Import

Nendoroid D.Va (Hana Song)

One thing I really like about the Nendoroid line is that they are hitting essentially all of my “Mains” in Overwatch. Tracer, Sombra, Mei, Lucio is coming, and D.Va. These are my top five, in some sort of order. I suppose that probably just says I prefer the mainstream heroes over some of the less popular heroes.

Not surprisingly, Nendoroid D.Va is just Hana Song, aka “Baby D.Va”. In game she rides inside her giant MEKA robot, collectively they are known as “D.Va”. After taking some damage, Baby D.Va pops out and the robot is destroyed. It’s a fun mechanic in game. It doesn’t work too well for toys. A working Nendoroid sized MEKA would really bump up the cost and while cool, wouldn’t really add much to the figure.

She does come with a mini sized MEKA figure though, which is fun to use with the larger regular D.Va. The small MEKA even has swivel arm articulation. If you really want a larger MEKA that mostly works for the scale for display, the Funko POP! D.Va comes with an un-articulated larger MEKA. The style isn’t perfect and the Nendo doesn’t fit inside it at all, bit it looks alright next to her on a shelf.

Aside from her mini MEKA, D.Va comes with the usual assortment of alternate hands and faces, as well as her pistol, a cell phone, a bag of chips and a soda. It probably would have been too much considering it’s “non canon” but I would have loved some sort of cheese covered “Gremlin D.Va” face to go with the food accessories.

The hands are really great. She can make a lot of her fun emote poses from the game, like her D.Va bomb selfie or the heart hands. The chips and soda fit well in her hands as well using little pegs. The stand has an extra accessory bit to attach Mini MEKA to.

D.Va also shares the pose-able articulation that all of the Overwatch Nendos have. For anyone unaware, a lot of Nendoroids don’t really have knees or elbows, but they often will instead have alternate arms for different poses. Occasionally there will be some, like the Overwatch line up, that have regular articulation, despite the small size.

All in all, D.Va works really well in this style. I will say though, next to other Nendos like Mei or Junkrat, she feels a little light on the parts and accessories. I’m not sure what more they could have given her though really.

Sentinel – Mega Man (Classic)

Aug 2nd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

Mega Man is one video game series I have extremely fond childhood memories of. I’ve played and finished all of the games and Mega Man 3 is one title that I played religiously back in the day. It’s a series that just begs for a good toy line but it seems like it will never achieve the greatness I had always hoped with hundreds of Robot Masters. Years ago Jazwares put out a short lived line and I snapped all of them up, despite their mediocre quality. I’ve dabbled a bit in some of the model kits as well. The newest contender in the realm of Mega Man is Sentinel Toys. Unfortunately they seem to just be keeping the same cycle of releasing only variations of Mega Man. There was a Cut Man but it was part of a limited 2 pack. I don’t think they have even ventured out into the realm of Proto Man, Bass, or Zero as of this review.

So I opted to pick up the standard classic Mega Man, to give the line a try. These figures of course carry an import level price, but since they are a bit smaller they aren’t too far out on the high end. Mega Man is small to be sure, he’s quite a bit smaller than I had expected, but he is sold and advertised as 4 inches, so I don’t really know what I expected. The sculpt and design is nice and crisp, though there are a lot of visible joint seams.

The seams do sort of work here, given Mega Man is a robot, but it does break up the sculpt, especially when viewed from behind. He does end up with a really nice range of articulation however as a result of all of these joints. He can make many classic Mega Man style poses easily and holds them quite well.

Mega man includes a stand as well as a couple of alternate hands, an alternate face, and a blaster arm. These are all easily swap-able and help give some variety for posing and display. The little extra bits for storage are nice but they don’t really do a lot to keep the pieces together.

Is this the best Mega Man figure available? It’s hard to say. It’s better than the Jazwares one by light years, but Revoltech has put out a few nice looking Mega Man figures as well. He also isn’t quite as stylized or squat as others may want in a Mega man figure, the design is closer to the newer artwork than the older artwork and the games. He’s definitely a nice figure though, and relatively affordable as Imports go. He also fits pretty well with other Video Game figures like the Figuarts Mario, Figma Samus and Figma Link.

S.H. Figuarts – Sailor Moon

Jan 11th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Someone at Bandai must have realized that there is a lot of easy reuse potential in a highly desired show like Sailor Moon or something, because there has been a slew of releases in the Figuarts line for this popular anime in recent years. Sailor Moon is definitely one of the most well known classic anime properties. It seems to have opened up the gates a bit for other older titles. We’ve been getting figures from Ranma 1/2 as well. It makes me wonder how long until they start doing Figuarts of Tenchi characters, another popular title from that era with a ton of characters.

The Sailor Moon line up started of course, with Sailor Moon herself. Which is of course the obvious choice, Usagi is the title character after all, if there was only one figure, she’d be the one to be made. There have been a few rereleases of the original figure and a few variants such as Super Sailor Moon and Imposter Sailor Moon.

The figure stands around 5.5″ tall and has all of the ball joints and double jointed articulation you’d expect from a Figuarts toy. There are 6 faces included 5 pairs of hands. One of the hands has a disk effect part attached to it to simulate when Usagi removes her crown to throw it for an attack. She also includes 2 Moon wands, one lit up and one not, and a special Sailor Moon themed Figuarts stand.

Usagi also include a little figure of her cat Luna. Luna has a bit of pose ability in her tail and neck, though getting her to stand up is trickier than it really should be.

You’re going to need that stand too. As nice as the figure looks, her long skinny legs and heels don’t give her any stability. It’s possible to get Sailor Moon to stand up on her own, but it’s not always easy.

A few other downsides I’ve come across. First, her hands have a tendency to fall off sometimes. It’s not a constant problem, but it happens. Second, I seriously worry about breaking her hair off. Usagi has her trademark Odango hair with long ponytails. They are made from a very stiff slightly transparent plastic, a type of plastic that, in my experience, tends to easily snap off if pressure is applied in the wrong direction.

Overall it’s a nice figure, but I worry a bit about it’s long term survivability. There isn’t a lot that could be done about the balance issue, the design looks like the character on the show, giving her different shoes wouldn’t match what Sailor Moon is supposed to look like, and that’s about the only solution there is to that. Mostly I kind of wish there was a bit of give to the hair pieces, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them breaking. In the end, it’s just nice to finally have an option for a good figure of an iconic anime character. Most of what has been put out for Sailor Moon in the past were Barbie style dolls with a pretty mediocre likeness, even in the Japanese market.