ENDEAVOR

 I remember in the 90s when a movie based on a cartoon was released they always bombs us with brand new merchadise to go with the silver screen adventure of out heros (tough it was rare when this said adventure was a good one) and My Hero Academia follow that style nicelly given its theme. My Hero Academia The Movie World Heroes Mission was released last year and was a big succes and tough i find Rody Soul to be a kind of plain and boring character, the rest of the movie was pretty fun and satisfiying.

And as companion of such event, Bandai released a set of statues based on the main characters Deku, Todoroki, Bakugo and to my big susprise: Endeavor. The actual tittle of the figure is "Ichibansho Figure Endeavor Masterlise Extra", tough i have no idea wath those last words mean, it sure is a classy looking title deffinetly this figure dont need since its incrediblly impresive.

First of all, this Endeavor is HUGE....he fits with the 1/6 figures like Sideshow, Hot Toys and soo on as well as with the Gecco statues and the Kotobukiya Auron, this is one of the tallest figure in my collection and is also super heavy, since he is not hollow, he is just this big and super heavy hard plastic brick.

As an statue, he is not articulated at all and have no accesorys (just like the McFarlane one) tough his left hand can be removed to store it on his giant box, this figure is basically a one single piece character. He can stand on his own perfectly tough they also add him a big tranluscent thingy that fits on his leg in order to give him more stability. I am not sure if it works but you cant exagerate measure to keep him from falling, tough i like this kind of base since is a little bit elegant.

I say its important too keep him away of accedently falling mostly because, he is made with pretty hard plastic and is heavy, that combo make him kind of delicate. A fall from a certain heigh would means certain breaking of flames, hair or hands.

The sculpt is really, really really good. Unlike the little kids, he have a much more realistic aproach in therms of anathomy a body expression, with a pretty manly and strong pose, with one arm up in a menacing stance, all the dynamic and movement comes from the flames arund him. A big blast of fire coming out from the gauntlet of his menacing arm and a pair of small wings of fire coming out from his back.

Even the flames on his boots are pretty nicelly sculpted with many tongues of fire curling around each other in a pretty intrincate sculpt. The musculature is pretty good too, heroic and big but still in human proportions and the way the tigth suit huge his body is very realistic, i mean....he have a bulgue and thats very rare, the way the suits wrinkles around his crotch area defines his penis pretty nicelly and the back side is just as spectacular as the front.

His beard is long and his expression much more severe than the other figures since he dosnt looks as cartoony. This is the only Endeavor figure to show his burn scar tough is musclt covered by his flame mask but his his cold blue eyes arent as covered as i was expecing and can be seen in any angle.

As a side note, i hated how McFarlane gives him an ugly orange skirt on the action figure, but here is not a skirt, but a pattern from his suit at the side of his hips and that makes me hate the McFarlane figure evn more.

The paint is just as detailed as the sculpt, since is not cast on each different dominant color, this whole piece is painted and that gives an odd texture to his skin, makes him look like a 3D paint since you can see a little bit of the brushstrokes and is not bad looking tough it suits really nicelly to his scar and gives it a gruesome realism. 

His entore body is painted in different shades of blues and this time they really give him shadows and shines to make each muscle stand out and a natural look and this includes the arm armour as well as the shoulder pads sicne they are not just plain white like with McFarlane, thye have metalic paint with a lot of black brushing that makes them looks like real metal.

I also love the orange sections on his suits and how they shine with the different reds and yellow brushes and looks like a lava lamp.

The falme sare all transluscent plastic but this time they painted over them with yellows, orange and reds. This gives them a pretty natural look but at the same time covers completelly the transparency soo only the tips of the fire can be seen tough. Thats a shame but i guess you cant have everything but i wish they somehow add him leds inside.

Overall, this figure is really impresive and EXTREMELLY imposing thans to but the quality sculpt, paint and huge scale. He pretty much wins over the McFarlane action figure on every single section tough this guy is also 4 times more expensive soo that should be expected. About the other Bandai Spirits/Banpresto statue, i dunno...i realy like that one a lot after all and is not like is better than this one, is juts different.

After the RC Studio super exensive figure i think this one is the best 3D representation of Enji Todoroki in therms of quality and impact. I am deffinetly not getting the braths tough but i will welcome more and more Endeavour figures with open arms deffinetly.

ENDEAVOR

 

I still remember all the difciultys i had to endure to get the Endeavor Funko Pop, not only he didnt appeare on the back of the box, but people pretty much didnt knew who he was untill i call him "Todoroki´s dad". Later on i also had some troubles getting the Bandai Spirits/Banpresto statue that came not long ago soo overall its pretty rare to see something about Endeavor compared with all the toys and figures all other characters of My Hero Academia have but that is changing slowlly soo the expectations of an Enji Todoroki ation figure were pretty high.

It wasnt S.H.Figuarts or Figma but McFarlane Toys who took the task to finally release a complete action figures serires of all the characters and that included Endeavor and the end result is is deffinetly not perfect but the best part is the low price. He is on scale on pretty much everything McFarlane or NECA has been doing latelly, standar action figure size tough i was expecting him to be a little bit taller...i mean, he is supposed to be a tall guy as far as i remember soo i dont know if he fits with the rest of the heros, but as a stand alone figure his size is pretty confortable.

He have troubles standing for himself and i am not very sure why; the ankles articulation is pretty stuborn tough he comes with a pretty boring and almost useless base: a thin black token with the logo of My Hero Academia and a peg for one of Endeavour feet. Pretty much the same base Swamp Thing have tough since this guy is much smaller and lighter, the base is more realistically usefull....at times, i mean this base is soo lazy its still very tircky to find the rigth spot to stand him.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest,  legs, knes, ankles and half feet and all the issues of the figure are here: His head can tilt up and down but dosnt move too much at the sides thanks to the beard, and while the shoulders and legs have a great looking ball jointed articulation, the uggly shoulder pads and hiddeous orange skirt block them completelly.

The sections that join the shoulder pads and the neck are a little softish but still if you move the arm up, after a couple of seconds the shoulder pads will make the arm fall again and the hiddeous orange skirt....are made with hard plastic. Overall the material of this figure is really....cheap? Pretty solid plastic that block movement is something i didnt see in soo many years and articulations on the shoulder pad would have been a good idea.

The big shield things on his arms also block a lot of the elbows articulatins and completelly lock the wrists articulations, soo he cant bend his arms too much and only can move his hands in cortcular motion. His biceps articulations are totally static and his chest articulation barelly moves at the sides, i really dont know why. Also the ankles articulations are really sturrbon like i already say.

Overall, for an articulated super hero figure this is extremelly static...you can give him acouple of nice poses but thats it, everything more extreme is totally impossible. Also, this new outfit of him is really ugly, the big armour on the arms, the huge things on the shoulders and the orange skirts thingys...i dont follow the anime because i am too poor to pay for Funimation (because i obvouslly spent that money on toys) but this new design of Endeavor is ugly as hell and the horrible materials makes it even worse.

Despite the ugly outfit, the aesthethis of the figure is really good. The scaly texture on his outfit is really nice as well as the muscle volume and towerish silhouette and they did a fantastic job with his sipky hair, the sculpt is really stylish but the best part by far are the flames.

The mask, beard, shoulder flames and boots are made with translucent orange plastic and looks REALLY FANTASTIC, they catch the lights perfectly and shyne much more than the Bandai Spirits/Banpresto statue. The boots are odd tough since you can see the ball joint inside and the pegs, but the way his legs gradually dissapeare looks really good.

Paint is OK. There is no texture on it and thats good since this is an animated character, soo just strong and base colors tough i wish they add him some shadows to highlight the muscle volum or give a metalic looks to his armour...i dont know, maybe thats ask too much since, like i said this is an anime character.

There is some issues tough, like some of the red lines invading the blue and viceversa and the black line of his mouth dosnt match the sculpt of the mouth, tough the best part are the eyes, those blue eyes are perfectly painted tough the thick material of the flame mask obscure them at certain angles, tough that cannot be helped.

And accesoryes, theres literally nothing here, just a basic figure in the box along side the lame base. The flames on his back can be removed but i am not sure thats considered an accesory. I soo weird theres no extra head shouting or with no flames, or fire balls and fire effcets....or extra hands at all, this is soo incrediblly basic and really insulting considering McFarlane Toys first figures.

I am really happy to finally have an action figure of Endeavor, i been waiting for it for some years already and this guy looks fantatic thanks to the great sculpt and those pretty translucent flames, but the bad quality articulations as well as the completelly lack of accesorys make this guy kinda boring; he is dommed to forever have one closed fist and one open hands to hold something that dosnt exists at all...

The Bandai Spirits/Banpresto statue is superior to this figure on everyhitng but i am not sure i can complaing considering the low price here, but i feel like i am still waiting for another action figure that actually can be posed and played with in combat scenes.

PANTHER ALIEN

 

NECA is mass murdering wallets all over the world, but this isnt new at all, before the accesorys sets sold as DLC, horror icons and Gargoyles, NECA landed the valley of the outlandish when it started to make remake of the toys of our childhood from Kenner. While the collection of Predators are very nice, wath hit me hard was theyr Alien action figures based on the nonexistant cartoon Operation Aliens.

The first series was such a nice surprise but i didnt expect it to advance beyond that, but years later here we are, with more Kenner Aliens. This time NECA rebuild a creature from the serires 3 of Kenner, the Panther Alien. At the begining of the 90s Kenner did a second version of this monster with a black and red color scheme called "Night Cougar Alien" and NECA of course did it too but i dont know if i will get color variants like that.

Besides i find this Panther Alien much more visually striking. He is tall, like all Xenomorphs but he designed to stand on all fours, like a cat, tough that dosnt mean he cant stand on two legs, quiet the opposite, and with the help of his tai he can stand tall and dosnt need a base.

He is articulated on the jaw, head, neck, chest, shoulders, double articulation on the elbows, wrists, fingers, tail, legs, double articulation on the knes, "half feet" (???) and feet, all ball jointed except the fingers and tail and each articulation moves perfectly and have a huge range of movement. And unlike the Rhino that comes with a lot of spikes, armour and a HUGE build, this Panther is slim, very slim and very light like a feather, soo nothing get on the way of his joints and make him stand is quiet easy.

Also, special mention to his head and neck articulations, the up and down neck movement have a pretty deep range of motion, soo he canlook at the frint while in four legs - unlike the Dog Alien, that have a very limtied head movement. Also the tail...the tail is soo long and yet soo slender, the wire inside it have a lot of movement, quiet the opposite of the, again, Dog Alien, this almost feels like an upgrade.

I mentioned a lot the Alien 3 Dog Alien here, thats because both are digitigrade, walk on four legs and they share a lot of theyr body sculpt, the entire torso, arms and legs are exactly the same as the Dog Alien (tough with much better articuation) and only the feet, tail and head are unique to this figure. Overall the sculpt is really good, with his exposed rib cage and a mix of flesh and exoesqueleton in those spidery legs, he represents Gigger´s vision nicelly.

The new sculpted feet are actually pretty cute looking, small and round, almost like the paws of a cat tough  they keep him balanced perfectly. The tail is terrific, not only is long but in the end side it have this...wide palm like structure and with  red stinger that rise the qiestion, is this crature venomus?? I mean, his tail looks much more menacing thatn that of the Scoprion Alien.

His neck is thick, with all the muscle structure exposed and the sculpt of tissue and tendons on his face is really stricking and his skull is actually the shortest and smallest of all the other Xenomorphs. The dome is transluscent and have shapes that looks like wings at the side that makes it looks like a crown.

The mouth opens perfectly and liberates the pharyx mandible with no problem, tough again, this mandible is quiet short. Overall, this Xenomorph is really really....compact and light, a monster that can fit anywhere but with the muscles to be fast, the little changes in scale make this creature feel like a domestic cat from hell.

While his anatomy is pretty delicate and discreet, the color is quiet the opposite: golden on top and white on the bottom with a pearl texture and orange on his dome/crown. This Xenomorph shines like a start in the night sky against his other sisters that comes in black, browns and greens. Actually, this color palette dont make me think on a panther at all, but a lion with yellow fur and orange hair.

There is a weet texture covering him as well as small details that makes it looks pretty natural even with the weird color palette, like dark shadows in between his boney column and robs, the soft yellow on his nails and the bloddy  red on the stinger on his tail.

Sadlly, with serires 3 the mini comic included on each figure of the Kenner line was concluded, soo this guy dont have a comic like the rest of the figures, but it does comes with an accesory, a "parasyte". In the original Kenner version, this Parasyte worked like a missil stuck on the ALien´s back and could be shot with a sping mechanism connected to his front legs.

Sadlly, this time the parasyte cannot be shot and is juts...there..on his back, like a back pack. The parasyte is sculpted in orange trasnlusent plastic soo theres no details at all. It seems is like some kind of Face Hugger since i can see tiny legs on the bottom but is actually hard to discenr with this parasyte really is, it looks more like come kind of fleshy tumor...

Odlly enough, while the parasyte cannot be shot like the original version, it have a magnet to attach to the Alien´s back; put the parasyte close and it will attach magically to the creatures back, a pretty nice effect but a little bit boring compared to the original version. Tough in the area the parasyte lands the Alien have red blisters, a very hiddeous and disgusting detail.

I am not sure if i will get the Night Cougar since is basically this same monster but painted in black with red strips, he looks edgy but pretty boring looking in my opinjon compared to this Panther version. This guy is soo discret and almost boring looking compared with the big monsters like Snake Alien or Mantis Alien, but in a closer look he is actually perfect and a lot of fun to play with him. 

The parasyte was kind of a dissapointing, but overall this is a fantastic looking Xenomorph that manages to be close to the basic concept of the creature and looks pretty different at the same time, and looks really terrific with the rest of the animal Xenomorph pack. I am crossing my fingers now for a Bull Alien, a Fliying Queen or a Boar Alien.