim and Kevin's likeness, he's only exclusive to America and Australia continent.

Variety Games

There're 4 kinds of variety games included in this set and all of them were only released in either US and Australia but, I only have Despicable Deck and Despicable Checkers:

Despicable Deck, this isn't actually a toy since it's a playing card, it features many characters from DM3, that is; Agnes as a ace spade, Unicorn doll as a ace clover, Edith as a ace heart, Margo as a ace diamond, Dru as a jack, Lucy as a Queen, Gru as a King, and Balthazar Bratt as a joker. While the minions as respective numbers, kinda surprised on how they designed the numbering cards features different kinds of minion arts. All artworks featured in this set were drawn in 2D style instead of using 3D renders. The card only available in Australia and US.

Despicable Checkers, It's a checkers game which requires 2 players to play the game. However, I don't know the purpose of the minion toy included in this but, we can make him glowing and his hat's headlamp will like flashing a light by putting flashlight/smartphone (flashlight mode) on the bottom of his foot. The glowing part is similar to Stuart Light Up Grabber but, without electronic mechanism inside the toy, and I like how the minion toy came to be in solid color except his foot and his headlamp. I think that's the only feature of this toy has. He may have Dave lookalike but, could be anyone with different hairstyle since his hat is sticked onto his head. He's only available for Australia release.

Thoughts:

Comparing between 2013 to 2015 line up, I gotta admit DM3 was the time where Happy Meal featuring Despicable Me franchise at it's peak as the details of the toys are even better than the previous 2 movies. Although, I kinda miss the electronic gimmicks but, this is a big improvements on the moldings. Minion's jumpsuit has sharper details such as seamline details, protruding Gru logo details, detailed shoes including shoe soles and paint quality is much cleaner for the minions. However, I still prefer the separated buzz cut hair part they did on the previous instead of simple paint dots or simply messy hair. And the variety of the toys are also interesting such as human characters and several board games, I'm amazed that they actually nailed their likeness as well, except Gru's nose😂. It is unfortunate, they went downgrade in 2020 onwards so, I'm nolonger interested collecting them anymore but, I'm interested on the 3 Minion toys featured in Japanese Happy Meal Universal Studios line up. I will review them along with other toys that I'm interested in. So far, Hydrocycle toys and Groovin' Minion are my personal favorite.