Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Black Series Captain Phasma 3.75"

Captain Phasma, a character that looks really cool but does very little in both movies, she doesn't really get much screen time and she's defeated easily. She gets a cooler fight against Finn in The Last Jedi. Played by Gwendoline Christie, she's very tall at 6'3" and the figure captures that height well. I didn't expect her to be that tall, the actress is also very funny. Not much can be said about this character honestly, I do have the Disney Exclusive Black Series figure but I wanted an undamaged version and I've been on a 3.75" figure kick so I went on Ebay and got this figure fairly cheap, I've also gotten two more Vintage Collection First Order Stormtroopers for $5 at GameStop so my troops have grown! And they will continue to grow until I stop finding them! She also fits with the Stormtrooper much better than Kylo Ren, I kept messing with this figure throughout the week, I got her on Christmas Eve so it was perfect timing in my opinion. 

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Vintage Collection Kylo Ren (VC117)

The Vintage Collection Kylo Ren, maybe my 3rd VC Star Wars figure and I don't know why but man am I warming up the 3.75" scale which isn't good for my room, my wallet or many other things! I do get there on clearance at GameStop although Amazon and Ebay have them for very cheap prices too which is a double edged sword. I never thought I'd want to collect these and now that I have 4 Stormtroopers... I think I need more and they're fairly easy to find, if they're the older variety like The Force Awakens or Rogue One characters. The cheap prices that I have paid, make it harder to justify the price of $12-13 for this scale. The only figure I have paid full price for is Enfys Nest, and I thought that'd be the only one I'd be getting but hahahaha. No. Man do I have a problem. Let's get to the figure!

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens - The Vintage Collection First Order Storm Trooper (VC118)

Since I have discovered the greatness that is Star Wars especially when it's on clearance at GameStop, I have been buying pretty often and that's a problem, not a good thing because, when it comes to army building, it's something that I have always wanted to do. I did it for the first time with the Basher Bots from Ninninger/Ninja Steel and I just got 6 and trust me, I wanted to buy more. And now since Troopers and Soldiers mean many of the same one, I have to get more Stormtroopers. I got a couple Black Series 6" ones and I said that I would only get the 6" ones. I saw Black Series Enfys Nest's Swoop Bike a couple months ago and I have wanted to get it for some time now so I got the Vintage Collection one for about $12 and I got the standard Swoop Bike with the 3.75" basic figure so I could she could ride it and that led to another downward spiral. Now I want to get more basic figures since they have variations of the characters that I want. Wait. No. Need. Anyway, I got found these on clearance for $10 and since they had an additional 50% off I got the 3 for $15 plus tax. There were only 3, and I've been hunting in different places for them like Wal-Mart and other GameStops but no luck, they're $12 and for me that's too expensive for such a small figure. Even though eventually I'll end up paying full price for some of these or even a little extra much like I do with the Black Series. I've been too spoiled by discounts and FiveBelow to pay full price for these things. Anyway, let's get to the review.

Review: Star Wars - Disney Store Exclusive Black Series Stormtrooper with Blast Effects

There's something about the Stormtrooper that I really like but I can't pinpoint it. It may have to do with it being a soldier in a similar way to any kind of grunt in any Tokusatsu. Since the suits cover the body and are very... Toku, for lack of a better term. And I guess Star Wars is very Tokusatsu since a lot of the techniques that were used are very similar, if not, identical to the way Eiji Tsuburaya with Toho made their Kaiju films. But the white armor with the black under...wear? looks really nice! I love it, and if you have an army of them, even better. The amount of people with dozens of these figures make me extremely jealous, I would love to have that many... I mean I can... but I want to buy other things. So for now... only two of these Stormtroopers. These designs are from the Empire, back with the original trilogy and Solo and Rogue One since they take place in more or less the same era. These were Disney store exclusives and I got them, not only because they're the original designs and the only other ones I have are one Mimban Stormtrooper and the Imperial Deathtroopers. The blast effects are what really sold me, which are some things that you get with effect parts from Tamashii which... I haven't bought yet for some reason but these are really nice substitutes. Let's get into the figures and box!

Reviews: Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Black Series 03 Rey's Speeder (Jakku) and Rey (Scavenger)

So, I am acquainted with Star Wars and I'm not super familiar with a lot of the characters but ever since I bought that one Rey and BB-8 figure from a Walgreens I have been hooked! Which sucks because I was already (trying) to collect Tokusatsu figures and now I've gotten hooked on Star Wars Black Series and Marvel Legends! As for this particular set, I had seen it on Amazon for about $23 and then in person for $25 at the closest Walmart and I passed on it a couple times, as tempting as it was but then I went again on (Black) Friday around 6 in the afternoon and I walked into Walmart again. I walked around to see if I could find something interesting or something I'd like and I went straight to the clearance section. The box was in terrible shape and the tape was torn so I was skeptical about buying it (which was the reason I didn't buy it the first time) but it was marked down to $10! So I decided to risk it and I almost bought the First 10 Years Cap vs. Cross Bones and Thor with Lady Sif but they were too expensive so I just got this. It was a lot of trouble for getting a $10 thing haha but I opened it in the parking lot and I love it! It was complete, nothing was missing and it was worth it for the price that I got it at. Some history about the character... well, I saw The Force Awakens a while ago but I don't remember much besides this being at the beginning of the movie, I watched a clip or two recently and a lot of reviews of this before buying it. Rey is the protagonist and... that's all I can say right now. I did think she was related to Luke Skywalkerm, although after a couple video essays and commentary videos, I think she's not related to any of the characters from previous movies. I would like to re-watch the movie at some point. 

Updates: Return of the Mush

It's been an eventful and rough time these past couple months but I have made my return, I'm not sure what I want to review next... There are many options, I don't know if I should continue with the Shurikenger or Ninja Steel stuff or if I should change it up for the next couple rounds. I have gotten hooked onto other toylines... One of which is called....

Updates

 The reviews for this week will be posted next week, it's going to be Ninja Master Mode Gold and the Deluxe Bullrider Megazord. It's been a long couple weeks and this past weekend was quite eventful and stressful! Either way, I'll get the reviews out, I just need a break once in a while.

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - NKOK RC Bull Rider Zord

 After Stonedozer is turned giant, the rangers call on the Bull Rider Zord to fight him! Of course he shows up in buggy form and is a completely different prop from the one they would use for the transformation sequence if it wasn't CG. The fact that they made this is amazing since I wanted a version to display in this form. What is cool to me is that the show uses a prop just like this for the scenes in which he drives around much like in the commercial that has 100 views on youtube... I'm surprised no one else has made a video about this toy.

Reviews: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Villain Stone Dozer

 Stonedozer! He was trying to wreck Levi's concert but that didn't happen, honestly it's been too long for me to remember the episode but this was the first episode where they fight a MotW together as a team of 6 rangers! He puts up a fight, or at least I thought he did. I watched the clips and he is kind of just pushed around, that's with the lack on context of course but I thought he did a lot more than just run around and get hit by Levi and Brody. Let's move onto the toy!

Reviews: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Training Mode Red, Yellow. and Pink

 Ninja Training mode is probably one of the best things to come out of the Ninja Steel line since it means Ranger suit-less versions of our heroes, unfortunately, much like the armored Ranger and Zord figures, only half of the team was released. These do appear in the show and they do fight in this mode and it isn't just part of the morphing sequence. It is a shame that Preston, Hayley and Levi weren't released but we must hold out hope!

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Villian Basher Monster

I watched the first episode of Ninja Steel! Which was a little less than I expected, not that I had high or any expectations but it just wasn't the best. The Basher Monster, or at least this variation of the Basher didn't appear much in this episode. I'm not here to talk about the show but still, I wanted some context before making this episode like I did with my reviews for Megaforce a couple years ago. Apparently they're upgraded from the Kudabots and the Basherbots are called Jukkarage (ジュッカラゲ) in Ninninger. Apparently, they don't appear until Episode 8 which is far far from where I'm at. (I wrote that a couple months ago)

Review: Power Rangers (Super) Ninja Steel - Action Hero Gold Ranger

 Levi Weston! Yehaw! The Gold Ranger in Power Rangers Ninja Steel who was saved from the Warrior Dome Ship by the Astro Zord. There's more to it but I won't go into any further details for now. He does however, have a modified Morpher which is slightly remolded and repainted. He still uses the Burger morpher to take selfies. As for the figure, he doesn't come with either of those accessories but he does have the Rockstorm Guitar!

Review: Shuriken Sentai Ninninger - Minipla UFOmaru

Putting the trouble of getting the Astro Zord apart, UFOmaru was really easy to get and relatively cheap. I got him along with the other 3 otomonin as well as another Shurikenjin for about 60 dollars which was a really good deal! I'm not sure which mode I like the most though, I like both Shurikenjin Paon and Shurikenjin UFO. Kasumi had a big part in getting UFOmaru with her otomonin translation machine and they even made it to the moon! (???)

These Minipla figures are very detailed but they have to compensate whenever they transform, this one is a good example of partsforming since you have to take it apart and put it together to become UFOmaru. With this one I had to resort to using one more sticker on it than I did with Paon because of really really small details like the "Nin Nin" on the crest.

 I also messed up the paint job on the cockpit but it's really small and not noticeable from afar.

 It is much smaller than the Astro Zord but it looks much better in my opinion and it's not just because I painted it myself! That's just one of the reasons.

 Of course it can transform and doing that requires just as much partsforming as it does to get it in UFO mode. One thing that bothers me is the pegs on the legs since they come off easily.

 Aside from that, I did a decent job painting the buttons and the silver on the chest. It's not super noticeable but it is there. I thought this was going to be harder to paint.

 It's half the size of the Astro Zord but just as detailed and more articulated.

The hat is nicely detailed and the sticker for the Shuriken looks like space! The shades of blue and the slight metallic effect make it work.

As we know, the gimmick is that they sit on Shurikenjin and doing that is easy but getting him into a good sitting posture isn't. His legs pop off while trying to get him to sit but once you get him in it works just fine.

 He can hold the Blaster just fine in this mode unlike the Astro Megazord which couldn't hold it with Robo-Red Zord. The main reason is because of the handle, the one in UFOmaru is further out than Astro Zord so holding it doesn't get in the way of the knee joints in Shinobimaru. I am liking the Minipla figures and I can't wait to review more and get more. I always saw them on the Youtubes so it's nice to have them in hand. They can transform and are articulated! How much better can it be? I wish the DX versions were like this though. Much like the Soul of Chogokin Daizyujin or Original Megazord but that thing is really expensive... Anyway I'll see you on the next review.

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - DX Astro Megazord

 Alrighty, now onto one of my most recent purchases, before or after the last post. This one was a tough one to get for some reason and I paid more than twice as much than I would have if I had bought one in store last year. I'm a little salty since I would have paid much less had I bough him a week in advance but there's nothing I can do now and it already messed up my schedule. Anyway, I'm surprised how much I like it, especially since, I post pictures of my instagram and with the little engagement that I get, there reception towards the repaints are not good. I do like them, I'm not sure if I like this one or Rumble Tusk more... As far as I'm aware, there is no Sub Surfer Zord planned so this is basically all of the repaints of the Ninja Steel Megazord, yay!

Update: Ninja Steel Collection Update + Astro Megazord Rant

Red, Blue, Yellow, White, Pink Ninja Steel Rangers.

 So far, the collection is pretty much complete. The only couple things that I'm missing are the Blaze Megazord and the Canada Exclusive pack with Mick. Oh and that Astro Megazord which is super expensive and pricey for something that is just a glorified repaint and not even a remold. And I could have gotten him for about 40 bucks if I had bought him about a week ago but I waited way too long.

Review: Shuriken Sentai Ninninger - Mini Pla Paonmaru

 A little but I'm busy, I have a job that allows me to stay home for 5 hours total (not counting sleep) but I have a good time for the most part. Mini Pla Paonmaru! I've wanted Mini Pla for a while and I'm pretty happy with what I've been seeing, I got a pack of 12 (?) which came with an extra Shurikenjin, 2 Paonmaru, 2 UFOmaru and 3 Surfermaru. You have to put them together and detail them with stickers but, for me, no stickers!

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - DX Rumble Tusk Megazord

Rumble Tusk Megazord! Which appeared in the same episode as the Mega Morph Cycle! And in toy form, it shows up as a repaint of most of the main mecha minus Robo Red Zord. I saw these in Walmart but I didn't get it so I had to pay a little extra... unfortunately but either way, I like it more than I probably should since it's a repaint and it's missing some parts. Not the sellers fault, it's actually supposed to not have them for some weird reason... Let's check it out.

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Armored Rumble Tusk Zord

The Rumble Tusk Zord! Which is the main (or at least one of) reason why I got the other Armored figures. It's basically the Rumble Tusk Zord but with a lot more articulation. It doesn't turn into an elephant but he is his battle mode with the cannons on the shoulder. It might have taken me a while to get this figure but here it is! And honestly, it isn't disappointing, I'm pleased.

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Mega Morph Cycle (with Red Ranger)

The Mega Morph cycle! Part of the Mega Morph line which consists of 3 cycles and a copter and a bunch of other stuff that don't appear in the show. Why am I reviewing this bike? well, it does make an appearance in the show! Power Rangers has some history with bringing Bandai's toy designs into the show, turning it into a 30 minute commercial as if it wasn't already. And honestly, it's starting to grow on me, I really like it. This particular cycle comes with the Red Ranger, the other two have Calvin for the Ninja Steel line, and the Gold Ranger for Super Ninja Steel one. Clavin's and Gold's bikes are just repaints of this one, and since this one is the one that actually does show up in the show, I'm reviewing this one. In episode 5 it's revealed that Calvin cannot drive despite him being show with his truck and being pretty good with motor vehicles and Hayley was the one behind the wheel all along. Calvin crashed a go kart when he was little and ever since then he's been afraid to drive and in this episode he has to overcome his fear. After Mick makes the Mega Morph Cycle Power Star, Clavin has to drive it in order to save his friends!

Review: Shuriken Sentai Ninninger - Mini Pla Shurikenjin (Shurikenjin Dragon)

I was trying to hold off on reviewing this set, mainly because I'm not experienced with painting figures and I'm impatient and not very careful so I had to repaint them a couple times. Mini Pla makes really cool model kits based off of Sentai Mecha and they're very articulated. I had to get them and I did, from Buyee along with a couple other things but the shipping was too expensive... The main appeal of this version of Shurikenjin is that it has a good Shuriken Drago mode!

Review: Power Rangers Ninja Steel - Ninja Master Mode Red, Blue, Yellow, White, and Pink

Finally the Ninja Master Mode figures, much like the last set of figures, this review is late! Mostly because I just recently got back from Orlando, it was a nice vacation but once I returned I had a lot to do. Either way, I also finally got Ninja Master Mode Yellow after two attempts, my first one I ordered off of Ebay but the seller sent me the wrong figure so now I have 3 Calvins... I don't need that many, and on my second attempt, he didn't get to me until after I got back from vacation of Wednesday night. Still, I really like these figures, and they definitely look better than the armored ones. They're another way for Bandai to make extra money since more modes means more figures that collectors have to buy... like me! Are they worth it? Let's find out!