Nendoroid

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.

Nendoroid – Junkrat

Mar 13th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have, so far, picked up every one of the Overwatch Nendoroid figures released so far. They all have some ups and downs, but on the whole they are pretty good. Today, I want to talk a bit about Nendoroid Junkrat.

Of all of the figures released in this series so far, Junkrat is definitely one of the most unique. Honestly he seems fairly unique compared to all Nendos, not just the Overwatch releases. Maybe there is some vague hope that there might be some Tank characters released in this line after all, with how much Junkrat has going on that’s special. First off, he is a fair amount larger than the previous releases. I honestly never really realized it in game since Junkrat is always hunched over, but if you look at a pure size chart, he’s one of the taller characters in the game. His Nendo, even with its goofy short proportions, is taller than the previous releases.

Part of this comes from his huge head and hair. These are also a bit unique in design, though Sombra who came out at the same time shares the uniqueness. On the previous figures, generally the bangs of the hair are removable, and the face plates swap out underneath the hair. The face plates are pretty interchangeable, that is, you can easily put Tracer’s face on Mercy, if you want. Junkrat’s entire front half of his head makes up his face plates, instead of just the bottom half like other Nendoroids. The hair bits also have to be removed and reattached in chunks, to make the swap. It’s a little clunky to do quickly, but the end result looks better. with his partially bald head, a plate styled like other Nendos would have left a visible seam across his forehead.

Speaking of the face plates, he also has a swapable mouth piece to give him a “tongue hanging out” look. As a side note, the eyes and mouth on the second head LOOK like they could be removable/swapable, but I didn’t really want to test the limits of the plastic and couldn’t get mine to come out. There isn’t really any noticeable difference in the base face anyway, so swapping the eyes around wouldn’t really do anything useful.

Additionally, he has his peg leg. This is also fairly unique to Junkrat. Between the peg leg and his huge head unfortunately, it also means he’s not going to be standing without a stand anytime ever. Though most Nendos have small enough feet that you’re going to have a hard time getting them to stand up independently anyway.

All these unique bits though help give him a lot of neat character to his design. He definitely comes off as “Junkrat,” goofy and crazy looking.

He doesn’t stop at his basic design though. He has a slew of really neat accessories. All of the weapons he wields in the game are represented here, he has his sticky bomb, his grenade launcher, his trap, and his Rip-Tire. The launcher and sticky bomb are fairly boring, the sticky bomb isn’t even painted, but the trap and tire are both great.

The trap can be laid out open or closed, and had a hand designed to hold it up to emulate his in game emote where he uses it like a puppet. The Tire is nicely detailed and can be mounted to his back, or to a extra articulated arm piece as if it’s being launched and rolling away.

You can add in on top of this that MSRP for Junkrat isn’t more than the previous releases, it makes him feel like a pretty good bang for your buck figure. All in all, I think he’s definitely one of the cooler Overwatch Nendoroids so far.

Nendoroid – Tracer

Sep 27th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

Good Smile Company makes two lines, primarily, Figma, and Nendoroid. Both likes primarily deal with anime and video game characters. Figma is more of a traditional style scale figure, they are generally around 1/12th scale. Nendoroids are all “Super Deformed” Chibi designs. Bigs heads and small bodies, sort of similar in style to something like Pop Vinyls in the US, except a zillion times better with articulation and interchangeable parts.

I’m not super big on the style, and there are a lot more anime characters I don’t care about int he Nendo line than the Figma line. That said, the first official figure from Overwatch was Nendoroid Tracer. I like Overwatch, I play Tracer more than any character, seemed like a good figure to test out the waters on the Nendoroid line. There’s a Figma Tracer being released later this year and Nendoroid versions of Mei and Mercy are coming up as well.

I had my doubts going into this line. A lot of those worries were pushed away upon actually getting the figure. She’s pretty awesome. I can fully admit, that this style of figure isn’t going to be for everyone, but this little Tracer is pretty adorable and a lot more versatile for poses and action that I expected her to be. Not every Nendoroid has as many joints as Tracer, only some characters get elbows, many just get swapable arms. She also pretty much requires the stand due to the size of her head, but it’s low profile and with some work she can be posed without it.

I was also worried that she was going to be smaller than she actually is. She isn’t huge, but she fits in pretty well with some smaller Figma and Figuarts figures. Really, given her style and related silly factor, she kind of works alright with some larger figures as well. She would definitely fit with other Nendos since they are all roughly the same size. She isn’t meant to be a perfect scale representation of Tracer, but she does a pretty good job of being a silly super deformed version. She has all of the most noteworthy details like her chest piece, glasses and arm fins. The center bit of her hair is articulated as well, so it can be adjusted a bit or to recreate her “blowing her hair” bit she does in the game.

For acessories she includes her stand, 3 faces, and several sets of hands. She also includes a pulse bomb, and her two pistols. The hands are made for gripping her pistols, open palms for throwing the pulse bomb or pegging the pistols on for her spin pose, and a set of closed fists. There isn’t anyway for her to hold the pulse bomb sadly, though in game she pretty much just tosses it out and runs anyway.

She also includes a little blue plastic piece that can attach tot he stand to represent when she Blinks. The end effect works pretty well at showing off her overall gimmick of speed and time shifting. I kind of wish there was a second piece of the Recall Glow but I’m happy with what she came with.

Overall, I really like Nendoroid Tracer. I’m looking forward to the upcoming Mei to go with her. The style definitely won’t be to everyone’s taste and she is probably a little pricey for her size, but she is fun to pose and mess with and is a neat representation of the popular character.