Props to Bandai for offering the exclusives online for a fairly decent amount of time. They need to announce this at the same time as they do the event exclusives being at SDCC.
And now, on to what I really came to talk about. Imagine being a toy reviewer—someone who is supposed to be critical of a product and provide an honest opinion of what is being offered before them—and taking a massive shit on everyone who is being vocal with their criticism of an unreleased figure.
Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand loving a property so much that you overlook certain flaws. As dogshit as The Rise of Skywalker is, I actually like the Sith Troopers and Jet Troopers, for as briefly as they appeared. And I loved Kylo Ren’s new helmet and outfit. Same with Rey. The film is complete fucking crap though, no matter what any “fan” has to say about it.
It gets to a point where you have to stop being a shill. A lot of these franchises are going downhill. Resident Evil. Terminator. Predator. Alien? We’ve yet to see their future plans for that one. And both Star Wars and Dragon Ball have had their failings.
GT was absolutely meh. Sure, it had some neat stuff. I cannot sit through that series a second time though. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Love the SSJ4 stuff and some of the villains though. The new Dragon Ball film invokes the same reaction out of me. I just don’t care about it.
So, you can sit and shill all you want that the new movie is this and that and the characters are badass. No. No they’re not. The villains look like shit and all of the figures are meh.
Piccolo might be the best of the bunch, but the lack of his traditional cape is a huge oversight. And I’m really not a fan of the manga colors. Never have been. Hopefully, we get a 3.0 Piccolo using this body, that comes with the cape. Even though I already have a fair few of the most recent 2.0 version.
The villains are terrible looking. This is mostly because of their designs. I’m sure they’ll be alright figures, but they were PBandai exclusives for a reason. No one really gives two fucks about them. Same with the Android 21 base form figure.
Oh, and while we are on the subject of PBandai… Turles. What in the fuck am I missing here? Why does it seem like no toy reviewer (who does those pre-order teaser videos) has any legitimate concerns about said release? It is one of their worst looking animation-to-figure transitions that they have done in a long time. Am I still going to get it? I honestly don’t know. It’s that bad. It’s so bad that I have yet to order one of my favorite villains during the early 2000s run of Dragon Ball.
And now, for Gohan.
Where to start. The people praising this figure, one in particular (the one chastising fans recently for calling out Tamashii on the presumed quality of arguably two of the most highly anticipated figures ever), are so blinded by their shill lords and their overabundant love for the property that they can’t even pick apart the most obvious issues?
He has no neck. He has the same issue that the Majin Vegeta figure had. There is NO fucking neck. And his torso is about a half centimeter too short. It just looks goofy. Speaking of goofy, his side profile is laughably bad. Why do so many of these look terrible when you turn them to the side and others look damn near perfect? Just doesn’t make sense. The articulation could be better in the head all around. Having a neck might have actually fixed that.
Finally, we have the shoes and boots on all of these Super Hero figures. They’re rounded out and silly. They’re stupid. Animation design or not, Goku’s are unchanged. At least Vegeta’s aren’t that bad. He’s the only one I’m getting and it’s solely just to have an Otherworld Vegeta for my Buu Saga display.
See, that is how you critic toys, as a toy reviewer. When they get something right, like how Hasbro just made a damn near perfect Star Wars figure (I have six Death Watch Mandalorians and only one of them has a “flaw,” which is just a banged up range finder at the swivel joint), then you can fangirl to your heart’s content.
Darth Vader is one of my top five favorite characters of all time, but I am not going to sit here and give full-on praise if it isn’t deserved. I think it’s lazy to reissue the ANH version with an updated helmet for the Kenobi show. And none of the import figures have done the character justice at all. Will that change soon? Possibly. Hot Toys is still the definitive Vader, as of now. Hasbro has it in them to bring us the best 1/12 scale Vader of all time, they just have to put in the work.
I know I’ve gone a bit off topic here, but I just think some of these toy reviewers really need to be put in their place. They are given views by the fans. Fans buy the products. If fans don’t want to buy the products, you don’t get views. It would behoove you to join in with the critiques, that way everyone wins. There is nothing wrong with being vocal about a product. This goes both ways, I guess. However, I’d rather be upfront and honest than just another consoomer.
