Author Archives: Joe

April 6, 2023

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

By Joe

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 thing about not playing a lot of games is that I never got around to playing a lot of the latest and greatest for the PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch, and since it’s cheap to port and upscale an older game, there’s a ton of that sort of thing available on PS5 which lead me to Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

The first time I ever watched a fight unfold on Dragon Ball Z I knew I wanted to experience that in video game form. It’s fast, frenetic, and spectacular. Street Fighter 2 has fireballs and “ki” type attacks, but they weren’t anything like they were in DBZ. Unfortunately, 99% of the DBZ games at the time were region-locked to Japan and if you went through the trouble of either importing them or downloading them you got to find out that they were also terrible. The best games were mediocre, at best, and none of them were truly worth the price. And trust me on that because I did import some and they sucked. The only games released outside of Japan were Dragon Power for the NES, a sidescroller that was altered to the point of being unrecognizable as a Dragon Ball game, and Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, a truly godawful 3D fighter based on the mediocre sequel anime series to DBZ.

In Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot you will play as Goku, as well as other characters, and basically relive the entirety of Dragon Ball Z and then some via an open world environment and lots, and lots, of battles.

Once Dragon Ball Z picked up in popularity in the west the better games started to follow. I was a day one buyer of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai when it was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2002. It was not a great game, but compared to the crap that came before it it felt like a masterpiece. The good thing was that the games only seemed to get better from there. The only problem for me is I found myself getting tired of the fighting genre. I played so many fighting games in the 90s that come the 2000’s I had mostly moved on. Wrestling games and DBZ were really the only fighters I was still dabbling in and they had their own flavor, for sure, but eventually I got burnt out. I was, and still am, mostly into role-playing games so naturally I wanted to see DBZ expand to that genre. And it had in the past in the form of a few card battlers for the Famicom. I even played a ROM hack of the first one and managed to complete it and found it to be a satisfactory experience. There was a similar title released for the Game Boy Color that flew under the radar a bit and that was due to Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku sucking up all of the attention on the Game Boy Advance. That game wasn’t a true RPG and more like a Zelda clone, but it was different so it had that going for it. It also wasn’t very good. The sequel was much better received, but I never played it. Years later I would order a cart on eBay, but it was misdelivered to the wrong address so I never got it and I was out a meager sum of money (this was before the collector market explosion in prices) and I never tried to get another copy.

Other RPG or RPG-style games have followed for Dragon Ball, but I never gave any a shot. I never heard great things about any of them, not that I heard truly negative things either, so I never sought it out. When I heard about Kakarot it did get my attention. It is basically a hybrid fighter/RPG that takes the player through the entire DBZ story, something that has been retold countless times in video game form, but it definitely looks to have a great deal more polish than past games. Some of the fighting games have basically granted you control of the hero characters and dropped you in a sandbox to seek out the bad guys to advance the story so Kakarot isn’t completely unfamiliar. With this game though it seems there’s more emphasis on the progression and freedom to do as you please without making it into a true open-world game on par with The Witcher III or Red Dead Redemption. When the game first dropped in 2020 it received generally positive reviews, though they weren’t over-the-top with praise. It was a game of diminishing returns from what I gathered so I didn’t feel particularly drawn to it. I figured I would get around to it, but I did lose it in the shuffle a bit, but after getting the PS5 I suddenly had reason to give it a shot.

Much of the story is presented with flashy cinematics, some of which are shot-for-shot recreations of the anime.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is like a cross between The Legacy of Goku and the Budokai Tenkaichi series. You start off as Goku and you’re free to fly around the area containing Goku’s house. It’s a fairly large area connected to other regions of Earth via an old school world map feature. As you progress through the game, more areas open up and even off-world areas. While exploring, you will encounter random bad guys that can be either dealt with or ignored to some degree. You will also run into NPCs that range from random earthlings to notable characters. Your next story destination is always marked with a red indicator while side missions are designated blue when available. Side missions range from battles to fetch quests, for the most part, and some will involve characters from the show and others won’t. It’s pretty straight-forward and progressing through the game will unlock the ability to play as additional heroes from the show. Even though the game is called Kakarot, Goku’s Saiyan name at birth, you don’t exclusively play as Goku. If you’re familiar with DBZ’s story, then you know that Goku will be dead for portions of it and in the game he won’t even be available to you during those times. The game just sticks with the canon story, which is basically all of the stuff from the manga so no Garlic Jr, no Other World tournaments, and definitely no villains from the movies. Not everything you do and see is strictly canon though as there are ways to bring back villains to battle again and there’s a game-only bonus boss fight as well, but for the most part, the game just gives you the main story.

The actual fights are similar to an arena fighter with the camera behind the player. You lock onto enemies that way your character is essentially always facing their direction, but you’re able to move about in a free manner.

Battle is obviously an important component to this game and it plays out like an arena fighter, but simplified. The camera is positioned behind the player character and you will be tasked with dispatching one or more other fighters. I think the max amount of enemies on-screen at any one time is six, but I could be wrong and it may be more. The face buttons on the controller map to the following commands: melee attack, ki attack, dash, charge ki. The dash is more like a movement button that also allows you to perform vanish attacks when blocking. Blocking is mapped to a shoulder button along with the special attack commands. Pressing L1 on the PS5 controller in tandem with a face button unleashes a special move. This can be a melee attack or one of the signature ki attacks from the series like the Kamehameha or Special Beam Cannon. R1 does the same, but for your allies. In most fights, you can have up to two supporting fighters and they will have two special moves each mapped to a face button. You have to manage your health, ki, and the support move meter of your allies throughout. Ki will go down as you fire off special moves or use the vanish command and can be replenished with the charge button. The support character meter will regenerate over time. There’s also a third meter called the surge gauge which fills up as you dish out punishment. Once that fills up you can enter a super-charged surge mode which strengthens attacks and makes your character move faster. It’s not of much use early in the game, but later on it adds the ability to restore health while it’s active which is invaluable in the hardest boss fights. There’s another meter, the Z combo meter, that is basically unseen, but fills as you call upon your allies for support attacks. Once it’s full, you’ll be able to unleash a Z combo which is basically a cinematic, team, attack initiated by pressing two shoulder buttons. It’s neat and can really pull you out of a jam as it’s unblockable and basically cancels whatever your opponent was doing in the moment. Lastly, there’s also an items menus accessible via the D-pad which contains a list of a equipped items that mostly just restore health.

Sometimes you’re able to bring along some friends, though never more than two.

Tackling opponents in DBZ: Kakarot is pretty straight-forward once you get the hang of it. Most of the fodder enemies aren’t very hard and can be overwhelmed pretty easily with melee attacks. The more powerful enemies are much better at blocking and many will enter into states where they can’t be staggered via attacking. All of them can also enter into this flaming, red, state which indicates they’re charging up an attack. If that attack lands it will leave your character stunned and open for a free hit. It’s a bit odd because the game doesn’t tell you about that ability and you may be wondering how you perform the same, but you simply can’t. It’s a special move that only the CPU can make use of. As your characters get stronger, the enemies on the world map will become even easier. If you’re dashing around the map and happen to contact them you may even get an automatic win without even having to enter into the battle mode. Harder enemies will exhibit more of a pattern as well where they’ll go into various different, scripted, attacks you will have to either avoid or figure out the proper way to counter. They also get to benefit from generous amounts of health relative to what the player has and the hardest encounters won’t allow you to use items. This is when the ability to heal via the surge mode really comes into play.

Z Combos are unblockable, cinematic, team-up, attacks that can certainly help swing the tide of battle.

Character progression in the game is very much like any other RPG. Participating in battles and completing quests will award the player with experience which will in turn allow the player to level-up. The initial level cap is 100, but you can blow past that in the post game content. Each character has access to a character progression grid where they learn moves and abilities. Each character can equip four attack moves at a time and they also have access to passive buffs and abilities and the amount of those abilities that can be equipped increases with every ten levels. Characters learn these new moves and abilities by spending Z orbs, which are all over the place when buzzing around the world. The most plentiful way to acquire them though is via battling and completing quests. In the main game, I almost never had to go farming for orbs, but in the post game I did often. Some moves are also learned by training and early on a ton of moves and abilities will be locked. They become unlocked as you progress further into the story so no learning how to go Super Saiyan with Goku before you even fight Raditz. Speaking of which, transformations are in the game and they’re separately equipped. Almost all of them are added via the story mode. For Goku, he can also just go to any transformation he has available so you don’t have to power-up to Super Saiyan, then go Super Saiyan 2, before you can go Super Saiyan 3 in a fight. If you have access to the Super Saiyan 3 transformation then you can just go straight to that. Late in the game, you can also learn auto-transformations which will start you off in battle in that form. More importantly, it removes the ki-drain penalty the forms possess which is pretty huge as exhausting your ki in battle will revert the character to their base form. With Auto Super Saiyan 3 equipped, that basically makes Super Saiyan 3 Goku’s base form. Fusion is also available for the characters it applies to, but both characters need to be in the battle party and it’s triggered like any other transformation. Even though Fusion has a time limit in the show, for the game it just lasts for the duration of the fight.

When you’re done with the main story, more adventure awaits via paid DLC. This will give you access to Goku and Vegeta’s other transformations like Super Saiyan God.

The character roster for the game is pretty large, but deceptively so. Basically, everyone you would expect to be in the game is, and most of them are voiced by the actors from the anime as well. There are a few who are different, but it’s not terribly distracting (except for adult Mai who has a voice befitting her child form from Dragon Ball Super). For player characters, you’re actually pretty limited. They are: Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. You can also fight as Gotenks and Vegito via the Fusion technique. Characters like Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, Goten, 18, and so on are support fighters only. They can level-up, learn moves, and join you in battle, but you can’t directly control them. Who you can utilize is dictated by where you are in the main story, but generally speaking, you’re free to swap characters in and out as you please. You can’t change who you’re controlling during battle though, only when outside of it. To further boost your abilities there’s what’s called the Community Board. These are a bunch of grids where character coins can be placed. Each character is assigned a rating in various subcategories which can be improved upon by giving them gifts, which are just items found all throughout the game. It’s a bit messy and convoluted, but as you acquire the character tokens and get a feel for it the feature starts to make more sense. Take the Z Fighter board as an example. Leveling it up basically improves battle performance by adding permanent buffs like melee damage bonuses and ki attack increases and so on. Goku is the centerpiece of that board. He naturally will work better with certain allies and placing Gohan, for example, next to Goku will add 2 points to the Z Fighter score plus whatever Gohan’s Z Fighter value is. A character can get to a maximum of 30 in any one category, though they’re natural max could be miniscule. You can permanently boost it with special items, but generally speaking, you want to place tokens according to their strength. Gohan is a great fighter, but a terrible cook, so you probably won’t want to put him on the cooking board. It sounds confusing in writing, but it’s not so bad in practice and it even becomes fun trying to best place characters so that you can max out as many boards as possible and as early as possible.

And let’s not forget Super Saiyan Blue.

And speaking of cooking, that is yet another way you can boost your power in the game. Throughout the world there is various flora and fauna to collect. There’s even a fishing mini game which the game will introduce you to almost right off the bat. Campfires dot the landscape of every area and the player can fry up a fish or a deer to get a quick boost, but the best bonus items come via meals. You can have cooks, or even Chi Chi, prepare gigantic feasts if you have the proper ingredients and hunt down the recipe. These meals will often add significant attribute boosts which last for a limited time and can make taking down certain enemies a lot more manageable. I found that cooking wasn’t something I had to rely on, but it helped the few times I was underleveled when faced with a task. Usually, said task was an optional one or a training exercise as getting through the game was pretty painless, but it was nice to have that trump card in my back pocket. There’s also a side activity that lets you build cars or bipedal walker-type devices which honestly can be ignored. The cars can be used for races to get money, which you basically will never need, and the walkers can help hunt minerals which is another thing you will rarely have to hunt hard for.

The Trunks DLC has been my favorite of the four as it allows you to experience the events of Trunks’ future before he travels back in time as well as after he returns from the past.

In terms of extra stuff there’s a whole bunch that Kakarot has to offer. Most of the training available is stuff you will want to do, but there’s also bonus training available later in the game located at Capsule Corp. This training is a bit harder, but is also how you learn the very useful auto-transform abilities. There’s also the Dragon Balls which can be hunted down to make a wish. You will have some generic wishes like a wish for money or Z orbs, but the best ones allow you to resurrect defeated villains. They’ll come back stronger than before and are great for earning extra experience. This is also the only way to get their character token. Throughout the game there will also be “Villainous” enemies which are like super-powered clones of more famous enemies. As you take them out, they’ll be replaced with harder versions until you eventually defeat them all and unlock the game’s optional boss. Again, defeating these are mostly just a way to earn extra experience or Z orbs, you’ll likely need to be at max level to beat the final one anyway, but the challenge makes it fun. You’ll gain access to the time machine so you can go back and complete any side missions you may have missed or just to take on a past enemy once again. And then there’s the downloadable content. As of right now, four scenarios are available and they are: Beerus, Golden Frieza, Future Trunks and Bardock. The first two basically just let you play through the events of the final two Dragon Ball Z movies: Battle of Gods and Resurrection F. Those also happen to be the first two arcs of Dragon Ball Super. They give Goku and Vegeta access to more transformations while increasing the level cap to 300. Content wise, they’re a bit light as you basically just battle Beerus in the first one before gaining access to training with Whis on the home planet of Beerus. The Frieza arc grants you access to a new region on Earth and also unlocks horde battles which just pits the player against scores of enemies. They’re honestly a bit dull, but Frieza presents a solid challenge as does Beerus. The Trunks story is basically The History of Trunks and it’s almost like a whole new game as it takes place entirely in the alternate timeline where Goku and the others were murdered by the androids (or, in Goku’s case, a virus) and only Trunks and Gohan survived. It’s actually pretty cool because it continues past the defeat of Cell and lets you play as Trunks as he tries to prevent the awakening of Majin Buu in his timeline. And as you probably could guess, the Bardock one is an adaptation of the other DBZ OVA: Bardok – The Father of Goku. You get to play as the doomed Saiyan as he tries to prevent the annihilation of his race at the hands of Frieza. Upon finishing it, you will also gain access to a Prince Vegeta sidestory which is pretty cool.

The latest DLC puts the player in control of Bardok, and for a little while a young Prince Vegeta, but more is on the way. Unfortunately for Bardok, there’s no changing the past in this game.

Of the new stuff, the Trunks add-on was my favorite. Part of the charm this game possesses for a longtime fan is you do get to see more than what the anime shows. I suppose none of it is canon, but there’s a moment where Trunks relays a story to his mother about what it was like to spend a year with Vegeta in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber so you get little character moments the show didn’t have time for. We get to see a bit more of Vegeta taking Goku’s death pretty hard following the battle with Cell and there’s some other stuff sprinkled in there that I quite enjoyed. All of the technical bits of the game are also top-notch: good music, good voice acting, terrific visuals. It’s a fan’s sort of game and I hope they keep it going with more downloadable content. I’d love to get the Goku Black Saga and the Tournament of Power or either Dragon Ball Super movie would be welcomed as well. The next one slated for release presently doesn’t have a release date, but it’s supposed to detail Goku’s battle with Piccolo Jr. at the end of Dragon Ball. I’m curious to see how the game is able to pad that one out so it feels as substantial as the other add-ons, but it’s cool to get more from the original Dragon Ball series.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is not a game for the ages, but if you’re into Dragon Ball, this is about as good as it gets. I only wish it started earlier with the original Dragon Ball and let us get to Dragon Ball Z followed by Dragon Ball Super. It might have made for a fun juxtaposition going from the more grounded early days of the franchise to the frenetic days of DBZ. Even without that, there’s still a ton of content here and the fact that I’m over 90 hours into it and still willing to play more is testament to that. The gameplay is simple, but rewarding, and while it can get monotonous when you’re hunting items down and getting attacked relentlessly by weaker enemies, I never found myself truly bored or frustrated. I’ve played through and watched this story so many times at this point, but Kakarot helps make it entertaining once again by really delivering on the story beats that matter. It’s like getting a cliff notes version of the show and honestly very little gets left out. The only fight not in the game I was expecting to participate in was Future Trunks vs Perfect Cell, but I guess they didn’t want to create a character model for the bulked up version of Trunks and that’s fine. If you love Dragon Ball Z and are sick of traditional fighting games, then I definitely think Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is worth taking for a spin. The base game is probably enough for most people to get their fill and it’s not very expensive relative to a new game these days. And if you’re like me, when you finish it you’ll likely want more and you have four scenarios just waiting for you if so. That’s about the only criticism I can levy is that if you don’t care about experiencing Goku’s Super Saiyan God transformations then you could probably skip two of the downloadable scenarios (they’re also not free), but the Future Trunks one is definitely worth investing money and time in and I also enjoyed Bardok’s story. This game is simply a good time and you’re likely to walk away from it feeling like you too can unleash a mighty Kamehameha on command.

Some more video games and movies from the Dragon Ball franchise awaits:

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure

In the West, it took awhile for Dragon Ball to make an imprint with US audiences. It was localized and brought over in the mid-90s in the hopes of making money in syndicated markets. There were over 200 episodes, so the reasoning was sound, but it just didn’t take off. It wasn’t until the property…

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by Joe

Dragon Ball Z – Budokai HD Collection

Oh, you thought we were done with DBZ?! Oh no, I have some more Dragon Ball related material to share with you and even though we’re done with the movies, I thought now was as good a time as any to talk about some video games. If you’re a usual reader, you may recall I…

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Dragon Ball Z – Resurrection ‘F’

Dragon Ball Super still feels very much like a new series to me, which is kind of funny since it just concluded with episode #131. Although it may have just ended (and production company Toei Animation has suggested it’s likely to continue), I’m currently about 80 episodes behind since I’ve been watching it on Cartoon…

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by Joe

Leave a comment | posted in Video Games

April 3, 2023

Mondo X-Men TAS 1/6 Scale Magneto

By Joe
Behold! The Master of Magnetism!

If you showed a random individual this blog and asked them what my favorite cartoon was as a kid I’m guessing they would go with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And they wouldn’t be wrong as that was my favorite for a time, but come 1992 I was starting to drift away from that show. Batman: The Animated Series hit the airwaves and with it came a renewed interest in the caped crusader which really was coasting off of the recent success of Batman Returns. I don’t think I would have ever named that show my favorite though, but in looking back on it I can say it probably was the best cartoon series of the 90s. My favorite would soon follow in the form of X-Men, the unlikely hit for the Fox Kids Network that debuted on television sets on Halloween 1992. Because the show ran into some production snags, the show wouldn’t really get off and running until 1993, but before 1992 was over we would be introduced to the signature villain of the series: Magneto.

Magneto debuted on November 27th in the appropriately titled episode “Enter Magneto.” In it, we would be introduced to one of the most nuanced villains in superhero comics. Magneto, a victim of humanity’s most extreme form of cruelty as a Holocaust survivor, wants to exert dominance over all of humanity in the name of mutant supremacy. As his rival, Charles Xavier, described it, Magneto feels a war is brewing between humans and mutants and he intends to be ready. Xavier, for his part, believes there is a path to peace that doesn’t involve violence, but that’s partly because he didn’t have his sense of optimism crushed by the Nazis. When presented in that lens, Magneto may not seem right, but he’s definitely understandable and if he wasn’t opposite our beloved heroes then maybe we could even see ourselves rooting for him. The show was almost too good at making Magneto likable as he really wasn’t much of a villain following the next episode, “Deadly Reunions.” He wouldn’t show up again until the Season One finale where he teamed-up with the X-Men to take down the Sentinels. Season Two would see he and Xavier stranded in the Savage Land for the entirety of the season’s run essentially extending the team-up for another 13 episodes. Following that, he would mostly serve as an unlikely ally of sorts. The two-parter “Sanctuary” saw him try to separate himself and his followers from humanity, only to be undermined by one of his followers. He joined the ranks of the villains for the intended big finale “Beyond Good and Evil” which felt a bit forced. He’d also come back around to the side of the X-Men before the story’s conclusion and it looks like he’s going to be a member of the team when the show returns this fall in the form of X-Men ’97.

Artwork by Dan Veesenmeyer.

Maybe Magneto didn’t turn out to be the biggest villain of the show, but he was still quite memorable and damn likeable. It’s for that reason that I am left to assume that Magneto was given the honor of being the second release in Mondo’s line of X-Men action figures. It was in 2021 that Mondo revealed it had acquired the license for X-Men and did so by showing off Wolverine in its line of sixth scale action figures. I got my mitts on that figure in early 2022 and it was one of my favorite releases of the year. Mondo solicited Magneto in the fall and he has finally arrived. As the second figure in the line, Magneto does feel like a bold choice. Gambit, Cyclops, and other members of the team might have been safer, but this is a line that’s not after massive sales or casual fans. It’s a scale not a lot of folks collect and at a price point that’s certainly prohibitive (around $220). Still, if you want a representation of a character from the show then it’s hard to do better than Mondo. The only comparable is the mini busts released by Diamond which certainly look terrific, but aren’t action figures. Hasbro did its own line of figures last year, but they’re not even comparable given the difference in price, scale, and overall quality and dedication to the source material. And while I am not a sixth scale collector by nature, what Mondo is doing with this property is basically exactly what I want to see from a company tackling X-Men so I had to grab the Master of Magnetism.

And get this, the flap on the window box is secured by…a magnet!

Magneto comes in an impressive box. Perhaps not as flashy as Wolverine’s comic con exclusive packaging, but it is comparable to the non-exclusive version of Wolverine that followed. It’s a mostly white box adorned with production artwork from the show. There’s also a new image of Magneto by storyboard artist Dan Veesenmeyer, the same artist who handled Hasbro’s VHS packaging which is a nice bit of both synergy and authenticity. The art is great, though I do feel inclined to point out that it depicts Magneto from later in the series so the costume doesn’t match the figure in the box. There’s a nice write-up on Magneto inside the flap by showrunner Eric Lewald and contributing writer Julia Lewald. It is a window box and when pulled away you get a nice look at the figure in the plastic tray inside. It’s flashy, but I’m an opener so I felt no guilt when I cut into this to pull Magneto out.

“Better to die on our feet than live on our knees!” Magneto got all of the best lines.

Once removed, Magneto stands at approximately 12″ making him scale to about six feet. This has been a source of criticism for the line in the early going as Wolverine was around 10.75″. In looking at the model sheets for the show, Magneto was intended to be 6.5′ tall so the figure is a little small. Wolverine was a mere 5.3′ so his figure is too tall if we’re talking true sixth scale, but only by a quarter of an inch. Like a lot of action figure lines, my assumption is the scale isn’t true to life and Mondo is trying to bring the short characters up a little while bringing the tall ones down a little in the interest of keeping costs down. True sixth scale would have put Magneto at 13″ while Wolverine would be 10.5″. Does that matter? It’s one of those things that’s going to vary from person to person. I think a little more separation would have been nice, but I don’t care that much and I wouldn’t be surprised if Magneto was drawn closer to 6′ anyway in the show as Cyclops is intended to be right around that mark, but I swear he and Magneto stood around eye-to-eye.

They’re probably not true sixth scale, but at least Magneto is noticeably taller than Wolverine.

Collectors can fuss over the scale all they want, but what I think few would debate is that this figure is gorgeous. Magneto looks like he’s been ripped right from the show. The shade of red for this costume is perfect, the colors used to apply the cel-shading look correct, and the paint job is immaculate. His default head is a stoic one and I love the black shading just above the eyebrows and in between the eyes and brow. The cape is all plastic which is the right move if you want the figure to look like the source material as a soft goods one just won’t match what was painted on the cel. The inside of the cape is a dark purple while the outside is the softer lavender we’re accustomed to seeing. It sits high on the figure, which is also screen accurate for those early appearances as Magneto was often floating rather than standing. Magneto has his red gloves, which was how he was depicted in his first appearance, and the collar area is also filled-in with lavender. His later appearances would have red and sometimes he had purple gloves. The proportioning looks really nice and I like the true-to-the-source-material musculature on his chest and abdomen. About the only thing I’d consider even close to an eyesore on the figure is Mondo’s double-jointed knees. There is a noticeable gap between the end of the thigh and the joining knee piece. It doesn’t bother me, as this is an action figure and action figures have joints, but I’ve seen some express displeasure in how that turned out. I’ll get into it more when we get to articulation.

Both can manage their signature pose from the show’s iconic opening.

Magneto looks tremendous out of the box, but Mondo also included a bunch of stuff to really add some excitement to your display. Magneto comes with fist hands in the box, but he also has a set of wide open hands and a set of slightly clenched hands. The clenched hands evoke images of X-Men #1 in my mind, the Jim Lee one, and the image of Magneto on the cover with his hand out in front of him. The splayed hands are more in-line with how he demonstrated his powers in the show, and to do that Mondo also included some effect parts. We get two, conical, translucent pieces with yellow rings painted on them. To best show them off, we get another set of splayed hands with magnets at the center. The effect parts attach to those magnets effortlessly and look fantastic. There’s also a second, right, fist with a magnet on the back of it which seems like a direct call-out to Magneto’s pose during the opening credits of the show when the camera zooms in on his face before the good guys and bad guys clash. It’s a terrific idea and given that Wolverine has his sparking effect from the opening credits I wonder if recreating such scenes will be a priority going forward for Mondo?

Don’t piss him off Wolverine.

Magneto has even more stuff to help show off. He also comes with a tangled mess of shrapnel that also features a magnet in it. It’s sculpted really well and painted even better and it also features a little shout-out to the show by containing Xavier’s watch. There’s also a long, bendable, metal pipe, or cable, that I assume is intended to wrap around a foe. The bendable component isn’t quite good enough to pull that off without some finagling. It looks nice though, but isn’t as functional as it could be. We also have a stand and it’s the same stand included with all Mondo figures. For Wolverine, it wasn’t necessary and with Magneto it’s basically useless as it doesn’t fit between his body and cape. You could probably make it fit, but that’s more likely to scratch the paint on the inside of the cape than it is to provide actual stability. It’s also all black and not the least bit flashy so it’s an easy accessory to leave in the box.

Magneto doesn’t just have powers and extra hands to add some shelf presence, but extra heads as well. The stoic head is the one that comes on the figure, but he also has an angry, teeth-gritting, expression that is just fantastic. I love this head as Mondo painted black all around his eyes which is how the character is often drawn. I don’t ever want to see a helmeted Magneto figure not feature some black shading around the eyes and this head is proof of how awesome that can look. If you prefer your Magneto sans helmet, he has an unmasked head as well. It features his long, flowing, locks and the look is much better than the unmasked Wolverine head that came with that figure. The only thing I’m not crazy about is that Mondo used a lot of blue when shading the hair and I think they overdid it. It also would have been nice to get an empty helmet for him to hold when sporting this look, but if you position one of the helmeted heads just right, you can fake it. This first edition of Magneto also comes with two bonus heads that won’t be on the standard retail version currently up for preorder. First up, we have Magneto as The Leader from the episode “One Man’s Worth.” It’s basically Magneto with a beard and even longer hair, though he also looks a bit worse for ware. It’s pretty cool, though The Leader had a different costume so the look isn’t that convincing. Magneto did have a beard at times in the show so I suppose it works just as well for that. Like the unmasked head, there’s a bit too much blue for my liking in the beard and hair, but otherwise it’s pretty cool. Magneto also comes with the Evil Morph head. Wolverine had good guy Morph, and Magneto gets the evil version. It makes some sense since it was Morph who tricked Xavier into going to the Savage Land by impersonating Magneto, though he morphed his entire body to resemble Magneto and at no point was he presented as Magneto, but with his own head. It’s more of a gag inclusion, I suppose. The likeness on the Morph head looks awesome though and I do hope we get a full figure some day. Perhaps it will come with a different, evil, expression so as not to make this accessory redundant. The heads are all easy to swap, but you do have to be careful with the un-helmeted head and The Leader due to its long hair. There’s a tendency to want to pull the head back, but that will cause the hair to scrape against the neck and it will lead to paint rub. It will likely be hidden when another head is put on, but it’s something to be mindful of.

“We have to go help the others take down the Sentinels. Hop in, we’ll take the Blackbird!” “Umm, Logan, that’s…”

The articulation for Wolverine was what I would term basic, and with Magneto it’s more of the same, but less functional. The head is on a double ball peg so you can rotate it and have Magneto look down and he can look up slightly. With the no-helmet look, his ability to look up is further restricted by his hair. The shoulders are just ball hinges and he can raise his arms out to the side and rotate as far as the cape will let him. There’s no biceps swivel as instead there’s a swivel at the elbow which works fine. The single hinge grants just shy of 90 degrees of bend while the wrists swivel and hinge. The hands sit pretty deep on the bracers of his forearms though which restrict the ability to swivel. You will want to pull them out slightly to create more range before working at it (more on that to come). None of the hands seem to want to swivel on the ball hinge in the hands like I think they’re supposed to which would allow you to line the hinge up in whatever direction you want. Maybe I’m wrong though. There’s a ball joint in the diaphragm, but the cape isn’t going to let it do much. It basically just tilts to the side and bobbles forward a bit. It honestly could have been omitted entirely. There’s a waist twist below that which works fine and the hips are on some big old ball pegs. The diaper piece will restrict some motion, but he can kick pretty far, especially if you let the legs go out to the side a bit as they’ll want to do. He can almost do a split and there’s some thigh swivel at that point too. The double-jointed knees will let Magneto bend past 90 degrees and there’s basically a boot swivel at the base of the joint. It’s a bit awkward looking, but functional. Since the cape makes the ability to bend past 90 moot one could argue that Mondo could have simplified the joint and come away with something that looked better. As I said before, I don’t hate the look of the joint, but there’s some merit to that argument. Lastly, we have ankle hinges and rockers which work well. All of the joints are pretty smooth except for the diaphragm which is a bit loose. He holds his pose, but it could be tighter. More importantly, the lower half is plenty tight which creates a strong base which is important for a figure as back-heavy as this one. I haven’t had any shelf dives yet, but I’m definitely placing him near or against the wall on my shelf for peace of mind.

“I said ‘hop in!'”

Now for the part of the review that’s not as rosy, but does have a happy ending. I ran into some QC issues with my Magneto. The first was that I was missing a hand. My figure came with duplicate, splayed, right, hands and I was missing the one with the magnet in it. That was a bummer since I’d have much preferred to be missing the non-magnet hand, but at least I had the right fist with the magnet still so my figure could utilize multiple effect parts. The other issue was with the left fist right out of the box. When I want to rotate it the fist just came right off shearing at the post. The ease with which it happened tells me it was likely damaged before it ever got to me as the posts on all of the hands are cast in a very stiff plastic. I was able to drill the post out of the figure so I could still make use of the other left hands in the box, but I no longer had a left fist. If we were talking about a 20 dollar figure here I might have just let it go, but since this guy is rather pricey I figured I should reach out to Mondo to see if they had any spare parts. If they had suggested an exchange I might have taken that too, though I was so happy with the paint job on my figure it would have been tough. Instead, Mondo just apologized and told me a brand, new, figure was being shipped to me. I didn’t even have to return the other one. While it sucks to run into problems with any item purchased, with customer service like that it’s really of no concern since that’s about as good as it gets when it comes to taking care of the customer. And now my best friend gets a free Magneto that’s just missing a left fist and right, magnet, hand. Or at least, he would, if not for my experiencing the same issues with the second figure. I was able to remove the left fist from it no problem, but the right sheared off at the peg once again and I had to go into that one with a drill. I think part of the issue is that the hands should rotate on the peg inserted into them on the ball joint, with the peg in the forearm just providing stability. I tried heating all of the spare hands and I got some to actually move on the ball joint pretty well, but one of the clenchy hands actually snapped off of the peg in the ball so there’s another hand down. Both pegs, the one in the hand and the one in the forearm, are hexagonal and not smooth and round so they’re just not great at spinning. I’m guess Mondo does it this way to prevent looseness, but the fail right in my experience is too high with this setup. Again, if you buy from Mondo getting a replacement should be no problem so I don’t think it’s enough to scare away potential buyers, but definitely go easy and treat the hands delicately. And maybe be wary about buying this figure from other locations, especially eBay or other reseller places.

Soon comes the hard part: making room for Jubilee!

Mondo’s second entry in this line is a pretty damn fine one. Magneto looks incredible, and while the articulation isn’t likely to impress many, the number of heads and effect parts included make finding a dynamic pose rather effortless. The only downside is he’s so big and heavy that finding a proper flight stand poses a significant challenge. I’d love to find a way to display him levitating, but the included stand is rather useless when it comes to that task and finding another has yet to yield results. The combination of the large figure and the rigid cape poses quite the challenge there. Thankfully, the figure looks so damn good that it doesn’t take much for it to impress. The sculpt and paint alone mean this guy can’t possibly look boring even when placed in the most vanilla of poses. I think I even prefer him to last year’s Wolverine, which was my personal figure of the year, because Mondo just absolutely nailed the look of Magneto from the show. A special shout out to sculptor Alex Brewer for that and Mark Bristow for the paint. They really did an unbelievable job and I can’t wait to see what’s next for this line.

More from the world of X-Men: The Animated Series:

Mondo X-Men TAS Wolverine 1/6 Scale SDCC Exclusive Action Figure

When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…

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Previously on X-Men: The Making of an Animated Series

A lot of cartoons made an impact on me as a child. My first love was The Real Ghostbusters. Its goofy cast of characters and excitement were plenty of fun and there were interesting toys to supplement the series with, which was pretty much the goal of all cartoons in the 80s. The Teenage Mutant…

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X-Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series

A few years ago, I talked about my love of X-Men, the animated series, via a book review of Previously…on X-Men by Eric Lewald. That book chronicled the development of the 92 animated series that helped propel the Fox Kids Network to the top of the Saturday morning leaderboards through notes from the author and…

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

March 30, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Gamma 1 and Gamma 2

By Joe
Are you ready to experience the latest in android technology?

Last year saw the release of a brand new film in the Dragon Ball franchise: Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. The mouthful of a title was a bit of a throwback affair. It seemed that Toei and series creator Akira Toriyama wanted to use the film to return the spotlight to Gohan and Piccolo, two characters who had been sidelined in Dragon Ball Super in favor of the two Saiyan boys, Goku and Vegeta. The film also marked the return of longtime adversary the Red Ribbon Army and with it came two new androids for the good guys to pummel: Gamma 1 and Gamma 2. I’m not sure if there was an embargo on the new characters when it came to action figures or if Bandai just wanted to give fans a chance to see the characters in action first, but two new figures of the pair were introduced via the Premium Bandai route and recently started shipping. These are made-to-order figures sold exclusively by Bandai direct to consumer. Presumably, there’s a bit of a crowd-fund element at play, similar to what we see with Super7, whereby if not enough orders came in then the project would get scrapped, but evidently that didn’t happen. Perhaps Bandai also sees softer sales with either movie characters or new ones which is why this pair went the “premium” route. The inclusion of added parts for Gohan with each figure also adds to the feeling that maybe confidence in the pair wasn’t super high. The two were at least priced in a more reasonable window at $70 a piece. While this is a lot higher than the retail releases for the film of Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, and Piccolo, they also feels like bigger releases as they come with a lot more stuff and they’re not reused molds from past figures. They do basically share all of the same parts save for the heads which is why I’m going to review them together.

There is a bit of a dorky element at play with these two. Think Ginyu Force.

The Gamma boys come in the traditional window box packaging the S.H.Figuarts line is known for. There’s product shots, or renders, combined with a gold backdrop that seems to be part of the Super Hero theming. Out of their respective boxes, Gamma 1 and 2 stand at approximately 5.75″ to the top of their heads not including their stylish fins. And those fins are the main things that distinguish the pair as Gamma 1 has one, center, fin on his head while Gamma 2 has, appropriately enough, two fins set off to the side. The only other thing that separates them is their choice in color for the cape and the number on their chest. Sculpt-wise, the bodies are entirely the same save for the head. Both characters have a dark gray skin tone with a light gray face. They have a bit of a shark thing going on with their heads and the circular ears do give them a distinctive Toriyama feel to their design. Their bodies are clothed in a soft yellow military suit which is all unpainted plastic. The only paint on these guys is reserved for the buttons on the double-breasted jacket and the cuffs of the sleeves along with the painted numeral on the chest. And that paint is not that well done. The buttons look cheap and the edgework is not the sharpest. The actual yellow portions of the suit are okay. It’s mostly matte, but the softer plastic for the bottom of the coat does have a different look to it than the harder plastic bits. The knees and elbows are a touch darker than the rest, but it probably won’t be that noticeable on a shelf. I would also argue the shade is a touch off to the source material. These guys have more of a mustard to the yellow in comparison with the film. There is the customary Red Ribbon logo on the left shoulder and that looks clean, but overall, the paint is not a strong suit here.

Unlike most Dragon Ball villains, these two actually use a gun.

The rest of the aesthetics are generally good. The faces look appropriate and I like the height of the characters for the line. The boots have a very glossy appearance, but that seems intentional given their presentation in the film. The cape is hard plastic with a hinge which I think looks mostly fine. I wasn’t crazy about the segmented cape on the Proud Namekian Piccolo so I don’t mind the simpler approach here. The only thing I’m not crazy about are the shoulders as they do the Goku thing of having part of the material just pinned on. With Goku, I don’t like it, but I always understood it to a degree because he has short sleeves that extend onto his shoulder. Here, it’s a suit that just has shoulder pads and a V shape to it so I wish they just left it alone. I don’t think it would have reduced the articulation in a meaningful way and it would have looked better. I find myself fussing with these shoulder pieces more than I would like as I try to hide gaps and get them into a more natural pose.

I hate these ball-hinged heads because you can’t put the hinge where you want to. The heads are grooved to fit that tab visible on Gamma 2 so for him his hinge will always be on the side while Gamma 1’s is more centered. As far as I can tell, there’s no easy way to rotate just that barrel piece that slots into the head.

With that in mind, lets just jump to the articulation since both figures are the same and then we’ll talk about the accessories. Both figures use a ball-hinge for the head connected with a ball-peg system at the base of the neck. I don’t know why they did it this way, but it sure is annoying. You will have to manipulate the direction the hinge is face if you want more nuance posing, but they can look down and rotate and the lower neck joint helps to add more character. It can get a little gappy though if you tilt it back too far. Doing so with the hinge in the proper orientation and in conjunction with the hinged-ball peg system of the diaphragm can get both figures into a good flying pose. That diaphragm joint also provides rotation and tilt, though you do have to be mindful of the chest buttons when crunching forward. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs so they have some play at that peg while also being able to rotate all around and lift up past a horizontal position. The shoulder pad ruffle, or whatever you want to call it, pegs in and can be pushed aside. There is a butterfly joint here as well which can bring the arms pretty much clear across the chest. It does expose some gaps in the back as butterfly joints tend to do, but it’s not as hideous as some others and the colors are consistent at least. There is a biceps swivel and the double-jointed elbows will bend all the way forward as these guys have pretty thin arms. At the wrist, the usual hinged ball peg is present that allows for plenty of rotation.

These crossed arm pieces never work as seamlessly as they should.

At the waist, we get another hinged ball peg so these guys can rotate and tilt. The floating belt does get in the way so you don’t get maximum crunch, but working in tandem with the diaphragm joint should give you enough forward and back. The bottom of the jacket is done with multiple, soft, pieces of plastic so it doesn’t impede the legs from kicking forward way past horizontal or stop the figure from doing splits. They also lack a true posterior so they can kick all the way back. There is a thigh swivel which is conveniently hidden by the coat and the double-jointed knees bend well past 90 degrees. The ankles are on ball joints so you get plenty of range going back, some forward, and rocker, but it’s not the prettiest sight as it tends to make the figures look like their feet are separate from their shin. It’s probably not as noticeable on the shelf as it is in hand, but it is what it is. There’s also a toe hinge, if that’s something you like and it seems like it’s fairly tight so it actually has some worth. There’s also the hinge in the cape so you can raise it out behind the figure for a more windswept look. It does make them slightly harder to stand, but not impossible. It just pegs in so you do get a little side-to-side pivot as well, but not a whole lot. It’s mostly going to lay relatively flat or blow out behind the figure.

The guns are silly, but I do enjoy them.
As you can tell, I did not get the Super Hero edition of Piccolo.

All in all, I would say the Gamma brothers move quite well. There are some sacrifices taken with the aesthetic to achieve that, but I think most will be content with the tradeoff. The only thing I don’t love are the shoulders, the rest I’m fine with. And that articulation will come in handy as both figures come with a variety of hands and heads to add some life to a display. For Gamma 1, we get a neutral portrait, one with a crooked mouth indicating displeasure, one with his teeth showing in a bit of a grin, a yelling portrait, and a yelling portrait where one eye is larger than the other indicating some distress. They are all separate heads, so no faceplates with these guys. For hands, Gamma 1 has fist hands, open hands, chop hands, and a set of trigger finger hands. Those work with his little blaster sidearm of which he has two. One to wield, and one with a peg in the front so it can be holstered. The gun is painted reasonably well, but I wish it had a blast effect or at least a peg hole for one to be added. Gamma 1 also comes with a set of crossed arms which peg in at the biceps swivel. It’s a bit of a pain to get on and get both sides inserted. My pictures will illustrate how successful I was there. Gamma 2’s accessories are mostly similar, but also a little different. He gets one less head as he has a neutral head, yelling head, teeth-showing grin, and a side-eyed smirk. He has all of the same hands and the two blasters as Gamma 1, plus a set of “devil horn” hands. He does not have the crossed-arm piece.

Both figures also come with stuff for the Super Hero Gohan figure released earlier last year. With Gamma 1, we get a Super Saiyan head for Gohan. It has a very pale, yellow, color for the hair that has no shading or paint whatsoever. It’s a bit odd looking as a result. It looks like a nice base for Super Saiyan hair, but I definitely would prefer it to have some shading to bring it to life. There are three faceplates included for it: neutral, yelling, and a teeth-gritting expression. They look nice, though Gohan does have the issue of a lack of bangs with his Super Saiyan look so the sideburns had to be painted onto the faces. It doesn’t match the yellow plastic of the hair and there’s a bit of an ugly seem line unfortunately where the face meets the head that usually we can’t see. With Gamma 2, we get another Gohan head, but this one has his hair blowing all over the place like he’s powering up and he’s also wearing his glasses. They lack lenses, but otherwise look pretty nice. To complete the look and scene this was pulled from, he also has his cape and shoulder pads. They’re done differently than what we saw with Piccolo as the plastic is very soft for the shoulder pads and the cape is in one piece. There’s a hinge for the cape, but unfortunately it’s too weak to support the weight of the cape so there’s not much that can be done with it. It also doesn’t like to sit flush on Gohan’s shoulders which gets annoying. I should also add, the hair on both Gohan heads is very stiff and spiky which helps make it look as good as it can be, but it sure can hurt too to swap!

“No 2! Don’t do it!”

If you watched Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and came away from that experience wanting action figures of Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 then I think you’ll be happy with what Bandai released here. Once again, the whole “premium” concept when it comes to Premium Bandai isn’t really evident in the quality versus what we’re getting at regular retail, but rather reflects the more limited nature of the characters. With better paint, these two figures would be stellar, but as they are they’re still quite good and among the better Dragon Ball releases that I have. They move well, look nice enough, and come with a boatload of accessories. It seems like the whole tack on some extra stuff for other figures approach only began with these two as other figures from Premium Bandai are being sold with more parts for Gohan, in particular. It’s a fun approach for those who are all-in, but it sucks for someone who wants a Super Saiyan Gohan, but isn’t interested in getting Gamma 1. And those parts of the release are just okay. I think the Super Saiyan look is fine and with some shading would be potentially great. The glasses and cape look is more niche and less successful. It’s fun, but am I going to choose to display Gohan like this instead of the other looks? That’s a harder sell. I suppose he’ll pair nicely with Piccolo in the same sort of attire.

As mentioned previously, these guys retailed for $70 and were P-Bandai exclusives. Other retailers were free to order them just like anybody else, but that also means they were paying 70 bucks as well so they have to charge more than that in order to make any money on the sale. If you missed out on the original purchasing window then prepare to pay over $100 now for each figure. At $70 a piece, I think they’re worth it and I’m even tempted to get another Gohan (but I probably won’t) to make use of the extra parts. At over $100 each they’re a harder sell. If you only want the Gohan parts, maybe try eBay? It seems unlikely that someone interested in Gamma 1 or 2 would have no interest in Super Saiyan Gohan, but maybe there are some folks out there just looking to offset some of the cost of getting the new characters. More likely, you’ll be able to find people looking to offload Gamma 1 and 2 without the Gohan parts so maybe there will be some opportunities to score a set for closer to their original MSRP under certain conditions. I think they’re good enough on their own without the Gohan accessories, but those do help sweeten the pot. If you’re out on the hunt then I wish you good luck!

Need a primer on Gamma 1 and 2 or want to see more of those Gohan and Piccolo figures? Look no further:

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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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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S.H.Figuarts Piccolo: The Proud Namekian

When the S.H.Figuarts line was launched years ago and Dragon Ball Z was at the forefront, it wasn’t Goku who got to be the first figure out of the gate. Nope, it was Piccolo. That figure caught my attention when it was announced even though I had not purchased a Dragon Ball figure in quite…

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1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

March 28, 2023

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

By Joe
Original release date March 19, 1993

When I was a child, going to the movies was a pretty big deal. It didn’t happen often so when it did it felt like a special occasion. Most of the Disney films of the late 80s and 90s were seen by me at home. Batman, Ghostbusters, every Back to the Future movie- all films I saw on VHS instead of in a movie theater. Movie rentals were cheaper and more convenient so I totally see why a family of four would see few films in a theater, especially when one considers the varying tastes that exist between children and adults. One movie I most definitely did see in theaters was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990. That was an event for a child like me and my parents apparently recognized that fact and took my sister and I. They did not take us to the sequel and I had to hear about characters like Tokka, Rahzar, and Super Shredder from kids on the playground before finally seeing the film after Christmas 1992 when I received the VHS as a gift. 1992 was also the year my parents uprooted our family to move from New Hampshire to Virginia. It was a big move as we were leaving our friends and family and the only people we would know were the other families being uprooted for the same reason – work. My dad’s job relocated and that’s what you did. We gave it a shot, but by the late spring of 1993 we were already making our way back north because it just wasn’t working. Maybe because we had so little to do on weekends and because my parents constantly felt bad about moving us, we went to the movies the weekend of March 19th of 1993 and if you know your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or just looked at the subject line for this post) then you know why we were at the movie theater that weekend.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is rather infamous for the franchise. It arrived when the initial wave of Turtle-Mania was really starting to subside. The first film was released in 1990, little more than 2 years after the cartoon debuted and roughly a year after the franchise really took off. The sequel was fast-tracked for a 1991 release, and while it was catered more towards a young audience, it failed to match the box office of the first one. It still made plenty of money though and everyone who had a stake in the franchise felt they could get at least another film out of it. Seemingly planning for a lower return, the budget was slashed and the film was allowed to be a soft reboot. There was no Shredder, no Foot Clan, and barely any New York! Would it work? Would kids continue to show up for their green-skinned heroes?

For me, personally, 1993 was the year I moved away from TMNT. Christmas of 1992 was the Christmas of Super Nintendo for me and I probably received more toys based on Batman Returns than TMNT. By the spring, I was fully onboard with X-Men and that was my preferred toyline with distractions also coming from the Batman: The Animated Series line and Transformers Generation 2. That summer, I would buy my last TMNT toys from Playmates until the 2003 line was launched. The honor fell to the Turtle Trolls which I just thought were neat for some reason. I also got the ninja-action Raphael who could perform a very poor backflip. I bought that figure because it had more of a Mirage style to the toy and I mistakenly thought the turtles were growing up with me, but that was not to be. As I sat in my chair at the theater in March of ’93, I can remember being excited. I had a big bag of popcorn on my lap, a giant soda in the cupholder beside me, and I was just waiting for the lights to go down and for the trailers to start. As I sat there, a boy came stumbling up the ramp towards my aisle seat with his hand over his mouth. Vomit soon starting squirting out from in between his fingers and the dam burst soon after. It fell to the floor maybe 10 feet away from me. The ushers and other staff of the theater did as good a job as they could cleaning that mess up, but there was no covering that vaguely sweet with a hint of tang odor which would permeate throughout the entire showing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

One of my last TMNT purchases as a kid were these silly trolls.

Sitting through a vomit-scented theater to watch this film probably feels oddly appropriate to many. Truly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is not thought of well. It’s been so poorly received over time that it’s basically been retconned as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time to seemingly capitalize on the affection people have for the completely unrelated video game. As a kid, I liked it enough and I would even spend some of my birthday money that summer on a VHS copy of the movie. And I do recall watching it quite a bit, but at some point my appetite for the movie did wane. Now, just a little over 30 years removed from the original release, I feel like it’s time to go back with fresh eyes and give the movie its due. And personally, it seems like the appropriate way to celebrate my 1,000th entry on this blog. Yes, this is post number 1,000 and we’re dedicating it to the cinematic masterpiece Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III was written and directed by Stuart Gillard who had previously directed Paradise (1982) and The Return of the Shaggy Dog. Returning for their third tour of the franchise as the voices of Michelangelo and Leonardo respectively were Robbie Rist and Brian Tochi. After skipping out on the sequel, Corey Feldman was back as Donatello while Raphael got his third voice in as many films from Tim Kelleher. Paige Turco was back to reprise her role as April O’Neil and also returning was Elias Koteas as Casey Jones, a character written out of the sequel because he was deemed too violent. James Murray took over as the voice of Splinter, and we’ll get to the why very soon, while we have a bunch of new villains and supporting cast brought onboard as well.

The costumes for the turtles were a clear downgrade from the first two films.

By far, the biggest change from the first two films to the third is the choice to go with All Effects Company for the costumes and puppetry over The Jim Henson Company. Likely due to the film’s lower budget, All Effects had the unenviable task of taking over for the company best known for creature effects and the change was obvious. The turtles now have a mostly uniform look with their own personal features basically cast aside. They’re still mostly the same shade of green, have the same colors applied to the bandanas and various pads, and still retain the freckles. They just look all together more fake. The masks especially look more like helmets with mouths on them. The nuance in the mouth movement seems to be reduced in favor of just flapping beaks and the costumes themselves look more like rubber suits than before. There’s no warmth to the look of the characters and they more resemble the live shows than the first two films. Not helping matters is we’ve largely abandoned the sewers for this film in favor of bright, outside, shots that do no favors for the costumes. Splinter is also a new puppet and he looks decidedly worse and it’s likely the switch in companies that accounts for Kevin Clash being out as the voice of the character.

The other major change for the third film is with the antagonist. Shredder was seemingly killed off at the end of The Secret of the Ooze, and rather than bring in a new leader for The Foot Clan, the film just chose to ignore them all together. Instead, we get a time travel story where April, after buying a weird scepter at a flea market, gets sucked into feudal Japan and replaced by a man from that era by the name of Kenshin (Henry Hayashi). Unfortunately for April, Kenshin is caught in the middle of warring factions lead by his dictator of a father Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) and a collection of rebels lead by a woman named Mitsu (Vivian Wu). Mitsu is also Kenshin’s lover so he has a vested interest in ending the conflict with as little bloodshed as possible, but his father is uncooperative and pretty angry to see his son replaced by a strange woman. He’s also being influenced by a tradesman by the name of Walker (Stuart Wilson) who is essentially profiting off of the war and has a vested interest in keeping it up. April, upon being thrust into the past, is mistaken for a witch and imprisoned. The turtles need to go back and save her as Donatello, through some sort of plot magic, is able to infer that they only have 60 hours to do so. And to make things simple, time will move in sync between the two periods as the four brothers are replaced by four honor guards when they travel back leaving Casey and Splinter to keep them (and Kenshin) occupied.

The movie might suck, but Paige Turco is not to blame.

Much of the film takes place in 1603 Japan. There, the turtles have to tangle with the bad guys, join up with the good guys, and figure out a way home. We get scenes of the locals mistaking them for kappa, turtle demons from Japanese folklore, and the turtles have to win them over by saving their lives – routine stuff. The people of the era do speak Japanese, but also English so the kids don’t have to read subtitles. Like the first sequel, the action is fairly light and mostly comedic in nature. The turtles rarely use their weapons and would rather attack with witty remarks than fists. And how witty those remarks play up will vary by age. As a kid, Donatello dropping a random Addams Family reference was funny, but as an adult it feels so forced. It’s just completely random, have a turtle reference something else that’s popular in the moment, and play it off for laughs. The only clever jokes involve the ones where characters from the past interact with technology from the future. April’s Walkman freaks out the first guards she runs into while the soldiers sent to the present are completely baffled by television and even take a liking to hockey because of its violence.

Stuart Wilson also does an admirable job of turning chicken shit into chicken salad as the villainous Walker.

The sets for the film are adequate. We get the lair for the turtles which strongly resembles that of the one from the previous film and even looks like it’s been more lived-in since we last saw it. The stuff in Japan is largely relegated to open, outdoors, areas with some interior shots here and there. There’s a fair amount of grime added to some sequences and it’s not a terrible film to look at, excepting the less than stellar turtle costumes. The actors outside of those costumes also really give it their all. Turco is allowed to exhibit far more range than she did in the prior film where she felt almost out of place, like a character that didn’t belong. Koteas is terrific in his dual role of Casey and Whit, a character in the past. I don’t know why they cast Koteas twice, but maybe he was going to cost so much as Casey and they wanted to get their money’s worth. The film doesn’t try to hide that Casey and Whit resemble each other, it just doesn’t bother to explain why. Stuart is actually pretty terrific as the villainous Walker to the point where I feel almost bad for him since it’s wasted on this film. And for what it’s worth, the voice actors for the turtles do a fine enough job. Feldman is a bit overexposed as Donatello as I guess the film decided he was the biggest star, though he does have a solid deadpan which helps a few jokes land better than most. Michelangelo gets to do more than just be a goof off as he questions why he’d want to leave a time period where people accept him to return to a sewer in the present. The neutering of Raph is continued as he isn’t really allowed to get mad anymore and Leonardo is far more jokey than we’re used to because I guess someone decided he was too boring. All of the turtles feel like they’ve been brought closer together as far as their personalities go to the point where they’re almost a hive mind at this point. Basically, the only thing separating the four now is that Donatello is still written to be the smart one while also still being a quip machine.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is not a good movie. This post is not in defense of it. I do have a perhaps “hot” take when it comes to this film though and it’s that I actually enjoy it more The Secret of the Ooze. That movie is just plain bad. The costumes are terrific, but pretty much everything else about it sucks. This movie, on the other hand, is a somewhat entertaining bad movie. The script is so terrible, mostly the stuff fed to the turtles, that it’s laughably bad. Donatello literally does the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” bit and we even get a Wayne’s World reaction to April’s bare leg out of the turtles. It’s stupid, lazy, and oh so dated so it has a certain charm for someone like me who lived through it. For today’s kid it won’t have the same appeal, but I bet they won’t like any of the TMNT movies much because they are just not movies written for today’s audience. We live in a world where there’s only one good, theatrically released, movie based on the franchise and it’s the original from 1990. None of the films that followed are really any good. The Secret of the Ooze is just a lazy sequel while the third film is the dying gasp of a fading franchise. The fourth film, which is technically a sequel to this, came out in 2007 and has no heart and looks cheap. It has one good scene and the rest is bad. The films that followed are just pure trash and now we pin our hopes on a team helmed by Seth Rogen to restore the turtles to their former glory. And I plan on seeing that film when it arrives later this year and I hope it joins the lonely ranks of “Good” TMNT movie. At the very lest, I hope it can usurp Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III for the title of second best because that is a distinction no franchise should be content with.

Check out some of these other posts on the TMNT film franchise:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Hollywood loves to go after us folks who are suckers for nostalgia.  We’re easy targets as it doesn’t take much to lure someone in with a touch of nostalgia.  Especially today.  We live in a world of 24 hour news networks and the internet puts information at our fingertips at all times.  The media’s tactics…

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by Joe

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Cowabunga dudes, it’s the 30th anniversary of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie! On March 30, 1990, New Line Cinema together with Golden Harvest released a film to theaters that seemingly no one wanted to make. This isn’t that surprising considering when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird first started soliciting offers for a toy-line…

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by Joe

Ranking the Many Versions of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

With Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hitting the airwaves, it felt like a good time to sit down and take a look at the various incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As you are likely aware, the TMNT got started back in 1984 when writer/artists Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created their…

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by Joe

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

March 23, 2023

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Event Exclusive Super Saiyan 2 Son Goku

By Joe
He’s attained a level beyond that of a Super Saiyan!

I feel like I need a little break with all of the TMNT reviews I’ve been doing lately. I could use a break from action figure reviews all together, but I have quite the backlog and I buy tons of them so I only have myself to blame for that. Today, we’re looking at last year’s event exclusive Super Saiyan 2 Goku from Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts line. For the past couple of years, Bandai has been doing event exclusives like basically everyone because they sell well, but with Bandai they’re not exclusive to any one event. The same cast of characters tends to get sold at multiple conventions and when that’s all done they also put them up for order on their Premium Bandai website. The only downside to ordering online is the wait as it’s sort of a made-to-order situation. I wish they would just unload their stock first and then turn to that, but instead, other retailers seem to get the unsold merch which they sell on their storefronts at inflated prices. The waiting isn’t that big of an issue though, and most of these event exclusive figures have just been repaints of older figures which is great because it gets them back out there and often looking better than before. Last year’s round of exclusives included re-releases of Majin Buu, Android 16, and Shenron, but the only one I grabbed was Super Saiyan 2 Goku.

Scream for me, Goku!

The Super Saiyan 2 transformation is perhaps the most boring of Goku’s transformations. I think it’s due in part to the original planned ending for Dragon Ball being the battle between Gohan and Perfect Cell. Gohan would ascend to a level beyond Super Saiyan, and for him, the transformation looked pretty different from his Super Saiyan look. His hair stood all the way up, looked to be longer and fuller, and then you got the aura and lightning effects. Series creator Akira Toriyama was convinced to keep going though so we got another arc and in that one it was decided that Goku needed to be the main hero once again. This meant he needed to achieve the same level of power as his offspring and then go beyond that. Super Saiyan 2 was the big transformation for the Cell arc, but for the Buu one it was Super Saiyan 3 allowing the Super Saiyan 2 look to essentially be an afterthought as it concerned Goku. As a result, it doesn’t look much different from the standard Super Saiyan look. Goku basically just loses most of his bangs and his hair is a bit spikier plus he gets the same aura with blue lightning effects. Simple, but still kind of cool. As sort of the forgotten and less celebrated transformation, I have a bit of a soft spot for it. Mostly, it was Bandai’s approach to the aura that got me to pounce on this one.

Bandai has taken multiple approaches to Super Saiyan hair. The honey yellow with shading on Vegeta might still be my favorite, though the new Gohan hair looks like a solid base, but needs some shading of its own. I do like the approach with Goku here. The Dragon Stars Trunks is obviously the most basic approach, and probably the worst, but it was also a 20 dollar figure.

This Goku figure is more than familiar at this point. He is exactly the same as almost every Goku figure I’ve reviewed so I’m not going to go into too great of detail for this review. I mostly just want to talk about what’s new. For the sculpt, it’s very little. We get a brand new hair piece that has a nice shape to it and is evocative of the Super Saiyan 2 look. There’s a metallic gold paint in use, which is typical of these event exclusives, and it does give it a very nice shimmer. Considering this is a form that is known to basically always feature an aura, I think this paint job works better than usual. It helps distinguish it from a Super Saiyan look. Would I want all Super Saiyan hair pieces to feature this paint job? Ehh, probably not. I like the yellow in play on my Super Vegeta and the shading is done well on that figure. I’ll be talking about it eventually, but the recently released Super Saiyan Gohan head went in a different direction and I’m still sorting out my feelings on that one. I’d love to see Bandai try casting the hair in white and then hitting it with an airbrush of yellow. Absent that, this looks good. The only thing I don’t like are the pieces of hair off to the sides of Goku’s head. There is a sizable gap between his forehead and these pieces that just looks unnatural to me. It looks like they should either be right on his head, or further from it. They do at least hide the sideburns and the seem created by the hairpiece behind them. This Goku also has a halo since this is Goku from when he takes on Majin Vegeta, which also explains the more basic gi he’s wearing that lacks any markings on it. I’ve never really liked the halo effects when it comes to Dragon Ball toys because even if the post is transparent, you still see it. It just pegs into the hair, but it doesn’t seem to want to come out so it might be glued in. I’m tempted to just rip it out, but I’ll probably leave it.

These things are a pain to insert and quite brittle.

As for the body, the only other new part is the chest. Since this is Goku from his brief return to Earth, his shirt is ripped which was something that occured during his fight with Yakon. He would go Super Saiyan 2 to battle Vegeta shortly after. There’s a sculpted rip in the orange part of his top and it looks okay, but it really could use more paint. Most companies would paint the inside of the rip darker than the outside. Just like most Goku figures, the only paint is really the blue and the flesh-tone of the upper torso, the blue on the sleeves, and the boots. The boots aren’t as clean as they are on some of the other Goku figures I have, even the budget-friendly Target offerings, so that’s a bummer. He does appear to have some light shading in parts. It appears to be yellow on the legs and a little on the torso to help sell his glow, but it’s very subtle. I wish there was more paint as the orange has a very plastic look to it, as do his arms and neck, but this isn’t a line known for using a lot of paint. He still has the floating crotch pieces which have a tendency to rattle around and feel cheap, but they work with the articulation so I don’t mind them as much as some folks do. I do hate the sleeves and how they pin into the shoulders and handling this figure just illustrates how Goku is in need of a redesign. They can do better than this and this mold is getting pretty long in the tooth.

When you get those pieces in (hopefully without breaking them) and get Goku positioned just right the effect does look pretty cool.

For accessories, we get the standard assortment of hands: fists, splayed, martial arts posed, Kamehameha hands, and a set of hands in a two finger pose for his instant transmission technique. For faceplates, we have four varieties: stoic, cocky, yelling, and a teeth-gritting expression. The face printing on all four is terrific and very much in-line with the more recently released Super Hero Goku so at least that’s one advancement this figure possesses. The other accessory is the main one and it’s an aura effect. It’s a big, yellow, burst that can be positioned behind the figure. It’s a much sturdier part than the others I have and it’s cast in translucent plastic that alternates from being clear to yellow to clear and to yellow once again. It’s a new mold when compared with the stand-alone one Bandai sells and I’m guessing they did a new one because this has some extra bits. Four, blue, translucent, plastic, sparking effects are included. They attach to the yellow effect via a ball peg at the end. This allows them to be manipulated so when you place Goku in front of the backdrop effect the lightning can be positioned coming around him. It’s a terrific idea to try and sell the Super Saiyan 2 transformation, though the execution is lacking. The ball pegs are really hard to get into the yellow effect. I even snapped one trying to get it in and had to glue it back together. There’s no reason why it needed to be this challenging to pull off. Once they’re in they at least stay in and the effect works well enough. It’s very specialized so this isn’t an effect you’re likely to use with other figures, but if you wanted to I suppose you could use it with Majin Vegeta or the new Super Saiyan Gohan, but then your Goku doesn’t have an aura to stand in front of.

That’s essentially it though. I’m not going to run through the articulation since this is the same figure I’ve reviewed before and some of them are linked below. If you’ve been collecting DBZ Figuarts releases then you know this one pretty well. And if you have all of the Goku figures then Super Saiyan 2 is the missing link, so to speak, as they’ve never done it before. I’m guessing that made this one fairly popular. I’m curious if he’ll get a more standard release at some point without the metallic paint job and maybe without the torn shirt. It’s a bit odd to make the Super Saiyan 2 form an event exclusive, but it was also easy to get so I suppose it’s like any P-Bandai release. If you want it, you’ll have to venture out onto the aftermarket. Some retailers have this figure still in stock, but it’s pricey. I don’t think this release is worth paying over 100 bucks for, but if you really want a Super Saiyan 2 Goku and somehow missed out then I guess you have no choice. Just be prepared to keep your expectations in check. You’re paying for new hair and an effect part as the body has been done before. And if that’s fine with you then go ahead. I’m personally a little underwhelmed and certainly annoyed by the quality of the plastic as it relates to the sparking effects. I don’t resent having this in my collection, but I probably could have done without considering I don’t even have Super Saiyan Goku or Super Saiyan 3. I guess I like the Super Saiyan 2 form more than I realized.

Need to know more about how this Goku articulates or want to see how good he could be with a redesign? Look no further:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super Son Goku Super Hero

Back in the early 2000s I was a collector of Irwin Toys’ Dragon Ball Z line of action figures. When I started collecting that line, I just focused on my favorite characters which were primarily Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo. Gradually, the collector impulse took over and I started buying entire waves as they came out…

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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 Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Son Goku

That is quite the mouthful, is it not? The Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Son Goku is the latest action figure from Bandai’s S.H.Figuarts to arrive in Target stores in the US. This form of Goku is what happens when a Saiyan ascends to Super Saiyan God level, and then goes Super Saiyan again. Confused?…

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by Joe

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

March 21, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Chakahachi and Lotus

By Joe
Remember them? No? You’re probably not alone.

When it comes to character selection in NECA’s line of action figures based on the 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I think it’s safe to say we’re well into the weeds. This latest batch to arrive at Target as part of the company’s branded Haulathon have certainly illustrated that. Aside from heroic versions of Bebop and Rocksteady, I don’t think any of these characters would be considered household names. Even for people who consumed countless hours of the show as kids, many of these characters are probably hard for them to even recall. That is certainly true for today’s two-pack featuring Chakahachi and Lotus. For me, someone who has been immersed in TMNT since I was 4, I do recall the character of Lotus, or Lotus Blossom, but not because I can recall anything specific about her from the show. I’ve just come to think of her as a stand-in for the more popular Karai, a character who appeared in the comics and in most other versions of TMNT. As for Chakahachi? That’s a big “Nope” from me. I had to go digging to remember this guy and I honestly don’t know if I ever saw his episode. I probably did, as I’ve seen pretty much all of them save for every episode of the “Red Sky” era, but this ghost certainly didn’t leave an impression.

Who needs swords when you have cool ghost powers?

Who is Chakahachi? Well, he’s a ghost, which you may have surmised just by looking at him. He appeared in the episode “Farewell, Lotus Blossom” which was right in the heart of Season 4 airing in 1990 during peak Turtle-Mania. He should be memorable, but for whatever reason he is not. He was a leader of a clan baring his own name, but was sealed away in an urn with a magic pearl. When the urn was shattered in modern times, his ghost was set free to ravage the people of New York as he frantically searched for his beloved wife. He’s not really a villain, just a tragic ghost tale, and once his issue was resolved by the return of said pearl he went away never to be seen or heard from again. And it makes sense to pair him with Lotus since she was featured in that episode and somehow contained the spirit of the guy’s long dead wife. Like I said, I don’t remember the details. As for Lotus, she’s a ninja-for-hire who briefly usurps Shredder. She basically develops some feelings for Leonardo that could be classified as romantic, but it never goes anywhere. She did get to make more than one appearance in the show and in terms of the B-list characters she was somewhat high on the list of requests.

Okay, I guess the swords are still pretty cool regardless.

Let’s talk about the ninja ghost first. Chakahachi stands at approximately 6.75″ to the top of his hair, excluding the ponytail. He’s dressed as presented in the show wearing an old-fashioned ninja or samurai outfit that’s done in a range of blues. The armor is painted with more earthy colors and it pairs well with the pale blue of his flesh. I suppose it should be noted that in the show he was most often gargantuan in size, but I don’t think collectors were all that interested in paying $150 for a Chakahachi so this seems reasonable. He also was a normal size for parts of the episode so it’s not like this is inaccurate. Like most figures in this line, Chakahachi is painted from head to toe. It’s applied very well with virtually no blemishes on my figure. I’m especially impressed with how clean the line-work is around the yellow eyes which really help them pop. The cel-shading is fairly understated as the difference in the dark portion of the pants is barely perceptible when viewed from the side. It’s most noticeable on the more teal portions and the armor. The shoulder pauldron, I guess we’ll call it, is rather interesting as NECA put it on a hinged joint to help it get out of the way when moving the arm at the shoulder. It’s fine, but looks a little odd from certain angles. It also feels quite fragile so do be careful. Much of the torso features a soft plastic overlay and it looks quite good, but is going to present some problems when we get to the articulation in a moment.

He’s a far cry from how big he was in the show, but he has some decent size to him.

Chakahachi being a ninja ghost probably doesn’t seem like the type of character that demands much in the way of accessories, but NECA did a solid job of loading this guy up. He has three sets of hands to make use of: fists, gripping, and open. The gripping hands, sadly, feature the wrong hinge which matters here since he has a pair of swords. Or rather, a katana and a dagger. Both have a scabbard and each one slots into a pair of rings on his belt. The setup does feel a bit fragile and I would suggest you go ahead and heat those rings with some warm hotter just a bit before inserting the scabbards to play it safe. The two bladed weapons slide in and out of the scabbards just fine at least. The dagger has a pretty simple paint job, but the katana is quite nice. It features a wrapped handle which looks quite clean though the blade seems rather thin. The open hands that Chakahachi comes with are slightly clenched to make use of his ghostly powers. In a rarity for this line, we get three effect parts: a small flame, a ball of energy, and a fireball effect. All are cast in semi-translucent plastic that has a hint of pink to it which imparts an ethereal quality. The little flame and the ball of flame or energy can rest in the open palm while the fireball effect is a more pliable plastic that actually wraps around the figure’s forearm. It’s done really well and I love how he looks with these effects to the point where I can’t even see myself posing him with the swords. And since he has three effect parts, but only two hands, it frees one up for another figure which is something I can appreciate.

“Back off, ghost, I’m not your wife!”

Paint and accessories are the strengths of this figure, because articulation very much is not. Chakahachi possesses the standard range of joints, but he can’t make use of them all. The head is on a double ball peg which allows the head to do everything it needs to do. The shoulders are ball-hinged joints and they rotate just fine while raising out to the side to a horizontal position, being mindful that the left arm is a touch more limited due to that shoulder obstruction. The bicep swivels quite high on the joint, but it works just fine while the double-jointed elbows will bend past 90 degrees a healthy amount. The wrists swivel and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. That’s all the good stuff, the rest of the figure is not much to write home about. The torso is pretty much locked in place due to the overlay. You get nothing out of the diaphragm and the waist twist doesn’t work very well either. Whenever I try to rotate at the waist he wants to snap back in the opposite direction and I assume the overlay is to blame. The hips would be fine if not for the skirt. NECA declined to put slits in it anywhere which is a surprise because it’s segmented by design, but it’s all one piece. Because of that, he can’t do splits and can barely kick forward and back. You do get a little pivot at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed, but because the top hinge is buried in the cuffs of the pants it doesn’t really do much. I can force a 90 degree bend out of it, at least. There might be a boot swivel because my left leg doesn’t appear to be lined up properly, but I can’t get it to budge. I can get a little rotation though out of the top of the knee and the ankle. The ankle also has the customary hinge and rocker and both work fine. The rocker is pretty steep, but the range is good.

It’s a bit of a bummer that Chakahachi doesn’t articulate below the waist better than he does. I’m actually okay with the knees and ankles, it’s really the waist and hips. I suppose it wouldn’t be that hard to cut slits into the skirt for better range, but I’m not the type to customize my figures. They cost too much and I don’t trust myself. That would have solved a lot of the issues though. I’m not really sure why the waist won’t twist, but maybe it’s just that the tolerance is off on the ball joint there. The effect parts don’t require a ton of posing, at least. He can stand like a statue and look intimidating, but if you prefer the swords and for this guy to look more like an actual ninja you may be let down.

When your name is Lotus Blossom you pretty much have to live the gimmick.

That’s the rundown on Chakahachi, but how about his not-wife Lotus? She’s another ninja character and the second female figure from this recent batch of figures, which is pretty cool. The TMNT franchise is fairly light on women so it’s nice to see the few that are a part of it get figures. Lotus is far more slight than her box-mate coming in at approximately 5.75″ to the top of her hair. She’s not particularly short for this line, but she is more slender. At the same time, she has some really long legs which is somewhat atypical of the show’s look which tended to squish most of its characters. I don’t know if she had exceptionally long legs in the show, but it looks fine here. Her hair is done with a swoop in the front that partially covers her face and adds a dynamic element to her presentation. Her expression is quite stoic, befitting the character, and her all gray and black attire makes her the most “ninja” of them all as well. There’s no garrish colors on display with Lotus which feels almost out of place. Her paintjob is not particularly demanding, but she does feature the cel-shading with gray on the front and black on the back. The paint on her belt is fairly clean, though the right side isn’t painted so you see gray when looking at her from an angle. There’s also some black paint on the jaw of my figure which is unfortunate, but I was able to get most of it off with a magic eraser to the point where it may not even be noticeable in my pictures. The paint around her mouth and eyes is sharp though, but where it’s not is on her hands. She has little armored bits on the back of her hand which go over the hinge. NECA cast the hinge in flesh-tone and painted gray onto them. This will flake off almost immediately if you make use of that hinge. It’s also not cleanly applied on all of the hands. Overall, she looks okay, she’s just not as flashy as Chakahachi.

She’s deadly from up close and at a distance.

For accessories, Lotus comes with an assortment of hands: fists, gripping, and open. The fists actually have a small hole through them so they can handle her actual lotus blossom accessory. It’s a nicely painted flower and it slots into either hand just fine. The gripping hands are interesting because they’re at a slight angle. Rather than just give them the proper vertical hinge, the angled shape allows Lotus to point her sword towards an enemy. It’s different, and while I’d rather she just have the proper hinge for her gripping hands I will say it’s better than the more straight up and down hands we usually get with the wrong hinge. And she does have a sword to swing with those hands. It’s shaped like a katana, though with a very slender blade similar to Chakahachi’s. It too has a wrapped handle, but is done with more muted colors. There’s a scabbard for it that slides into a ring on the back of the figure and that was fairly painless to insert. If you would rather a ranged weapon, she also has a short bow with an accompanying arrow. It has a real string and the arrow has a little cut-out so you can “nock” it if you wish. The string is very taut, however, and there’s not much flex to the bow so I wouldn’t go nuts. Getting her to hold it in a convincing fashion is also another matter entirely. Lotus also comes with the scent analyzer, one of the silliest devices from the show. It looks like a handheld vacuum cleaner, but with a nose at the end of the hose. It’s goofy, but the type of thing I want to see in plastic form. Plus, it’s something she actually used. It doesn’t feature any articulation though which feels like a missed opportunity. It almost looks like the hose is connected via a ball joint, but it doesn’t want to do anything and I don’t want to break it.

This secondary head looks fine, but I can’t get the damn thing to work.

Lastly, Lotus comes with an alternate head featuring her hooded look. I’d tell you how nice it looks on her if I could get it on. When I tried to pop her head off, the double-ball peg in her head came out of the neck instead. Her head should come clean off, but I couldn’t get the damn thing out. To make it worse, I ended up popping the neck off from the double-ball peg it connects to thinking maybe the other head could go on that way, but it does not and getting the neck back onto her torso was a huge pain in the ass. I was heating it, applying lubrication, stretching out the hole, and I could not get it back on. I had to walk away and come back to it a few days later and I eventually got it back on, but there was no way I was going to try it again. The head looks fine, it’s well-painted and everything, but it’s not how I remember her. Plus, she has the remnants of the cowl sculpted onto her torso so it doesn’t make sense for her to have this head. We see stuff like this with superhero figures all of the time, and even NECA’s own Renet did this, where there’s a little removable loop for the cowl when a character isn’t wearing a hood or mask. I don’t know why NECA passed on that here, but it also creates the issue where her neck is flesh-colored when the cowl should cover it so with the ninja hood on she’ll look kind of silly. I’m sure that can be posed away to a degree, but it doesn’t feel like this alternate look was well thought out.

The scabbard and hair are going to obstruct some of the articulation at the head. You can remove the scabbard, but there’s not much you can do about the hair unless you want to remove her head.

In terms of articulation, Lotus is anther mixed bag. The head, as detailed above, is on a double ball peg and the neck is on another double ball peg. This gives her a ton of range at the head and neck, though her hair gets in the way and if the scabbard is on her back that can be problematic too. She can rotate and look down, but the hair prevents her from looking up and restricts the more nuanced posing we’re accustomed to. I assume the hooded head has zero restrictions and probably moves pretty well, though it looks like the ball joint is designed to sit rather deep in the head so maybe its not as free as I expect. Since I can’t get it on, I don’t care. The shoulders are ball-hinged and she can raise her arms out to the side just fine. Unfortunately, they’re pretty floppy which is an unusual problem for a NECA figure. They rotate around fine and she gets the NECA double-jointed elbows featuring a swivel and hinge above and below the elbow. This allows her to bend past 90 degrees just fine and the more baggy design of these limbs also suits this style of joint pretty well. The hands rotate and hinge and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. They’re also all stuck out of the box. Her hands are rather dainty, so be careful when trying to free them. There’s nothing in the diaphragm and her waist will only provide some twisting motion. Her hips are really tight, and similar to my Rex-1, they make an awful clicking noise when trying to kick forward. I can just about force them to horizontal, but the figure is fighting me all the way. Going out to the side isn’t an issue as she can handle splits and she does kick back a bit, but her diaper piece includes a fairly ample posterior that will get in the way. There’s a little swivel at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed. The bottom hinge is stuck on both legs, but she should be able to bend past 90 degrees though doing so really illustrates how most of the length in her legs is below the knee. There’s no boot swivel, which is a surprise as one could have been added rather easily, but the ankle hinge and rocker combo works well.

The scent analyzer accessory is certainly a thing.

Lotus is a bit of a frustration figure from a design perspective. Articulating her is not particularly fun as it feels like the figure is fighting me the whole way whether it’s the floppy shoulders that don’t want to stay in play, the hinges in the wrists that won’t move, or the hips which practically scream whenever they’re manipulated. Her gripping hands are also pretty firm so slotting the accessories into them is a pain. The sword works fine, but the bow and the scent analyzer are more of a challenge. She is one of those figures where you’re best off just using hot water on her hands before trying to get her to hold most of her stuff. And that second head is a bummer. While I was unlikely to display her with it, it would have been fun to snap some photos or maybe to change things up. Especially if it really freed up her head articulation like I imagine it would.

“Foolish reptile, I have been hired to kill you!” “But…but…I love you!”

This two-pack is one where the figures look pretty fine in poses that aren’t particularly ambitious. Chakahachi has the accessories and presence to pull it off, while the Lotus design is attractive on its own. I do feel like Lotus should pose better though and really she should be one of the most dynamic figures in the whole line. There’s not much to her that should prevent NECA from really going all out on the articulation, but they just didn’t do a great job there and I’m not sure what the reason for that is other than she’s just kind of a dud. As a result, I prefer Chakahachi, even though it was Lotus I was looking forward to more. The fact that both can still look cool on a shelf is why I feel like I can still recommend this set to the TMNT collector out there that wants to go deep. Obviously, these are characters that a more casual collector probably doesn’t need or even have interest in. The design and effect parts on Chakahachi make him rather appealing to me personally, but is that enough to get someone who has no idea who these characters are to drop 60 bucks on the set? That’s probably a tougher call.

Sorry, Leonardo. At least you have something to remember her by.

The Chakahachi and Lotus set is part of the TMNT toon line and is therefore exclusive to Target stores for the time being. Unfortunately, their online drop has come and gone and I don’t think it can be expected that they will return to the website. They were also part of the first week of the Haulathon event, but it looks like they’re being restocked in-store as I write this. As always, their distribution will vary by region in the US and your local stores may have already received a second batch or could still be waiting on it to arrive. It’s also possible that following the initial drop and online sale that any restock will hang out a bit longer this time around as people who want them get them. This is a set that really shouldn’t sell fast given the obscurity of the pair, but these Haulathon events are rather successful at generating buzz which helps to get product moving. It’s why we’re probably not done with this style of release, whether we like it or not.

Check out more reviews of NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures:

NECA TMNT Turtles in Disguise

When NECA started on this journey into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon it first began with a video game. An adaptation of a video game, to be more precise. The 2016 San Diego Comic Con exclusive contained a four pack of the famous, green, pizza destroyers in a pixel deco. They were the first…

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NECA Cartoon TMNT From the Files of Pizza Squad (Deluxe Rex-1)

When you’re doing a syndicated cartoon expected to air basically every day, you need to pull story ideas from anywhere you can. I think that’s why parodies are so popular in the cartoons of the 80s to the point where it didn’t matter if the show was parodying something kids would actually know. Take REX-1,…

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NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Renet

Welcome to the first Turtle Tuesday of 2023! 2022 is the year that NECA returned to the Mirage Studios subline of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures it started way back in 2008. When the line was announced to return, it was essentially taking the place of the Turtles in Time figures that had been…

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by Joe

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March 16, 2023

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Triceraton Zog

By Joe
Whether he’s friend or foe, it’s safe to say that you don’t want to piss off Zog.

Haulathon 2023 has brought some pretty big releases to NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. And I mean big in a literal sense. REX-1 was tall and hefty and the multi-armed clone of Shredder was no slouch either. Those two seem to pale in comparison to Zog, the Triceraton warrior from NECA’s Mirage Studios subline of TMNT figures. Similar to the clone Shredder, Zog isn’t so much tall as he is chunky. He’s not short though as he comes in at around 8″ in height, but he’s quite stocky and pretty damn heavy for an action figure made out of plastic. I said REX-1 was one of the heavier figures from NECA I’ve handled, but I think Zog edges him out. And everything about this guy is thick and imposing, right down to the box. It’s almost cartoonishly big and looks crazy on the shelf at Target, but he’s a big boy and he deserves a big box.

I couldn’t get over how big the box was for Zog.

So just who is Zog? Well, he’s an alien dinosaur from the comics who is kind of an ally to the turtles. Not so much willingly, for you see, Earth’s air isn’t conducive to the Triceratons and when they don’t get the right concentration of whatever the air is on their planet they basically start to go insane. I think his brain is literally decaying in the comics to the point where he mistakes Raphael for a commanding officer. It was the Utrom who brought him unwillingly to Earth and he was able to escape to the sewers where he resides for about a year before coming into contact with Raph. By then, his clothing is tattered and so is his mind. The Utrom, being a common foe for the turtles and Zog, is basically a unifier, but a run-in with the Shredder clones ends Zog’s miserable existence prematurely. That makes it rather appropriate that he gets released at the same time as the clones, but if you’re familiar with TMNT, then you know Zog was just the start of the turtles’ involvement with the Triceratons. The interactions that followed tended to be less pleasant.

He has a gun and a big ass knife, but he definitely doesn’t need them to look intimidating.

Zog is our fourth Triceraton from NECA following three in the toon line. The Triceratons are always depicted as bipedal dinosaur creatures resembling a triceratops. They usually have an orange complexion and tend to like being destructive. Zog, is essentially a big, orange, dinosaur in a purple jumpsuit. This is being a NECA comic release means he goes beyond that basic description as he is loaded up with detail. It all starts with the sculpt which is credited to Gurjeet Singh and Kushwara Studios on the box. There’s tons of texture to every inch of this guy. He’s scaly, lumpy, wrinkly to the point where there is hardly a smooth surface anywhere that’s larger than an M&M. And not one of those standard sized M&Ms, I’m talking those little mini ones that come in the tube. He’s sculpted in orange plastic, but there’s a wash basically everywhere to make him grimy and dirty and basically like someone who spent a year in a sewer. There’s some orange paint as a base coat as well because it flakes off of the hinged joints and does reveal a pale orange beneath. That’s basically the only eyesore to be found with this guy as he looks imposing. I love how the jumpsuit has just a hit of gloss in places to create the illusion of a shimmery spacesuit. His sleeves are completely ripped off leaving some cuffs behind around the wrists. NECA did the interior of the “material” black which creates this rich appearance. The other torn parts and the belt all feature cleanly applied paint. About the only thing one could reasonably nitpick is that the black wash is going to appear heavier in certain places and lighter in others. On my figure, the right side of the head seems noticeably darker than the left and there’s a very faint hit of gray near his top, left, horn that I assume was meant for the horn. It’s barely noticeable, but worth pointing out. Overall though, what a tremendously fun figure to just look at.

The detail on this guy is incredible, though I do wish they gave him a holster or sheath for the weapons.

A big, beefy, dino is not going to move like a ninja, but NECA has a few surprises in store with Zog. First off, the head is likely on a double ball and he can look way up which is cool if you want to try to pose him in a ramming position. He can’t really look down, but you get rotation and some room for tilt. The shoulders rotate all around and the hinge will allow the arms to raise up to about horizontal. We get a biceps swivel and single-jointed elbows which can’t quite hit 90 degrees nor can they really allow the arms to go out completely straight. He’s just too thick. The waist features a ball peg and you get a little motion front-to-back as well as side-to-side, but it’s mostly a rotation point. The ball-socketed hips will let Zog damn near hit a split and they pivot as well on the ball joint. What he can’t really do is kick as the leg will only go forward and back a little. Single-jointed knees can’t bend 90 degrees, but you do get another swivel point there. The hinges in the ankles are really tight and don’t seem to want to allow for much movement, but the ankle rocker works fine. On the rear of the figure is where the tail plugs in and it’s just a hinged ball-peg system like NECA’s Gargoyles line. The tail itself has a real, heavy-duty wire running through it so you can bend it, just be mindful that you’re not putting pressure on the plastic peg when you do. Lastly, we get an articulated jaw. In there is what I think is a first for this line in an articulated tongue. I think it’s basically just a little ball joint because it moves in all directions. It’s pretty damn amusing to play with. Did NECA need to make the tongue articulated? No, but I’m happy they did. Otherwise, he’s pretty basic, but it’s the size and overall presence that’s going to sell a pose with this figure more than range at an elbow or knee. I’ve had no trouble finding interesting poses with this guy and I’m guessing others will say the same.

Did someone say articulated tongue? Yeah, he has an articulated tongue.
Zog doesn’t just toss one grenade at his foes, he unleashes a whole handful.

The accessory load-out with Zog is fairly substantial. He gets an assortment of hands to pummel his victims and comes with a set of fists, open hands, gripping hands, another gripping left hand, and a right trigger finger hand. The gripping hands are interesting as no two hands appear to have the same grip. His left hand seems to be the loosest fit followed by the right hand. The third gripping hand, the other left one, is a really tight grip. The hands don’t have much flex either unless you apply heat. I’m guessing the variety in gripping hands is due to the other accessories. He has two spherical grenades and one that’s a canister. The loose gripping hand can handle the canister while the tighter ones can grip the other grenades by the handle, or whatever that part of the grenade is called. All three grenades are brown with these sculpted wraps on them which are outlined in black. They look fine, but almost comically small in Zog’s giant hands. Zog also has a big combat knife which fits rather well into the loosest gripping hand. It has a handguard on it which is spiked and it looks rather menacing. Lastly, we get a Triceraton blaster which is easily identified by it’s triangular shape. Fugitoid came with a smaller version though this one doesn’t look much bigger in these oversized hands. The gun is well painted and features a strap that’s sculpted in a pliable plastic. I suppose you can loop it over a shoulder if you prefer, but it does slot nicely into the trigger finger hand. The finger just barely gets behind the trigger guard and I’m curious why NECA didn’t just make the gun a little big bigger to not make it so tight, but it’s fine. That’s it for accessories though and I think it’s okay. The only thing I wish he had was some kind of weapon storage. He has these pouches on the rear of his chest strap and I wish they had just gave him a sheath for his knife instead. It probably isn’t how the character was drawn, but I’d be fine with them taking some liberties here. A way to holster the gun would have also been welcomed.

The fall of Zog.
“So, you wanna go first?!”
“Please, I’m not tasty!”

Zog is a massive figure and he comes at a massive price. Well, massive is too strong a word, but I couldn’t resist the wordplay. He retails for $50 like REX-1 which is quite a bit. Is he worth it? That’s going to vary from person to person as there are some collectors out there still angry that Marvel Legends hit $20 years ago (they must be really pissed now). For what you get, I’m finding it hard to be too upset about the price. This is a huge figure with a lot of plastic and a lot of paint. The accessory count won’t blow anyone away, but it’s not as if he’s short-changed either. I just think he looks damn cool and he’s one of those figures I’m having a hard time putting down. I just enjoy picking him up and feeling how hefty he is. The posing is limited, but at the same time it’s still fun. Especially if you have other figures to pose him with. I know some people are hoping for more Triceratons to army build, but I’m kind of hoping NECA stays away. Don’t make me have to decide if I want to army build $50 figures because I don’t know if I can resist. If they’re done as well as this guy then watch out wallet!

Interested in seeing more from NECA and Mirage Studios?

NECA Mirage Studios TMNT Casey Jones

Where there be turtles, there be Casey Jones – the bad ass vigilante of New York City! Casey was an early addition to the comics and he’s basically been included with every iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since. And in all of them he tends to wear a hockey mask and bludgeons bad guys…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Fugitoid

I’m having a hard time coming up with an action figure line that has had retail releases separated by more than a decade. I don’t mean long-running lines of figures like G.I. Joe or Marvel Legends which have been around for decades, I mean a line that was started, ended, then re-started like NECA’s line…

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by Joe

NECA Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

A dozen years ago, toy company NECA dipped its toe into the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time, and shockingly it failed to stick around. That’s incredible to hear for collectors currently chasing down Bebop and Rocksteady at Target, but it’s the truth. There are a lot of folks at NECA…

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by Joe

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March 14, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tall Thug and Short Gangster

By Joe
Pictured: Not Dopey and Not Dumbo.

It’s time to look at another NECA two-pack that’s been released during this year’s Haulathon event at Target. And for today, it’s the Tall Thug and Short Gangster two-pack, who are better known as Dopey and Dumbo. I say “better known” as that’s a relative term since these are some pretty deep pulls from the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which premiered with a five episode mini series in 1987. Like the previous two-pack of Grunt and Jersey Red, these guys hail from Bebop and Rocksteady’s seldom referenced street gang which was in the very first episode. I went into all of the details in that review, and if you want a refresh it’s linked at the bottom of this entry, but to make things short these guys appeared briefly, were mutated offscreen by Shredder, showed up in a couple of quick shots, and then were never heard from again. None of them had a speaking role or were even named in the show. We only know their names thanks to production art and only the most involved TMNT fans even know that much. And it probably goes without saying, but NECA couldn’t use their “real” names on the box for legal reasons since there’s a mouse out there that’s pretty protective of its copyrights.

I’m digging this meat hook accessory which is probably the type of weapon that was okay for the initial mini series, but deemed too violent for the seasons to follow.

The Tall Thug, who is Dopey, is perhaps the oddest of the bunch from a style standpoint. If there was a narc in the gang, I’m putting my money on this guy. He’s got a big, floppy, hat that covers most of his face and this jacket that makes him look like he just came from a Janet Jackson show during the Rhythm Nation tour. His boots almost look like platform shoes and this is just an all-together odd design for a purported gangster. Dumbo, the short guy, is dressed far more practically with a simple gray tank top with black vest combo to go with some blue pants and black boots. Aside from some wristbands, he’s got nothing going on as far as jewelry or even fancy weaponry. This is a thug who is clearly saving his earnings and must have a retirement goal in mind and I respect that. He’s also very short, like shortest in the line short. We might as well make it official and do a measurement which places him at approximately 4.75″ which is shorter than Baxter Stockman but pretty close to Splinter and Screwloose. He’s got bragging rights with Kala and Kerma and that’s about it. As for the so-called tall thug, he’s around 6″, maybe a tick over as it’s hard to tell where the head ends and the hat (which isn’t removable) begins with this guy, which really only makes him tall relative to Dumbo here. Compared with the rest of the gang, he’s fairly average.

This Looney Tunes type mallet is definitely more the show’s style.

Because these guys were little more than background characters, there’s not much to their designs. Dopey’s face is barely visible on the show due to the hat which sits low and his bulbous nose that dominates his face. NECA did give him eyes with pupils, so that’s good, and there’s probably elements to this guy that had to just be guessed by the designers. The jacket is a gray overlay with the cel-shading on the rear of the figure while the arms are separately molded. There’s some linework for pockets and such and he has two stripes near each shoulder, but there’s not much too it. He has the NECA double-elbows which is a swivel and hinge at the top of the joint and bottom which can look odd on some figures, but here it’s fine. He’s wearing blue pants which might be more like work pants as opposed to denim, but this was a low detail cartoon so it’s hard to know what the model was going for. There’s some sloppy paint on his belt, but otherwise the paint seems sharp. I like all of the detail on the face as this guy has a somewhat lumpy appearance and it adds character. The rest is done well enough, it’s just not a very exciting character design.

“Hey Leonardo, I think I’d feel kind of bad beating these two up.” “I know what you mean, Michelangelo.”

For articulation, Dopey should feel fairly familiar. He’s very much in-line with someone like Vernon and Grunt. The head is on a double ball and he can rotate, look down, and gets some fairly solid tilt and nuance posing. He can’t really look up due to both his hair and the collar on his coat, but he’s the “tall” thug so he shouldn’t look up to anyone! The shoulders peg in and hinge and they can rotate, but at a slight angle since his coat is designed to look like it has shoulder pads. They hinge out almost to horizontal. At the elbow, you get rotation at the top of the joint which is essentially your biceps swivel. The bend goes past 90 degrees, but it results in a squared-off “U” shape to the joint which does look odd, but it’s more than functional. You also get rotation past it for the forearm and the wrists swivel and hinge. In the diaphragm, there is a joint, but like Vernon and so many others in this line, it’s useless due to the overlay. There’s another joint at the waist that’s mostly for rotation. You do get a little tilt in all directions, but it’s minor. The legs are ball and socket joints and you can hit some pretty solid splits. He kicks forward to just about horizontal before the diaper piece gets in the way. There’s some rotation at the thigh and he can kick back a little bit and off to the side. The knees are standard double joints that bend past 90 and you get a boot cut below that. The ankle hinges are fairly useless due to the shape of the boot, but you get a decent ankle rocker. He’s going to be able to do enough and I’m happy to say nothing was overly tight or loose. The elbow swivels are a little stubborn, but it’s more due to the shape of the cut and they’re still usable and didn’t require any heat. The gripping hands have the wrong hinge, which is an issue on just about every figure from NECA these days save for REX-1.

Dumbo is definitely not described as a tall man.

With Dumbo, we have a very basic design. I already talked about it a little, but we have bare arms, a bald head, and clothing that just hits blue, black, and gray as far as the colors go. The pants feature the cel-shading, but the black vest does not and since the shirt is barely visible on the rear of the figure it would seem NECA declined to apply it there. The linework is done well on both the shirt and the flesh parts. There’s some on the pants but it’s fairly limited in application. He does appear to be all new tooling though. Dopey likely is as well, which is a surprise for such minor characters. They could have reused the Burns/Human Rocksteady mold again, but he was noticeably shorter than Rocksteady so NECA must have decided they needed to capture the same. I wish they had instead put more money into that human Rocksteady since I think his proportions are off, but oh well. I thought he might share arms with Jersey Red, but his are ever so slightly larger. He’s just very plain, but the paint on him is mostly fine. There’s a blemish on his left arm, but nothing too extreme.

That’s right, these two mutated! Into what I’m not quite sure.

A little chunk like Dumbo probably isn’t going to articulate very well, and that’s pretty much true here. The head is set very low on the body as he’s one of those no-neck characters. He gets enough movement side-to-side and can look up, but he can’t look down and there’s very little tilt available. The shoulders can rotate fine and they hinge out past horizontal, so that’s good. The elbows are just single-hinged and a little awkward looking as you can see the sculpt of the point of the elbow past the joint, but at least here they didn’t paint any lines onto the elbow like they did with human Rocksteady so it’s not as weird looking. He can bend to about 90 degrees there and it swivels in place of a biceps swivel and on a thick-armed guy like this I like the approach. With Grunt, who had defined biceps, I was critical of the choice to forego the biceps swivel. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally, per usual. At the waist, we get a swivel point that’s probably a ball-peg, but it doesn’t do a whole lot. The overlay for the shirt gets in the way so he can only rotate a few degrees to either side and gets virtually no tilt in any direction. The ball-socketed hips will allow the little guy to nearly hit a full split and you get a little swivel at the joint as well. He can’t really kick forward as his legs want to go off to the side, but if you accept that you can get them to go fairly far. He actually can do the same backwards just as well which is rare. The knees are just single joints and his default posing has them bent slightly. They can’t bend much farther than that either, but they do swivel. The feet can’t do much due to the cuffs of the pants. You basically just get a little tilt out of the ankle rocker and the hinge is fairly useless.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “A face only a mother could love.” I’m not sure even a mother could love this one.

Dumbo is a guy who isn’t going to move much. You’re going to set him on a shelf and pose his arms with some accessories. As for those accessories, we get a few. Dumbo and Dopey both come with fists in the box and have a set of gripping hands. Dopey has an additional left gripping hand with a gap between the middle and ring finger. That gap is for use with the meat hook accessory which fits in the hand with the metal portion slotting between the fingers. It has a wood handle and gray hook and looks fine. It’s nice to get a unique weapon as the rest are less interesting. Dumbo was seen wielding a chain in the episode so we get another one of those. It’s an actual chain and it’s different from the one that came in the Premonition of a Premutation set. It’s a bit longer and the links are more rounded. I like the length, but I prefer the shape of the links on the first one we got. There’s also a short baseball bat they must have swiped from a Little League field or something. It’s painted brown and has some linework to give it a wood appearance so that’s cool. Lastly, there’s a mallet, like a cartoon, Itchy & Scratchy, mallet. It’s amusing to me to think of street gangs running around with mallets, but it’s from the show. It’s a very pale brown, almost a yellow-brown, with some black detail on each end of the head to give it a wood appearance. It’s fine, though almost too silly to use even for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

You’re going to want to display this one from the front.

That’s not all as we also have to talk about the mutations. Just like with Grunt and Scrag before him, Dopey and Dumbo come with extra parts to mutate them. In the case of Dopey, he was mutated into a shrew or something. He basically ended up with an even bigger nose. He was always positioned to the rear of the brief shots we got so it was hard to make out much and I’m guessing NECA had to use a lot of artistic license in sculpting this. He gets the extra head though with the massive nose and he’s quite ugly. We never saw his hands, but NECA decided to give him an extra right hand that was mutated into this monstrous shape. It’s affixed to a new forearm so you separate it below the second hinge to peg it in. Both swaps are easy and they don’t really affect articulation in any way. I will say, there’s no linework on the middle finger of the monstrous hand and that does distract me a bit as it’s present on all of the other fingers, but otherwise it looks fine. It’s not the most interesting mutation, but NECA did it about as well as they could.

The mutant punks! Sadly, Shredder seems to have had them all put down.

For Dumbo, he got mutated into some sort of dog-sloth thing. He’s always been referred to as a dog mutation by the fanbase, but I’m getting a sloth vibe. Especially with the tiny hands that seem to feature long claws. Whatever he is, he had better exposure than Dopey in the show so this one was easier to do as far as the design goes, but in terms of engineering it’s more involved since Dumbo’s look is sleeveless. He gets a new head that’s wide enough that it hides the flesh around the collar of his shirt from head-on, but does lock the head down even more so than before to the point where he can’t really do much there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sit as low as I’d like though as from the side you can clearly see the flesh parts. It almost would be better if the double ball peg for the head stayed on the head when you pull it off (and it’s a little tough getting that off) so the mutated head could sit even lower. The arms are an easy swap and they look fine. They’re darker than the head, but that’s in keeping with the show. The biceps piece appears to be the same as the standard arms, but the forearms had to be resculpted to include fur. The hands are tiny and sharp and you do lose the hinge joint. They don’t really do much though. He can still hold his chain, but that’s probably it. Overall, it’s okay. His mutation is more interesting than Dopey’s, though I wish they did a better job hiding the neck. Just a floating piece to slot over that would have been nice.

This is what was taken from us.

This two-pack is another one where if you have the other gang members then you probably want this one, and if you don’t, then you probably won’t see much of a need for it. These are of two of the least interesting designs in the group. I kind of like Dopey just because he looks so stupid as a “gang” member given his attire while Dumbo is just a very bland design that wasn’t supposed to receive this much attention or scrutiny. With the mutated forms, it’s the opposite as I think Dumbo’s is a bit more interesting while Dopey looks, well, dopey. He’s definitely the one to position towards the back if you’re going with a mutated display. And that’s the dilemma present. I like Scrag and Grunt’s mutant looks while Dumbo’s isn’t great, but his un-mutated look is boring. However, they pair better with human Bebop and Rocksteady so that’s probably how I’ll display them. At least for now, maybe I’ll change it up at some point, but I’ve had Scrag in his human form since getting him as well so I don’t know when that change will happen. They’re able to better make use of their weapons in human form so there’s that too.

This set is exclusive to Target stores and retails for $60. It’s a lot, but it’s the going rate. Again, if you have the other characters then you might as well get this one. The designs may not be the most exciting, but they are executed well. If you don’t have those other sets or don’t feel like you need to add to the old gang, then I don’t think you’ll miss this one. The accessories are about as exciting as the characters themselves so there’s little incentive to buy them unless you just want to collect them all.

Need more obscure Turtle characters in your life? Look no further!

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

It was a little over a month ago that San Diego Comic Con occurred, in person, for the first time since 2019. This was cause for a celebration, even if for those of us who take in the convention from the comfort of our homes saw little change. Even without the event taking place the…

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by Joe

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

March 9, 2023

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Shredder Clones

By Joe
From the pages of Mirage Studios come the Shredder clones!

NECA and Target’s Haulathon event which has seen a vast assortment of product dumped onto shelves recently was not content to limit the products to just the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Far from it, as an assortment of comic book based characters were also released and today we’re going to look at the first of 5 such releases: the Mirage Studios Shredder clones. In the original comic series, Shredder was unceremoniously killed off in the very first issue. He was never supposed to be a reocurring villain and really no one likely expected to even do a second issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but the comic sold well so another had to follow. Co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had no trouble coming up with other adventures for the boys, but the popularity of the Shredder character meant that he had to come back in some way. And he would, eventually, but first we got the clones.

“You ready to mess shit up, little buddy?”

Issue #20 of the original run saw the debut of the clones when they showed up and killed off the Triceraton warrior Zog (more on him in the coming weeks), though their full debut came in the following issue when the turtles actually did battle with them. The clones were essentially an attempt by the Foot to bring back the Shredder, but something must have gone wrong. They needed a few tries, and it would seem this trio of clones represented those first few failed attempts. One such clone is known as the Claw Shredder. A figure of him was released as part of the latest round of Loot Crates and it was basically a slender Shredder with big claws for arms. The other two clones are the subject of today’s post as they’ve been released together: Multi-armed Shredder and Mini Shredder or Shrimp Shredder. I don’t know if they necessarily have official names as these clones have now appeared in multiple iterations of the franchise and even in toy form. I suppose their official name isn’t important and all you need to know is we get a big, beefy, version of Shredder with four arms and a small Shredder. These two have been released as a two-pack and come in an oversized version of NECA’s Mirage packaging featuring new artwork by Kevin Eastman.

He may be little, but don’t turn your back on him.

I suppose we can start with the Shrimp Shredder, my preferred name for him. He’s more like an accessory, but since the box does say “Shredder Clones” with a plural, we can treat him like a figure. And this will be quick because there isn’t much to him. He stands at roughly 2.75″ to the top of his helmet, but his true height would probably add another half inch to him. That’s because he’s in a permanent crouch since his legs are prepositioned and lack knee articulation. His color scheme is like that of the standard Mirage Shredder so he has a red outfit with brown wraps at the forearms, waist, and boots. He looks like a tiny Shredder with the only difference being his skin tone is an earthy brown and he has red, glowing, eyes from behind his mask. He has just a single blade on each hand as opposed to two and features no spikes at the shin. The figure has the cutomary black line work this line is known for and it’s all really clean. The helmet and other “metal” parts have a luster to them. They’re painted in silver with hits of light blue to create the illusion of metal and it looks really sharp. It’s really impressive how much detail is packed into such a small figure and the lack of paint slop is to be commended.

“Destroy them, my clone! Take no prisoners!”

Where the little guy does come up short is in the articulation department. He’s not a slug figure, but he also doesn’t do a whole lot and it’s very similar to the baby turtles we saw in the recently released accessory set. The head is on a ball peg, but it’s pretty large relative to the creature’s body so turning it will result in it coming into contact with the spiked shoulder pauldrons. He can look down, but he can’t look up, and there’s really little in the way of nuance posing. The shoulders rotate and hinge, but they can only go so far because the elbows are bent. Eventually, the spikes on the hands will hit something when rotating and the pauldrons obstruct the figures abilito raise its arms out to the side. The hips are ball-jointed and they’re mostly unrestricted. They do kick out to the side more than forward, but his bent knees mean he wasn’t going to do kicks anyway. They pivot and can go forward and back and are easily the most accessible of the joints. The ankles feature hinges and an ankle rocker. He’s not really going to do much. You get a few options in how the arms can be positions and the legs being bent means you can’t really take advantage of all of the articulation down there. He can basically crouch, sit, kneel, or be on one knee. He’s not too hard to stand, easier than the baby turtles, so mostly he’s fine. If they could have given us knee and elbow articulation that would have been nice, or maybe just swappable legs and arms? He gets the job done though and he’s not the main attraction.

“See, dude? I told you this would be way more fun than fighting.”
Is that you, Goro?

That’s because the big guy is. We’re talking about the multi-armed Shredder, or Shiva Shredder in some parts, and he’s definitely the more impressive of the pair. Standing at around 6.75″, he’s the tallest in the Mirage line so far, or would be if he wasn’t being released at the same time as Zog. More so than the height, he feels big because he’s very broad in the chest and he needs to be because he has four, beefy, arms that need to attach to that trunk. Everything about his design is broad as even his head is practically square-shaped compared with the more rounded features of Shredder. His chin is squared-off behind the metal plate and the color scheme for this guy is the same as Shrimpy. Also similar to the little guy is that he only has one blade on each hand, but since he has four hands he has the same number of blades as Shredder. The paint is all the same so same flesh color, same approach for the steel, and so on. And like the little guy, it’s all applied exceptionally well and is mostly free of defects. The actual spikes on hims are quite firm and pretty sharp too so keep this one away from your little ones. I kind of have a “thing” for designs with four arms so I am especially taken with how this guy turned out. He’s going to look awesome in your display whether you have a ton of releases or just a few.

This guy might require both swords to take down, Leo.

Now when it comes to the articulation there’s a lot to work with, but this clone still feels like most releases from NECA. The head is on a ball peg and there’s also a ball peg in the base of the neck. He gets good rotation there with plenty of room for nuance posing. He can look up only a little due to the shape of the helm, but he can look down rather well. There’s nothing in the torso and I’m guessing that’s because of the arms. Each one is articulated as expected. We get a shoulder hinge with rotation at the peg insert, there’s a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbow, and wrists that swivel and hinge. Rotating the arms is a bit cumbersome because they conflict with each other or the pauldrons, but it can be done to a certain degree. The elbows, even though they’re double-jointed, really only give 90 degrees of bend because the gauntlets on each arm ride up so far and the biceps on this guy are pretty massive. You can rotate at the gauntlet as well which I like because it allows you to keep the forearm blades in-line with the hands. There is a waist twist, but it’s just that and doesn’t feel like a ball-joint. The hips are the standard ball hips and this big boy can almost do full splits as a result. He doesn’t kick forward very far, and the legs tend to go out to the side more than forward. There is rotation at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed and can bend past 90. There is no boot cut, but the ankles hinge and have a rocker which works well enough. In terms of stuck joints, I had a little trouble with the left knee, but I was able to get it going without having to resort to hot water or a hair dryer. Some of the biceps and elbows were a bit stubborn, but again, nothing that required heat. His a big, brawler, type so I think the articulation here is good enough and he stands easily so that’s a plus.

“My arm! The filthy reptile slashed off my arm!”

When it comes to the accessories, this set is somewhat lacking. Unless you consider the little clone an accessory, then I guess it’s better. He has no accessories, but the big guy gets some extra hands. He has, in total, two fists, two clenching hands, two gripping hands, and two chop hands. I guess if you wanted four fists you’ll be disappointed, but I’m good with the variety. He also comes with some battle damage accessories. In the comic, these guys were made up of some weird worms. They’re like a hive mind and whatever they eat they can replicate, or something. It’s not important, but when they get damaged the purple worms become visible which is pretty gross. What you can do is pop off each forearm just behind the gauntlet, which is why you get a swivel point there. With that removed, you have a cap that can go over the stump which makes it look like a bunch of purple worms are visible. And for the discarded limb, there’s another purple cap that can attach to the that making it look like the worms are spreading out from it. It’s pretty cool and certainly helps for those into toy photography or want to stage a fight on their shelf. The pieces work fine and look fine as well, but that’s it for accessories. Is it pretty slim? Yeah, but I don’t know what else we could really ask for. I guess more battle damaged parts if that’s your thing, but I’m more or less content with this.

Including the original Shredder with them highlights the strides NECA has made in painting the metal bits.

The Shredder Clones two-pack is another very specific release and one that unfortunately is limited in value by the presence of a Loot Crate figure. If you have the Claw Shredder then you probably want these guys and if you don’t then you might not see the point. The good news is, the Claw Shredder really hasn’t been that sought after and aftermarket prices haven’t been terrible. They might go up now that these guys are out, but he’s certainly easier to get than Scrag. I have that figure so I wanted this pair and I’m happy to have them. I’m also happy to say that they came in at $40 which doesn’t seem terrible. With online retailers charging $38 for Casey Jones and the Utrom, $40 for this pair feels like a pretty damn good price. That’s the Target price though and when this gets sent to specialty retail he may very well cost more. We’ll have to wait and see. For now, this pair is only available at Target stores for the month of March and it remains to be seen if it will be refreshed or if it was a one and done affair. If you’re into the Mirage stuff and you come across this one then I definitely recommend it. You can never have too many four-armed figures and apparently you can never have too many Shredders.

Here’s some more TMNT goodness that might interest you:

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Utrom

We’ve become so accustomed to having the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in our lives that the name of the franchise has almost lost all meaning. Well, maybe not all, but I feel we mostly have lost sight of how ridiculous a concept this franchise is. And it extends to other characters in the franchise and…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

We’re well into the cold of winter and spring feels like it’s just around the corner which means it must be time for another NECA Haulathon. Haulathon, if you don’t recall from last year, is basically a tandem promotion between NECA and Target which was just an excuse to get NECA some more visibility in…

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by Joe

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

March 7, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

By Joe
We got ourselves a couple of bad apples, here.

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of New York. When they turn their attention towards a reporter by the name of April O’Neil, they run afoul of some local vigilantes who happen to be mutated ninjas. Shredder, identifying that his new foes are not human, decides to create some mutants of his own. We see the transformation of Bebop and Rocksteady to a mutant warthog and rhino respectively, while the rest of the gang gets mutated offscreen. We get one glimpse at them post mutation on a monitor in the Technodrome and then a very brief glimpse in the fifth and final episode of said mini series where they’re all in a cell. One lucky mutant, who we’ve come to know as Scrag, got to demonstrate Shredder’s reverse mutation ray which returned him to his human form and then he and the rest of the gang were never heard from again. Did Shredder, seeing how moronic Bebop and Rocksteady turned out, decide to just cut his losses and exterminate the rest? Maybe he returned them all to human form and set them free in New York? Or, perhaps wanting to have a little fun, did he and Krang tell them they were going home, but they actually dumped them in Dimension X where they almost certainly met their end?

There’s no canon explanation for what happened to the rest of the street punks. In reality, the mini series was commissioned by Playmates Toys to sell, well, toys. And it did its job so they were all set. Producer Fred Wolf saw more potential in the show and wanted to continue producing it and so they did leading to a second season and then several more. In going from the mini series to season two, it was likely decided that Shredder didn’t need a whole gang of mutants at his disposal. Bebop and Rocksteady would be enough as recurring characters and they could bring in other “villains of the day” to add variety. And since it was a kid’s show, there likely wasn’t any consideration given to telling the audience what happened with these other characters. Adults often underestimate kids and their capacity for knowledge and memory because I certainly wanted to know what happened with those other guys, but the show never brought them back. Now that I’m an adult and immersed in the collector community, I know my thoughts were not unique to me. Most kids wondered what happened to those punks, but aside from very brief appearances in supplemental media and ephemera, they’ve been forgotten. It’s only through those items that we even know them by name: Scrag, Grunt, Dopey, and Dumbo.

The gang’s all here.

When NECA and Loot Crate returned for another round of TMNT crates, the bonus figure for those who purchased all four crates ended up being the infamous Scrag. This basically signaled to the collector community that these long ignored characters were on NECA’s radar, and not being one to shy away from deep pulls, the prospect of completing Bebop and Rocksteady’s original gang suddenly seemed like a foregone conclusion. The only catch was that Scrag had a pretty significant barrier in front of him. If you only wanted that figure it was going to cost you $200 as you had to buy four $50 crates. NECA has insisted that any figure exclusive to Loot Crate would remain so which is why most of the first wave of crates were variants of popular characters. Wave 2 was more specialized and while a character like Danny Pennington from the first film, who was featured in the first crate of Wave 2, could get re-released at mass retail with a different look a character like Scrag only has one look. And his figure featured components to display him as a human or as his mutated bat form, so that possibility was out. Would NECA release the rest of the gang if there was no way for people who missed out on Scrag to get him? Well, we have our answer, and it’s “Yes!” For this round of Haulathon, NECA has unleashed the gang and for the first time ever we have them all in plastic form. And as a result, we essentially have all of the main characters from that inaugural mini series in plastic as well so that’s pretty cool. These guys have been more than 30 years in the making so now the question is, “Was it worth it?”

This guy has some interesting fashion sense. I feel like he tried out and was rejected be Demolition.

The other problem with NECA releasing Scrag solo is that it meant the four missing gang members were now reduced to three. NECA prefers to release these figures in packs of two so someone was going to have to be paired with a non-gang member. Or, there was the possibility of NECA doing another three-pack like it did with the Neutrinos, but it turns out that the company had a satisfactory replacement in mind: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the canonical replacement for Bebop, or Rocksteady, in the gang they once ran with. She debuts in the episode “The Gang’s All Here” when Shredder orders the pair to reconnect with their old gang. If you’re wondering how that squares with my prior paragraphs talking about how we never heard from them again, it still does as the gang is composed of all new characters. Red, as far as we were shown, never actually ran with the likes of Grunt, Scrag, etc and instead was more like a replacement for those guys. She is joined by Lugnut and High-Five in her episodes so maybe they’re on NECA’s radar. For now, she’s a suitable inclusion as far as theming goes even if she wasn’t a figure I ever actively wanted.

It’s like getting two figures in one!

Grunt and Jersey Red come in the standard window box we’re accustomed to at this point. Purchasing the pair will set you back $60 now, but $30 each for a pair of figures of new tooling is pretty much the going rate these days. We’ll talk about Grunt first. He stands at around 6.25″ to the top of his head and 6.75″ to the top of his mohawk. He is pretty absurd looking. Maybe to avoid doing anything that could be too realistic for a gang member, the design of Grunt looks more like a Judas Priest roadie or pro wrestler. He has a blond mohawk and sunglasses, but has declined to wear a shirt. Instead, he basically wears a harness that’s strapped to his chest with a big, gold, buckle in the center of his chest and back. He has an oversized gray belt with some pouches on it to pair with tight, black, pants and boots. I guess because he values some personal protection, he’s also got gray kneepads and a pair of bracelets to complete the look. He’s lean, but pretty muscular, and I don’t know if a guy looking like this approached me on the street if I’d laugh or be intimidated. It’s certainly a look though and NECA captured it well. Since he’s mostly black and fleshtone, there isn’t a ton of paint on this guy. Every spot of him is still painted, it’s just not a paint job that requires a ton of detail. The toon shading is only applied to the harness and the kneepads, but there’s still plenty of linework on the muscles and finer details. And what is there is very clean, there’s little or no blemishes on my figure and there’s no plastic look to the figure. The only thing I don’t like is that his eyes were left without pupils. They’re just white, but since they’re behind sunglasses I’m guessing NECA decided it didn’t need to paint them.

Well that doesn’t look right.

For accessories, Grunt has 3 sets of hands: fists, gripping, and a second set of gripping hands. That second set of gripping hands features claws on the fingers because they’re likely intended for his mutated form. Unfortunately, they’re cast and painted in his normal flesh tone so they’re useless. The hands are also on long, skinny, pegs and are quite challenging to remove. More so than they should be and the long peg just means more room for breaking so do exercise caution. As for what he has to wield with the gripping hands, he gets a sword. It’s a curved blade with a wrapped handle and I think this is a new sculpt. It looks fine and he was seen with a sword in the show. His main accessory though is his mutant form. Grunt was mutated into a green, lizard, creature, and since he declines to wear a shirt NECA needed to include more than just a head and some hands like it did with Scrag. The lizard form is an entirely new torso. The default torso separates at the waist and it’s pretty easy to do. The lizard part then just plugs in, and again, fairly painlessly. If you wanted to get a really good seal you may need to heat the lizard torso up, but it’s not necessary. He looks great and the paint and linework is all very clean. He has open, clawing, hands which thankfully look great since they’re the only hands he’s got. He’s got a long, flicking, tongue which is a nice touch and it’s going to be hard to settle on a display for this guy because this lizard creature looks so cool.

This will not end well for you, punk.

When it comes to articulation, Grunt is fairly basic for the line. The head is likely on a double ball peg so you get some up and down plus full rotation and some tilt for nuance posing. The shoulders are just pegged in on hinges so you get full rotation and they can come out to the side almost to a horizontal position. It might go further if you force it, but it’s probably not necessary. No biceps swivel on this guy which is a surprise. Instead, he gets a single hinged joint at the elbow that just pegs into the bicep so you get a swivel there. The elbow bends to about 90 so it’s functional, but a biceps swivel would look better, in my opinion. I’m guessing they didn’t want to break up the sculpt or were trying to save some money by tooling fewer parts. The wrists swivel and hinge and after being pleasantly surprised with the vertical-hinged REX-1 wrists, Grunt is back to just all horizontal hinges despite his lone weapon being a sword. In the torso, we have a ball-joint in the diaphragm. It will give the figure rotation with a decent amount of side-to-side tilt and very little forward and back. At the waist is a twist where the upper body pegs into the lower body so while it works it does tend to come apart slightly when twisting on it. The hips are the standard ball and socket joints and they go out to the side for full splits, kick forward all the way, and back slightly. There’s a thigh twist up there as well as double-jointed knees which go past 90 degrees. At the top of the boot we do get a swivel and at the ankle we get hinges and rockers. The hinges offer very little going forward and back, but the ankle rocker is pretty solid.

Told ya!

Grunt’s articulation is probably enough. I don’t like the elbows, but NECA doesn’t like doing double-joints on bare armed characters so I at least understand the thinking. I just wish he got to keep a biceps swivel. As for the lizard-man, the articulation is basically the same. His arms can’t quite get out to horizontal either and he lacks a biceps swivel. His diaphragm joint has less range and it’s partly because the straps on his chest sit lower and are on the part that wants to rotate. His head, which sits forward on his body, is also different. I think it’s still a double ball peg, but the orientation means that ball is pointing straight out so you get a head that can’t look up, can look down a touch, and doesn’t get a lot of side-to-side. You get plenty of tilt, but otherwise is limited and swapping to the mutant form is a downgrade in articulation.

The rough and tough female of the gang.

Now let’s talk about Grunt’s box-mate: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the rare female in this line, but I’m happy to say we actually have a couple more females to talk about from this wave of Haulathon releases. She was previously teased via a wanted poster included as a sticker in one of the Loot Crates and as a paper insert for the street diorama. She’s a heavy set woman in a halter top and jeans with a flock of red hair that reminds me of Guile from Street Fighter 2. She also has these red, cowboy, boots that will make her a challenge to stand in any pose that isn’t just straight up and down. The design is a bit understated compared with Grunt, but effective nonetheless. She’s not a character I ever needed in plastic, but what’s here looks good and true to the show. She does have the toon shading on her jeans and boots and the paint hits are all applied cleanly. As far as I can tell, nothing on this figure was reused from a previous one so she’s all new.

She’s got a gun and a bottle of…Maalox? She’s ready to party!

For accessories, Red has an assortment of hands: fists, clenching, a right trigger finger hand, and a left, wide, gripping hand. The wide gripping hand is included so she can hold one of her accessories. The first is a white bottle of some sort. In her debut episode, Shredder was trying to spread some new mutation serum so that might be what this bottle is for, but otherwise I don’t know. For the trigger hand, she has a gun. It’s a big, white, blaster of some kind that certainly looks like it came from the show. I don’t know if Jersey Red was ever seen wielding this gun, but it looks like something Shredder might have passed out to the gang when they brought them onboard in her debut episode. It’s not a lot of stuff, I’m guessing most of the accessory budget went to Grunt’s lizard half, but I don’t think she really needed anything else. She’s a brawler, but she’s got a gun too and if you want to outfit her with melee weapons you probably have a bunch laying around at this point. I know I do.

I believe the kids would refer to her now as “thick.”

As for articulation, Jersey Red is a bit limited. She has the standard setup at the head which allows her to look up, down, all around, and she has some tilt. The shoulders rotate all around and hinge out to the side to just about horizontal. She basically has the same arm setup as Grunt since her arms are bare so no biceps swivel and a single-jointed elbow. She basically hits 90 degrees at the elbow bend and the wrists swivel and hinge. All of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. In the torso, she has a diaphragm joint that lets her rotate just below her bust and that’s basically all it does. She has a waist twist below that which is just okay. Since it’s not a ball joint, twisting her too far breaks up the sculpt at the waist so it’s of limited use. At the hips, we have the standard setup, but she has a rather large “diaper” covering her crotch so she can’t do splits like Grunt can nor can she kick forward very far and she can’t kick back at all. She does have a thigh twist up there, but her knees are single-jointed. They swivel there as well, but the bend doesn’t quite hit 90 degrees. She does have a boot cut so those swivel and the hinge and rocker combo at the ankle work well enough, but because her boots are heeled it’s not nearly as useful. You’re not going to do a whole lot with her feet, but if you keep it simple, she actually stands pretty well. There are peg holes on her heels if you feel a simple stand is warranted, but she’s stable. I should add, nothing on either figure was too tight or too loose. I didn’t have to heat any of the joints and the only heat recommended is maybe for connecting Grunt’s mutant half to his lower body or getting his hands out, and if you’re real concerned about paint rub with the white blaster, heating the trigger hand first would help there though I had no issues without it.

“What the hell are you doing down there?”

Grunt and Jersey Red is not a two-pack that is going to set the world on fire, but it’s executed fairly well. The only real bummer is the gaffe with the mutant gripping hands for Grunt. Some companies would attempt to fix this by offering replacements somehow, but I don’t expect that to happen here. My guess is if they ever do a second production run it will be corrected there. NECA has done this in the past and indicated that customers could get on a list for replacement parts, but I’ve never seen anyone actually receive said replacement parts. The last time something like that happened was with the Rat King who had a faulty crotch piece that flaked paint. If that matters to you then you may want to sit this one out. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that this set ever gets another run. These are obscure characters and if you don’t have Scrag all ready then you probably won’t even bother. Unless you’re the rare Jersey Red fan. The rise in price also doesn’t help. If I were grading these separately, I’d say Grunt is fine and a pretty fun figure to mess around with. Jersey Red looks good, but isn’t particularly fun to handle as she’s too limited. If I could have passed on her I probably would have, but I’m also not looking to offload her or anything. If you want to complete the original gang then sure, go for it. If you don’t care or don’t have any of those previous releases (including human Bebop and Rocksteady) then you can probably pass on this one.

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

It was a little over a month ago that San Diego Comic Con occurred, in person, for the first time since 2019. This was cause for a celebration, even if for those of us who take in the convention from the comfort of our homes saw little change. Even without the event taking place the…

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NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

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