April 14, 2026

NECA TMNT Usagi Yojimbo – Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael

By Joe
After ceding their spot to a rabbit last week, the turtles return to Tuesday.

Last week, we took a look at the first figure in a line of action figures based on the artwork of the legendary Stan Sakai, creator of the comic Usagi Yojimbo. That first figure was the rabbit himself, Miyamoto Usagi, and he was drawn from the latest crossover between the two franchises which took place in 2023. Now, we turn to the turtles. NECA has given us a lot of turtles over the years, but only a few can trace themselves back to a specific artist. And, like these ones, they’re usually found in the comic subline of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and this time we’re getting Sakai’s take on the heroic reptiles. It feels like more often than not it’s Usagi who is coming into the world of TMNT and his look is reinterpreted based on whatever the look of that medium happens to be so getting action figures based on Sakai’s artistry feels like something that has been long overdue.

Not a ton of stuff in the box, but I also don’t know what more is needed?

Now, you may be wondering why I decided to give Usagi his own write-up while mashing all four turtles into a single one. And if your assumption is because this is essentially the same figure times four then you are absolutely correct. Like most TMNT lines, the turtles all share the same body and the only distinguishing characteristic between the four are their belts, portraits, and weapons. And while Usagi got three heads and multiple accessories, the turtles mostly share all the same stuff and even their alternate portrait isn’t unique. It does lead me to assume that NECA budgeted more for Usagi and the savings in reusing tools for the turtles was put into his figure. I’m not entirely sure how the licensing works here. Sakai is obviously compensated for Usagi while Paramount is getting their money for turtles, but is Sakai getting anything for his design work on the turtle figures? Does Paramount get any money for the Usagi figure since it still says “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” on the box? I don’t know the answers to any of that, but one would assume a line with essentially two licensing fees would be more expensive to produce, but the cost to the consumer is essentially the same as most NECA products so I suppose that’s a good thing. The boxes are also all the same save for the main color and the credits for these guys are the same as those for Usagi which will be linked at the end of this entry.

For alt portraits, Leo and Don share an expression as do Mikey and Raph.

Sakai’s take on the turtles has proven quite popular. NECA indicated a lot of positive feedback to the reveal which happened over a year ago and in my own circle of collectors it seems everyone really likes them. Sakai’s approach is a somewhat boxy proportioned turtle, but one that retains a lot of soft, round, edges. The plastron is quite rectangular with a fang-like quality to the base. The limbs are chunky, but muscled, and the feet are a tad oversized. The shell is in the shape of an oval with a simplified pattern in the middle of a large, elongated, hexagon in the center flanked by six, soft, pentagons. I say “soft” because the two on the side barely feature a point in the center making them more like a quadrilateral. The turtles each have their own coloration which seems to correspond with the 2012 series. Donatello may be a touch more saturated and Raph more pale (he’s no where close to the shade of green of NECA’s 2012 Raphael, but that one also doesn’t match the source). The only color is reserved for the bandanas and Leo and Donnie’s are almost a pastel shade of blue and purple, respectively. The belts are all unique with both Leo and Don getting some pouches on the front. All of the turtles have weapon storage and Michelangelo rolls with the unique holsters on the front of his belt as opposed to the back. Leonardo’s scabbards are also arranged in a parallel fashion as opposed to an X.

Leo looks a little intense for this to be a sparring match.

The paint is in the same style as NECA’s other comic interpretations. The colors are nice and matte and there’s an abundance of black linework painted onto the figures. It’s everywhere and really adds to the comic vibe of the source. It’s very clean and crisp with very little paint slop to be found. There’s a fleck of orange on Mikey’s plastron that I assumed transfered from the bandana tails in the packaging. I can’t really find any imperfections on Raphael and Donatello while Leonardo may be missing a tiny bit of black in his teeth. And speaking of, each turtle comes with a unique portrait by default. I really like how the open mouthed expressions on both Leo and Raph accentuate that rounded-off look Sakai gave them via the curl of their lips. There’s also this excess of black lines in Raph’s brow that really captures his personality. Donatello has a very stoic, almost grumpy, expression by comparison and Mikey has a cheerful one. He has inverted “U” shapes to represent his closed eyes and his smile is flat white with no teeth lines sculpted or painted on. It’s adorable. I think it’s the personality captured by these portraits combined with the clean presentation that really sold the public on these designs. They’re inherently charming and I find it impossible not to love them.

“Hey dude, you don’t need to be so serious all the time. Have a pizza!”

As for the rest of the stuff, well that’s a little less exciting. Each turtle comes with a set of gripping hands and a set of fists. Donatello also gets a set of more relaxed gripping hands, Raphael a set of finger pointing/sai grip hands, while Leo and Mikey each get a set of open hands. For alternate portraits, each turtle has basically a frown with one side of their mouth baring teeth – the classic TMNT expression. Donatello and Leo share the same portrait with the right side of the mouth open while Raph and Mikey have their grimace to the left. Each turtle also has a throwing star if that’s something you value. What most actually do want and expect are the unique weapons for each turtle. Raph’s sai have some nice size and the brown handles match his padding. Leonardo’s swords have a black and gray diamond pattern on the hilt and slot into the scabbards seamlessly. Donatello’s bo is in one piece as opposed to the break-away model we often see, but it looks fine and the paint on the gray wrappings with black outlining is clean. Mikey is perhaps the laggard here as his nunchaku are all plastic. The handles are black with a blue line that I think is a nice touch, but the connecting plastic for each handle is just plastic. There’s no bendy wire and they’re quite rigid so there’s no posing here. They fit into his belt just fine, so that’s a plus. The gripping hands across the board are also reasonably soft so getting weapons into hands is not much of an issue. If you want Raph to hold his sai in a more unorthodox manner then you may want to soften the hands up a bit, but otherwise you should be good to go out of the box with these guys.

That’s as far as the hips are going to go out to the side.

These being NECA figures, one likely has low expectations for the articulation and if so then expectations met. Though, in a way, NECA underperforms here and it’s related to one issue. The sidewalls, the tissue between the plastron and shell, is one, big, piece with these designs. It’s like the whole shell and plastron is one big overlay. Ordinarily, NECA doesn’t do that and you can see the hip joint when looking at a turtle figure from the side. The movie turtles do this as they had to match the movie, but those designs were less restricting and probably because actual people had to wear those things. With these figures, the plastic extends well past the hip and onto the thigh. It essentially takes away most of the hip range, one of the few spots where NECA’s turtle figures are ordinarily okay as they can get their legs out to the side for splits. These ones are limited to maybe 45 degrees there, and there’s no usable waist twist to take advantage of. Kicking forward is severely restrained by the placement of the plastron and the shell prevents the leg from going back. There’s also the slightly odd aesthetic of NECA utilizing pinned joints at the knees, but opting for pin-less at the elbow. It’s an all together odd double-joint as the top is like the old style NECA double jointed elbows where the top would peg into the thigh with a hinge below it and the bottom would do the same. Except here we get the peg and hinge on top, but just a hinge on the bottom thus necessitating the need for a pin through the calf. I think they did this with the movie Shredder/Foot, but I don’t know if I’ve seen it outside of that. As for the rest, the arms are fairly basic and the head range is probably what one would expect. Leonardo does get the preferred vertically hinged gripping hands, but for some reason no one else does.

If you think these guys all look pretty cool together then by all means go out and grab ’em, but don’t expect to be doing much posing.

The end result with the NECA Stan Sakai turtles is pretty much in-line with what I had to say about Miyamoto Usagi – if you love the look of these designs then that’s the only reason to get them. They’re not going to pose well and the value is less with the turtles than it was with Usagi because of all the shared parts. The design of these turtles was never going to lend itself well to articulation, but I do wish NECA had gone lighter on the sidewalls to free up the hips. Someone willing could probably trim that area and open these guys up a bit, but I’m not that someone. I do think they look great. On a technical level, they’re not as impressive as the Usagi figure, but the stylization is wonderful. NECA’s strength is in translating art to plastic and they certainly nailed it here. The execution of the paint is damn near flawless, and while this isn’t the most demanding paint job I’ve ever seen, it’s still impressive to see how clean it is on this scale. Based purely on aesthetics, these turtles are instant favorites for me. I think if I could only save one set of turtles in a fire it would likely be the NECA movie figures or maybe the Bandai ones, but these guys would be hard to ignore too. Though if I’m being practical I should probably put the original Mirage turtles ahead as they’d be the hardest to replace. At any rate, these guys look great and I am quite pleased just looking at them. They bring me joy, and in the end, isn’t that what this hobby is all about?

If you liked this one we have plenty of related topics to interest you here:

NECA TMNT Usagi Yojimbo – Miyamoto Usagi

Stan Sakai stumbled into a pretty good thing when he met the co-creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and struck up a creative friendship. It would seem all liked and appreciated each others work with Eastman and Laird’s ninja turtles and Sakai’s samurai rabbit. The fateful little pairing would eventually…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4-Pack

When it comes to the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot of the credit goes to Playmates Toys. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the characters born out of a joke. Credit them for having the vision to think this joke had appeal beyond their small circle as they self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Toon The Adventures of Space Usagi

When it comes to NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the old cartoon, I’ve pretty much been all-in. The only figures I’ve passed on have been the style guide variants for the turtles. That will probably change in 2024 as the collection has grown quite large and has hit on…

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by Joe

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April 9, 2026

Dragon Ball Super Vol. 24

By Joe

It’s been over two years since the world lost manga artist and writer Akira Toriyama and it’s been about that long since the unofficial end of Dragon Ball Super. The manga and anime series was the official sequel to the hugely successful and mega popular Dragon Ball Z. The final chapter, 103, was released in March of 2024 in Toriyama’s native Japan while English speaking readers have had to wait two years for the collected final volume to be released elsewhere. Sure, the chapters are all made available much sooner via the Shonen Jump app, but I’m still one of those digital deniers clinging to physical media with just about everything I consume. It was a long two years of waiting, but had this volume arrived shortly after Toriyama’s passing I probably would have been a blubbering mess. Having two years to process such a monumental loss may have been a good thing.

After the anime series ended, I went back and picked up all of the volumes of Dragon Ball Super as well as the ones that followed. Super the manga did not end and continued on with two full arcs of Dragon Ball goodness. The manga did bypass the Broly film, but chose to adapt the Super Hero movie and even fleshed it out more with a short arc featuring Goten and Trunks as super heroes in the same style as The Great Saiyaman. The collected volumes are published by Viz Media in the US and the artwork contained within is in black and white. Since Toriyama’s passing, artist Toyotarou has taken up the mantle of an introduction to the volume usually with some nod to Toriyama. For this particular one, he notes that Toriyama often advised him on how to better be a manga creator (a mangaka) and he expresses a desire to keep those lessons in mind for as long as he’s a mangaka himself. Toyotarou is always deferential to Toriyama when speaking on the subject of Dragon Ball and it will be interesting to see if that changes should the manga continue in some way.

As for the story, it’s a post Super Hero one where we find the remnants of the Red Ribbon Army, lead by Carmine, seeking to exact revenge upon Gohan for thwarting their plans with Cell Max. And to do that they want to recruit the newest super heroes in town: Saiyaman X-1 and Saiyaman X-2. Unfortunately for them, those happen to be the alter egos for Trunks and Goten and they’re not going to help the Red Ribbon Army take down Gohan. Elsewhere, Vegeta, Goku, and Broly are training with Whis on the planet of Lord Beerus. It’s while Vegeta and Broly are dueling that they learn about Gohan’s sudden burst of power and his conquering of Cell Max. It seems they were so engrossed in their training they didn’t notice, but are immediately curious about what the son of Goku is capable of now. Goku decides to pay his son a visit just as Carmine and a soldier are arriving at Gohan’s house with Trunks and Goten along for the ride. Goku can’t be bothered with what’s going on and instead brings everyone to the planet of Lord Beerus. There, Carmine and his lone soldier get to bare witness to what these Saiyans are capable of first with Trunks and Goten taking on Gohan followed by father and son. It’s a simple story and a breezy one as Goku is just out to test the limits of his son with the hope of reaching the conclusion that he doesn’t have to worry about Earth so long as Gohan is there to protect it.

Much of the volume is dedicated to Goku testing out his son’s new abilities.

The ending of this story received some additional press because Toriyama apparently requested a change. During the fighting, Goku and company find out about Piccolo’s new power-up as well and naturally Goku wants to see it as well. Vegeta is also curious, but also concedes that he needs to head home or else Bulma might lose interest. When Goku and Gohan return to Earth to find Piccolo he has to decline a sparring session because someone needs to pick Gohan’s daughter, Pan, up from school. Goku tags along at Piccolo’s insistence since he apparently forgot his granddaughter’s name and we get a wordless exchange to close out the story of Pan elated to see her grandpa and Piccolo waving bye to her teacher. The way the scene is illustrated it’s as if Piccolo is waving “bye” to the reader, and since Piccolo was Toriyama’s favorite, it’s been interpreted as his way of saying “good bye.” Right in the feels.

Volume 24 actually doesn’t end there, but with a prequel chapter about how Trunks and Goten decided to become super heroes. Toyotarou explains it was something he wanted to do initially, but just didn’t have the time for it. With the story over (and Shonen probably not minding extra content) he was able to go back and do it and it’s a fun little story, though in this format it’s definitely a tonal shift following the end of chapter 103. I even put my copy down for about a week before I picked it back up to read the prequel chapter.

Farewell.

As the present conclusion to Dragon Ball Super, this is a nice little end. It’s basically a slice of life story just set in the world of Dragon Ball where titanic battles are an everyday thing. The anime is expected to resume in the not too distant future following a remake of the first arc with Beerus. I do wonder, when it finally gets to this final scene, can it possible land with the same impact? Maybe Toriyama can be inserted somehow into it either via a caricature or his little avatar of himself with the mask? Should the manga continue in the hands of Toyotarous, there’s plenty more to explore as Goku still hasn’t seen Piccolo’s new form, Broly is striving to harness his own power, and Frieza is still out there somewhere. If not and it ends here then it’s a sweet ending and one I much prefer to how Dragon Ball Z originally ended with Goku abandoning his family to go train Uub. If you’re a Dragon Ball fan, you have probably read this already so this isn’t exactly a review, per say. This is more of a chance for me to acknowledge the end of the series while it was in the hands of Akira Toriyama and an opportunity to say “Thanks,” and that I’m going to miss that guy.

For more thoughts on Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball, check these out:

Dragon Ball Super: Broly

The first movie under the Dragon Ball Super umbrella is one that sets out to take what was previously non-canon and adapt it into the main series. The most recent two Dragon Ball Z films; Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’, ended up being the start of Dragon Ball Super which is now well over…

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by Joe

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that Dragon Ball Super has been the thing I’ve loved most that I never knew I wanted. I was done, or at least content, with Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball GT wasn’t good, but I didn’t need it so it wasn’t something that bothered me. Then…

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Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

I need a break from action figure reviews so why not turn to the world of video games? I don’t get to play many these days, but I did splurge on a PlayStation 5 not that long ago and was looking for something to play. And ideally, that something would be budget friendly. The good…

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by Joe

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April 7, 2026

NECA TMNT Usagi Yojimbo – Miyamoto Usagi

By Joe
The samurai rabbit is back at it.

Stan Sakai stumbled into a pretty good thing when he met the co-creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, and struck up a creative friendship. It would seem all liked and appreciated each others work with Eastman and Laird’s ninja turtles and Sakai’s samurai rabbit. The fateful little pairing would eventually lead to Sakai’s rabbit and the turtles crossing over in each other’s works and even a publishing deal with Mirage Studios for a time. Likely more lucrative for Sakai was Usagi being included in both the Playmates toy line for TMNT and the 1987 series. Usagi Yojimbo, as the fanbase knew him, would go on to appear in other shows and toy lines and there’s a pretty good chance that most who know of the character know of him first and foremost via his interactions with the turtles.

If you have been around the fandom long enough then you probably know we have a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster thing going on with Usagi Yojimbo. The name of the books from where the rabbit comes is titled Usagi Yojimbo, while the character’s name is actually Miyamoto Usagi. I don’t know why he was credited as Usagi Yojimbo within the turtle franchise, but it has stuck with a lot of fans even as later incarnations of the franchise (like the 2012 series) corrected it. For its own TMNT toy line, NECA was smart to secure the licensing rights for Sakai’s samurai rabbit for inclusion in the company’s toon toy line. This apparently even boxed out other companies like Super7 who had a mock-up for their own version of the character that had to be trashed. NECA utilized the license to do the expected and release an action figure of the character based on his appearance in the old cartoon, but they’ve also done other variations like a space version, an armored one, and even a four-pack of different looks. For all of them, NECA stuck with their base design of the toon version with one of the four-pack versions sporting more of a Sakai likeness in the face. It’s only now that we’re getting a true Stan Sakai version of his classic character molded in plastic.

This is hardly NECA’s first dance with Usagi.

In 2023 the turtles once again crossed over with Usagi in a story written and illustrated by Sakai. NECA has used that series as the basis for its new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Usagi Yojimbo line consisting of Usagi and the four turtles. We’ll talk about the turtles next week, but for this one I felt like we should let the rabbit take the spotlight first. As I mentioned already, this is a version of Usagi that is unquestionably based on the artwork of Stan Sakai. He’s taller, more imposing, and all decked out in armor unlike the more simplified toon version many are used to. This is a line sculpted by Tomasz Rozejowski and Kushwara Studios with paint by the duo Mike Puzzo and Geoff Trapp. Each figure is sold separately, but not in the typical five-panel NECA Ultimates box. Instead it’s more of a standard window box like we’re accustomed to seeing with the retro cloth figures. Each release is numbered with Miyamoto Usagi being number 1 and the box is color-coded as well. There’s some scenery illustrated by Ben Seto, but most of the box art is reserved for photographs of the figures and they’re by Stephen Mazurek. I’m a little surprised there’s no art from Sakai like a mural for the side of the box, but such a thing would also be wasted on me since I’m going to throw these out. It’s probably a good thing that I planned to do that from the start as my Usagi box got pretty banged up in transit. I got these all direct from NECA via Target’s website when they went up for order on March 20th as part of the Haulathon event we all so love dearly.

His posing is going to be limited, but he can get his hand onto the hilt of his blade while it’s still partially sheathed.

Usagi stands at about 5.25″ to the top of his head not factoring in the ears. Out of the box he sports a rather grim expression and his hears are bound together as they so often are like a ponytail which is sculpted to appear to be blowing in the wind. He has that trademark arc over his left eye Sakai so often illustrates and there’s some fur sculpted to the edges of his cheeks, but that’s it as far as textured fur goes. Usagi is decked out in a lovely blue suit of armor which includes a lighter blue undershirt that is covered with a checker pattern on the sleeves. The armor is textured and fully-painted and looks absolutely gorgeous. I am a sucker for blue so I’m predisposed to like this design, but I am really blown away with the accuracy of the paint applications. There’s rivets of red and panels of black and gold and if you’ve ever painted something black and gold then you know how ugly that can get with an unsteady hand. The paintwork continues onto the rear of the figure, no skimping out here, and there are subtle embellishments of black linework to give the figure that comic look. The pants are all black and he’s sporting brown sandals. The paint job isn’t perfect, there’s a little bleed in spots on the shoulder pauldrons and the left foot has a faint yellow mark on the otherwise white foot, but for a mass-released item at $38 I have no complaints. This figure looks spectacular.

Ears are swappable, and easily so.

Usagi comes loaded with accessories – more than the turtles. For portraits, we get the previously mentioned grim expression as well as a smirk and a gritting teeth expression. Each head has a set of ears which can be moved from portrait to portrait. We have the windswept ears plus down ears and a more neutral look. Swapping ears is painless while swapping heads is a bit troublesome. I had to use heat to get the stock head off. The hands are much easier to swap and for those we get a set of fists, gripping, and open hands. Other accessories include a pouch, and having not read the story I have no idea what’s in it. Usagi can hold it, but there’s no place to store the pouch on his belt which is a bit unfortunate. He also has his sword which features a lime green wrap and yellow trim. Paint rub can happen if you’re not careful when inserting it into his hand, but the hands are a bit softer than usual for NECA so it’s not too hard to get it in place. Usagi also has a scabbard permanently affixed to his belt and the sword slides into that just fine. There’s also an included Tokage decked out in armor similar to Usagi’s. If you don’t know what a Tokage is, they’re little dinosaur-like creatures from the book. It’s a slug figure so no articulation, but the paint app is nice and he’s a fun, cute, addition.

I feel like the ears down look is best suited for things like hoods, which this figure does not have.

NECA usually impresses with the aesthetics when it comes to action figures and not so much with articulation. Usagi here is, unfortunately, no exception to that rule. He’s pretty limited and the intricate armor isn’t going to make things easier, but believe it or not, he’s better than the turtles we’ll be talking about next week. For articulation points we have the ears, head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The elbows and knees are both single joints. You won’t get a 90 degree angle at either and the knees don’t seem to want to swivel on mine. This is a bit irksome as the left leg isn’t centered, but it thankfully is only visible from the back. Since I can’t line the hinge up with the opening in the thigh it means the range on my left leg is even worse than the right. The ankles and range at the head are at least a plus, and in a surprise move NECA actually included vertical hinges on the gripping hands! This is something they didn’t include in the original toon Usagi and I honestly almost forgot to check here as I had given up on NECA going back to this method after they declined to do this for the 2012 Leonardo. I should add that the shoulder pauldrons are mounted with pliable plastic so they do a decent job of getting out of the way when articulating the shoulders, though I’d be hesitant to leave them posed in such a fashion for fear of them permanently assuming an unflattering position.

That Stan Sakai fellow does good work.

Miyamoto Usagi looks absolutely resplendent in his samurai armor and the portraits and overall vibe really do a tremendous job of capturing Stan Sakai’s artwork. He has enough stuff while the articulation is going to severely limit the ability to pose him like a proper samurai. NECA’s articulation shortcomings have started to ware on me over the past year or so, but here I’m more forgiving because I am absolutely in love with how this guy looks. He doesn’t need to assume an elaborate pose to have presence on a shelf. I considered passing on this release at first thinking I could just be happy with the turtles, but once I got a good look at it I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I currently have no idea where I’m going to display this mini collection in my home, but I consider it a good problem to have. This is the best figure of Usagi we’ve ever received and it’s unlikely we’ll get a better one anytime soon.

If you’re a fan of the samurai rabbit and TMNT then you may appreciate these figure reviews:

NECA Cartoon TMNT The Tale of Usagi Yojimbo

The early issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles released by Mirage Studios include a few guest stars here and there. One of them comes from the pages of Usagi Yojimbo, the samurai rabbit by the name of Miyamoto Usagi. The pairing of samurai rabbit and ninja turtles was a big enough success that it migrated…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Toon The Adventures of Space Usagi

When it comes to NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the old cartoon, I’ve pretty much been all-in. The only figures I’ve passed on have been the style guide variants for the turtles. That will probably change in 2024 as the collection has grown quite large and has hit on…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Toon Granny Bebop and Baby Rocksteady

When 2025 is all said and done I think we’ll look back on it in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collector sphere as the year the NECA toon toyline started showing its age. For some, that probably already happened. Jersey Red, Chakahachi, Lotus Blossom – who the heck are these characters? They are pretty deep…

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by Joe

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April 3, 2026

Super 7 Ghost Ultimates! Papa V Perpetua

By Joe
The latest front man for the band Ghost takes his turn in plastic.

Ghost remains the most unlikely mainstream rock act I can recall in recent times. A Satanic metal act that sells out arenas in the United States is not something I ever expected to see in my lifetime. It was basically the joke in a show like Metalocalypse – a “Can you imagine if such a thing happened?” Super7 got into the Ghost market pretty much right as the profile for the band started to rise. Their ghoulish imagery lends itself well to merchandise, and while heavy metal action figures aren’t a huge market, it seems to have worked for the company as we are on our fifth version of a Ghost frontman. I have to believe a lot of the credit to that should go to former Super7 designer and current Mattel employee Kyle Wlodyga – an open Ghost super fan who worked on these figures. And while Super7 doesn’t list the people responsible for their product on the box, I’m assuming he had a hand in today’s figure of the newest frontman for the group: Papa V Perpetua.

Left to right: Papa I, V, Papa III, Papa IV

Papa V, or simply V (Vee), was introduced at the end of the video for the lead single “Satanized” off of the album Skeleta. V shows up right at the end clad in his robes sporting his papal hat and looking quite resplendent, if I must say so myself. The look is different from past Papas as he sports a small, skeletal, mask that covers just the top half of his face leaving his mouth exposed. Curly hair pours out from the back of the hat and mask and the skin beneath is painted both black and gray. This depiction appears to be the source for Super7’s latest offering which went up for preorder the day Skeleta was released. Since then, the band has been touring the world in support of the album having just finished up the second US leg. On tour, we saw multiple looks for V which is in keeping with tradition and it lead me to wonder if this particular look would be dated by the time it eventually made it into the hands of collectors and Ghost fans around the globe.

“Brother, are you could? You look cold.”

The answer to that question is: kind of. Papa V comes clad in his purple and black robes with the hat permanently affixed to his head. The vestments are adorned with silver etchings and designs and we once again get a two-tiered approach with a main robe and another laid over the top at the shoulders. He has the band’s logo, the Grucifex, hanging over the center of his chest which is connected to the garment that encircles his shoulders (I don’t know what it should be called, but I’m just going to refer to it as a shawl). For a Ghost fan, the look is essentially timeless since it shows up at the end of a video and represents the fandom’s first glimpse of this new character, the long lost brother of Papa IV. When the figure went up for preorder, I wondered what would be under the robe? Not for perverted reasons, but because there’s always another look for the many Papa characters save for the first. Before Skeleta came out, videos for the singles “Lachryma” and “Peacefield” debuted and we saw V in a suit similar to past frontmen of the band, but with a gray/silver blazer. There were no images showing what the base figure looked like and now that it’s here we have the answer which is an unfortunate blank body. Not entirely blank, but basically the same body we saw with the last figure minus the cuffed forearms. Had there been a stage outfit underneath we still would have been short a head as both portraits (and the bonus third) have the mitre permanently affixed to it. Did Super7 request such information and get rebuffed by the band? Would the band not approve a mitre-less V portrait? Those are things I don’t know, but if the more elegant look is a stunner then does it really matter?

If you read my review of Papa IV then you know that’s a pretty big “if.” My main takeaway with that figure is while the soft goods looked lovely, they didn’t sit on the figure properly. Not like the solicitation images which, frankly, looked too good to be true from the start. There was just too much material with the Papa IV figure leading to the material getting bunched up around the neck and presenting a very frumpy looking Papa. He looked like a bundled up old person trying to keep warm. The promo shots for V were much the same as they were for Papa IV so did Super7 deliver this time?

The extent to which his arms can be raised.

Yes and no. They obviously felt the older figure didn’t work because they adjusted their approach. This time around, the figure has the under robe, we’ll call it, and the embroidery is quite lovely. It’s a bit thinner this time, but that could be because it doesn’t have a wire running through it. It’s more of a true robe with sleeves while the robes on the first three were more like ponchos with sleeves sewn into them. Curiously, it differs from the promotional images in that there’s no inner black robe. There should be black visible from the front, but Super7 opted to just stick to purple rather than sew this into the garment. To combat the frumpy problem, Super7 went with a mixed media approach. The upper shawl piece is plastic as well as the center, purple, portion that runs down to the hem of the robe. It’s much heavier compared with soft goods and seems to sit better on the figure. It also means that all of the details needed to be sculpted, but Super7 appears to be up to the task. There’s quite a bit of paint as well and it looks pretty damn good. Under close scrutiny you may find a few flaws to the paint job, but on the whole I consider it acceptable. Unfortunately, this approach creates a new problem. This plastic is fairly thick and it has next to no give. This must have been a change during production, because the solicitation shots (which you can still find at any retailer carrying this figure) clearly show the shawl folding like a soft goods garment would in the shot where V is lifting his arms slightly. This sculpted piece has no fold, no slits of any kind, and thus the figure’s arms are pinned to his sides since it hangs past his elbows. There might as well not be a joint at the shoulders because they can’t go anywhere. There’s a shot where the figure is raising its hands up and that pose is impossible unless you take this off. And I can’t tell if it’s meant to come off. Something is holding it on at the shoulders, while the soft goods peg onto the underside of the center purple portion. If you want to do anything special with the legs, you can unplug the soft goods from the overlay for that, but when I tried to pull the shawl off it didn’t budge and I don’t want to ruin what’s here.

These are the images used to sell this figure. On the left, you can clearly see the entire robe was supposed to be soft goods (and the black portion that was cut) while on the right is a pose the figure simply can’t do.

So that’s a bummer. It does indeed make the figure look better, but he might as well be a statue. You can work the elbows slightly and that’s about it aside from the head and hands. And the joint in the neck on mine is pretty loose. I’m a little nervous that it will break if I switch portraits a lot. As for the portraits, you get neutral, open mouth, and if you ordered from Super7 directly you get a bonus pack with a grimacing expression. To do V’s portrait, Super7 sculpted the head and painted the face black and silver and then glued the mask on over it. The mask has an almost mirrored finish, like chrome, and it looks great on all of the faces. V’s gloves are sort of similar in that they are designed to look like metal. Super7 gave them a silver coat, though the sculpt is a little softer than I’d like. The images also seemed to imply they’d have the same finish as the mask, but that’s not the case. And for hands, we get open, gripping, “expressive,” and what Super7 refers to as As Above, So Below hands. In other words, they’re two-finger pointing hands. The bonus pack also comes with a set of “horns” hands which always makes sense to include with a heavy metal musician. The black microphone and stand that every Papa has come with is also included. It’s a fine spread, though the hands are not particularly useful given the articulation limitations. He can place his hands against the front of his body or go out slightly to the side and that’s pretty much it. The head rotates and it’s on a double ball peg with a ball joint at the neck so there’s some tilt, but the tails on the mitre are pretty stiff plastic so he can’t look up much. Since his legs are also hidden, I kind of wish they did different feet than the old ones as they’re not the easiest to stand. Something a little bigger and wider would have helped there since there’s really nothing to do with the legs. They exist just to have him stand on your shelf.

The optional parts, of which few seem to be worthwhile.

Once again, Super7 delivers a mixed result. They solved one problem with the past figure, but in doing so created a new one. It’s something Super7 seems to be pretty good at. They really make action figure making look hard and seem flummoxed by problems other companies have already solved. And this time, the figure cost $65 plus a tariff fee. I think after everything, I paid close to $80 to have this figure sent to me by Super7 so I could get the extra pack, and now I don’t know if I’ll bother opening it since the hands are mostly useless given the articulation limitations. And calling them limitations might be generous – this figure does almost nothing. The presentation in a neutral pose is wonderful, the best of the Ghost figures so far, but you almost can’t consider it an action figure. I honestly don’t know how to feel. The presentation from the box to the figure is wonderful, but everything else is not. And if you want to get angry you’re justified in doing so because the renders clearly show a soft goods shawl and poses the figure can’t do (plus, it’s missing the black in the front). Softer plastic up top, some slits in the design, and then it’s probably not an issue. Or it’s a lesser issue and one most can live with. Or do what Super7 used to be so good at doing and give the consumer options. A removable plastic one for those who want it and a removable soft goods one for posing. Or even two plastic ones where one is preposed to at least allow for the figure to lift his damn arms. Unless you’re a Ghost superfan or an in-box collector, this is a hard one to recommend. If you don’t open your toys then this one is great, albeit expensive. If you wanted to pose him then it sucks. I’d say wait for a discount, but these Ghost figures seem to rarely hit the discount bin. In the end, it’s another Super7 offering that both pleases and frustrates because if Super7 is committed to anything it’s making sure you’re never truly happy with their product.

“Am I the last one? I hope I’m the last one.”

For more Ghost and Super7 content, see below:

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost Papa Emeritus IV

If you’re reading this the day it went up then you should know April 25, 2025 as Skeleta day! This is the day that Ghost unleashed its latest album upon the masses and there’s a lot of hype surrounding this one. It’s arguably the band’s first release since it saw its popularity explode in recent…

by Joe

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost – Papa Emeritus I

I feel like I have a pretty interesting relationship with the band Ghost. They came to my attention in 2010 with their album Opus Eponymous and came at the recommendation of one of my friends. It wasn’t so much a recommendation based on quality, but more of a “You have to hear this,” because it…

by Joe

Super7 Ultimates! – The Worst – Robot Reaper

Happy Halloween, my fellow action figure enthusiasts! It’s a day for mischief, a day for candy, and a day to laugh at Death. Today, we’re laughing at a special kind of death, a robot death, and it comes courtesy of Super7’s in-house brand The Worst. The Worst is a line of action figures that’s basically…

by Joe

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March 31, 2026

MAFEX No. 117 – Superman (Batman: Hush Ver.)

By Joe
The Man of Steel finally makes it to my shelf.

They finally wore me down. It was nearly five years ago that I reviewed the Medicom MAFEX Batman (Hush Ver.) action figure and concluded that it would probably be the only figure I’d get. Then along came Superman. As a kid, I liked Superman well enough. I think the first pair of superhero themed pajamas I ever got were Superman ones. The films were pretty popular, but once Batman hit in 1989 Superman took a back seat to the caped crusader, who then took a backseat to the mutants from Marvel. I moved on, though when the Man of Steel toyline showed up from Kenner in 1995 I did dabble in it to get the flying Superman figure which is most notable for featuring the new mullet design of the hero. I think my thought process at the time was I should have at least one Superman in my vast action figure collection and I may have even planned on getting a villain, but it would be my only figure from the line. And for much of my life afterwards, I felt like I didn’t need a Superman in my modern figure collection until I laid eyes on that Hush Superman from Medicom.

Medicom came much closer to the source art with Superman than it did Batman.

When Jim Lee took over the Batman books it seemed like the goal was to get his take on as many characters as possible as fast as possible. The Hush storyline included a ton from Batman’s rogues gallery and also managed to sneak in an appearance from the man of steel himself. In it, Superman gets possessed by Poison Ivy and Batman has to deal with him armed with his Kryptonite ring. The storyline was fine, but I did really dig Lee’s take on both Batman and Superman so an action figure based on his looks obviously appeals to me. It’s just that MAFEX releases are so expensive and I wasn’t blown away by Batman. I was able to resist the call of Superman despite how good the figure looked. Then it came back and I was able to do so again, and again, and again. Well, I don’t know what reissue we’re onto now, but I finally caved when yet another reissue went up for preorder early this year.

The sculpt is barely different from Batman, but executed so much better.

Superman has the typical Hush packaging and stands at approximately 6.375″ to the top of his head. He sports a very serious expression befitting his look in the book that borders on a scowl. The colors are slightly muted compared with a typical Superman. The red is just a little bit darker and the blue a little deeper. It’s most apparent on the yellow portions of the costume where the yellow is so pale it’s bordering on off-white. The hair is black but hit with blue highlights while the paint on this face is crisp and clean. The sculpt of the boot tops is present, but soft, giving them a painted-on appearance. The cape is soft goods and permanently affixed to the chest. The yellow shield is present on the rear of the cape and the printing is clean. The one blemish on my figure is on the right pectoral where the yellow in the “S” logo is scratched exposing some of the blue beneath. It’s a real unfortunate eyesore and in a tough place to touch-up with an equally tough shade of yellow to try to match to. I wish I had been able to see it before opening the box so I could have attempted an exchange, but he’s also sold out so it may not have done me any good.

The poor paint right in the middle of the chest is such a bummer.

In terms of sculpt, there’s actually quite a bit of reuse here when compared with Batman. It makes Superman an interesting case in how perception can be altered in subtle ways. I don’t like how skinny Batman is. Jim Lee’s take on the character is built like a tank, but his figure is most certainly not. Much of the arms and legs are shared with Superman with the only differences being the forearms to remove Batman’s “fins” and the boot tops which have a slightly different shape to them. Otherwise, the main difference is all in the chest. Superman has a much fuller, broader, chest which really adds to the aura the figure projects. The abdomen may even be the same as Batman’s, though Superman’s sculpt looks more defined so it could be different. The chest plus the smaller cape seems to be all it takes to make him look more imposing compared with Batman and his narrow chest and massive cape.

Most of the accessories are devoted to making Superman look like his possessed self from the book.

Accessories included with Superman are somewhat light. He has just the one alternate portrait which is red-eyed and angry as it represents him when he’s under Ivy’s control. To better sell the effect he also has some leaf garland to wrap around his neck and forearms which looks fine enough. Out of the box he comes equipped with fists, but he also has a set of flat palms, relaxed hands, open hands, and fists with a small gap between the thumbs and fingers that can hold the edge of his cape. There’s also a bonus right hand for Batman that’s a fist with the Kryptonite ring sculpted onto it. A solid inclusion, though it will only look right on the blue and gray Batman as opposed to the black and gray that followed it. Swapping the heads and hands is pretty painless so that’s a plus. Also included is the usual MAFEX stand which is always appreciated as it is a pretty good one. I just wish we got a smiling portrait or an effect one like laser eyes. I get why the Ivy parts are included, but I’ll honestly never use them.

He comes bundled with Batman’s Kryptonite ring fist to help give the caped crusader a fighting chance.

Articulation for Superman is the same as Batman. It’s a fairly robust list of articulation points: head, neck, shoulders, butterfly, bicep, elbow, wrist, diaphragm, waist, hips, thigh, knee, ankle, and toe. The head has pretty good range with its bent double ball peg approach. He can’t quite look all the way up using just the head and neck, but a little tweak of the diaphragm joint will accomplish that. The forward crunch will mostly come at the waist as the chest is a bit too bulky. There’s tilt there and very few restrictions to be found in the upper body. The hips are those pesky drop-down hips, but they’re smoother than the ones on Batman The thigh swivel works well and is completely hidden as all of the rotation happens at the ball joint. I don’t know why Bandai and Tamashii Nations can’t figure this out as they keep giving us those horrid things in their Dragon Ball line. The ankles don’t get much forward range, but going back works well and they even swivel. The ankle rocker works well and there’s the toe hinge if you like it. The only joint I have an issue with is the knee. It looks fine and the range is good, but when it’s bent all the way the kneecap pops out slightly from the thigh and gets stuck. I have to push it back in from the front before bending it back. I guess the lesson here is don’t bend the knee all the way, though it should work. The cape is also wired and it’s all in the sides. It’s a nice, light, material so it works just fine as intended and it’s not so big that it needed more wires throughout like Batman’s.

Best Superman ever? Probably.

I finally gave in and dropped $100 on a Superman figure and I would say he is mostly worth the wait. No, I’m not convinced any figure in this scale is truly work the ask of $100, but compared with Batman I would say I’m much happier with this Superman. He just looks fantastic and the articulation is more than sufficient to hit a lot of Superman-type poses. Truly, my only real complaint is with the paint as the scuffing on the chest of my figure is unacceptable at this price point. I probably could have received some compensation from Big Bad Toy Store for this, but I knew they didn’t have any stock left so I didn’t bother. It’s not their fault Medicom provided them a scuffed-up figure. The accessories could also be better or more robust at this price point. Removing cost from the equation and, yeah, this is a great Superman figure to own. Especially if it’s going to be the only Superman figure you own. And for me that’s almost certainly the case.

If this figure review interested you then maybe you’ll enjoy these:

MAFEX No. 105 – Batman: Hush

You may have been wondering why I decided to devote an entry earlier this week to a nearly twenty year old action figure of mediocre quality, and if so, now you know why. I wanted to take a look at the DC Direct Batman based on his appearance in the Jeph Loeb written, Jim Lee…

Joe's avatar by Joe

Superman (2025)

James Gunn’s highly anticipated Superman has finally arrived in theaters. Is this the film Superman fans have been waiting for? The start of a mega franchise executives are hoping for? Or is it just a nice movie about a super guy and his super dog? Read on to find out!

Joe's avatar by Joe

Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (1989)

When it comes to the world of more high end action figure collectibles, I’ve been able to get my hands on a few. Some rather prominent companies have yet to cross my path though, and it’s not really for any reason other than they either don’t make what I like or I don’t really like…

Joe's avatar by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

March 27, 2026

Dragon Ball GT

By Joe
Step into the grand tour!

One of my Dragon Ball blind spots is the sequel anime series Dragon Ball GT. It’s not exactly a true blind spot as I had seen some episodes and experienced the bullet points of the series via video games, but I have never sat down and watched it from start to finish. And that’s largely due to the series having a rather poor reputation. When the Dragon Ball manga ended in 1995 it marked the end of a decade of nose to the grindstone work for series creator Akira Toriyama. The life of a manga writer and artist is a busy one and the guy was ready to take a break and move on. The only problem was the manga had been adapted into an anime series and was very successful. Toei, the company that produced the anime, wanted more and like they had done already with a series of Dragon Ball movies they decided to create a new series largely on their own. Toriyama, to his credit, was fine with that. He gave the company a concept, a name, and even provided new designs for his characters and then largely left the rest to Toei. Aya Matsui would write, Osamu Kasai would direct, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, designed the new characters and power-ups, while Akihito Tokunaga composed the music for the new series which Toriyama had named Dragon Ball Grand Tour, or Dragon Ball GT for short.

Considering that we are in a bit of a holding pattern with Dragon Ball following the death of Toriyama, I figured now was as good a time as any to make some time and view all 64 episodes of Dragon Ball GT for myself. I have certainly been guilty in the past of dismissing it out of hand or referring to it as a lesser show, and while that may be true, it’s not exactly fair of me to pass judgement on something I’ve never actually sat down and watched. I did sit down and watch the English dub of the series which is presently available via Hulu. It is perhaps not the best version of the show because while the English cast is fine and comprised largely of the people you know and love from the past series, it contains a new soundtrack that I really did not like at all. I suppose it was similar in spirit to the original English broadcast soundtrack for Dragon Ball Z credited to Bruce Faulconer, but I strongly would have preferred the soundtrack from Tokunaga. This soundtrack is more guitar driven, but it’s a very synthesized sounding guitar like industrial music. There’s often a dissonance to it and it’s very plodding and I just found it exhausting. It might be the rare anime where if given the choice I’d just go for the subtitled option if it meant I got to enjoy the music. And considering it’s Dragon Ball, it’s not like there’s a ton of dialogue that I really felt I needed to pay attention to.

We have ourselves an ominous new dragon.

That said, what are some things that I found Dragon Ball GT did well? Well, for one, there’s the music and it extends to the opening theme “Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku” which was adapted for the English broadcast and adapted well. It does unfortunately contain vocals by a voice actor who was outed during the whole Me Too thing so I don’t feel like name-dropping him, but I’ll at least acknowledge that I enjoy the performance. The ending themes I enjoyed less so, but the initial one “Hitori Janai” was the best of them. That one was performed by Stephanie Young. The animation and artwork throughout GT is consistently good as well. It doesn’t have the same action set pieces of Dragon Ball Z, but it also never has episodes where the quality drops in an obvious manner. In this, it’s much closer to the consistency of the Buu saga. The voice actors also do a fine job and Stephanie Nadolny gets to reprise her role as Goku for plot reasons which is a treat to experience again.

As for that plot. While I like the setup, it does seem to quickly run out of steam. At the start of the series we find Goku (Sean Schemmel) and Uub (Sean Teague) engaged in a sparring match at Earth’s look-out. A few years have passed since the end of Dragon Ball Z where Goku abandoned his family to train Uub, the reincarnation of Kid Buu, so he could be Earth’s next defender. He’s apparently done now so Uub heads home while a familiar trio invades the lookout. Pilaf (Chuck Huber), along with Mai (Julie Franklin) and Shu (Chris Cason), have returned and are after the Black Star Dragon Balls. What are the Black Star Dragon Balls? They are apparently the Dragon Balls created by Kami before he purged himself of the wickedness in his heart which gave birth to Piccolo. They have apparently just been hanging out at the lookout this whole time and for some reason did not become inert when Kami ceased to be. Pilaf and the gang have little trouble in locating these balls, which look just like the regular Dragon Balls save for the stars are black instead of red, and they summon Red Shenron to grant their wish. Goku, noticing the changing color of the sky, investigates before a wish can be made and recognizes the now elderly Pilaf. Pilaf gets frustrated because Goku always messed things up for him in the past and, in a moment of frustration, wishes he was just a kid again. Shenron, hearing this, takes it literally and turns Goku into a child and then disappears scattering the Black Star Dragon Balls not across the Earth, but across the galaxy. This is apparently a big problem as King Kai (Schemmel) pops into Goku’s head to tell him that without the Black Star Dragon Balls the Earth will explode. Yeah, a pretty big deal and it sure seems like Dende should have taken better care of these things given that. It basically falls on Goku, Trunks (Eric Vale) and Goku’s middle school aged granddaughter Pan (Elise Baughman) to travel the galaxy in a Capsule Corp spaceship and bring those balls back before the Earth explodes.

I do like that it’s Pilaf that sets this whole thing in motion, even if it makes little sense.

What I like about this setup is it takes GT back to the roots of Dragon Ball and quite literally by turning Goku into a kid again. After that though things start to go down hill and rather quickly. The first dozen or so episodes are adventure focused, but the gang never really finds a worthwhile adventure I enjoyed watching. Pan is portrayed as an annoying character who is quick to get angry, especially when the crew takes on a little android named Giru (Sonny Strait). She is vicious to the sympathetic little robot and it’s like the show wants me to hate this kid. Goku, for his part, isn’t all that much better. He’s a bit aloof, but constantly complaining about being hungry. I know, we get it, Goku likes to eat and eat a lot. GT returns to that well far too often and it loses any and all comedic value. He also tends to forget how powerful he is and there were many moments where I just felt frustrated by what was going on because Goku should be able to handle it no problem. He just chooses not to. Sometimes the show will make a joke out of it, but not often. They do take away his ability to use his instant transmission maneuver as I guess they just found it was too powerful, but there’s no attempt to explain it. He just can’t do it as a kid for some reason. Trunks is more of a stabilizing presence and he’s fine in that role.

The show arguably doesn’t get rolling until we enter the Baby saga. While hunting for the Dragon Balls, the gang encounters a Dr. Myuu (Duncan Brannon) who is a total rip-off of Dr. Gero. He’s created an artificial lifeform called Baby (sound familiar?) which can absorb others and use them to gain power, but also requires a host body to reach his full potential. Baby (Mike McFarland) is born of the Truffle race, an alien lifeform that was eradicated by the Saiyans, which is a detail I actually do like. He wants revenge against all Saiyans which is what brings him to Earth. He there takes over the body of Vegeta (Christopher Sabat) and also infects almost everyone on Earth creating a sort of hive mind. It’s during this arc that we get introduced to the most memorable part of Dragon Ball GT: Super Saiyan 4.

If the show had stuck to the adventure theme it starts off with it might have been better, though it still might not have been very good.

As a concept, I like Super Saiyan 4. I don’t know if I would have designed the look exactly like the one presented here, but the idea of a Saiyan reverting to his primal ape form and then harnessing that into this new Super Saiyan form is a good one. However, I hate Super Saiyan 4 Goku. For some reason he gets extremely cocky in this form. He talks in a lower tone (think Goku Black if you’ve watched Dragon Ball Super) and just comes across like a dick. It feels so out of character for Goku who can display confidence, but not to this extent and not in this manner. He acts like the fusion character Vegito, just without Vegeta’s voice literally filtering into his speech. It was also during this arc that it really became apparent that Goku basically has one move: Kamehameha. You will get sick of hearing Goku say that long, drawn out word by the time you’re done with GT. The action is so uninspired throughout the series and seems to only get worse as it goes on. Almost every confrontation is between two fighters who are unmatched. Whether it’s Goku or the villain, someone is at an obvious disadvantage to the point where they don’t even have to take the other fighter seriously. It makes for a drama-free experience and the only thing that turns the tide of battle is basically a new power-up.

After the Baby saga comes the Super Android 17 arc which is quite brief. It’s also inexplicable because the show basically draws attention to how the character Dr. Myuu is just a Gero knock-off by having the two team-up! And their team-up occurs in Hell where for some reason they’ve been allowed to keep their bodies (it’s best not to think about continuity with this series) and create a carbon copy of Android 17 in Hell. Some how. He is apparently able to control the real 17 and get him to open a portal to Hell so all of the bad guys can escape and run amok like an episode of Animaniacs. It’s a bit of a rehash of the twelfth Dragon Ball Z movie, but without charm. It’s terrible, let’s move on.

Oh, look! Another Kamehameha!

The final arc is the Shadow Dragon one and, again, it’s a solid concept that is just not well executed. Goku (who is still a kid and will remain one the whole series) and the gang try to make a wish with the Dragon Balls only for them to break. Black smoke comes out and with it comes the Shadow Dragons. Earth has made too many wishes in a short period of time and they’re being punished for it. The writers are essentially punishing themselves for this easy get out of jail free card baked into the series. In order to set things right, Goku has to beat each Shadow Dragon and recover the Dragon Ball imbedded in them. A few have a gimmick to them that Goku has to overcome while the finale, Omega Shenron (Sabat), is just a really strong guy. It culminates in a battle that’s really drawn out and almost never interesting. It’s always one-sided. The writers also never figure out a new way to end a confrontation. It’s always a riff on something from before. They absolutely love having the other Saiyan characters lend their energy to Goku so he can power himself up which is something that only previously took place in the movies. It’s not a gimmick I have ever liked. There wasn’t one new wrinkle to come up with?

If you like Super Saiyan 4, save yourself some time and just get an action figure or learn to love it from afar.

Dragon Ball GT has the reputation of being the worst Dragon Ball series to date and it’s a well earned reputation. While I do think the people working on it had good intentions and tried their best, it just feels formulaic and too derivative of itself to be any good. There’s very little in the way of creativity and while Dragon Ball is certainly guilty of repeating itself quite a bit, it’s usually able to find some way to put a spin on things or at least be charming in the process. GT drops almost all of that charm in favor of a cookie cutter, disposable, experience. It’s ending is lackluster and just as unsatisfying as the ending to Dragon Ball Z, something I’ve never talked about in this space but is an ending I despise. I get that Goku is a bit of a dolt who just loves to eat and train, possibly in the opposite order, and we’re supposed to laugh when he just up and abandons his family to go train Uub. If Z had not created Pan and showed us how much she idolized her grandfather in those few episodes at the end of the series it might have worked for me, but instead it just makes me sad. I don’t like thinking of Goku as a selfish piece of shit, but he’s sometimes written that way. GT has a very similar ending, but since I was looking forward to the series being over it didn’t bother me nearly as much. This isn’t a good series. You’re actually way better off just experiencing it through the video games which basically gives you the Cliff Notes version of the series and lets you act out battles that are probably way more satisfying than what’s actually in the show. And if you love Super Saiyan 4, go buy an action figure or just watch Dragon Ball Daima which takes a lot of the concepts baked into GT, but actually does them well. Only watch the series if you’re like me and don’t properly value the 30 or so hours of your life it takes to get through all 64 episodes.

If you must hear more about Dragon Ball GT then here are some toy reviews you may find interesting:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Daima Super Saiyan 4 Son Goku (Mini)

It’s no great secret that the black sheep of the Dragon Ball universe is the anime Dragon Ball GT. Created in-house by Toei animation, Dragon Ball GT was a continuation of Dragon Ball Z without creator Akira Toriyama. While Toriyama had to grant approval to many aspects of the series, he wasn’t directly involved with…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta

We’re back with another action figure review from everyone’s favorite version of Dragon Ball: Dragon Ball GT! And really, the only thing people remember from Dragon Ball GT is the Super Saiyan 4 transformation. Designed to bring the Saiyans back to their more primal roots, the Super Saiyan 4 transformation is pretty much on an…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan 4 Goku

In the world of Dragon Ball, there are varying opinions on which version of the anime is superior. Dragon Ball Z is unquestionably the most popular, but there are people (like me) out there who swear by the original Dragon Ball that came before it. More recently, Dragon Ball Super has entered the fray and…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television

March 24, 2026

JoyToy TMNT Turtle Van

By Joe
Apparently, I needed another Turtle Van.

The Batmobile. The Time Machine. Ecto-1. The Turtle Van! Yes, I am placing the iconic vehicle of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the same category as those unforgettable franchise vehicles. And the crazy thing is that of those four, only one of them has never existed in live-action and it’s, of course, the Turtle Van. The Turtle Van was created for the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mini series. I suspect, since that whole production was overseen by toymaker Playmates, it was a directive from the toy company to include a themed vehicle because they knew getting a vehicle to market for the kids to place their action figures inside was a priority. When the van made its debut in plastic it was as the Party Wagon. The more bus-like design was still recognizable, but not exact, to what was seen in the cartoon. As a kid, I honestly don’t remember that ever being a point of contention for me and I was the sort of kid who wanted his toys to resemble what I was seeing on TV. The undersized Technodrome with its purple eye topper bugged me, but not the boxy van. I think it’s because both designs got the major details right: the grimacing front bumper, the logo on the nose, the spoiler on the top, the shell pattern to the roof, the twin canons. Those were all the hallmarks of the Van/Party Wagon and it was great to have a toy of it. I got it as an Easter present from my grandmother (she loved any excuse to give her grandkids presents) and she can be heard boasting on camera how hard it was to get ahold of and that she really wanted to deliver it for Christmas the prior year (don’t weep for me, I got the sewer lair). I loved that toy and would get a lot of use out of it, but I didn’t get a show accurate Turtle Van until NECA made one in 2023. And now, thanks to JoyToy, I have another.

Let’s get things started with what you all came for: comparisons to NECA, Hasbro (Transformers), and Mattel (Hot Wheels)

JoyToy’s 1:18 scale line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a blast to collect. It was last fall we found out that JoyToy wasn’t content to just do figures, but vehicles as well. Or at least one vehicle, the mighty Turtle Van. Clearly based on the look of the vehicle in the original series, this 1:18 scale vehicle measures approximately 10.5″ long, 7″ wide, and 7.5″ to the top of the spoiler. If the NECA one is in 1:12 scale, that puts this one from JoyToy in approximately the same ballpark. The front of this design is rounded so it translates to about a 15′ long vehicle while the NECA one with its more stubby front would be 14′. The other measurements also translate pretty well. The JoyToy approach is to take the look of the vehicle on television, and dirty it up. Add some realism and incorporate as many display options as possible. The box it comes in is a big window and it’s very similar to the figure boxes we see. Some assembly is required out of the box as the spoiler needs to be attached. It comes in three pieces plus two covers for each side. It’s very easy to snap together and it’s configured in such a way that it would be extremely hard to mess up. It also requires two AAA batteries for what I think were unadvertised lights on the front and rear of the vehicle. After you get that stuff together you’re basically good to go.

We’ve got working lights, folks.

The Turtle Van is a plastic vehicle that does utilize rubber for the tires. There appears to be suspension in each tire as there’s a nice, springy, quality, but I can’t see an actual spring to know that for certain. Most of the vehicle is a pale yellow with a pretty heavy paint wash applied to give the vehicle a grimy appearance. They do park it in a sewer, after all. There’s the logo across the spoiler as well as on the front tire cover. The printing on the spoiler is very crisp and clean while the painted logo on the front (which is sculpted into the tire cover) is a little less crisp, but acceptable. There’s translucent, red, plastic in use on the top lights as well as the radar dish over the cabin. Unfortunately, those lights (as well as the dome light inside) do not light up. The side mirrors look like they may be a decal which, unfortunately, is not mirrored. There’s some nice black linework in parts and the wash is applied basically everywhere as well as on the interior.

In addition to the doors opening, the top of the cabin also comes off to make placing figures much easier.

And for the interior, we get a nice bench seat up front with seatbelts sculpted into the bench, but are otherwise non-functional. There’s sculpted details in the dash for the radio and clear plastic is utilized for the windows and windshield. If you were ever wondering, the Turtle Van has crank windows. I do wish the glass for the windows could pop off easily to simulate an open window, but at least I don’t have to worry about losing them. The rear of the van is accessible by opening the top of the van. The front of the roof can also pop off. Back there is a computer and some more equipment sculpted into the side walls. The center ladder can fold down into the floor allowing those in the back to see and communicate with those riding up front. As for other parts that open, we have the sides of the van with the driver’s side having the fold down platform and the right side swings open and has the laser canon mounted on it. The rear doors also open. They’re all easily accessible, though I do find it easiest to push from the inside of the vehicle. The rear doors feel sturdy while the front doors are slightly flimsy as the connection point is pretty small. If you have the NECA van the doors are very similar to that one in terms of feel.

The ladder can be pulled down and of course the rear doors open.

As for play and accessories, well there’s a lot to talk about. We’ll start with the canons on top which can pivot up and down. The barrel also pulls out to resemble the look of the guns in the show, but if you like the more compact look that’s there for you as well. The side turret is collaspable and once unfolded can accommodate a character sitting in it and firing away. Like the top canons, the barrel for this one can also be pulled out to better resemble the show and the two bombs underneath it are also removable. The front spare tire cover pops off to not reveal a spare tire, but a spot for the included pizza slice. Everyone needs an emergency stash. The panel is hard to remove the first time as it has a little gap at the bottom, but it’s quite close to the bumper so getting a fingernail in there can be a challenge. There’s a toolbox affixed to the exterior of the rear door and we get a litany of tools to put in it: hammer, two wrenches, two screwdrivers. If you don’t like it though you can pop that off and replace it with a spare tire which has a mount that holds it in place. Those rear doors are also a little on the flimsy side so you do want to exercise caution when trying to pry the tool box open or off when it’s on the door. For the guns, we do get effect parts. The two canons on top can accept a spiral blast done with translucent red plastic. There’s also two smaller blast effects that are red translucent plastic with some metallic orange paint sprayed over the base. There are also two smoke trail effects that are gray with a black wash. You can actually use all of these in three places: top canons, side canon, and the exhaust ports on the back. If you want a gun to look like it’s smoking from use you can do that. If you want the exhaust to look like it’s backfiring with a blast effect then go for it.

Just like in the show, the driver’s side has a platform for a turtle to attack from while the passenger side has a pop-out turret for when the turtles would rather use firepower than martial arts.

Inside the van we also get a few options. There’s a port in the middle of the floor which can accept a stool. It can also accept this big, mechanical, pillar which has two options for it. Option one is another turret that has three canons intended to be utilized with the three included grappling hooks. These hooks come on a wired piece to look like they’re being fire, but you can also remove the hook and insert that into the turret like it’s loaded as opposed to firing. What these turrets can’t do is accept any of the other effect parts unless you tip it up and let gravity keep such in place since the fit is too loose. And it is articulated so you can adjust the pitch of the turret. If you don’t want to use that though then you also have a platform. Yes, the very one from the classic TV intro that launches the turtles is finally realized in toy form. It has four peg holes on as well as four slots for an articulated armature which is also included. The armature can swivel and has three articulation points plus a grabby claw at the end so at least one of your turtles can be in mid-leap. It does get crowded if you want all four turtles on there and the pillar is a bit wobbly, but if you’re determined it can be done. There’s also a trio of included traffic cones and two fire extinguishers, with slots for them by the side panel of the van. There’s also a hazard marker for when the van gets a flat and the turtles need to pull over to swap out a tire.

Tool box, hidden pizza, safety first traffic cones – they have it all!

This sucker has a lot of function to it, but what most likely care about beyond the aesthetics is just how does it do with the figures? Overall, pretty good, but it does become apparent quickly that these turtle figures from JoyToy were never really meant to sit down. They have a lot of stuff on their thighs and belts that gets in the way, but you can certainly do it. The steering wheel is removable so you can place that in the hands of a figure before sticking them in the cabin if you find that easier. The characters sit pretty far forward on the bench seat, but it’s only really noticeable with the doors open. With a figure like April, she too sits forward and it looks a little silly from the side as there’s a gap of about 3/4ths of an inch between her and the seat back. I think this is a result of having to make sure the turtles and their bulky shells can fit. They fit more easily into the side turret, though basically all of the turtles should go without holstered weapons if being placed in said turret or in the cabin. In light of that, it would have been neat if JoyToy had built in storage for their weapons. The rear of the van is a little short in height for the turtles to stand up straight, but anyone who has been in a work van probably knows the feeling. It mostly only becomes awkward if you want someone at the computer. Could they have gone a little bigger with the design? Of course, but I don’t really fault the design here. It’s plenty big as it is when it comes to shelf real estate.

Grappling hooks, laser canons, and the ever popular turtle launcher!

To probably the surprise of no one who has experience with JoyToy, I think this van turned out fantastic. I just don’t have many complaints with this thing. The tool box and front cover are a bit stubborn. The hubcap on the passenger side front tire keeps popping off on me. I wish the interior light worked, but I get why it doesn’t since that portion of the roof is removable. One of my canon blasts is a little warped, but I bet I can fix that with a little hot water pretty easily. Aside from that – nothing. This thing looks fantastic. I think it’s easily the best Turtle Van ever released. Now, I don’t have Super7’s very expensive take on the Party Wagon, but I don’t feel like I need to have that in my hands to know I like this one better. This design is great. I like the rounded off front and it has all of the details that I think matter most. I love the inclusion of the platform and it’s great to get all of the extra stuff we got which is something that was really lacking with the NECA van. I like that one too and it’s great for my NECA turtles, but if I could only keep one I think I’d have to side with JoyToy. And that’s before I even get to the price which for me, shipped, was $153. I may have been on the high side too as some people are getting this for closer to $135. That’s a hell of a good deal in today’s market for a vehicle in this scale and at this level of quality. Of course, the drawback is you do have to buy it from an import shop as JoyToy isn’t licensed to sell TMNT product to North America. It hasn’t been much of an issue though and there are plenty of reputable shops to buy from. If you think this thing looks great, then I say go for it. I have no idea where I’m going to put it, but it’s a good problem to have.

If you want my thoughts on other Turtle Vans or wish to see more from JoyToy then check these out:

NECA TMNT Toon Turtle Van

It’s our last Turtle Tuesday before Christmas, though probably not of the year, and it’s a pretty big one: The Turtle Van! NECA solicited its version of the Turtle Van based on the same from the animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in April of 2022. It was originally scheduled to be released before…

by Joe

JoyToy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It’s been said before and it will be said again: everyone is making Ninja Turtles. It feels like the list of companies not making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is smaller than the list of those who are. Viacom has not been shy about licensing the brand out to toy makers and it’s reaching a point…

by Joe

Transformers x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Wallop

The list of properties the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles haven’t crossed over with gets shorter by the day. When I look back to the 1980s, I view the big action figure lines as Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT has crossed over with Ghostbusters in…

by Joe

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March 19, 2026

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Gamerverse Cyclops

By Joe
A new challenger has arrived.

A funny thing happened in 2025 where two companies revealed they were going to be making action figures based on the hit video game series Marvel vs Capcom only for neither company to actually mention the words Marvel vs Capcom. It would seem that neither Hasbro nor Bandai wanted to compensate the Capcom portion of that pairing so instead we’re getting “Gamerverse” figures based on “the popular video game series.” Yes, it was kind of amusing watching the people at Hasbro try to talk around that fact, but to the initiated these action figures are clearly based on that series of games which began way back in 1994 as X-Men: Children of the Atom before morphing into the tag team video game confrontation series it’s most known for today. To see Hasbro mine this franchise for characters was hardly a surprise. They had basically already begun as much with their release of a yellow and blue Cable in 2024 and the Iron Man with proton canon set that came before it. 2025 was just the year they leaned into it more heavily and it so far has produced some pretty nice results. As for Bandai, I’m not sure if anyone saw that coming. It makes more sense for the company since they have had the Street Fighter license in the past and seem to still do though their output has dwindled more recently (which probably has to do with that I.P. getting licensed out to several companies now). Making some Marvel characters to scale with those seems like a natural pivot, but I wasn’t sure if it was something they were allowed to do. Most of the Bandai figures I’ve seen are based on film franchises, but I guess someone at Disney felt that video games was a natural extension of that.

He’s shorter and stockier than his Legends counterpart, though the picture makes it look more apparent than it does in reality.

I’m not sure if either company had advance warning of what the other was up to, but it seemed to work out nicely for Bandai that their first ended up being the leader of the X-Men: Cyclops. Hasbro didn’t touch the character in their own Gamerverse line and even Bandai’s follow-up, Spider-Man, has so far not made an appearance for Hasbro (Wolverine follows who was the star of the Hasbro releases last year). The X-Men are pretty damn popular and it was their video game that got the ball rolling so it makes sense to turn to one of them first, though Cyclops can probably be thought of as a slight surprise. Wolverine will always be the expectation, but even someone like Gambit could have lead the way or even Rogue or Psylocke. Cyclops has been featured rather prominently in marketing materials though so it’s hardly an upset that Slim would get the coveted debut slot. And as a character who fires lasers out of his eyes, he tends to lend himself rather well to action figures. And then there’s the fact that Hasbro has kind of struggled with this design at times. I think most agree the figure based on his look in the animated series has been their best take, but that was a pretty bare bones release that was also a Pulse exclusive. He also has that controversial cel-shading much of the collector community seems to despise. The figure was essentially re-released to general retail as part of the X-Men ’97 wave of figures, but it had a new, and terrible, portrait. Many have taken to swapping the portraits between the ’92 and ’97 versions finding it’s much easier to remove the cel-shading on just a head as opposed to a whole figure.

He still looks down on a standard Wolverine, but perhaps not to the degree most would want.

As for me, my goal with my X-Men collecting is always to assemble that ’92 animated team on my shelf in the most authentic way possible. The Hasbro figure is fine, but it does bother me he has no effect parts and the portrait is pretty off-model for the show. Not terrible, but certainly not perfect. This Gamerverse Cyclops isn’t really going to get me closer to my ideal take on the character, but it did look like a figure that was just a whole lot more fun. There are caveats though. For one, he retails for around $100 for North American buyers. That’s a big price, and even though I was able to get that mark down to $89 that’s still an expensive action figure in this scale. He’s also shorter and there’s a question of scale where the figure is concerned. It wasn’t enough to get me to bail, but now that he’s in-hand it’s time to figure out if this was money well spent.

He’s got enough stuff to duplicate a lot of poses from the games.

The Gamerverse packaging is pretty much like any other SHF release. My box got pretty well mangled in shipping since I got it through Amazon and they decided that $100 figures should just be placed in brown paper bags (meanwhile, my sub $10 manga gets the box treatment). They’re lucky I’m not an in-box collector. Out of the box, Cyclops stands at around 6.125″ to the top of his hair. If Bandai is going for true 1:12 scale then this might be okay. This is video game Cyclops, not comic or cartoon Cyclops. In the game, he’s pretty much average height and if they’re saying he’s a bit over 6′ tall then that seems to conform well enough. Where it will cause issues is for those who just want to slot him in with some Marvel Legends figures. Compared to the VHS series Cyclops referenced earlier, he is indeed shorter as I have that guy at about a quarter of an inch taller. Is that a meaningful distinction? That I can’t really answer as it’s going to be pretty subjective. He’s still taller than the ’92 Wolverine and ever so slightly taller than my ’92 Jean (with a ’97 head). That’s in just a straight up and down stance for all figures. Crouch Wolverine down or put some bend in the knees of Jean and he starts to look taller. For me though, the real thing that stands out is that this is a thick Cyclops. He has a big neck and something of a square head. Cyclops traditionally has a taller, slimmer, head in this costume, but with this design the head is more in-line with the neck. It’s an all-together different silhouette. His torso comes across as more compact, though in reality it’s the same size as the Hasbro figure if not a little taller. It’s the thickness and his unique belt that give off the appearance of a stockier torso. The legs are indeed shorter than usual though while his arms might be a touch longer than average or it’s just his big mitts that make it appear that way. This is the point where I mention that some folks who have this figure have purchased an aftermarket double ball peg for the inner torso that does make the figure taller. I think his issue, if there is one, rests with the legs though so I’m not too keen to fork over the $30 for a piece of plastic to see if I like it better, but it’s out there if that’s your thing.

Cyclops has two blast options plus two additional neck parts to adjust the angle of his blast and provide more stability, though the default neck is pretty good at both.

The other thing that stands out with this figure when grouped with your Legends is the shade of yellow in use. With Hasbro, recent editions of Cyclops have gone very yellow – a bright, lemony, shade. With this figure we’re back to that orange-yellow which Hasbro used to use for Cyclops. It wasn’t super obvious to me in the solicitation shots, but in-hand it most certainly is. I prefer this costume go more yellow as it plays off the darker blues better, but his bodysuit also isn’t the same shade of blue that Hasbro has been using. For that, we get a lighter blue with almost a metallic finish. It’s subtle, but there’s a purposeful shine to it. There’s also shading in the lines for the muscles and around the joints which does look nice in person. It’s just a shame the orange-yellow parts lack the same care. Those parts are basically all bare plastic and some take on a non-purposeful shine that looks cheap. In particular is the crotch area where Bandai is utilizing hard plastic caps to fill gaps like we used to see with the Dragon Ball line. The visor, unfortunately, suffers from the same. The painted yellow at the thighs and wrists looks better as it absorbs more light while the boots, unfortunately are colored plastic though they’re not the same material as those harder pieces. The skin tone is also extremely pale, almost a bone white. The hair is unpainted, but sculpted in a very convincing manner that’s almost too realistic, but otherwise looks nice. I should also point out that this design uses the non-traditional “A” shape for the rear of the harness that’s true to the game (and if you had the classic Toy Biz figure it was the same there) while most illustrations of this costume just have the rear mirror the front without the X logo.

Bandai also threw in this cardboard accessory that’s…interesting.

Those unsure of the overall look of the figure will likely need to be sold on the next two parts: accessories and articulation. At least in the accessory department, this figure is a clear upgrade over most others. Cyclops comes with five sets of hands: fists, two-finger pointing, open, clenching, and chop. The two-finger pose is for when he manually activates his optic blasts at the visor and also his pointing gesture for a victory pose in the games. The chop also comes from the games where he makes an X with his arms before unleashing his super. They’re all good choices, but more exciting are the effects. For optional expressions, we get a teeth-gritting and a yelling head to go with his default neutral expression. The hair swaps to all of the heads while the visors do as well. And for those we get a total of four: standard, power “leaking,” short blast, and long blast. The standard one is just that, it’s a shiny plastic piece with a red line painted on. The “leaking” one has a translucent, red, piece which mimics a lot of the game art for the character and is a pretty fun look for your self. That is, if you can resist using one of the blasting visors. The shorter one is more narrow and kind of like a blade while the longer one mushrooms at the end. Both are done with translucent red plastic sprayed with white for a nice look. Both are pretty great and shelf space may be the driving force over which one you prefer. Or how they fit since that’s a bit of an issue. The optional visors have a hard time sitting flush with the portraits and can leave a tiny gap near the ear. Heating the head you wish to use and softening the plastic can help, as can just plain old elbow grease. I haven’t had any issues getting them to stay on and I even placed Cyclops on my shelf with the heavier of the two blasts for a couple of weeks before getting to this review and his head never drooped and the part never fell out. Still, after my experience with the interchangeable face plats on the recently released Super Saiyan Goku, it’s a bummer to see a similar issue here albeit one that isn’t to the same degree.

This seems like a more relevant size comparison than perhaps one to Legends figures.

Rounding out the package is a cardboard standee of Cyclops’ massive optic blast from the game. It’s two pieces of cardstock and I guess it looks fine, but it’s a pretty cheap presentation no matter the quality of the print. I suppose it didn’t cost them much of anything to include, but I can’t see using this thing. Of more note are the optional neck parts. Of which there are two. They pop in and out very easily and the intent seems to be to provide a more stable base for the heavier effect parts. Both basically remove the ability for the neck to do much where it meats the torso while retaining the head articulation. One piece is more straight on while the other is angled up slightly. It’s a good thought and a bit of a fail safe in case the default neck proved to be too loose, but I haven’t experienced any issues with the standard one. For my two week experiment from before, I kept the standard neck in place just to see what would happen and it held up fine. Would it still after six months? A year? I don’t know, but it certainly doesn’t seem any looser. These extra parts can perhaps get a more natural looking curve to the neck for those blasting poses so they’re not worthless or anything, just interesting. And in case you were wondering, even the longer one doesn’t materially change the profile of the figure. It sits lower in the torso and I still have him at 6 and an eighth with the longest neck in place.

Natural rivals.

The other most likely area for this Cyclops to shine when compared with the cheaper alternatives is with the articulation. It’s what Tamashii Nations has staked its reputation on. With Cyclops, he seems to follow a lot of the same design philosophies as the recently released Scarlet Spider and that’s not exactly welcomed news for me. We do get a mostly typical load-out for a SHF release: double ball head, ball neck, shoulder hinges that peg in, butterfly, bicep, double elbows, wrist ball-hinge joints, diaphragm double ball joint, hips, thighs, double knees, ankle swivel, ankle rocker, ankle hinge, toe hinge. What’s missing? A damn waist joint. Why is Bandai omitting waist articulation from its Marvel figures lately? I don’t understand it. With Scarlet Spider, the culprit is a lower back piece that’s part of the waist sculpt and seems to only exist to prevent gaps from appearing at the waist. The joint itself is a simple ball peg, like most SHF releases, and it’s just this spacer that prevents rotation. With Cyclops, perhaps it has something to do with these straps that go over the shoulders. They connect underneath the abdomen and there’s actually some play here. You can pull them out and push them back in to provide for more articulation in the diaphragm. It’s a sound concept, but practically speaking offers little. That joint is pretty limited as it mostly tilts and barely rotates. There isn’t an obvious spacer like Scarlet Spider, but there is a blue piece that appears to be doing essentially the same thing and that is preventing the figure from rotating. The hips with the old cap system in place at least work well going forward and back as well as out to the side – certainly more than a Cyclops likely needs. I do like the more traditional thigh cut instead of that hideous thing they’ve been giving us in the Dragon Ball line and the ankles work well. There is an exposed, metal, ring on the hinge at the ankles which some may not like to see. They also did the same thing with the shoulders as we saw with Scarlet Spider where the inside of the shoulder is quite flat. If you put him in a standard T-pose he’ll look pretty weird, but I guess that’s a pose you’re probably not likely to do so does it matter? The butterfly joint is okay and doesn’t break up the sculpt much so we’ll call it a plus. Really, it’s just the torso that blows, but that is kind of a big deal since the torso is most of the figure. Nothing is stuck or floppy so the quality control where articulation is concerned is at least a positive.

I have some nits to pick with a lot of the figures here, but I don’t hate how this looks.

At the end of the day, I’m a little conflicted here. This isn’t my ideal interpretation of Cyclops, but I can’t really say it’s off compared with the game it’s drawing inspiration from so I don’t think it’s fair to knock it for that. If you want to get more into it, this figure more embodies the artwork associated with the Capcom games as opposed to the sprite and that’s potentially a conversation worth having for those building out a Marvel vs Capcom collection. His scale is certainly off with Marvel Legends, but again, that’s not really this figure’s problem. Sure, I would have personally preferred him to scale better with Legends, but it’s not an expectation I can put on it either. It needs to scale with the figures Bandai is releasing though in that regard it’s impossible to say since he’s the first. He does seem to scale fine with Storm Arena which may matter more in this case for those building out that MvC display. What truly irritates me though is the articulation in the torso and the lack of paint on the yellow parts. He looks a little too cheap to be a $100 figure. Bandai doesn’t typically occupy that price range save for their more limited offerings, but maybe the Marvel tax is a significant one. If he were more at that mid-tier SHF price point, say $65, I’d feel better about the lack of paint, but at $100 this doesn’t really cut it. I’m left with a figure that I’m happy to have in my collection, but I don’t think he’s really worth the ask. I would not be shocked if this line dies because Marvel is fairly oversaturated at this point and the price is pretty insane. There may be deals in the future. I’m also less inclined to continue down this path despite my positive reaction to the Spider-Man they showed off. I need to think on that one some more and see how he turns out before committing to purchasing it. The same is true for Wolverine and whatever follows. If this line is one that interests you I’d recommend seeking out multiple opinions and going from there. Yeah, this hobby is an expensive one these days and six months from now you probably won’t miss that $100 too much no matter how you feel about this thing, but we probably should expect more for our buck.

There’s a lot of stuff I could list here that is likely of interest, but I can only select three. Maybe check out my Toy Review Archive if you want to know more of my thoughts on all of the figures that could relate tot his one:

S.H.Figuarts Across the Spider-Verse Scarlet Spider

In the two reviews I did of Scarlet Spider action figures I shared the origins of my love for the character’s design. To make it short, I found the appearance of him on a cover of a Spider-Man comic intriguing, but more is as a young artist I much preferred to doodle him in my…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Gamerverse Wolverine vs Silver Samurai

Video game inspired action figures are quite the hot ticket right now. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but maybe some of that is owed to Jada Toys and how well received their line of Ultra Street Fighter 2 action figures have been received. Hasbro, for their part, has had a “Gamerverse” subline of…

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by Joe

Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Ken

One of my most anticipated releases of 2025 came out of no where. I was a kid during the early 90s and into video games so I know a thing or two about Street Fighter. Street Fighter II was everywhere and is pretty much the reason why the one-on-one fighting game became a huge genre…

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by Joe

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March 17, 2026

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Shredder (2003)

By Joe
Here comes the bad guy.

They say that breaking up is hard to do. I feel like I’ve been slowly breaking up with Super7 for a couple of years now. The relationship began with a “will they, won’t they,” feel when Super7 announced its line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! at the then high price of $45 each. Did I need recreations of the toys I had as a kid in a new scale and better articulation? No, then yes! Super7 and I kept it casual over the next year or so. I was never all-in, but I was always buying something. Then came wave five when Super7 raised the price to $55 and subsequently dropped the quality. One of my favorite designs from the vintage line, Sewer Samurai Leonardo, was done dirty. Sure, he looked fine, but the figure was a mess and damn near impossible to handle as a modern action figure. Things were pretty rocky from then on. Some figures, like Classic Rocker Leo, were great and reminded me of how good things could be between us while others left a lot to be desired. Super7 dropping the line in favor of the 2003 version of the franchise is probably where things need to end between us. The inaugural wave released last year was okay. The turtles looked the part, but the skimpy accessories and some terrible design choices made the wave more bust than boom. I was never going to be all-in on the line anyway, these turtles aren’t my turtles, but I wanted some representation for that era in my collection. And while I can pass on the likes of April and Splinter, I feel like no set of turtles is complete without the Shredder.

He’s got some size on the turtles.

Even with my belief that all turtles need a Shredder, I still wasn’t sure about this one. While I love the look of this version of the character, I was hesitant about the quality after handling those 2003 turtles. Super7 made the artistic choice to reference the actual show heavily in their design over prioritizing things like the key art. That’s fine and defensible, though personally I don’t know why you would settle for the worst version of the characters when it’s possible to match the better ones. That didn’t bother me as much as the engineering choices. Much was made of Super7 finally embracing 21st century technology and adding double joints to the knees and elbows, but one change they made is truly puzzling. They started using soft plastic for parts like the biceps, thighs, and pretty much all over the limbs like the figures are endoskeletons with soft plastic parts layered on top. Softer plastics are great for things that need to be pliable like the belts, bandanas, and even the hands since it makes gripping weapons much easier. For things like the thighs where the parts are going to rub against the harder plastic parts when doing just basic articulation it leads to gouging and damage. Is this how Super7 plans on doing all of its figures going forward? I wasn’t sure. I’ve even done the rare thing (for me) of watching a video review of this figure before I got it. You pretty much have to with Super7 as you never know what you’re going to get. I considered canceling my preorder, but decided to hang onto it more out of obligation than anything. I hate canceling on retailers that I like (I’ll cancel on Amazon anytime) and my desire for a Shredder outweighed my apprehension over the quality of the figure. And despite seeing that review, I still don’t really know how I’ll react to this one. I’m writing this (as I do pretty much all of my intros) before handling the figure and remain hopeful that it will be “good enough.”

Technically, this is the Shredder. What a little stinker.

Shredder arrives in the normal box we’re used to. There are no credits on it and the artwork appears to be stock art from Paramount. It takes up too much space, but there is a nice, big, window so if you like to keep these in-box (a very defensible position with Super7) it will look fine. This Shredder is big and imposing coming in at around 8″. It’s what I liked about him from the moment I saw the artwork for the 2003 show as this was no longer the bumbling doofus entrusting all of his lame schemes to the likes of Bebop and Rocksteady. This was a Shredder out to win and in order to win it meant he had to kill. This dude is a literal murderer and also not a dude at all. He’s an Utrom (spoiler?) named Ch’Rell who ended up on Earth a thousand years before the start of the show and managed to turn himself into a legend. The figure you see before you is just a suit of armor being controlled by Ch’Rell in the abdomen. If that sounds kind of like Krang to you know that it is. These are the guys Krang was based around when the original show was adapted from the comic books, though in the comic Shredder was never among the Utrom. Not that it was needed for the character, but having Shredder essentially be a robot works in the character’s favor as it explains how he can be so massive and how those eerie, glowing, red eyes can shine out from under his helm. It was a step in the right direction for the character and this Shredder begets the one we’d receive in the 2012 series who was also a vicious murderer, though that one was a human.

He’s a master of intimidation.

Super7 has always been good with size when it comes to their villains so it’s no surprise that Shredder comes out looking menacing. The body is largely black with some differing shades of gray. The main armor of the torso almost has a purple hue to it which, if intentional, is a nice, subtle, homage to his look from the original cartoon. There’s no cape on this Shredder, but he does have a sash, which Super7 elected to handle with soft goods. This comes as a surprise because this aspect of the figure was not apparent in the solicitation. The head-on shot made the sash look plastic, while the action shots look like they have a subtle texture to them implying that they could be soft goods. I’m not a huge fan of mixed media apart from capes when it comes to figures and this one won’t change my mind. The sash is clunky. Super7 wanted it to be wired, but whoever they contracted to make the sash used a thick material and the stitching around it is very apparent and amateurish. If you absolutely hate it you can pull it off, but I wish they included a plastic one like the old days of the line when Shredder came with a plastic cape and a soft goods one. The proportions on the sculpting is good and probably the figure’s strength. He does look like a Shredder that could kick your ass.

I don’t care for this curve.
The unmasked portrait is fine, but has some paint issues.

Where things are less great rests with the paint and materials used. Super7 is going all-in on these soft plastics as the shoulder pauldrons are like a very pliable rubber. It feels like the kind of material you might find in a hardware store used on cheap, plastic, products or in a gasket or something similar. It does what it’s supposed to in that it lets the arm move freely, but it looks really cheap as there’s no paint on it. I’m not sure if one can paint this material without the paint cracking. Super7’s approach to a toon aesthetic is basically solid, muted, colors. In other words, the opposite of what a company like NECA has done with its own toon line which uses a lot of paint, some line work, and shading. Paint just helps the figure to “pop” like the character would on an old animation cel (I have no idea if the actual show was done on celluloid or if it was all digital) and on your television screen. Super7 seems to think colored plastics get the job done and it just looks really bad in places. The pauldrons are one area and the crest on the helm is another which is that same, milky, plastic the company used for Raph’s sai. I know some would prefer a metallic silver, but I’m actually fine with white since animated metal often ends up being painted white in this case, but it needs to be actually painted. It at least isn’t shiny and the joints aren’t ugly, but a $55 collectible should look better than this.

These colors aren’t right.

Things get a little more off the rails when comparing this figure to the source. Super7 stated they were trying to match the look of the character in the show and that’s fine. However, this really isn’t it. I was trying to figure out what looked off about this guy right from the start and I think I’ve mostly figured it out. For one, his helm is a little narrow compared with the show. A lot of the time it’s flared to the side which exposes more of the jaw line. This one is a bit blocky by comparison. Not a big deal, but the kind of thing that does mess with your mind’s eye. The crest on the helm is also curved and I cannot understand why. At first I thought maybe it was a case where the character was drawn differently depending on the angle which wouldn’t be the first time that happened. I can find no evidence of that though. It looks like it should always be straight so having the ends curve was apparently a design choice and I don’t like it. And then the other issue I have are the colors used. They made the helm and the outer pieces of his skirt black. They were never black in the show. They should be gray. The only area of the figure that should be black are the arms, legs, and the face behind the mask. The character is basically just a bunch of gray, and some of these parts should be metallic gray. A good company would paint the embellishments the animation went with to create the illusion of a metallic surface, but instead we get flat colors or bare plastic. Maybe they ended up with this black, or almost black, in these spots because the gray for the main part of the torso is just a bit too dark. I mentioned that it almost has a touch of purple to it, but I do think it should be a little lighter. Am I being nitpicky? I don’t know – I’ll let you decide. I think the main issue is the lack of shading and painted details. With those, I think the colors would blend together better and these issues would be easier to overlook. This isn’t some $15 Playmates special though – this is a $55 figure in a line that’s getting bumped up to $65 after this wave. We should expect better.

Too bad he doesn’t have a scabbard.

Shredder is like a B or a B- looking figure, but unfortunately it’s the strong part of the package. The accessory load-out is merely okay. We get a pretty decent assortment of hands including sets of fists, gripping, and what look to be palm strike hands. The palm strike hands may be intended to function as an alternative gripping hand, but to grip what I don’t know. He also has a right, open, hand for gesturing to the Foot, I guess. It’s a solid spread – no complaints. He also comes with the Sword of Tengu. The sculpt is fine and there’s some painted yellow parts on the hilt, but the blade and the plastic between the painted parts are bare, gray, plastic. It’s that same milky, slightly translucent, plastic that they’ve been using for the weapons and the crest on Shredder’s helm. It almost looks like it’s supposed to be glow-in-the-dark (coincidentally, there is such a version for those who preordered the whole wave through Super7) and just another example of Super7 going cheap and letting down their sculptors. Shredder also has an unmasked head that’s a bitch to get on. That crest is kind of fragile so pulling off the head isn’t easy. The likeness is good though, but they left most of the flesh unpainted so it has a waxy appearance. There is, to my surprise, some shading on the cheekbones and inbetween the eyes, but they used an orange color that looks like someone smeared an orange rind against it. Maybe this is why they don’t often use shading since they’re bad at it? The last accessory is little Ch’Rell out of his suit and looking like he’s up to no good. It’s a slug figure that looks good, but again the lack of paint just keeps it from being as good as it could be. They painted the eyes and the scar over the left eye, but there’s no shading anywhere else. A dark wash would have really brought out the detail here, but instead it looks like the cheap throw-in that it probably is.

He kicks high.

Perhaps Shredder can impress with his articulation. After all, there’s more here than we’re used to with Super7 and unlike the turtles before him there’s no cumbersome shell to work around. The head is a double ball setup with another joint at the base of the neck, but it mostly just rotates and offers some tilt out of the box. I did find that removing the head and then reseating it helped to sit the head just a touch higher which opened up some more forward and back range. The higher sitting head also looks a little better to me (all of my pictures are after adjusting this so if you think his head looks too high know you could force it down further on the ball peg). Standard shoulder hinges are in place and he can raise his arms out to the side 90 degrees and rotate without issue. The elbow joint is like that old style NECA double-joint with a peg and hinge above and below the elbow. It doesn’t look as bad as some of those NECA elbows because they did sculpt a point onto the elbow so you don’t get that weird U shape when utilizing both hinges. There’s also less range to prevent that oddity as Shredder can only bend his elbows a little past 90 degrees. You do get a swivel point above and below the joint effectively giving you a bicep swivel and a forearm swivel as the bicep and forearm are basically plastic sleeves over the joint inside. This is actually quite useful for Shredder because of those forearm gauntlets so you can always make sure they’re aligned with the hand in a manner you like best. The wrists swivel and hinge with the gripping hands having a vertical hinge. Unlike the head, it’s quite easy to swap hands which I appreciate.

These two are destined to battle.

In the torso, we get what is probably a double-ball peg in the diaphragm. This mostly allows for rotation with minimal forward, nothing back, and only a little tilt. The waist twist is just a peg so it only swivels, but at least it’s there. The hips are standard Super7 hips with a hinged ball peg that also has a built-in swivel at the joint which works fine as a substitute for a thigh cut. The knees follow the same engineering as the elbows so you get a joint that will bend past 90 degrees, though perhaps not as far as you would have expected. In this case, I believe the knee pads play a bit of a role. There is also a swivel point both above and below the knee so you essentially have a double boot cut. It’s useful as if you always want the knee cap to align with the toes of the figure then you should be able to do so. The ankles are typical hinge and rockers and the range going back is very good and going forward is fine as there’s enough of the shin cut away to let the foot go forward. The ankle rocker is acceptable. Lastly, there’s that wired sash I mentioned back in the aesthetics portion of the review and even though it’s ugly, the wires at least function well.

Leonardo wins – always.

To my surprise, the articulation for Shredder is pretty good. It’s not perfect. I think the diaphragm could be a little better and a ball joint at the waist would have allowed for at least some forward and back, but he articulates better than most Super7 figures. And his leaner proportions mean his softer parts don’t grind against the hard plastic ones like the turtles. Out of all the Shredder figures I have from various companies he may even articulate the best. I definitely wasn’t expecting that. Is it enough to save the figure? Yes and no. Save is a strong word. I have criticisms of the presentation here, but I still think he looks good on a shelf and in the 2003 collection. It’s an appropriately menacing looking Shredder so Super7 at least accomplished that much. It still probably doesn’t earn the $55 asking price. In addition to my presentation criticisms, the figure still feels like a Super7 offering. It poses reasonably well, but not in a fun way. Everything feels stiff and kind of clunky. It’s a bad in-hand feel like a lot of Super7 figures. There’s no smoothness to any of the joints as most are clicky, almost ratcheted, but also with loose spots. Nothing is floppy, but nothing is smooth. It’s a Super7 figure and you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s worth it to add to your collection. I wanted this guy to pair with the turtles and I at least don’t regret my purchase. Will I six months from now when Amazon has him listed for $35? Maybe. It’s not a given that will happen, but it is likely. I do think this is where I get off the Super7 train though. The other figures in this wave either don’t interest me or don’t look worth the asking price and I am definitely not going up to $65 for this company. If they return to the Playmates looks and finally put up that Heavy Metal Raph then they may get me for the full $65, but from here on out I’m only considering these things on clearance as they’re just not worth what the company is asking for.

“I’ll be back!”

Despite my criticism of Super7 I do have quite a bit of stuff from them:

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

Who isn’t making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures these days? It’s becoming a far easier thing to keep track of than just who is making them. For years, it was the domain of Playmates Toys and only Playmates Toys. NECA tried to get in on that TMNT action in 2008 and it ended prematurely…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Guerrilla Gorilla

It feels like the last few times I’ve made a Super7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles post I’ve wondered if it’s my last one so I’m going to stop trying to predict that. This one comes courtesy of Big Bad Toy Store and their generous summer of deals. I wasn’t going to pick up this particular…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Triceraton

My summer of discounts continues today with yet another Super7 Ultimates! release. Back when wave 7 of Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was unveiled I quickly locked in a preorder for three figures: Punker Don, Robotic Bebop, and Triceraton. By the time the line released way, way, late, I only ended up with…

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by Joe

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March 12, 2026

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Goku – The Games Begin

By Joe
Hey look! Another Goku!

It was around 8 years ago that Bandai released an update to their Goku body. Dubbed the 2.0 mold, the company has since created many action figures of the legendary hero since then. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the sculpt, but some aspects of it have become dated. When Bandai wanted to do an update to Goku’s legendary Super Saiyan form, the company opted to completely redo the body rather than kitbash something together. New molds have been created for the likes of Gohan, Trunks, Krillin, and others and many collectors were left to wonder when Bandai would turn its attention to the protagonist of the series once again – a 3.0 body that it could then utilize for another round of different Goku figures.

This new Goku represents an upgrade over the 2.0 body (left) by incorporating some of the design changes implemented with the Super Hero Gohan (right).

That 3.0 body has arrived. And to debut the look Bandai turned to a pretty familiar look for Goku – that of a Super Saiyan. Dubbed “The Games Begin,” this Goku is specifically from The Cell Games era of Dragon Ball Z, an era of the show and manga most would describe as the peak of the show’s art. Those rounded edges of Dragon Ball and early Z were gone, replaced with sharp angles and well-muscled super men. I’m not here to say that everyone thinks this is the best of DBZ or Dragon Ball as a whole, but if you encounter licensing art outside the show chances are it’s going to resemble this era of the anime. And the franchise has basically retained this style ever since with the most radical departures being the Broly film and Dragon Ball Daima. Perhaps coincidentally, we did get a Daima Goku prior to this one – a figure I didn’t seek out. Some of the articulation tweaks Bandai made for that figure have been carried over to this one and it seems likely that these are here to stay.

Quality control is, unfortunately, a problem here as the faces struggle to fit the hair piece leaving behind small gaps.

The main difference in stylistic approach for this Goku update is the move away from an all sculpt approach to one that mixes sculpted parts with overlays. We saw Bandai kick the tires on such a style with Krillin and the Super Hero version of Gohan. There’s basically a sculpted base body with a rubbery overlay laid over the top of that for the upper portion of the gi. It presents better, and it removes the obstacle of trying to match paints to colored plastic as they no longer have to paint the exposed flesh of the chest, but it does change how the figures articulate. The other big change is the move away from those pegged-in sleeve cuffs Goku used to sport. The portions of the gi that covered his shoulders were always plastic caps that pegged directly into the shoulder. It made articulating the arm easy, but it did look kind of odd. The biggest change though is the move from a double-jointed knee to a single-jointed one. That is basically completely new and it’s the element of this design we saw on the Daima Goku first. Goku’s baggy pants always made sculpting the double joint a little messy and the shape of the pants also limited how much range the figure could get at the knee. Someone at Tamashii Nations must have been looking at that joint and concluded “What’s the point?” If it can only achieve a slightly better than 90 degree bend then why not try a single joint that basically does the same thing and presents better?

The alternate hair is arguable worse when it comes to gaps, and mine has a defect on that center piece of hair as well.

We’ll tackle the presentation element first. This new Goku stands at approximately 5.5″ to where I estimate the top of his head would be under all of the Super Saiyan hair. He’s essentially the same height as the 2.0 Goku when the torso hinge is not extended. If you were someone who liked displaying Goku with his torso stretched to the max then this one is slightly shorter. The faces look enough like Goku while the hair shape is appropriate. The sculpt on the body is more muscled and bulky which is appropriate for this era of the show. It does give him a slightly stocky look though. When I look at individual parts and limbs, it all seems fine, but put together it just looks a little off. Maybe his legs need to be a little longer? Is the neck too thick? There is a hinge in the joint where the head meets the neck and if the head is seated all the way down it makes the issue worse. I definitely prefer it extended. The torso uses some mixed media. We have the soft, orange, overlay with hard plastic underneath it. The overlay has a softer appearance that’s slightly pale compared with the harder plastic parts. It clashes a little with the orange of the lower torso and legs as the two have a different finish. The overlay also doesn’t include Goku’s blue undershirt so Bandai still needed to paint the exposed portion of his chest. The neck, face, and arms are unpainted for the flesh tone, but Bandai got pretty close with the painted part as far as matching the bare plastic goes. Like the overlay, it just has a different finish and thus reflects light differently so there’s a noticeable difference, but it’s not as extreme as we’ve seen with past releases.

The new knees at least turned out well.

The belt is a floating piece while the wristbands are now separate and unpainted. All of the blues on the upper body are different hues which is a little strange looking, but not necessarily inaccurate. The crotch area is done the way we’ve seen Bandai do it with more recent releases like Future Trunks.. Those floating, spacers, are gone and instead we have legs with obvious thigh swivels. Bandai cuts them out on a curve and has the side of the pants run higher than the front which seems needlessly complicated. It looks better from a straight side angle, but from the front it looks worse than an old-fashioned thigh cut. The single jointed knees do present cleaner and the boots are similar to the Legendary Super Saiyan Goku. Most of the paint on this figure is reserved for the details on the boots which is clean. The rest of the paint is mostly shading on the front of the pants which is heavier near the boots and lessens as it moves up the figure’s legs. The hair is done with pale yellow plastic and shaded with a soft orange which is a nice look and probably my preferred approach for Super Saiyan hair.

It would have been nice to get an effect part. I had to take this from a past Goku.

Did Bandai knock this one out of the park in terms of a visual upgrade? Not really. The arms definitely look better without those plastic caps pegged in, but I don’t like the look of the mixed media on the torso. There’s more front-to-back bulk in the torso which was my biggest issue with the old design, but the chest sill comes across as a little flat. The knees are definitely an improvement, but the thighs are not. I really hate this approach Bandai has been using lately. He also has that weird, droopy, butt Daima Vegeta has. I’m pretty conflicted here, so let’s move on to the rest.

This new shin joint is pretty weird.
Range is better, but it can get pretty gappy.

The accessory load out is pretty basic for Goku, but considering he’s in that more budget price of $35-$38 that’s to be expected. We get four faces for this one: stoic, teeth gritting, yelling, and a smirk where his eyes have that rounded-off look to them. We also get two hair pieces in the form of a standard one and a windswept one. Unfortunately, the windswept hair I received has a chewed-up portion on the center piece of hair on the front attachment. It’s pretty awful and I don’t know if I’ll ever display this one as a result. The faces and hair also do not go together well. This is a figure out of the Vietnam factory and we’ve seen that one have issues with the finer details of its output. With this one, it’s a struggle to get the faces to fit flush on either hair piece and you should probably just try and heat the hair first to see if that helps. The spikey nature of the hair also makes trying to use force to fit them together a painful exercise. Swapping the hair is also a pain as the ball peg in the neck will likely pop out first. I was able to pull the piece out of the hair without heat, but it left my fingers in some pain thanks to those spikes. For hands, there’s a set of fists, open, two-finger pointing, clenching, and Goku’s martial arts posed hands and that’s the extent of the hands. They come off and go on with relative ease, at least.

He can at least do a pretty solid Kamehameha pose.

Perhaps even more so than the aesthetics with this figure is the articulation when it comes to its selling points. Bandai has all kinds of silly buzz words associated with it, but what you need to know is this figure articulates a lot like the Gohan figure with only minor differences. The head is one such difference as we do have a hinge in there. There’s a little room cut out of the back of the neck to help with range looking up, but it doesn’t help much and exposes a gap under the chin. He looks down well enough and I can’t tell if the joint at the base of the neck is even doing anything here. The shoulders, the biggest selling points, are hinged ball pegs that plug into a cup inside the shoulder. That cup is on a hinge as well which gets us the butterfly articulation. The arms basically pull out to the side in order to have enough clearance to come across the chest. And it works! Goku can do a fairly convincing Kamehameha. There’s also the usual bicep swivel, double-jointed elbow, and hinged ball peg wrists.

Attempts at a pair of classic Goku stances return mixed results.

In the torso, there’s a ball joint in the diaphragm and a hinge below it for an ab crunch. The range is quite good in all directions, but as we saw with Daima Vegeta it does create large gaps pretty easily. The floating belt can be manipulated to hide it some, but it only does so much. The legs can go out to the side nearly to a full split and kick forward just a hair better than 90 degrees while going back is imepeded by his long, flat, butt. The thigh swivel does what one would expect while the single-hinged knee gets better than 90 degrees of bend going back. In a pretty weird move, Bandai put a joint at the boot, but not what you would expect. Instead of a swivel, it’s a hinge of some kind. It bends maybe 30 degrees forward and I guess it’s for adjustment posing in certain stances. It mostly seems to make standing the figure harder than it should be as this joint is pretty loose. Not floppy, but there’s little resistance. The ankles are ball-hinged so they swivel, hinge forward and back, and rock side-to-side. The range going forward is pretty much nonexistent on the hinge, but the rest is fine. There’s also a toe hinge if you value that.

The Cell Saga has been pretty well represented in this line.

All in all, this one is a bit of a mixed bag. I had high hopes when it was first unveiled and visions of replacing a lot of the Goku figures in my collection with updates on this body, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think I’ll be getting the base Goku and I definitely don’t need Super Saiyan 2 or 3 updates. I don’t really like my current Super Saiyan Blue Goku so I tentatively have the new one on preorder, but it may be one I seek out reviews on to see if some of the finer points are at least cleaned up. Overall, on the articulation front Bandai and Tamashii Nations mostly delivered here. I don’t see much reason for the odd shin hinge, but the shoulders work well and the torso has good range, even if it can get unsightly. I don’t like the head or the thighs and the thighs play a big part in the aesthetics, which I’m less sold on. The proportions and mixed media look best when posed-up, but then you have the gaps to contend with so there’s a feeling like you just can’t win with this one. The quality control issues are also not a point in its favor. The faces don’t fit together well and swapping the hair pieces is not a smooth process leaving a lot to be desired. This may be a budget release as far as the line’s standards are concerned, but it shouldn’t feel like one. And since this is undoubtedly a figure that’s going to be re-released many times over I can’t help but come away disappointed with the end result. If it’s one you want, I would recommend giving it some time. There’s a reissue going up in March and it’s possible some of the quality control issues will be addressed there like they were with Future Trunks. This is the one time where you should avoid buying from anyone who has stock at the time this post goes up and instead seek out a preorder. There are also three other Goku figures on this body due for release in 2026 (base Goku, Super Saiyan God, and Super Saiyan Blue) so maybe check those out to see if the quality gets better before committing to this one.

Interested in some of the figures referenced above? Then check these out:

Dragon Ball Daima S.H.Figuarts Vegeta

Dragon Ball Daima has come and gone, but we’re still getting action figures based on the limited series. When it comes to the Bandai/Tamashii Nations action figure line, that’s usually par for the course. It’s not like the classic movie tie-in toy line where product shows up in stores weeks before the movie hits theaters.…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

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S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Krillin – Earth’s Strongest Man

My Dragon Ball collecting was once simply focused on the original series, Dragon Ball, but has been expanding over the years. I’ve definitely leaned more towards Dragon Ball Super of late, but one of my Dragon Ball Z purchases last year was the event exclusive Nappa. I don’t know why I like Nappa so much.…

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys