Category Archives: toys

May 14, 2026

Mondo The Real Ghostbusters Ray Stantz

By Joe
We’re finishing off a collection today, folks.

And with that, another bucket list item can be crossed off for Mondo has released the fourth action figure in its line of The Real Ghostbusters toys: Ray Stantz. Ray follows Peter, Egon, and Winston and completes the quartet from the 1986 cartoon series which has been sorely underrepresented in the adult collectible market. There have been quite a few attempts at figures based on the movie versions, but for The Real Ghostbusters there was basically Mego and Diamond Select and neither represented on-model interpretations of the characters in a format befitting an adult collectible. It was a bit incredible to know that few companies had even attempted it given how popular the vintage Kenner toy line was. Hasbro has done reissues and even releases of figures based on cancelled projects in a retro style, but for whatever reason the company has never waded into the waters of the Dic cartoon series with a modern toy line. Supposedly, there are reasons for that some of which has been reflected in Mondo’s hefty price tag of $101 per figure, but for 80s kids and longtime toy enthusiasts such as myself, having a premium version of these characters for the shelf is a bit of a dream come true.

If you have experienced any of the prior releases in Mondo’s line then Ray isn’t going to feature a whole lot of surprises. He is quite familiar and shares a lot of parts with the past figures as well as some accessories. He is another sculpt by Alex Brewer with paint by Mark Bristow, art direction by Hector Arce, and packaging by Jordan Christianson. I received the standard edition which comes in the box modeled after the ghost trap from the show. It has a nice window on the front, but since there’s an abudance of protective material inside the box it’s not going to display all that well for those who choose not to open the figure. There is a lot more in this box compared with both Egon and Winston so it presents as more full. Even Ray’s head is partially cut off by the window border since he’s placed high in the tray.

I think the sizing could have been a little better.

Out of the box, Ray is going to stand a tick over 6.5″ on your shelf putting him basically at the same height as both Peter and Winston. Egon, by virtue of a longer neck and head, stands the tallest. The show can be inconsistent with how it portrayed the busters, but Ray was almost always depicted as the shortest of the four by a noticeable amount. Given that these are likely the most on-model representations of the show we’re likely to get in plastic, it’s a bit of a shame that Mondo did not go out of its way to capture the different heights of the characters. There is so much reuse between the four that it would have been nice if Ray could have received unique legs. He does, at least, feature a unique torso to capture his heavier build which I appreciate. He also appears to have a unique neck that is a little thicker than the rest which is appropriate. I do feel like his head sits a touch too high as the silhouette is off just enough for me to notice. Yes, I am nitpicking a bit with that critique, but as I’ve pointed out in all of the other reviews for this line we are talking about a figure that retails for over a hundred dollars so nitpicking is expected.

Goggles up or goggles down?

Apart from my critiques with the proportions, the rest of what is presented here looks quite nice. I think Mondo did a good job of finding the right shade of beige for Ray’s jumpsuit and the paint applications are quite clean. The “No Ghosts” logo on the right arm has the right opacity to the white which is something that has either improved as the line has gone on or is a function of Ray’s suit being a fairly light color. He has that nice, matte, finish and the flesh tones are warm. His default expression is a bit of a happy one and the roundness of his cheeks and nose look to be quite on-model. It’s funny that when watching the cartoon I’ve never seen any of the actor’s likenesses in the characters which was by design since Dic had no interest in paying for those likeness rights, but when I view this portrait at a 3/4 angle I do see a bit of Dan Aykroyd in Ray.

Beware the Pink Nightmare!
“We rabbit people demand your respect!”

Ray’s accessories are a mix of both familiar and new, and to my surprise, there is a bit more “new” than we’ve seen with other releases. The repeats are what you probably expected: a proton pack, stream effect, trap, gloved hands, and a disc stand. Like the other guys, Ray comes with one alternate portrait and it features a determined expression, let’s say. He doesn’t quite look angry, but he’s definitely busting ghosts or looking to. He also has a trap effect which features the ghost Mr. Gash, who is the included ghost with the deluxe version. I’ll admit, he’s a cool design and I was slightly tempted to go for it, but I really don’t remember the ghost from the show so I decided to pocket the $100 (and they ended up getting me for Janine anyway, so don’t weep for Mondo). It looks great and slides in with relative ease, though like the other trap effects we’ve received so far it can be a bit of a challenge to get it to stay flat on a surface. I also noticed that the standard trap insert is a bit looser this time around. It will stay put when inverted, but the slightest tape will cause it to slide out. Ray also has a companion ghost of his own and his is Drool, the dog-faced goblin. Admittedly, I don’t remember this guy from the show, but he does possess an interesting design. More bug than ghost, he has eight limbs and a big, grinning, open maw. Each limb can articulate via a swivel point as does his tail and head. It’s not much, but it allows for at least a little bit of variety in your display. The sculpt is great and so is the paint so even if you have foregone the big ghosts of the deluxe packages, you should still have a nice little ghost display if you have all four Ghostbusters.

He’s a good boy.

For unique accessories, Ray has a trio. Like Egon, he comes with some additional equipment in the form of his goggles. I think all of the Ghostbusters have such in the show and may even use them from time-to-time, but they are definitely most associated with Ray going back to the original film. They are well sculpted and painted and feature a soft, plastic, strap to fit over his head. If you want Ray to wear them over his eyes, I recommend taking off the head and putting them on from the bottom. If you want them on his head as he is so often featured, it will take a slight amount of elbow grease to get them onto his tuft of hair if you want them to feel secure. You could also just attempt to rest them on his head which may be the better move for a long-term display to avoid stretching of the strap. For additional headgear, Ray also has his pink bunny hood. This is taken from the episode “Look Homeward, Ray.” when Ray goes back to his hometown and takes a job at a shoe store that requires a rather embarrassing costume. He ends up doing some busting with the hood on which is likely why Mondo included it. Depending on the head you want to display it with (his serious expression takes on a grumpy feel with the hood that I appreciate), you will want to pop it into the hood first before putting it on the body. It sits well and there doesn’t appear to be a ton of rub so I don’t think paint transfer will be much of an issue. The hood is really well painted and features some nice shading so it will work well if you want Ray to look like a pink nightmare on your shelf. Finally, we have a mini Stay Puft doll. It looks just like a scaled-down version of the old Kenner toy and features some nicely painted details. I think this was just a doll Ray (and possibly Slimer) would be seen sleeping with. It almost looks like the arms should swivel, but nothing appears to be articulated here which is fine. It’s a fun inclusion and all of the extra bits with Ray make me wish Peter and Winston had received some unique accessories too. Egon had the ghost bomb and PKE meter.

So long, Mr. Gash.
It’s like a security plush.

Ray being almost a direct copy of the figures before him features exactly the same articulation as his ghost busting brothers. For a quick rundown, there’s head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. Knee and elbow joints are single hinges while the hip joints feature built-in swivels at the ball joint. Ray pretty much has the same strengths and weaknesses as the others. The shoulder joint almost looks like a butterfly, but it doesn’t really do anything special. To wield his proton wand properly, he has to basically hold it across his body. The knees won’t bend 90 degrees while the elbows get close and the waist mostly rotates as there’s little room for forward and back. Ray’s articulation is a bit more smooth than his predecessors. I notice it in the right hip mostly which almost comes up a full 90 degrees. The left not so much and even if it matched the right hip I think he’d still be hard-pressed to sit convincingly in a potential Ecto-1. The ankle hinges are borderline loose with Ray and he has fallen over once in the short amount of time that I’ve had him. I hope they don’t get any looser as that would be a drag since even the disc stand is unlikely to help with that. Like the other guys, Ray is capable of just the basics and won’t be able to do much more than that. I do like that he’s a bit smoother out of the box, though the ankles are a bit of a bummer.

Say it with me: busting makes me feel good!

If you have the other three Ghostbusters from Mondo and like them then you’re going to like Ray. If you have experienced these figures before and came away unimpressed, then Ray isn’t going to change your mind. He is relatively on-model with the cartoon series with exceptional paint and a solid assortment of accessories, but he does come up short if you were hoping for 100% or even 99% screen accuracy. And that may be fine as few action figure releases achieve such a hit rate, but not all of them retail for $101. That’s the question facing us all when we go to make a purchasing decision and the higher the price the more scrutiny is invited. I don’t like settling at this price point, but I also don’t expect another company to come along and do a better job than Mondo. That’s the simple fact for me when it comes to The Real Ghostbusters and I am content to let these be my one and only. And with Ray being the fourth and final Ghostbuster, it puts me in a reflective mood. I do understand and take Mondo at its word when it was said the price was something out of their control. However, I do think they could have done a better job of putting value into the box. I like the extra stuff with Ray, but what I would like more is for him to be more on-model. I also think we should have received at least three portraits with each Ghostbuster, something like a spread of neutral, serious, and scared. Neutral would vary as I think Peter’s smug expression is a good neutral for him just as I think Ray’s happy expression is a good base expression. We also really need more hands as Mondo only included gripping hands. I get wanting to do the gloves, but I’m never going to use them. What I really want are some relaxed hands as well as pointing hands so they could imitate their strut from the ending credits. What I’m getting at is the approach should have been “Let’s make these the ultimate Real Ghostbusters figures,” and I don’t get the sense that was the goal. It absolutely has been with the sixth scale X-Men and even looks be the case with the 1:12 Masters of the Universe, but not with Real Ghostbusters. Mondo doesn’t really do accessory packs from what I’ve seen too so I don’t think that’s a possibility, but maybe I’m wrong and they’re working on something. At the end of the day though, I stand by what I said in that I don’t think anyone else is going to come along and do this line better so if you want The Real Ghostbusters on your shelf in this format then you know what it’s going to cost you.

That’ll do, Mondo, that’ll do.

To read what I had to say about all of Mondo’s Real Ghostbusters action figures see below:

Mondo The Real Ghostbusters Winston Zeddemore

We are now three deep into Mondo’s line of 1:12 scale action figures based on The Real Ghostbusters. Well, we’re now six deep counting the ghosts, but I personally passed on both Boogie Man and now The Sandman who has been released in tandem with our third Ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore. At this point, we know…

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by Joe

Mondo The Real Ghostbusters Egon Spengler

It’s a Halloween miracle! The second figure in the Mondo The Real Ghostbusters line of action figures, Egon Spengler, had been bumped to November. Even when I got my shipping notification from Mondo it said a delivery date of November 1st. It felt almost cruel to receive a Ghostbusters toy the day after Halloween, but…

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by Joe

Mondo The Real Ghostbusters Peter Venkman and Samhain

I didn’t do a big 2024 wrap-up type of post like I sometimes do, but if I did I would have awarded toy producer Mondo with the biggest reveal of the year when they debuted their line of action figures based on The Real Ghostbusters. The Real Ghostbusters was one of many 80s properties to…

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by Joe

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May 12, 2026

NECA TMNT Garfello

By Joe

Before they teamed up with the likes of Batman and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had an encounter with an orange cat with a love for Italian food. I am speaking of none other than Garfield, the Jim Davis creation who was everywhere in the 1980s. The two franchises came together for a one page comic in the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magazine in 1992 in which Garfield, disguised as fellow ninja turtle Garfello, tries to dupe the turtles into letting him guard their precious pizza while they go do crime-fighting stuff only for Odie to blow his cover when he can’t get his turtle costume on right. The comic was written by Garfield creator Jim Davis with inks by TMNT co-creator Peter Laird. Art was handled by Gary Barker and Larry Fentz with color by Steve Lavigne and letters by Mary Kelleher. This little comic was apparently popular enough to attract the attention of not one, but two toy companies 23 years later. It was at San Diego Comic Con in 2025 that NECA unveiled their take on Garfello with Odie along as well. The reveal was perhaps the highlight of NECA’s booth for the convention and something that seemed to attract a lot of attention online. Shortly after, Boss Fight Studio (who has a whole line of Garfield action figures) revealed its own Garfello and Odie two-pack that is so similar to what NECA showed that I honestly felt bad for them. Did Garfield rights owner Paramount even alert either toy company to the plans each had? Most licensors won’t greenlight the same thing across licensees because they would just be competing with each other, but evidently Paramount wasn’t too concerned. Both sets look fine from a sculpting standpoint, but the NECA approach of painting all of the little details and the fact that I’m well into their TMNT collection sold that set for me, but I’m guessing those who already have Boss Fight’s Garfield figures would opt for that version.

“We can be ninjas Odie. How hard can it be?”

NECA’s take on Garfello is sold as an “ultimate” release with new box art by Jason Yang. It features all TMNT branding putting it squarely in the turtle toy line. The figures inside are based on sculpts by Tomasz Rozejowski and Kushwara Studios with paints by Geoff Trapp and Mike Puzzo. Even though it’s an ultimate style release, the price tag is a bit elevated which could have something to do with the dual license or perhaps the lack of reuse potential contained within. Or at least that seems to be the case everywhere but Target who prices the set at $38. Many specialty shops are $45 and up which is a bit of a tough sell for such small figures. Is there even enough in the box to make consumers happy at $38? We’ll try to answer that one today.

The two smallest turtles around.

Garfello stands at a miniscule 2.75″ to the top of his head and right around the 3″ mark to the tip of his ears. He’s a little guy, but he’s also a house cat and meant to be in-scale with the turtles. Just which turtles is a legitimate question as the ones from the one-shot are kind of their own thing. Stylistically, they probably most resemble the Jim Lawson turtles, but with colored bandanas. They even look a little like the recently made Stan Sakai turtles, but it’s funny that my memory of the brief comic seems to always insert the Archie turtles into the page and only viewing the actual source gets them out. There’s only one group shot in the comic which puts Garfield at a little past the mid-thigh point of the turtles which does make the figure scale best with the Lawson turtles. With the toon, he’s closer to the belt area, but I think the scale is close enough that he’ll work for whatever turtles you prefer to place him with. And since this is Garfello as opposed to Garfield, he is clad in his turtle costume which is non-removable. The black bandana is part of the sculpt and he features a belt, plastron, and shell. He’s also sporting brown elbow and knee pads and his belt has a big “G” in the middle of it as that was the style at the time.

The shell continuity between the two is pretty nice.

The sculpt for Garfello is quite good and on-model for the comic. The head has that oval shape to it and the eyes dominate the space available on the front. The ears are situated close together and the black markings of the fur are visible from all angles. NECA did take some liberties with the design as they included the little pieces of fur that are often found sticking up and out from the sides of Garfield’s head, something the comic omitted. Here they’re coming out of the bandana which is a little odd, but honestly feels right and I was actually surprised to see that detail wasn’t present on the page. The figure has a very matte appearance as everything is painted over. There’s black linework throughout the shell and plastron which really helps to capture that comic style and helps give the figure a striking appearance. Perhaps the best part of the paint job is reserved for Garfello’s lone weapon: the pizza cutter! It features a brown handle and real working cutter wheel (not sharp, likely terrible for cutting actual pizza) that’s painted a combination of white, blue, and black. The blue helps to give it that comic shading which we see often in NECA’s comic figures while the black lines add detail and create the illusion of a whirling pizza cutter. Painting metal objects as they appear in comic books is honestly one of NECA’s biggest strengths and it really puts to shame other companies that go with just one color or swirly plastic.

“Is there a prettier sight?”

The majority of Garfello’s accessories are reserved for altering his expression or hands. The comic is brief which allowed NECA to literally recreate every expression Garfello is responsible for in five of the six panels. The only one he can’t do is his final, disgraced, posed where he’s smushed on the road and glaring at Odie – a pose the figure had no prayer of recreating so why bother with a portrait of the same? The three heads are smiling, smiling with teeth exposed, and smiling with the ears flattened. To swap between the three are three sets of eyes: half-lidded, open, and open with tiny pupils. You can find all three in the comic so it’s hard to argue that anything is missing, even if it would have been fun to get an open-mouthed expression for devouring pizza. To remove the eyes, NECA included a little, plastic, tool that resembles a railroad spike or flooring clete. You can use it to push the eyes out from behind, or just carefully use a fingernail from the front. The pegs that hold them in place are pretty short so they’re fairly easy to remove and replace. For hands, Garfello has a set of fists, gripping, open, and open with claws. They too have fairly short pegs which makes taking them off and on fairly painless. The only danger is that his arms are so short that it’s a little tricky getting leverage, but not impossible. Heads are a little more stubborn, but there’s just a big old ball joint under them so there’s not much risk in damaging anything when removing or seating one. The bandana tails are shared between all three portraits so it’s a good idea to remove that part first. If you do get into any trouble then just turn to some hot water and that will likely cure what ails you. To complete the look, NECA included a stack of pizzas for Garfello to drool over. They have a nice, messy, gooey, quality that makes them appear both delicious and gross. Seriosuly, who removes their pizza from the box to stack like this?

“Stand back, Odie. I don’t want you to see what I’m about to do.”

The other accessory of sorts is Odie himself. Unlike Garfield, Odie can appear on your shelf as his costumed version or just as a garden variety Odie as NECA included two portraits. By default, he’s just Odie with a closed mouth portrait that looks pretty cute. He’s just a tick over 2″ to the top of his head with the ears bringing him to about 2.75″. If you remove that head you can swap it with Odie’s turtle costume which is just a shell with his tongue sticking out of the neck hole. It’s a bit tough to get on, but the figure is pretty sturdy. As always, use heat if it’s being stubborn. Odie’s head connects via a double ball peg so it’s not quite as durable as Garfello’s connection, but hardly weak. Paint for Odie follows the same style as Garfello with lots of linework, especially on the shell head. His soft yellow fur does seem to be a magnet for dirt as he came out of the box looking slightly dingey when viewed up close. Mine also has a black dot on the lower part of the right eye that’s a bit annoying. He looks like Odie though with the only caveat being that I tend to always picture Odie in my head with his mouth open and tongue hanging out. He never actually appears unmasked in the comic so it’s hard to quibble with what is essentially a bonus head. I suspect other Garfield fans will be more disappointed in the fact that Odie can appear as just regular Odie while Garfield is forever in his Garfello attire. There would have been no easy way to make him a two-way figure. It would have been cool if NECA had devised a way to do so, but since we’re already dealing with a full-priced offering I don’t think I’d have wanted to spend more just to make Garfield be able to take the costume off. Especially since I would be unlikely to ever do so.

“Oh, the heck with it – I’ll just use my claws.”

Garfello and Odie are little guys. They’re also NECA figures so it’s a given the articulation is going to be underwhelming with the pair and that much is true. Garfello is articulated at the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles which includes both a hinge and a rocker. As I mentioned before, the head is just a big ball socket so it rotates and has a minimal amount of tilt. The shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists, and ankles are standard hinged-peg joints. They’re small, so they have a delicate feel to them and range is fairly limited. The gripping hands do not have a vertical hinge which would have actually served the pizza cutter accessory far better than the standard horizontal hinge. The ankles were tight on mine at the hinge, but other joints were fine. His tail is also articulated, but it just swivels and is best served as a third leg to help balance the figure. The hips are the oddest part as I think they’re just ball-socket connections, but they appear to connect to a ball-pin that’s angled down as opposed to a standard horizontal angle. This limited the movement at the hips to mostly a swivel, a shame if you want your Garfello to kick Odie in the butt for messing up his plan. As for Odie, he has the double ball-jointed head while each leg barely moves. I think they’re all ball joints with the rear legs having slightly more range than the front. The feet feature hinges and rockers which really only exist to get his feet flat on the ground. That’s all Odie is capable of and I’m honestly surprised they didn’t trim the budget and just make his body static. He’s basically articulated just for the sake of saying that he is articulated. Functionally, it’s mostly useless.

“Bon appetit”

Likely no one was buying these figures for their posing ability. It doesn’t meant we can’t expect a little better, but if you just want a silly looking Garfield and Odie for your TMNT display then this will get the job done. The only real question is how much is that worth for you? On a purely value level, I don’t think this set is equivalent to a typical NECA ultimate release. It would have been awesome as a $30 item, but this is a world in which Super7 and Mezco are charging over $20 for figures with five points of articulation. Garfello is like a step up from such and I do wonder how I would have reacted if he was by himself for $30? Would I consider that a good deal? If so, doesn’t that make Odie worth the extra $8? That’s, of course, if you can find him for $38 at Target. NECA did offer Garfello on their website, but with a steep shipping cost. Big Bad Toy Store is charging $47 for this release which does feel steep and I can’t fault the person who looks at that price and decides to pass. This is a novelty figure and the price for that novelty is going to vary from person to person. For what it is, it’s pretty nice. The sculpts are on-model and the paint is great. I’m guessing if you’re a big Garfield fan that this set makes you wish NECA was doing more Garfield if it’s going to look this good. Unless you’re looking at the price tag and feeling thankful your toy budget doesn’t need to make room for more stuff.

I don’t have any other Garfield toys to link to below, but I do have some other stuff:

Dec. 5 – A Garfield Christmas

This year, I’m bringing back a feature from last year where I take another look at, what I consider to be, the greatest Christmas specials ever made. I explained my reasoning for doing this in prior posts, but in short, the first time I looked at some of these specials I did just a short…

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by Joe

Dec. 20 – The Garfield Show – “Caroling Capers”

Back in the 1980s, Garfield was pretty damn popular. His presence was pervasive in pop culture, so much so that younger people today would probably be surprised. He originated as a comic strip by Jim Davis, but his popularity grew enough to pave the way for some prime time animation specials. These proved popular, and…

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by Joe

NECA Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4-Pack

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

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by Joe

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May 7, 2026

Demoniacal Fit – The Coming One: Top Gun

By Joe
It’s famous anime hero Top Gun!

One of the aspects of the toy collecting community I tend to avoid is the relm of third party figures. It wasn’t too long ago that I posted a review of the Manipple Studios arms accessory for the S.H.Figuarts Wolverine. Technically a third party product, it wasn’t something that I had any real conflict with when it comes to ethics. It was an unlicensed add-on for a pre-existing figure. I don’t know where those arms were sourced as far as the molds went, but in order for it to be of any use to anyone they would have had to have purchased an official product already. When it comes to a full, third party release, my ethical side gives me pause. These releases are, at worst, unlicensed figured of properties owned by someone else. There are plenty of people out there who will rationalize it as the owner doesn’t need more money, but that doesn’t make it right. And it’s usually easy for me to just ignore such releases. I bare no ill will towards folks who do like and review them, but they’re usually not for me. Obviously, we’re only talking about this because I’m stepping out of my comfort zone with this one – the Demoniacal Fit The Coming One – Top Gun, which to anyone with a little bit of knowledge on the subject would recognize as Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z.

Most of this figure appears to be ripped off from the S.H.Figuarts Trunks – The Boy From the Future.

Demoniacal Fit has been around for a little while and seems to have a pretty good reputation in the toy world when it comes to quality. Third party, or bootleg, figures have a reputation for being poor, but that isn’t always the case these days. For me, there are two distinct types of third part offerings. The true third party, unlicensed, action figures are creations by an actual third party of a licensed character sold without a license. A bootleg, to me, is different as that’s a copy of another company’s licensed offering. Through either reverse engineering or outright theft of tools, bootlegs are just copies of varying quality of something being sold (or was once sold) through official channels. Some of the more popular bootlegs have been the many incarnations of NECA’s Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2008. Rumor has it that those molds were stolen and since NECA lost the license for a time they were bootlegged to Hell and back. A more recent example is CT Toys which has been bootlegging MAFEX figures for incredibly low prices. Many have claimed that Medicom is so preoccupied with CT Toys that it’s the reason for why the company has seemingly prioritized reissues over new figures.

I don’t know why the sword was done this way, but I guess it’s interesting?

This Demoniacal Fit offering of Future Trunks is basically a hybrid of the two approaches. There are definitely parts here wholly ripped-off from the Bandai S.H.Figuarts release Future Trunks – The Boy From the Future. It is, however, a depiction of the character that Bandai has never done and there are some new parts utilized to make this figure somewhat unique. It’s a figure I had seen when it first was announced and I did think it looked pretty neat. It’s Future Trunks as he appeared in the movie Bojack Unbound which just put the character in a cut-off version of his blue Capsule Corp jacket while also giving him the long hair he sported towards the end of the Cell Saga. It’s a look I’ve always liked for Trunks as I find that the long-haired Super Saiyan look resembles a morning star and it just works. I never got the figure, but recently I was at a toy convention where someone had a sealed copy for sale. Ironically, I was all set to buy an official Dragon Ball Super Future Trunks, but the person running the table was off somewhere else and after hanging around for 10 minutes or so I went back to the guy with the bootleg. I confess that I was curious to see what the quality was like compared with an official release – it certainly looked good in the box. And it was a look I didn’t have in my collection nor do I know if it’s one on Bandai’s radar. Obviously, I took the plunge and while I don’t want this to come across as an endorsement for bootleg action figures, I’m guessing there are other people like me out there curious how this does compare to an official product.

This look is what got me to buy this one.

This figure appears to be comprised largely of parts from the official release of Future Trunks by Bandai and Tamashii Nations. The items that appear identical to me are the face plates, the torso, belt, hands, crotch, feet, and portions of the legs. Demoniacal Fit re-sculpted the right thigh and left shin to add some torn fabric. I checked other official releases I have with similar distress marks and couldn’t find any matches, but I don’t have every release out there. The arms are bare and I was curious if I could find a source for them, but my collection turned up nothing. I thought maybe Super Hero Gohan or even the old Trunks or Vegeta arms just cast in flesh instead of blue, but that does not appear to be the case. That doesn’t mean they’re not from some other release, I just don’t have it. The jacket turned vest looks almost identical, but they did have to re-sculpt it because the edges are torn where the sleeves used to be. It’s split in the back just like the jacket on the official release and the paint is pretty much the same. The painted part of the exposed chest is actually slightly cleaner on the bootleg while the boots look softer in sculpt to me (which makes sense if they reproduced a mold from the official release). Like the official release, because the figures are designed to wear a jacket of some kind there’s basically nothing to the sculpt in the shoulder area. If you pulled the vest off of this one it would look ridiculous so it’s staying on. The same is true of the official release, but since it didn’t have bare arms there was no need to ever take the coat off. The only other negative about the bootleg vs the official is the top of the left thigh swivel on mine is slightly chewed up. It looks like it didn’t come out of the mold clean and I may attempt to lightly sand it down, or just live with it.

This effect part is also taken from the Bandai/Tamashii Nations line. I know it from the Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta release.

We’ll talk more about what’s bootlegged when we get to the accessories, but the overall look of the figure is pretty nice. Even with the lack of paint, it’s not shiny. I like the sculpt of the arms and the portrait out of the box looks nice and it’s just one of three looks the figure possesses. For the non-Super Saiyan look we have a hair down sculpt and one where the ends of his hair is blowing in the wind slightly. As far as I know, both are unique creations as the only long-haired Trunks I’m aware of by Bandai has his hair in a ponytail. The connection in the neck is the same as The Boy From the Future so you can use these interchangeably with that release, if you wish. What also works in the bootleg’s favor is it has a nice in-hand feel. The original release of The Boy From the Future is somewhat notorious for the bad quality control on display. Reissues have reportedly been better, but I only have the first one to judge and it’s not great. The figure is floppy, the bicep loves to detach on the left arm, and the paint’s not great. Mine also had a reversed abdomen out of the box that I actually didn’t even notice until I got this bootleg release. That had me running to the internet for pictures to see which way it was supposed to be facing. By comparison, this release from Demoniacal Fit is much tighter, the articulation is smoother, and the overall look is pretty much spot-on. To an outsider, the official release would probably feel like the bootleg.

Bootleg or not, it does look pretty damn good.

The non-Super Saiyan portraits are nice, but what really attracted me to this figure was the Super Saiyan one. It has that big, spiky, appearance that I love about this look from the movie. The sculpt is great and the approach to the color is my preferred one with a pale yellow plastic and some darker yellow shading. For expressions there’s a yelling one, a stoic one, and a teeth gritting one. For the non Super Saiyan look, there’s stoic, yelling, and a slight smirk. The sculpt of the faceplates appears to be the same as the Bandai ones, though the eyes are slightly larger. For hands, we have fists, gripping, angled gripping, clenching, flat palms, open, and open with pegs. The pegs are utilized with the effect part – a little, yellow, translucent ball of energy that’s a copy of the same that came with Super Saiyan 4 Vegeta. The only difference (apart from the color) is this one has no paint on it. Where the bootleg nature of the figure does seem to come into play is with the hands. The gripping ones, in particular, are not easy to put on. The hole is at an odd spot (it was on the original) and doesn’t seem to be wide enough. One of the gripping hands is a bit soft in the sculpt too with extra material making it hard for him to hold anything with it. You’re probably going to need some hot water to get these on. And he has gripping hands because Trunks also has his sword which, again, is just ripped-off from the official release. The one difference is they cast the sword in translucent pink, but painted silver over most of the blade leaving just the tip this purple-pink shade. I don’t know what the purpose is here. Did he make the blade glow in the movie? I didn’t even remember him using it, but I did screen grab a pic from the movie back when I reviewed it of him with his sword strapped to his back. As for the strap, it’s just as fiddly and annoying to work with as the official release, but doable if you want him to wear it. Just don’t touch it once you get it in place.

You may need heat to get the sword in his hand, but it is doable.

Articulation for this Trunks is the exact same as that of the official release, it’s just smoother. Nothing was too loose or stuck on my release out of the package and the range at most of the joints is pretty good. This is one of those releases copying the Bandai look with the oddly shaped thigh swivels which I don’t like. The ball hinges in the wrist are a bit more exposed on this figure than is typical, but they also benefit with improved range as a result. It’s almost a shame I don’t think much of the sword because he can probably wield it better than the previous version. All of the hair pieces are pretty restrictive when it comes to allowing the figure to look up. The purple hair also can be a pain with looking down. The collared portion of the vest can also get in the way, and like many figures, the crotch area is all hard plastic limiting the range on splits in both directions. He’s still going to largely pose the way you want him to, but you do have to watch some of the edges of the joints. In particular the thigh swivels since they need to slide under the hips so they can suffer from rubbing. There’s some light scuffing on my figure’s right thigh and I honestly don’t know if he came out of the box like that or if I did that while handling the figure, but it may be something to watch out for.

Too slow.

I will say, Demoniacal Fit largely lived up to their reputation as a producer of Dragon Ball bootlegs that are on par, or sometimes better than, the official releases from Bandai. Does that mean I feel like this is an ethically sound release? No, not at all. There’s far too much copied from the official figures to make me feel great about owning this. I’m not going to lose sleep over it or anything, but I don’t foresee this being the start of something bigger for me. I should point out that there are two versions of this figure. If you look up The Coming One you may find the Trunks with shorter hair. That one is designed to have a removable coat making it like an end of Cell Saga, return to the future, version of the character. It looks solid, but isn’t unique enough of a look for me to need it in my collection as it’s basically regular Future Trunks just without his coat. If this is a look for Trunks that you have really wanted in your display then I suppose it’s a release made for you. Prices seem to vary on it, but expect to pay anywhere from $65-$95 depending on where it’s being shipped from. Judging it strictly on its merits as an action figure, it’s a pretty good release. The sculpt is great whether you’re talking about the new parts or the stolen ones and the quality is good as well. If this were a Bandai/Tamashii Nations release I’d be plenty happy with it apart from how annoying the hands are to swap. And hey, if they want to rip-off this Super Saiyan hair for an official release (maybe on a new, ascended Saiyan body) I’d say that’s a good way to strike back and something I’d buy. As always though, if this is something you want I leave that decision entirely up to you. I can only tell you what I think of it and how it makes me feel.

For some official Trunks figures as well as the source for this look check these out:

Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound

Japanese Title:  The Galaxy’s at the Brink!! The Super Incredible Guy Original Release Date:  July 10, 1993 English Release Date:  August 17, 2004 Directed by:  Yoshihiro Ueda Screenplay by:  Takao Koyama Running time:  51 minutes Dragon Ball Z:  Bojack Unbound is the rare DBZ movie that actually could be considered canon, should someone want to.…

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by Joe

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May 4, 2026

Medicom MAFEX 287 Gambit (Comic Variant Ver.)

By Joe
Everyone can relax…

When I think of 90s comic book characters, there are quite a few who come to mind, but first and foremost is Gambit. I attribute that largely to the X-Men animated series as that was my first real introduction to the character. Prior to that show’s premiere, I had seen images of the character and had a vague understanding of what made him a superhero, but he wasn’t someone I paid much attention to. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee, he is quite a bit different from the classic superhero when it comes to his appearance. He’s been around so long and is so popular now that it’s easy to lose sight of how a guy in a trench coat and hot pink shirt might not read as a superhero right away. His role as a bit of a scoundrel and unique power set have certainly helped make Gambit a memorable member of the X-Men, but I do think that very popular cartoon in ’92 really helped cement the character as one of the most popular X-Men of all time.

This figure is a costly, but obvious, upgrade over the Legends figure. It does make me want to talk myself into the MAFEX Rogue though.

If you have followed any of my previous X-Men figure reviews, then you know that a big part of my goal as an action figure collector is to assemble that animated team on my shelf. The only issue with that goal is the only game in town when it comes to something in a 1:12 scale the only game in town in a lot of respects has been Hasbro. They did their own take on some of the animated team and have since moved on to X-Men ’97 based figures, but a lot of them have been not great. In particular, the dedicated ’92 series of figures was pretty bad. The line was only 8 figures and yet I’ve already replaced 3 of them in some form or another. And all of them have been replaced with other Marvel Legends offerings or a kit-bash approach, but this new Gambit figure marks my first time attempting to replace one with another company’s offering.

For some, this might be the ideal Capcom Gambit.

Gambit was released in the first wave of X-Men ’97 figures by Hasbro. It was basically just a straight re-release of a prior Gambit, but with an updated portrait that’s more evocative of the new show’s style. It’s an okay release. The articulation is dated and the card-throwing accessory is worthless, but visually it’s passable. Certainly not good enough to not be at risk of replacement. Enter Medicom and their new MAFEX-branded release of Gambit. This is an update on an older figure that has proven to be one of the more popular releases in the line. Just perusing the toy community online it sure seems like Gambit, Magneto, and the brown-costumed Wolverine are often cited as being among Medicom’s best efforts. And one look at Gambit and it’s easy to see why. The proportions and sculpt look nice, the soft goods coat turned out well, and there’s a bunch of stuff included in the box – so why did I never pick it up? Well, it’s expensive. MAFEX figures for those sitting outside Asia will routinely cost around $100 when all is said and done. That figure looked good, but it wasn’t $100 good for me. Medicom went with a metallic paint job, something they seem quite fond of with their X-Men figures, which just isn’t my thing. I want my figures to resemble their source material as close as possible and nothing about a metallic paint job on Gambit really screams that for me. Then last summer, Medicom unveiled a new variant Gambit which they referred to as their comic variant. Basically, it’s a more straight-forward paint job with a different color applied to the coat and effect parts and suddenly I was in. Well, almost. I still waited for the figure to actually release before I finally gave in (and a nice bonus at work helped give me a nudge) and once I was satisfied with how it turned out I laid my money down.

If so, he’s not going to make the SHF Cyclops look tall.

Gambit comes in the standard Medicom MAFEX box which is designed to mimic a comic book with a snippet of art from the books and a bunch of product shots. I will say, it immediately made me chuckle that the comic book art doesn’t match the look of this supposed comic book variant of the figure (and we’ll get more into that shortly), but that’s not something that truly bothers me. Out of the box, Gambit stands a little over 6″ with his poofy hair taking him up to around the 6.5″ mark making him true 1:12 scale. He possesses the typical, MAFEX, proportioning as his legs are fairly long and the build is more on the slender side than the bulked-up type. It works for Gambit and the coat helps to add more of a presence to the figure’s form. The pink of the shirt is a nice, bright, shade with some light purple shading added which helps create texture. The blue…whatever this thing is…around the base of his neck is sculpted as I remember it from the comics and is shaded with dark blue which really helps to make it pop. The paints and the cowl are a nice, matte, black and the pink rectangles on the thighs are present and painted well. The blue of the belt and boots matches to each other and there’s some nice black linework in both areas. The face is really well done and the hair has some black or very dark brown wash applied. There’s also a hint of stubble on his chin and the trademark red eyes glow brightly. Most of the paint is clean. There is a white spot on the right thigh of my figure and some of the black lines on the boots could have been applied in a neater fashion. The hands, which feature Gambit’s traditional fingerless portions, could have been painted cleaner as well. If it sounds like I’m nitpicking know that I am, but we’re also talking about a $100 action figure and standards should be exceptionally high.

The sculpt is pretty freakin’ nice.

The presentation of the sculpt and paint works very well for me. This is a sharp figure. What’s been a bit more divisive is the coat. In pictures, the coat has a real touch of red to the brown. It’s a far more saturated shade compared with the original release which is much closer to the comic image on the box in terms of color. In hand, it’s still noticeably red, but not to the same degree. It’s indeed a brown coat and I think it plays off of the hot pink shirt very well, but if you’re looking for pure comic book accuracy this shade probably isn’t it. Now, we are talking about a character who debuted in 1990 and in the ensuing decades he’s had a lot of looks and variations and if you scour the pages of Marvel Comics I don’t doubt that someone could turn up an image of Gambit where he looks like this, but is it what people think of first? Probably not. For me, I personally think the figure looks great. I get a lot of Toy Biz vibes out of the figure as far as the colors go stretching back to the first Gambit released in that line (with the karate kick action!). I’ve seen people online doing a coat swap with the first release and being quite happy with the result, but that’s a lot of money to shell out for the ideal Gambit.

He has two arc effects, one with more of a fire texture and another that’s smoother.

Another area where this color discrepancy rears its head is with the accessories. Gambit gets the usual vast assortment of hand options including fists, gripping, relaxed, open, open with an effect peg, and a set of card holding hands that are not mirrored. The right hand is the classic two-finger Gambit pose while the left is designed to hold two cards. The alternate head features a gritted teeth expression while utilizing the same sculpt for the hair. Gambit has his staff which is a light brown with some black linework painted onto it. The “controversial” part are the effects. Gambit has a solo card with a trailing effect on it, a two-card piece that’s more stationary and flaming, and then there are two flame effects for the ends of his staff. For all, Medicom went with a yellow and orange coloration like actual fire. On the previous figure, they went with the pink/magenta the character is more known for when he activates his powers in the comic. Like the coat, you can find images of Gambit’s powers taking on this color, but they’re definitely the minority (and originally his powers were green which is just weird to think about). His power effects were similar to this color in the original cartoon series, but in that show they also used an animation effect that gave it a different texture. In X-Men ’97, his powers were altered to resemble the comic. I think we got this set because Medicom just wanted to differentiate the figure further from the first release, but in doing so it does lessen the whole notion of this being the true comic variant. For me personally, while I would have preferred the pink, it doesn’t really move the needle at all. I think the effects look good, they’re just not in the color that first comes to mind for when I think of Gambit.

He also has his staff and even some flame effects for the ends.

And those aren’t even the only effects. Gambit also has two, large, throwing effects. Each one features three cards and an arc of flame behind them. They’re designed to peg onto the effect hands and the peg hole is at the end so we don’t end up with a Hasbro situation where the arc makes no sense. All of the cards, including the other two effects, are just yellow like they’re glowing and there’s no visible suit or number. One of the arc effects is thinner and sharper looking while the other has textured flames. It’s heavier as a result, not that the slimmer profiled one isn’t heavy, and to counter that Medicom included a stand for the effects. It’s just a clear, plastic, base and post with two options for a “Y” shaped top to help prop it up. Without it, the wrist joint won’t be able to support the weight and it will turn towards the ground. Certain poses, like a vertical toss, can work, but if you want a horizontal sweep type of throw you’ll need the post. Also included is the usual MAFEX stand that works just as well as it always does.

It can be tricky to pose, but these effects are pretty damn fun to mess around with, though they do add heft.

The articulation for Gambit is pretty typical for MAFEX which is to say it’s quite good. There’s a double-ball peg head, ball-jointed neck, butterfly shoulders, shoulder hinges, bicep swivel, double elbows, ball-hinge wrists, diaphragm, ball-jointed waist, drop-down hips, thigh swivel at the hips joint, double-jointed knees, ball-hinged ankles, toe hinge. Range at pretty much all spots is a plus. The torso gets nice arch back and crunch forward, the head can be posed with a great deal of freedom, and the hips allow for high kicks and the like. The ankles are the only area I’m not in love with. The ball hinge can be tough to get a good ankle rocker out of it. It works, it’s just a bit more fickle than I’d like. The coat is wired all along the hem including the collar so it can pose very well. It will bunch up on the arms and that’s just the nature of soft goods – you’re always sacrificing something when they cover limbs. The coat can come off, if you so desire, which will free up the range of the arms, but your Gambit will look far less cool. To probably get the most out of the arms, you will have to remove the coat to pose him, then try to carefully get it back as manipulating the bicep swivel and even the elbow joint can get really cumbersome with the coat on.

The big effects are flashy, but sometimes the simpler ones work just as well.

This Gambit from Medicom is expensive, but it is a terrific action figure. There’s not a whole lot to complain about. I think the paint could have been a little sharper in places and I really think we should have got a third portrait with a smirk on it. Two heads where one is stoic and the other angry just isn’t ideal for a character like Gambit. People are going to want to pose him with Rogue and he’s never not smiling when he’s around Rogue. This reissue would have been a great opportunity to add an extra head, but Medicom opted not to. Still, what is here is pretty substantial when it comes to hands and effects and the end result is something special. This is only my fourth MAFEX figure, but it quickly became my favorite. If all of their X-Men figures turned out this well I’d have a whole lot less money to my name, but one Hell of a collection. This is the rare $100 figure at this scale that I have no regrets whatsoever about picking up. If you dig it and want one of your own, the import sites will probably be a better deal than some of the US-based retailers which are charging upwards of $130 for this one. That’s pretty rich, but if you shop around you should be able to get him for less so long as he’s in stock. And I would guess this one will sell out eventually so don’t put it off for too long.

For more premium action figure offerings check these out:

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Gamerverse Cyclops

A funny thing happened in 2025 where two companies revealed they were going to be making action figures based on the hit video game series Marvel vs Capcom only for neither company to actually mention the words Marvel vs Capcom. It would seem that neither Hasbro nor Bandai wanted to compensate the Capcom portion of…

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by Joe

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

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

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by Joe

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

They finally wore me down. It was nearly five years ago that I reviewed the Medicom MAFEX Batman (Hush Ver.) action figure and concluded that it would probably be the only figure I’d get. Then along came Superman. As a kid, I liked Superman well enough. I think the first pair of superhero themed pajamas…

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by Joe

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

April 28, 2026

NECA TMNT Toon Robo Tokka and Robo Rahzar

By Joe
It’s the duo you know, but not how you expected.

The vintage Playmates toy line for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had no shortage of variants. There were beach turtles, police turtles, hockey turtles, and so on. We even had something akin to Operation: Desert Storm turtles. In looking back, it seems like few stones were left unturned unless you want to get into the weeds of licensed collaborations (the TMNT x Star Wars collab was just never meant to be, unfortunately), but don’t tell that to the fans of today still brainstorming and coming up with concepts never before explored by Playmates or anyone else. People like Sylvain Plantier, a self-described toy designer and illustrator who had a dream of robotic versions of the duo Tokka and Rahzar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. The duo was inserted into that film pretty much because TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird wanted nothing to do with the dimwitted duo of Bebop and Rocksteady, not that it stopped the writers of the film from making Tokka and Rahzar giant, literal, babies. At least they looked scary? Due to the popularity of the characters and film, the two made their way into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon where they were quite different as characters, but visually were identical to the Playmates interpretations of the two created to promote the movie as toys. And since their TV counterparts, Bebop and Rocksteady, appear in both the toy line and the show as robots, why not extend the same to Tokka and Rahzar?

I love the design of Tokka’s shell. Rahzar’s backside isn’t very interesting, but I didn’t want him to feel left out.

Plantier at least seemed to think that was warranted and he created and shared designs for what that might look like. His concept got the attention of NECA’s Trevor Zammit who liked it so much that he proposed making figures based on Plantier’s work and incorporate them into NECA’s long-running toy line based on the vintage cartoon. And now here we are. A deal was struck and the designs were handed off to NECA sculptor Tomasz Rozejowski and a pair of what-if characters now exist in the NECA toon line. These concept figures have increased in numbers over the past few years as the line gets a bit long in the tooth. Robo Tokka and Rahzar join the likes of Wyrm, Panda Khan, Dark Leo, Samurai Mikey, and others which is a fair direction to take the line in these days as the number of characters who appeared in that show that have yet to see plastic gets rather small. This is the line that gave us the spare parts of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang which is pretty incredible, all things considered, so while it’s fair to wonder where someone like Tempestra is, I don’t think we’re missing anyone at the expense of these fantasy creations. Besides, who really gave a shit about Tempestra when this line started?

With their flesh and blood counterparts.

Robo Tokka and Rahzar follow in the same sort of look as the robotic Bebop and Rocksteady. Plantier did a great job of creating some all new characters, but also ones that if seen by someone unfamiliar would cause them to start searching their memories for such an episode of the show. Both characters utilize some blocky components and hard edges, but also plenty of curves like one would expect to see in the show. The two are predominantly a light gray and slate gray, but they also each incorporate their own unique color to the design. Like Bebop featured red and Rocksteady yellow, Tokka has some green accents via the knee pads and pauldrons while Rahzar has some striking blue parts most prominently featured in his pauldrons and knee pads. I like how Plantier apparently gave consideration to the Playmates figures as well as both characters feature a red dome on the top of their head which I assume is to mimic the light-piping feature of the vintage toys. It would have been cool if NECA could have provided an alternate head with such a feature, but this works fine.

They display well with robotic Bebop and Rocksteady.

Let’s get more into the nuts and bolts of each one starting with Tokka. He stands at approximately 5.375″ to the top of his head. The little spike on his shell atually sits higher than his head. He’s a little shorter than the standard Tokka, but is pretty much just as stocky. He’s got these Bowser-like pauldrons that are a nice combination of green and yellow and the shell on the back of the figure mostly recalls the Playmates figure, but with fewer spikes. There are some sculpted cables about his shell and also around his neck that line up with the two rockets positioned at the top of his shell. They can come off, but they’re a little tight so I’m loathe to force it, especially since there is little reason to remove them. I like the updated “tech” Foot logo on his belt buckle as well as the attempts at creating the illusion of robotic joints, in particular the ankle area. There’s more of the light gray with this figure as compared to Bebop and Rocksteady and I think it looks better. It allows the darker gray to enhance it and provide more of an outline. I appreciate the little studs and rivets found in the design which are just numerous enough to break up the design, but not look out of place in a toy line based on an 80s cartoon. Paint for both figures was handled by Mike Puzzo and Geoff Trapp and it’s as clean and crisp as usual. The black line work on the yellow spikes is especially impressive and I remain impressed with how consistent these little details are applied by NECA’s workers.

There is a couple of weapons in the set.

Rahzar is a much bigger beast when compared with his box-mate coming in right around the 7″ mark. Like Tokka, he’s a touch shorter than the standard Rahzar, but this one is definitely bulkier by comparison. I like how his design incorporates a lot of what we associate with the character like the rounded pauldrons, the spikes on the thighs, and, of course, the grill on the abdomen. There’s a bit more of the dark gray incorporated into the design as a result of those thigh pieces, but it looks good and helps to contrast him with Tokka. I really like how the blue was incorporated as it was only a small part of the original Rahzar look in the toon and toy line, but it’s well enhanced here. I also like the asymmetrical look of the forearms since that’s a true Playmates callback if I ever did see one. Tokka did the same, but in a less obvious manner. Here Rahzar has a boxy right gauntlet and a round, spiked, left. And because NECA was apparently so committed to making these two have a large size discrepency between them, there are almost no shared parts between the two. They both use the same hands, but as far as I can tell everything else is unique. The paint on Rahzar seems a little sloppier than Tokka’s, but not to an alarming degree. There’s a tiny bit of gray on the blue part of the chin on mine as well as a light, gray, dot in the midst of the dark gray on the back of the head. The detail work is still quite impressive and overall it’s a striking figure for the shelf.

Mostly, I think of the toon Tokka and Rahzar as food monsters so I appreciate these inclusions.

The accessory load-out on these guys is a bit sparse, but perhaps that’s the result of two, unique, sculpts with little reuse potential. Each figure has three sets of hands: fists, gripping, and an open gesture. As mentioned above, the hands are the same between the two, but NECA did include a set of each for each figure so you don’t have to share any between the two which is appreciated. Each character also appears to have an intended weapon, but since these are fantasy creations, do with them as you will. For Tokka, he has a chunky sword with a spiked handguard. The inner part of the handle is blue so if you think it fits Rahzar better then go for it. The rear of the blade is serrated and the handle is black with a red diode or button on it. For Rahzar, there’s a big, spiked, mace which also features a gold spike at the end and a little white tape at the base of the handle. There’s a red button sculpted onto it as well as some red trim near the base which doesn’t really correspond with either character. The spikes on this thing are quite sharp though so do be careful. I do like both weapons, but it would have been cool to callback to Rahzar’s skull staff the old toy came with. They’re also both really hard to get into the gripping hands and I would advise not even trying out of the box. Heat them up, slot them in, and then never remove them. Lastly, we have two food items which is appropriate for the pair since it seems to be the only thing the toon versions of Tokka and Rahzar cared about (besides each other, they are the best of friends). We get a bowl of nuts, as in metal nuts, which has a sculpted spoon handle sticking out of it. It’s a fun design and may be mandatory for a display. There’s also a circuit board with a bite taken out of it. The sculpt and paint on this thing is really impressive considering it’s just this little throwaway accessory. The characters can hold that one with either a gripping hand or even the fist as the thumb is spearate from the rest of the fingers and it slides in pretty painlessly. The bowl is best held with the open hand unless you want to wedge the spoon into the fist or gripping hand, but that’s it for accessories. No blast effects are a shame as Rahzar has two guns mounted to his shoulders and Tokka the two rockets. I wonder if something was considered as there’s a small hole in the right barrel on Rahzar, though not on the left.

“Hey! Give me a bite!”

If you looked at these two and concluded that these designs would not lend themselves well to articulation then you would be correct. Articulation is never NECA’s strong suit, and much like the Usagi Yojimbo figures we looked at recently, the articulation here is going to be rather poor. Somewhat to my surprise, the better of the pair is Tokka. Both figures feature the same points of articulation: head, jaw, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, ankles. For both, the elbows and knees are single-hinged and they do swivel which is to make up for the lack of a bicep joint in the arm. Tokka’s pauldrons are on hinges and can get out of the way to an extant. Curiosly, the fixture on my figure’s right shoulder sits higher than the left. I assume this is not by design and is just variation at the factory. The waist is basically useless on both figures as Tokka’s turtle body severely restricts it while Rahzar has that grill in place. Neighter figure can do splits or kick forward very far. Rahzar’s head is limited by that giant chin he has which also prevents his jaw from opening unless he’s looking up. His shoulder pauldrons also have no mechanism in place to help get them out of the way. Raising his arms out to the side for the old “T” pose is not happening. The two little canons on his shoulders might swivel, or might not. The right one on mine is not budging while the left came out of the box orientated incorrectly with the sight at 3 o’clock. That was my only hint that it could even move as I was able to swivel it back into place. To NECA’s credit here, nothing was stuck on my figures out of the box nor was anything loose. It might have helped that they were delivered by mail and the box sat in the sun for about an hour before I could get to it. Are we done with frozen figures until the fall? One can only hope.

“Michelangelo, I’d just like to say I really hate your plan.” “Shut up, Leonardo…”

These robotic versions of Tokka and Rahzar from Sylvain Plantier and NECA are probably what you would expect of them. The design is terrific and the sculpt and paint really bring them to life. The size and aesthetics mean they don’t slot into your vintage toy collection, but they look right at home in a NECA toon display despite never appearing in the show. I do wish we got some effect parts, but I do wonder if that’s something Nickelodeon frowns upon. It seems JoyToy can get away with such, but maybe not toys for the US market? The articulation is what it is. I don’t think anyone expects much out of NECA in that regard and at this stage of the toy line’s life it’s not something that’s going to change. If you like the design then that’s what you should base your purchasing decision on. And as for that decision, the unique tooling in place here certainly seems to have impacted the price tag. These guys are exclusive to Target in the US where they retail for $70. This two-pack is more expensive than the movie versions two-pack. These are basically priced like two NECA Ultimates, or something a little lesser since those seem to be trending towards the $40 mark. Gone are the days of the $52 two-pack, especially when it’s a set that doesn’t feature much opportunity for parts reuse. I’m not going to tell you how to spend your money, but we’re definitely at that point where I’m passing on sets because of the price. At $52 I was willing to buy just about anything, but at $70 I’m definitely selective which is why I never reviewed the Creepy Eddie and Shibano-Sama two-pack – they just didn’t seem worth it to me. This set did because I really like the designs and I think it works well for the line. Who knows what will come next for me with this line as we don’t have much confirmed past this. Each turtle is getting a unique disguise later this year and there may be a Tempestra coming, though the figure was not on display at New York Yor Fair for some reason. And then there’s the question of whether or not the line continues past 2026? The San Diego exclusive is already out and available for purchase and it’s just a black and white set of the 2012 turtles with an accessory pack. I don’t need another set of those and if the toon line is coming to an end then at least I can look forward to saving some money!

For more NECA and Tokka and Rahzar goodness, check out these:

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tokka and Rahzar

There is certainly a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles product flying around these days, but I would guess collectors and fans of the property are paying the most attention to two toy makers in particular: NECA and Super7. One search for “NECA” on this blog will reveal that the company has produced a ton…

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NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Tokka and Rahzar

Merry Boxing Day every one! I hope you enjoyed the Christmas content this year, but it’s time to go back to our usual programming. Which in 2020 means toys. And I just could not wait any longer to talk about what was probably my most anticipated release of 2020: NECA’s Tokka and Rahzar based on…

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NECA TMNT Cartoon Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady

2021 introduced a lot of good things for collectors of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the classic cartoon. The toy maker still kept the line a Target exclusive when it came to brick and mortar, but it also started selling a lot of it online to coincide with each…

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April 22, 2026

Manipple Studio S.H.Figuarts Wolverine Arm Upgrade (Deadpool & Wolverine)

By Joe
Wolverine got himself some new arms.

When Marvel got rolling on the film Deadpool & Wolverine I think it did so with a veil of secrecy. This was going to be the first Marvel movie where Wolverine would be in a costume similar to what he’s worn in the comics for years. When X-Men first arrived back in 2000, the thought process back then with most superhero movies was that you couldn’t get a casual audience to take seriously a bunch of people running around in yellow spandex. Even Batman couldn’t be in gray and blue he had to go full black. As it would turn out, the whole notion of superhero squads in uniforms is a pretty far-fetched idea all by itself so who really cares how loud those threads get? The downside of this secrecy though meant that companies looking to produce merch for the movie may have had their hands tied. Or maybe they’re just cheap? When Wolverine did show up in plastic it was somewhat incomplete. The Hasbro figure came with a masked and unmasked portrait, but the truth of the matter is the masked portrait never really worked well because he never wore the mask with the sleeves in the movie. Other companies seemed reluctant to pay Hugh Jackman for his likeness which is how we got the S.H.Figuarts release that only had masked portraits plus the sleeved look. Where could someone go who wanted something more all-encompassing? Diamond Select appeared poised to release such a figure, but they went belly-up before that could happen. Enter the third parties!

I think Hasbro Logan is jealous.

Wolverine had a lot of looks in Deadpool & Wolverine with the vast majority of them being a fun sequence of cameos early in the film. For the most part though, he had three distinct looks: unmasked, unmasked without sleeves, and masked without sleeves. He also did end up completely shirtless with the mask in place, but for an action figure that’s a little more involved. For a company wanting to hit those three main looks though you basically need two heads in the box plus two sets of arms. Throw in some clawed and unclawed hands and you have yourself a pretty complete release. Unfortunately, that’s been hard to come by and while I love the unmasked portrait of the Legends release, the figure itself is pretty mediocre. It is being re-released this spring with bare arms, but that just solves one problem. The far better figure release was the S.H.Figuarts one, but as I noted already, it only had masked portraits and featured sleeves. In other words, this is a Wolverine we never saw on film. And if Bandai came back around with an updated one, how eager would I be to spend $80-$100 on an all new figure when it’s really the arms I take issue with?

They were able to match the gloves pretty well.

When it comes to third parties, I’m often reluctant to purchase. Many are essentially bootlegs of someone else’s work. They may be good quality, but it’s still essentially stolen property. Manipple Studios has come onto my radar a few times and with them it’s usually parts sold on their own that are intended to work with an official release. They’re filling a void the official companies don’t want to and as far as I know they’re sculpting their own parts. I could be wrong and the arms I purchased off of AliExpress could be cast from an official release, but if so I’m not aware of it. These things are available though and for around $20 shipped to the US. Sure, that seems like a lot for two plastic arms, but considering the actual figure retails for $85 maybe it’s not so bad? I also got my Wolverine figure on steep discount so there’s some surplus value here that I could spend on an extra set of arms and after getting them in over the weekend how do I feel about them?

Show off them guns, Wolverine!

Pretty damn good. The arms are just that – arms. The gloves are part of the sculpt and painted while the flesh is bare plastic. It has some warmth to it though and isn’t waxy or shiny and works with the figure considering it too is a lot of bare plastic. And they are straight replacements so swapping them is fairly easy. Bandai uses a shoulder ball peg which can be popped out without the need for heat – maybe. My figure’s right arm came out just fine while the left was more stubborn. It first came apart on me at the bicep, and then when I did try heat the black portion popped out. Once I did get the arm itself extracted it wasn’t particularly trying to get the new arm in place, it just took slightly more effort than the right arm. The hands pop onto the new wrist pegs effortlessly and they may even have slightly better range than the stock ball hinges. The elbows are double-jointed and there’s a bicep swivel so you’re not losing any functionality and the paint between the forearms and the gloves appears to be pretty spot-on. It gets this figure to where I want it to be and now I have a Wolverine that looks like he did onscreen, minus the grime and battle damage. If you prefer a more comic inspired look, Manipple also includes extra shoulder parts with a peg hole in them in case you want to use the shoulder pads from the stock figure. I don’t so I didn’t bother, but it’s a fun thought.

This just feels right.

And that’s all there really is to it. If you want, for about twenty bucks you can get the arms the figure probably should have come with to start and improve the look of your $85 Wolverine figure, or whatever you paid for it. It’s still available in some places and often for less than MSRP while the arms on AliExpress seem to fluctuate in price from about $18-$22. The quality on the new parts is good and the look hopefully speaks for itself. Obviously if you’re happy with the sleeved look of the figure then this isn’t for you, but if you wanted something more evocative of what was in the movie then this gets the job done and is cheaper than buying a whole new figure.

For my original review of this SHF Wolverine see below as well as some other Deadpool & Wolverine figure reviews:

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

It feels like a theme this summer for me is buying action figures I previously deemed unworthy of my money as they go on clearance. Sometimes that’s a dumb thing to do. If I didn’t want something six months ago why should I want it now just because it’s cheaper? In the case of today’s…

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S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

Despite the fact that I own dozens of them, I don’t really consider myself a fan of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends series of action figures. They largely are able to get a purchase out of me thanks to Hasbro’s exclusivity agreement with Marvel/Disney which basically makes them the only game in town. Despite that, I will…

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Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

It might be hard for the young folk to believe, but once upon a time movies based on comic book characters were treated like box office poison. Unless you were Superman or Batman, you just didn’t belong in cinema. Even those characters weren’t bulletproof. Superman had a nice run, but fizzled out with the fourth…

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April 14, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NECA TMNT Usagi Yojimbo – Miyamoto Usagi

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

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NECA Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4-Pack

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

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NECA TMNT Toon The Adventures of Space Usagi

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

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

April 7, 2026

NECA TMNT Usagi Yojimbo – Miyamoto Usagi

By Joe
The samurai rabbit is back at it.

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

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

This is hardly NECA’s first dance with Usagi.

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

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

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

Ears are swappable, and easily so.

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

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

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

That Stan Sakai fellow does good work.

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

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

NECA Cartoon TMNT The Tale of Usagi Yojimbo

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

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Toon The Adventures of Space Usagi

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

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Toon Granny Bebop and Baby Rocksteady

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

Keep reading
by Joe

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April 3, 2026

Super 7 Ghost Ultimates! Papa V Perpetua

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The extent to which his arms can be raised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more Ghost and Super7 content, see below:

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost Papa Emeritus IV

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

by Joe

Super7 Ultimates! Ghost – Papa Emeritus I

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

by Joe

Super7 Ultimates! – The Worst – Robot Reaper

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

by Joe

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March 31, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Superman ever? Probably.

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

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

MAFEX No. 105 – Batman: Hush

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

Joe's avatar by Joe

Superman (2025)

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

Joe's avatar by Joe

Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (1989)

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

Joe's avatar by Joe

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