Warthog

I wonder if other James has this yet.

Slippy Toad

I can't believe there was a market for this guy. So is the question: why did they make this or why would I buy it? Completionism? Then I might have to admit that I have. Problem.

Super Mario K'Nex wave 5

Maybe it's because I've started collecting Amiibos, or maybe it's because the whole wave is variants of already released figures, but when I saw the new wave of K'Nex Mario figures I realized I did not want a single one.

And I had a gift card, so I wouldn't have even needed to spend real money.

Mass Effect

Oh hey, Mass Effect 1 minimates are at GameStop now. At $5 per figure they're actually a little cheaper than the single boxed Aliens colonial marines vs xenomorph minimates. Yes, these are blind bagged, but thanks to the armor and head shapes it's insanely easy to figure out who is who using the squeeze method.

There's 8 figures in this wave, but since I never played ME1 I don't care about Ashley or Wrex, I never played or got attached to Fem Shep, and the Elusive man looks like a business casual Charlie Sheen clone in the pictures I've seen, so none of them are worth $5 to me. Actually Shepard isn't either, but I want to try putting different minimate heads on the N7 armor. I think it'll make me laugh.

Wario

Hey, I found the final figure in the first wave of the Nintendo figures, and it's Wario. And he's huge, with 9 points of articulation, most of it in his arms. His feat are stuck in one pose but he has some cut joints at his ankles, so keeping him upright isn't impossible. But I am shocked that they made a Wario figure. And I really like this series, so I figured it would be worth a purchase.

His secret accessory is a coin that he can't hold and can barely stand on its own. But hell, under $9! Not bad.

Video Games

No toy blogging, playing Disney Infinity and Super Smash Bros.

Interesting note though, after reading comments disappointed about how few female heroes you can play as in the Marvel sets (2 out of 18 total) I decided to look at Disney 1.0.

So yeah, that's 8 female characters out of 29. And only 4 out of the 18 characters that come with playsets so they get plots and dialogue. Disney 2.0 is 7 out of 30!characters are female and The breakdown for playset characters: 2 women out of 21 characters.

That is pretty screwed up considering how many iconic female characters Disney has, and how large the segment is of Disney Infinity players that are women, girls, and men who like female characters.

Minimate Monday: Plants vs Zombies box set

I wasn't going to get this set, but I have a weakness for minimates when I see then in person. I don't even play this game but c'mon, minimate zombies with minimate plants. 

No, really. I thought the plants were just static figures but they're actually unique minimate bodies that will fit any minimate head... So like this:

Beautiful.

Yoshi

Look, I've picked up the other 4 available Nintendo figures, might as well pick up the other one, right? It helps that Yoshi is a green dinosaur, which is a thing that I like. The bits that make me sad: he only has 5 points of articulation and he's not designed so Mario can ride him. Actually no one can ride him... That's the whole point of Yoshi! Make him so other figures can ride him!

Oh, and his bonus accessory is an egg. A perfectly round Egg that won't stand up on its own because it's too round. Weird.

Disney Infinity 2.0

I didn't love the first Disney Infinity but there were parts I liked. The game designers promised they fixed all the problems I had and then made it all superhero based.

End result: I bought all the figures on day 1.

I may have a problem. It helps that the figures can double as vinyl collectibles and cost roughly the same as some vinyl collectibles but aren't blind boxes.

Ash and Pikachu

I played Pokemon X/Y through to the final boss and then gave up from doing any more because of how frustrating the game became to me. I don't want to fight another low level pokemon, thanks. I've already caught a dozen of that Pokemon. WHY CAN'T I GET A PSYDUCK! But from what I remember, you play a generic character that isn't named Ash Ketchum. But hey, they did make a Pokemon X/Y Ash Ketchum figure wearing some Pokemon X/Y style clothing that I bet he wears in the cartoon if I still watched that. (I'm not that young. Yes I used to watch the Pokemon cartoon, but I used to watch the show in high school and college out of a weird love for all things Psyduck.)

So in a confluence of events: I had a coupon that expired soon and a desire for more Nintendo figures when I spotted this 4 inch Ash Ketchum figure. Hey neat, I thought. I've wanted an Ash figure in the past but they've either had horrible articulation or looked horrible or were out of scale with what I was collecting at the time. This one is decent and has a surprising amount of articulation. There's ball jointed hips and shoulders, some knee and elbow joints, and a ball jointed neck. Unfortunately there are no ankle  joints, so posing becomes a little difficult. Is it too much to ask for cut joints at the ankles so that I can balance what I can do with the ball jointed hips? Also, why can't he hold a pokeballs? Why is there no pokeballs accessory?

The Pikachu is not articulated and only can sit on Ash's shoulder because the backpack has a hole to plug-in his foot.

And sadly, this is not in scale with the other Nintendo figures I own. I mean, looks how Ash towers over Link... I know Link is supposed to be part elf or something, but no.

Pikachu

Ionix Pokemon figures are out. These are pretty much just Tenkai Knights transformable bricks except they turn into Pokemon (or Ash Ketchum) instead of generic warriors.

Pikachu doesn't transform from a regular brick but rather from a round ball thing that unfolds into hemi-spheres which you can attack Pikachu parts to. Kinda disappointing for $6.

But I'm a sucker for Nintendo licensed brick figures... As my continuing purchases of Mario K'nex can attest to. 

Waluigi and Bowser Jr.

Man, I hate Bowser Jr. His existence seems to erase the Koopa Kids from SMB3 and Super Mario World. But other than that I don't care about him. Still... Original character in this line with completely new tooling, so that makes

me want it. I still would have preferred one of the Kooplings. Roy, Iggy, Wendy, Ludwig, Lemmy, any of them.

Meanwhile I love Waluigi because of how blatantly ridiculous he is. Evil Mario is popular? Let's introduce Evil Luigi! Evil Mario is named Wario because "W" is "M" upside down? So Evil Luigi should be Tuigi or Puigi, right? No! Waluigi, so he's forever associated with Wario. And no, they're not brothers. What the hell is going on? And why the hell are both of these guys so hard to find? 

They're packaged like one per box. And the codes on the back are deceptive. Waluigi isn't denoted by an line under one of the 7 numbers on the back, but rather a double line under a number which is already used to denote another figure if it has a single line under it. They've done that in the past when there were 8 figures in a wave, but this time there are only 7 figures. Each one could get its own number! But no, instead you can easily mistake Waluigi's code for Mario's code.

Boo blind bagged anything!

Princess Peach Birthday Girl Cart

Many years ago when I was really into the Mario Kart K'nex sets, I bemoaned the lack of variety in the car designs. Most of them were just recoloring a few basic cars, with no cars really capturing the spirit of the personal cars from the games. Then they released 4 of the personalized cars and I realized that for the price they wanted I couldn't be bothered.

Of course now they're on clearance and hard to find, but I picked up this Princess Peach set when I could. It's another Princess Peach figure for me to put aside, another banana peel, and a pretty neat looking K'Nex car. Oh sure, the motor is one of those "pull back and let go" engines but it's designed to be swapped out with a battery powered one so, yes, this baby will go on the Mario Kart tracks! And the body is one solid piece, with very few actual building block elements to any of the car, so it should be a pretty solid racer. Weirdly the crown emblem on the front of the car is a sticker you have to apply yourself, so I guess the idea is you could have gotten one of these and put the Donkey Kong sticker on it if you wanted to?

Meanwhile, who wants to discuss how problematic it is from a social and feminist standpoint that they made sure that Princess Peach's vehicle was the pink one associated with parties and cake? Or is that a discssion for another day?

Donkey Kong

Since I really like the Jakks Pacific World of Nintendo Link and Mario figures, I figured I would try to find the larger 6 inch figures. So far they've only been spotted at Toys R Us, so I was able to find them there.

I really like this Donkey Kong. The thing is massive, look how large it is compared to a pez dispenser. And the articulation is decent, with 10 points. The knees are locked, which is fine because it provides some stability when posing the figure as a bipedal. My only disappointment is that the head is a cut joint and not a ball joint. A ball jointed neck would have made this my toy of the year (so far). Instead it's just a really good toy.

Link

His mystery accessory is a shield, because what the hell else would it be?

Pretty much picked this up to have a Link figure with decent articulation that doesn't cost an ungodly amount because it's a Japanese import. Or a Figma. Really, at about $10, this feels like a good deal. Also, technically he's kinda in scale with my Doctor Who figures.

Link vs. Dalek!

That would have been more impressive if I had bothered to take a picture of it.

World of Nintendo

Found the World of Nintendo figures at Target. Only 3 of the six 4 inch figures (totes not in 4 inch scale) and there's a hilarious gulf in articulation. Yoshi has 5 points, Mario has 11, and Link has 13. 

Poor Yoshi.

Clearance Blast

Hey, the Toys R Us Clearance Blast is now at the stage where everything in the blast is at least 80% off. So a lot of things are under $2, which is a magic price where I realize it's cheaper than me buying a hamburger so why not. The downside is that what's leftover isn't very good. But here's some stuff I picked up this weekend.

Heroclix from those app games which also come with figures. Final price: $0.60. I pretty much just wanted these for the X-Men HeroClix, especially 90's Cyclops. Hell, I don't even play HeroClix, I just like them as tiny vinyl statues.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. K'Nex figure. I feel like I knew they made Nascar K'Nex, but they never appealed to me. But the chance to get a minifigure for under $0.50 was too strong a pull. I have no idea if this actually looks like Dale, but I doubt it. Meanwhile this minifigure sucks. The Pac-Man, Super Mario, and Angry Birds K'Nex figures are much better. I guess they need a video game license to make a good minifigure.

A $0.40 pez dispenser? Sure! That's how much 3 columns of Pex normally cost. So I'm basically getting a free Pez Dispenser. And it's a Muppet. Even better!

$0.80 for minimates? I already have two of this set, and I'm totally going to get it. That's like $0.80 for a Cardassian army builder. Score.

Hey, BattleBeast minimates! Better known as the minimate property that made me realize I don't need every minimate property because the more intricate with unique pieces the figure gets, the less like a minimate it looks like and the less I want it. But for under $2 I wouldn't mind seeing how they do a four legged minimate.

I've been thinking of getting this Kre-O Cityville set for a while, and now that it's under $1 I have no reason to not get it. I'm really impressed by the mechanics of the claw. I'm also really impressed by how well this building set works. I'd totally be up for buying more mechs in this scale, but they don't make them.

It's a World of Warcraft Pandarian on a mount. The Pandarians are a race in the game who have a mystical Far East kung-fu society which is why this post is getting a Toys Depicting Asian tag. I'm actually pretty impressed by the mount, especially since it's a giant turtle and you can take the shell off and put other bricks in its place. It's like a hermit crab, but with a horned turtle instead of a crab.

Oh, and I also picked up some Muppet Whatnot kits because at 80% off they're now $13. Well, the blue ones are. They're keeping the other colors the same price, and I think I know why. They're re-releasing them but with new accessories and new UPC codes. I saw one of the new one, instead of a black goatee you get a brown Magnum PI mustache. Instead of the black wig and green wig you get a white wig and rainbow wig. Stuff like that. Weirdly, based on the cost of individual eye and hair parts ala carte, it's still a better bargain to get the new set rather than the individual parts separately (parts that are near impossible to find online since FAO Schwartz doesn't like selling Whatnot stuff unless you buy a $100 custom made job from their New York Whatnot shop) since you get a free body with them.

Green Lantern Maxwell

This Green Lantern version of Maxwell from Scribblenauts looks too much like an actual Green Lantern I've seen in crowd shots to feel completely original.

But it's not horrible for a mini figure. 5 points if articulation, although his legs were warped when I pulled him from the package, so it was difficult getting him on the pega of his little base.

I got this because I had a gift card to gamestop and their video game prices are a little high for my comfort. These mini vinyl figures are blind packed, in boxes so even the pinch and feel method is out, so I doubt I'll get another one without a gift card. Because why would anyone spend real money to buy a blind item when they have an INSANELY EXCELLENT chance to end up paying for the same thing twice?

Only crazy people who don't have e-bay.

Traffic Cone Zombie

I've only been able to find these figures at Toys R Us for $3.99 and that seemed way too much for what you get, but I gotta admit, the number of joints that this guy has almost makes it worth the price.

Almost.

As in, no, it's not worth $4. GET IT? I DID NOT THINK I GOT MY MONEY'S WORTH.

That said, I do like the extra articulation. The heads are ball joints, which makes them semi-unique for building brick minifigures. And I'm digging the 70's style for the zombie. The traffic cone's a little difficult to keep on his head, but it's a nice interpretation of a sci-fi traffic cone. (Unless traffic cones have antennas now and I just haven't noticed. RC Traffic cones? The future is so bright that I have to wear tinted prescription glasses.)

I might get other figures from the set if there's one of those "buy one get 1 half off" sales that Toys R Us likes to do.

Inky, Blinky, Clyde or whatever they call the ghosts from Pacman now.

K'nex Pacman blind figures were on Clearance so I decided to get all the ghost characters because I love the generic army builders they come packed with, and I'm a fan of the old school bedsheet design for ghosts.