LANCER

Years ago it was thanks to Fate/Stay Night that i meet Figma and started a collection, Archer was my very first Figma and is still one of my favorites. Tough since then i hasnt get any other Fate figure since Good Smile refuse to make anything bara out of it, like Iskandar. But when they announced Lancer, i had my doubts.

Along side Archer, he was one of my very first husbandos of Fate. He is not a mature bara daddy like Iskandar but he pulls off the young muscle jock in spandex pretty nicelly, and manages to be extremelly cute and perverse at the same time. But i watched the Fate/Stay Night Heavens Feel on teathers and studly Cu Chulainn was both the sexyest part and the most badass and cool character on an otherwise boring affair.

Soo i just pre-ordered him and i dont regret.

Lancer comes in a standar Figma box and he comes in standar scale as well…or is he not? For some reason i dont understand, he is a little bit taller than all other Figmas, he is even taller than Guts. I usually would love this, but not when Archer looks shorter. I hate when they come out with different scales within a single series but nothing can be done, i just wonder if this is due to the many years it took them to make Lancer.

He can stand on his own, tough he comes with the super awesome Figma base mostly for jumping poses for aerial combat, and it suits him pretty well. He have double articulation on his neck, his hair, double articulation on his shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and middle of the feet, also since his outfit is extremelly minimalistic and is almost like he is nude…. nothing gets in the way of his articulations.

He can virtually be posed in any single way with no problem, wich makes him extremelly fun to play with.

The sculpt is good, very athletic musculature with meaty pecs and the face is as simplistic as he looks on the anime. His hair have probablly the best sculpt in the figure since his pony tails have a very dynamic and beautyfull sculpt. The paint is as simplistic as the sculpt but looks perfect for him.

Most of the paint details are on his eyes, red eyes with pretty sharp pupils and perfect paint apications.

There is a lack of accesoryes here tough, since he only have one single weapon; his red lance. I never notice until now but the design on his lance is pretty random and the pole looks like is covered in veins. His weapon is extremelly phalic…

The color is deep crimson and shiny and fits perfectly on hiw hand. Is usless to mention this weapon looks kinda delicate and must be handle with caution to not break it.

His other accesoryes are 3 extra faces: a smiling and winkling face, a face with a maniac and fierce smile and another one screaming in combat. Each one of this is perfectly painted and very expresive, i find specially awesome the deep of the sculpting on his screaming face. He is a very expresive character and with this faces he can be pretty cute and seductive and dangerous looking.

He also comes with a lot of hands. Really, he have A LOT to hild his weapon with both hands and in different angles. Again, this makes him an extremelly expresive character.

I cant really think of anything to complaing here. He is a little simple looking, but hes a perfect representation of the character. Soo now i have the two original boys of Fate and, even with the scale issue, i am very happy how this two looks and interacts together.

An interesting fact: on the box he is designated to Fate GO and not FSN, wich gives me hope, maybe Figma is going to release more Fate GO figures and maybe MMMAAAAYYYBBBEEEE Napoleon with them (i doubt it).

ARCHER

Last year i was thinking on the Nendroid Archer for some reason and wondered why i didnt got him. I know i am mostly alone when it comes to Archer love, most of the people i know seems to dislike him a lot because he is not as beastly as Iskander and toy companies dislike him because he has no boobs. Archer is too pretty for bara lovers and too manly for otakus….

And somehow, that very same day i found a store with Archer Nendroid and at a very cheap price because (like the shop keeper told me) hes too old and no one wants him….

And he is actually old because hes was released probablly 5 years ago given the number on its box. He is on the 400s number while now Nendroids are in the 900s!!!

Little Archer is really tiny and standar size for Nendroid tough, unlike Chris or the Snakes, he is very simplsitic in nature and colors, with clean white on his hair and brigth red on his outfit, i have to admit his legs are really really detailed with all the straps and leather texture.

He is articulated on the neck, shulders, arms, elbows, wrists, chest, legs and knees tough his legs dosnt have a lot of pose options thanks to the red skirt thingy around them. This part is not articulated and i am glad, it would be anoying and pointless.

I actually have a lot of problems posing him, thanks to my big sausage fingers. Its pretty difficult to move the legs or arms without them sepparating from the body. In the end most of the poseability comes from his arms that can be posed perfectly.

He comes with two faces; a serius one and an angry one and both can be exchanged easy and also comes with an extra pair of hands to hold his second set of accesoryes.

His first set consist on his two swords. But fist perfectly and looks amazing and super detailed and painted, exact replicas of the Figma swords. His second set consist on his bow and two arrows. The bow is simplistic while one of the arrows have a cool and stylish purple metalic tone while the other looks like a ridiculous sword-drill. The Figma comes with this same arrow soo i know is accurate to the original design.

The arrow can fit nicelly on a little hond on his hand, soo he can hold it with no problem, but the bow is really troublesome. It fits perfect on his hand, but given Archer´s huge head, is pretty difficult to pose the bow with such short arms.

He also have a super funcional and traditional Nendroid base as well as a little cute extra: a background with his Noble Phantasm. This is the very first Nendroid i have with a background tough, while its cool, it fits much much better to the Archer Figma given his scale.

The Nendroids stress me and this guy is no ecception, i prefer the Figmas any day tough he is pretty cute and fun to look at and i am glad to support my Fate husbando as much as i can.

GERALT OF RIVIA

I admit i have yet to play The Witcher 3 game, i already own it but i didnt had the time to play such long game, but that dosnt stop me to buy merchadise of the series already, like artboks, the novels and soundtrack and i must say i like a lot the world build around Geralt AND i really really like Geralt as well. I usually dont like men with white long hair, like Raiden or Sephirot but Geralt is extremelly different to those two.

I am also not specially interested on Nendroids either, tough i already have a small ecollection of them, i find them much much better than Funko Pops but still, theyr mall size gives me a lot of difficultys.

But this Nendroid was of Geralt was specially cute soo i could not resist. He is in the same scale as the other Nendo and have great artoculations. Some of this little guys have non-articulated arms and legs but this one in specific have articulations on his elbows, knes and anckles. Is fun to pose him around nd even his shouldepads have movement to help him rise his arms, but.....my big and stupid fingers have a lot of troubles doing it and i always end up removing one of his limbs by accident. Sepaking of wich, his torso articulation is specially lose and keeps missing his lower half extremelly easy.

I guess is not the fault of the figure to be soo hard to manipulate, this things are designed mostly as miniature. Aside of the technical problems with the size, the sculpt and paint are exquisite and very clean; the cute little wolf medallion on his chest, the brown leather, the chainmail of his armour, his belt, everything is beautifully sculpted and theres not a single mistake on the paint.

His face is very animesque but his eyes looks fierce with the yellow cat pupils, the sars and i love his beard as well, is fun to see such childish figure to have a beard that is not only painted, but is sculpted as well.

He cant stand on his own but comes with the traditional Nendroid base with an articulated arm, tough install hi on the base is not an easy task. He have a two parts scabbard on his back and this thig have two pegs, one to attach it to Geralt´s back and another at the opposite side to attach it to the base but it dosnt matter how you press, the figure always comes out of the peg and i am afraid i my broke one of the two oegs eventually.

Actually, the scabbard ahso have a small crossbow that cant be removed, but given his size and the possition it is, while i was moving Geralts head for the first time, his hair fot stuck on the crossbow leg and broke it...and this is way this will be probablly one of my last Nendroids. They are very cute and fun but i keep broking them over and over again (and they are hellish to clean as well).

Aside of the scabbard, Geralt´s other accesoryes are his two swords, a metalic one for humans and a silver one for monsters. Both have totally different sculpts and fit perfectly on the scabbard. He also have a pait of relaxed hands and a pair of gripping hands to hold the swords. Also an extra little hand hilding a deck of cards. This one is my favorite since it gives a lot of personality to the figure and the cards can be removed (i will be carefull not to lose them!!).

He have an extra face that can be exchanged easy, with the fierce growl on his mouth and the veins on his face when he transforms and also theres a "piece" of transluscent fire that can be placed in front of him to pose him firing this fire magic or just put him on by his foot to give him a dramatic and fierce look.

The last accesory is deffinetly the best and why i get this figure. He also have an extra body on his bathtub to react the sexy scene of the game. The bathtube can be attached to the base with a removable peg or be displayed alone, you just need to remove Geralt´s head from his body and attach it to the bathtube and there it is, probablly the cutest thing Good Smile could come out with.

The paint of the bathtub is very simple tough, is just brown and the water is not transluscent or anything, it only have some blue hues and the tiny and cute feet and arms coming out from it.

This guy is very hard to handle thanks to his size and even with the breaking issues of his crossbow, i have to admit this is a very cool little figure and i am glad i got it.

CAPTAIN BLACKE

And just this last Halloween and only by coincidence i find this figure on a store last october and i was totally sure i had to own it!! Captain Blacke from The Fog!!!

The Fog is one of my favorite horror movies since i was a kid, it was earie and disturbing, with a beautyfull athmosphere and i try to watch it each time they show it on TV. Never i expect NECA to release and action figure of such movie, and to do it with the best character: the monster of the movie!!!

This little guy…well, he is not thay little since he is bigger than the standar action figures, wich makes me very happy and to do things better, he can stand on how own two feet perfectly. He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles tough his articulations are a little simple, he is not a character who tend to be shown in extreme poses.

Quiet the opposite, he is supposed to be posed in a discret natural pose and the articulations do the work pretty good. Also, he comes with cloth outfit, wich makes him looks even more natural and realistic since he is big enough to looks good on it and dont let the cloth block the articulations.

The outfit is dirty and coming apart in a pretty natural way and the sculpt is really good, with long fingers and no lips or nose on his face and a big hole on his check, he dosnt looks like a leper anymore but as a complete zombie.

Now here is the thing: he never appeare on the actual movie. We never saw him at all but only his shadow at the church, soo NECA had it easy sculpting this guy since they pretty much build him from zero and we cant complaing about it.

He also have his cutlass and scabbard to complement his XIX century sailor look and the cutlass can be put on his hand or inside the scabbard with no problem.

He also have an action feature!!! With the push of a button on his, his eyes glow with an intense red. The batteries can be exchanged pretty easy and the result looks is trully amazing! I wasnt able to take picture of him in total darkness since the only thing that is shown are his brigth red eyes, but i tried my best to take pictures in the darkest enviroment i could to show up a little of the light on his eyes.

Because this figure is supposed to be hidden on a corner in the shelf, not showing his face but only his red brigth eyes and i love it, i really really love this figure and makes me wich NECA release many more monsters from 80s horror like this.

MANBAT

Another one of the collections of my childhood was the Batman the Animated Series action figures from Kenner (who else?). I got one single Batman since i didnt need more than one, but i loved the villians figures: Catwoman, the Scarecrow, Clayface and of course, Manbat. When DC Collectibles re-released the figures a few years ago, of course i wanted them all, but the price and lack of shelf space made me think it twice.

I finally decided to focus my collection and get just Batman to represent it, but i also needed to chose a villian, and Manbat was the only choice. On Leather Wings was the very first chapter of the series and the one i remember the most, how dark and beautifully animated it was, Shirley Walkers magical score and how the shole chapter felt more like a Universal horror movie from the 30s than a cartoon.

I have yet to get Batman, but i was able to get Manbat at an extremelly low price. He was sculpted by Irene Matar and i dont have anymore my Kenner Manbat, but i am sure this version is bigger since he is taller than a Figma but looks in scale with McFarlane toys.

The sculpt and the paint are cut clean and extremelly angular, as they should. There is actually very little paint in here since he is cast on his brown for color soo the paint is limited to his wings membranes, mouth and eyes and the figure dont have any texture, wich makes him looks very 2D, very cartoony wich is perfect for him.

I love his long ears and his malevolent expression and those big pecs and back muscles… i think is pretty evident i have a thing for in-human character since i find both Swamp Thing and this Manbat to be specially hunky and sexy.

He is articulated on his head, chest and abs, his legs, knees and shoulders. The big surprise are the chest and abs, his torso moves with total freedome and i always hated the weird looking articulations this toys have on theyr legs, but as unatural as they look, they works really good and are pretty strong. Tough he cant move his ankles to adjust his balance….wich i think is maaayyybbbeee a good idea since an articulation down there sould make him more inestable…maybe?

I also wish he had a neck articulation soo you can pose his think head looking up front on a fliying pose since he is perpetually hunched. Also, his wings are a big piece of plastic and dosnt have any kind of articulation neyong his shoulders, tough he comes with a pair of extra wings to pose them closed or open.

While this limit his poseability a lot, it helps to give him a more clean and refined look since the segmented wings never worked (rigth Figma?). The arms can be replaced easy and theres absolutelly no problem with them, quet the oppposite since they give him a pretty imposing and amasing looks.

This figure also cast a pretty good shadow…

His accesoryes are the tape that the laboratory security guard records without noticing and helps Batman find who is behind the chaos and also three tiny pills container with the medicine that turns Dr. Krik Langstrom into Manbat. Of course, this are items for Batman since Manbat cannot hold them and they are more like…proop replicas from the set.

He also comes with a small base with the character design illustration. This idea to add design art to the base is really classy since it gives it the personality of the character to each base. The arm to hold the Manbat is a little anoying to move around but it does the job perfectly.

Of course, if you want Manbat to be fliying you need a different base, a pretty strong once since even the Play Arts Kai base have problems keeping up with his heavy frame.

The downside of this figure? Hes a pain in the ass to stand. The base helps but not too much given his big toseo and the wonky shape of his legs, the real help to make him stand are his wings. They give him balance, open or closed, they keep him up but once you close one wing then the whole balance is lost and he keeps falling over and over.

I am afraid to hate this guy just for that (like the Mantis Alien) but is not that bad as long as he is posed straight.

Overall i am extremelly happy with him, he is one of my favorite characters from Batman and Irene Matar did a great job traslating Bruce Timm clean design into 3D form, now i just need Batman to see my BTAS collection complete.

SWAMP THING

When i was probablly six years old, i remember enter into a toy store and being left in awe with the Swamp Thing action figure series from Kenner. I didnt knew there was a comic about it nor did i watched the movie and the cartoon was never on TV but i feel in love of those characters.

The main character was a plant man that was somehow cute and sexy (muscled plant) and i loved Dr. Arcane spidery shape and his mutated and monstruos Un-men. A century later i still have those figures and remember them as one of the most unusual and fun collection from my childhood.

Fastforward 26 years later and here i am, getting a brand new Swamp Thing with modern touches. This guy was….extremelly cheap, i could not pass on him due to the low price and how big he is.

He is from DC Classic series and since i dont own any other figure of the series i cant do a size comparission, but i seen photos on the internet that show hes bigger than Bane and double the size of Batman. This figure is a little bit smaller than a Play Arts Kai but dwarfs all other action figure scale being Neca or Figma and is really heavy.

Tough he can stand perfectly with his own huge feet but he comes with wath is his only accesory: a base. The base consist on a swampy setting with logs and skills and a spinal cord coming out from the fungus and mud. The details are good but wath i love the most about this is the colors. The vibrant greens are really good looking and looks poisonous and radioactive and match perfectly with the oranges and browns here and there. The base is deffinetly nicelly done.

Now going back to the Swamp Thing, he can stand perfectly and is huge, like i say, but he also have the same green radioactive texture and color from the base soo is really consistant with the overall look almost like he and the base are the same creature. He have brown vines and mushrooms coming out randomly on him as well as yellow flowers and sweet potato on his back (a great detail for those who reads Alan Moore story arc and still remember that grose scene with a character eating this sweet potatos).

The colors are vibrant and strong and are perfectly deffined. This is specially evident on his face with his dark green lips and shiny red eyes. His eyes and the overall shape of his face reminds me the Boris Karloff Frankestein Monster, his face features are menacing and cold but they have a bautifull statuesque angles as well.

Now here is the thing, he is squishy, veeeerrryyyy squishy soo that gives him a kind of….organic texture that makes him very different to any other action figure around.

He is articulated on his head, shoulders and legs. The legs articulations can be opened but the gap is pretty evident and not pretty to see, tough he also have a frame skeleton under his squishy ruber meat soo he have invisible articulations!!! Elbows, wrists, knees and ankles can be also moved without revealing a gap wich gives him an amazing look!!

Tough as pretty and bautifull as this figure is, he have his issues. The thick rubber meat limit his articulations a lot and is not recomended to keep him in different poses for too long or force the articulations sicne i am afraid the rubber skin can broke apart (and is also possible to broke the inside frame) soo this guy is extremelly delicate.

Even soo, i dont think this guy was too expensive, as far as i know, he is in “standar” action figure category, in mass market price, wich is pretty amaxing since the framed body, super detailed sculpt and vibrant paint is much more of a high end market. This is like a Hot Toys figure in smaller scale.

And while i love the Kenner figures set from 1990, i am very happy to own this character in a more modern and impresive figure. He looks great for a DC and comic books collection but he looks terrific as well as a horror character as well and can be paired with any monster figure around (Universal Monster or horror movies figures) and….i still think he looks kinda hunky.