Bender

Hey, they're doing re-releases of the first few waves of Futurama, and they're surprisingly at Toys 'R Us, which I stumbled upon and so was able to get a Bender after wanting one for about a year. I was at the point that I was willing to go with one of the Bender variants like Bender made out of Wood or Chef Bender. But now I have classic Bender and I am happy.

I really like that he comes with exchangable eyes so you can change his expression. It's something that would probably only work on a Bender toy, but it really works.

The only downside is that his hands make it kind of hard to wedge things in there and get him to hold onto anything. The beer bottle sort of works, but I'm not even going to try the motor oil can. His stomach opens up and he's hollow inside, which means I can put the eyes in there and have a reasonable chance of not losing them.

AWESOME. 4 out of 5, and only because the only one left in the store had a smudge on his head. And it seems a bit small for $13.

Captain Jack Harkness with revolver

There's another version of this figure that comes with the Doctor's hand, but I didn't get that one. Which is okay, because I also got it for $5 less than MSRP. This is the first companion figure I've purchased. Partially that's because there hadn't been a companion I really liked made into a figure that I felt was worth the money. The Captain Jack figure that was released in 2005 looks horrible, like they sucked out all the stuff that was cool about the character and turned that into an action figure.

This though, this is Capt. Jack looking his most awesome. He's got his signature coat, which admittedly didn't become a signature until after the 2005 figure was made. Of all the companion figures that have been released so far, this is one of the best, if not the best. The likeness isn't perfect, but you can regognize the character, and that's good enough for me. If I was paying $20 for this instead of $10 I'd be a bit more peeved, but this is pretty good. The only bit that seems off is his nose.

The articulation is pretty decent. Cut neck, cut shoulders, cut wrists, cut biceps, cut waist, cut thighs, hinge elbows, hinge knees, and that weird quasi-balljoint/hinge thing at the hips. It gets a good balance between articulation and sculpting. I like this balance, it gives me enough articulation that I'm happy with the posing potential, but the figures actually look good and fairly acurate to their screen likeness.

Club Penguin Spaceship with Space Alien

What I love about toys in the clearance aisle is that it means I'm willing to pick up toys I wouldn't want to waste my money on normally. Case in point is this Club Penguin toy. I don't know anything about Club Penguin and I don't really care, but what I like is the design of this UFO toy, and for 75% off original MSRP it's at a price I'm willing to spend for it.

It's a nice toy. Solid plastic and it has a pull-back motor, so it has some play value. But even more importantly, with just a little bit of coaxing it's roughly in scale with a minimate!

Bam, suddely this toy isn't just awesome, it's super awesome.

Mameshiba Plushes

So yeah, I didn't go to Comiccon, but I did have a couple friends pick up these exclusives. They're plush toys of Mameshibas, a Japanese property which essentially means bean dogs. They're tiny beans (all sorts, including jelly, coffee, and peanut) which show up out of nowhere, spout off useless trivia, and freak people out. They're adorable. The guys above are chilli and edamame.

So yeah, when I heard they'd be selling toys at the SDCC I asked my friends to pick some up for me. These are the smaller plushes, around 3 inches long. There's a huge number of merchandise for these guys in Japan and Toynami is starting to release some stuff here in the states.

Nerf Barrel Break & Nerf Alpha Trooper

Did I mention I'm into Nerf guns?



Yeah, I totally am. I picked these up this weekend at Toys R Us & Target, which are apparently where they're store exclusives.


As far as I can tell, they're the Nerf Gun analogues of a sawed off shotgun and an automatic rifle. Both appear to be good alternatives to the Buzz-Bee foam dart rifles, and although those are fun, I've got to say, after a while of using them, I really started to get annoyed finding and picking up the shells. It was bad enough having to find all your darts, having to take twice as much time to find the plastic shells that the guns required you house the darts in just made it a little too much.

I haven't really played with these yet, but the concept of a Nerf version of a sawed off shotgun amuses me to no end.