no pics rn but i just picked up two of the mattel “amber collection” lost world raptors. really good colors that look like shit in all the promo photos. It’s also a really good highly posable raptor if you’re into the jp raptor designs
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Dang, I’m reminded that this is probably the possession that’s been with me the longest time, 28 years!
Had to look up the Utah Raptor figure “Ripper”, not as impressive as I remember but I wish I still had that big rubber T-Rex that roared when you squeezed its chest. I dumped so much lawnmowing/dogsitting money into JP toys…
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Super7 are doing a wave of just the four turtles, available for preorder until June 1, individually or as a set.
FYI Super7 will charge you right away if you preorder through them so if you’re thinking about it and that’s a concern then you might want to go through bigbadtoystore since they will put a preorder on hold and wait to charge you until the thing actually comes out.
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Baxter and his mouser came yesterday.
Much like Mutagen Man he is spot on as far as the colors, the detail and the somewhat more limited articulation despite having more articulation than probably any of the other figures. His wings and fly arms have great range of movement and he can be stood up straighter to tower over the other figures if you want but it feels out of character for him since he was always a little shrimpy dude in the cartoon. He looks great in the classic pose but I wonder if I can wrangle him into anything else that looks as good. The arms and legs have great movement too but there is no ankle swivel like the other figures. The head only turns about one way or the other and does not move up or down much if at all.
His body is harder plastic but his shirt at the torso is actually a softer, more flexible plastic that can kind of move around a bit on his torso. The colors are spot on to how I remember them but I don’t have the original anymore so I can’t make a direct comparison. The purple skin and the reddish hair just pop.
Not only are these figures very satisfying to look at they feel great in the hand. I know there’s a word for when food feels good in the mouth but if there isn’t a similar word for when an object feels good in the hand there ought to be. They’re great objects to fiddle with while doing other things like watch tv or whatever. Thanks to the larger scale the size of them reminds you of what it felt like to hold them as a kid when your hands were smaller holding the smaller originals.
So now I only lack Splinter but I ordered one during lunch today so there’s that. Looking forward to completing the set but honestly Splinter was never a very interesting figure to me. Him and April were probably my least favorite turtles toys as a kid despite being “necessary” to have even though they’re really kind of side characters overall. Important side characters to be sure but not that interesting visually. Looking forward to seeing what kind of articulation I’ll get with him though.
I really like the way they’ve decided to put these out. Each wave has four figures because each one is being sculpted by one of the “four horsemen”, four well known toy artists who do the sculpts for a lot of stuff out there. I don’t know what the decision making process is on how they decide who does what character but it seems like they settled on a pattern of each wave having one hero character, one villain, one side character and one bigger “monster” character. It works great in terms of each set having just enough variety to be unexpected and interesting.
I feel kind of weird not being as enthused about getting Splinter as the rest of them but who knows I might end up liking him a lot. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the foot soldier as much as I have so maybe Splinter will be similar. I know at least with April I’ll be able to put her in some of the more dynamic poses. I’m going to be disappointed if she can’t be set up in a crouched-with-one-leg-swooped-out-while-pointing-her-camera type pose. That’s some classic cartoon April O’Neiling right there.
I have the next three waves on preorder so my eBay adventures are done for now. The wait for Casey Jones is already agonizing but I know it will be worth it. Excited to get Rocksteady too after seeing how awesome Bebop came out. Looking forward to Samurai Leo as well but also kind of wishing they’d done another unique character they haven’t done yet. There are still so many they could be doing without repeating any of the characters. I suspect they’re afraid of doing a wave without a turtle character. If that’s the case we’ll likely see more turtles-in-different costumes like the superhero turtles or the undercover turtles in trench coats. That would be fine I guess.
And Metalhead! It will be a crime if his eyes don’t light up when you hold him underneath a light source. I’m sure they will because how could they not but then again they failed to make Mutagen Man watertight so you never know. I think sticking clear reflective plastic in his head is a lot more doable though so I’m not actually worried about it.
I never had Mondo Gecko, Ray Fillet or Muckman and Joe Eyeball so those will be new experiences for me. Leatherhead will be another interesting one to see how they articulate it. The figure was always short and squat despite the character standing upright on the show.
Speaking of the show I’ve been watching it off and on the past several months and am part way through season 4 now and am struck by how they just kind of abandon the foot soldiers as characters after the first season. Those first five episodes of season 1 used them to great effect in the fight scenes but it was also done by a different animation studio than the rest of the seasons so maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe the writers just always defaulted to using Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady for whatever reason.
But fiddling with the foot soldier figure I can’t help but find myself wondering things about the character like what they look like under the mask, where are they manufactured and what is their ninja training like. Does Shredder train them like he would human students or did he develop some kind of ninjitsu computer program he just uploads to their robot brains? Or are they robots from Dimension X and not native to Earth at all?
So many questions the foot soldiers raise and according to my cursory research there are no answers. You’d think there would be a comic or something that explores the subject more but nope. I guess no one is as interested in robot ninjas as I am. Though there is a season 4 or 5 episode where Shredder tried to develop a smarter foot soldier and it ends up leading a foot soldier rebellion against him. It’s a shame either way because the show could have used more season 1 style foot soldier fights where you get to see the turtles just rip those guys to pieces. The shows decision makers probably decided it was too violent or something.
Anyway I hope they keep putting these toys out because there are still a good two dozen characters that would be great additions.
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Disappointed to find out actionace.com is a dead link.
My favourite character, Dragonball
god fuckin actionace it’s so extremely y2k it was exactly like my goofy teen interests
i wish i could find an uploaded copy of their old animated flash cartoon shorts called Neoglyphix i’m sure they have aged like milk
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Who is Jenny?
Japanese fashion doll.
Looks like it actually started as Barbie until Takara stopped paying for the license in the 80s. Tragically her slot in Dreamworld TV Fighters was stolen by Licca-chan.
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Is that the one that also got a Famicom game?
yes
Splint-errrrr! (Read this in the voice of Raphael shouting his name during the montage at the farm in the first movie)
He’s pretty cool. Poses are a bit limited but he has plenty of articulation. You can even get him in a high kick. I wouldn’t keep him that way but it’s cool that you can do it.
I like the gnarled cane but he also comes with his original cane with hidden blade, in addition to his bow and arrow, shuriken, a hot steaming cup of tea and a (non-mutant) baby turtle.
I spent a few minutes trying to pose him with the bow and arrow but it wasn’t happening. Not tonight at least.
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oh shit
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mighty need
Bulbasaur looks a bit more normal.
I hope somebody good at figure painting makes a Mecha-Charizard out of this.
Party Pikachu is also kind of horrifying.
(ETA: actually, I should just put this in the toys thread)
i hate this so much. re-action stuff makes sense when they’re making 70s-style figures for things from the 70s that never got figures, like alien. but mmpr is from the 90s, pudgy pig got a figure at the time, and it was better than this one!
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There was already a Pudgy Pig?
When I was a kid, it was impossible to get Power Rangers toys, so I didn’t know there was already one.
I always wanted a Terror Toad.
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