NOSFERATU

It was at the begining of the century that Mezco was born and soo far it has build a pretty interesting legacy for collectors, specially with theyr Living Dead Dolls series and ONE: 12 Collective series. Is weird but i dont have many of theyr figures since they seem to be pretty infatuated with DC and Marvel and theyr ONE:12 Collective figures are not my cup of tea: small scale action figures with real cloth outfits that look way to thick for them.

To conmemorate theyr 20 anniversary, Mezco remake theyr very first figure that launched theyr brand: Nosferatu from the series Silent Screamers. When i saw this figure for the first time i tough it was way to good to be real and way to distant as well, and i was rigth.....i searched it for a long time since ti was sold out in hours and the only way to get it was 2 or 3 times its price. Against all odds and without expecting it at all, i was able to finally get him!!

I rarelly post pictures of boxes in here but this time around, the box is as special and important as the figure since its a metalic lunch box with a pretty cool comic book style artwork of Count Orlock on it and in the sides. The lunch box looks vibrant and is extremelly sturdy and collector friendly since the figure can be stored back inside pretty easy: mark of a high end premium product for sure, specially with the "20 years" golden mark on top.

One element i dislike a lot from the ONE:12 Collective series its the tiny scale. I ton know why i always tough they were Figma/Figuarts size but in fact this figure is the same size as the NECA or even Storm figures soo it matches in scale with most action figures on the market. He can stand on his own nicelly but given the slim shape of his feet is safer to use the base included.

He is articulated on the neck, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles, all ball joints and double articulation on the elbows and knees soo his limbs have much more freedom to bend. A note included on the lunch box was that while the body have total feedom of movement, the outfit have limits soo every movement must be done with extra care.

While most of the articulations have total freedom of movement, the shoulders are very limited and only can move up to certain degree thanks to the jacket. Also his pants are made of elastic soo his legs have a good range of movement but abuse the elastic could be not a very good idea. Of course this guy is not meant to be displayed in a Spiderman like pose, Count Orlock is a monster of subtle movements soo the limit on the articulations is not that important.

The sculpt is really really really amazing....the blocky bodyshape with the hunchback and the slim and spidery limbs fits perfectly to the characters, despite not being screen accurate. This figure is based on the figure that Mezco did 20 years ago soo is basically a redesign of Nosferatu, Mezco´s own version of the vampire.

His face features has been exagerated and all traces of hair removed, no hair behind his ears and no eye brows, wich gives him a less human look. The intrincate wrinkles covering each part of his face are softly sculpted, in a pretty realistic look, with veins protunding on his bald skull and all that saggy skin around his mouth, this gives him deffinetly a look of a pretty ancient and old evil.

The long nose, tiny fangs peeking out of his wrinkled and old lips and cmpletelly black eye balls gives him a much more animal look, he looks even more like a rat now. Like a completelly bald and dead rat actually. His arms have the same old texture full of veins and his hands are soo amazing....not only the veins looks natural, but his loooong fingers and claws make his hand slook like spiders. Also they are made of soft plastic soo the delicate claws dont have any risk to be broken.

His shoes are slim and looks way to medieval....actually they kind of remidns me the shoes of a goblin for some reason and are painted on a pretty simple brown with very little of black just to accentuate the leather texture. 

His arms and head are also painte don a very pale white with pretty simple and delicate paint aplication to give him enough realism without any excess: dark brown around the eyes to deepen his already black sight, a little bit of soft pink at the tip of his vampire ears, a little bit around his lips, some grey/blue on the veins and black for the claws with some yellow on the tip, this is deffinetly the look i expect from a vampiric corpse.

This is all the sculpt and paint visile since the rest of the body is covered by the outfit. His pants are dark grey elastic pants that dosnt block any of the articulation but is better to nto force them since the elastic can be all lose on no time. This pants along side the very medieval shoes makes him looks kind of like a dark version of Peter Pan (while in the movie he is using pants from a suit with more conventional shoes).

He is using a purple shirt with his brown jacket on top. I am surprised this much clothes dosnt block his articulations specially at this scale but the fabric is soo incrediblly thin and delicate. The jacket have a leatherish texture and the tailoring, specially on the collar, is really stellar and beautifull. Unlike the movie version, this Count Orlok have the end parts of his sleeves ripped and torn as well as the end of the jacket around his hips. Theres some dirt as well that makes it looks like a jacket as old as the corpse thats using it. The small buttons at the front are all plastic and they seem to be thigthly glued and dont seem to come off.

The accesorys are as impresive as the figure itself. Aside of the relaxed hands he comes with an extra pair of hands shaped like a claw, ready to attack. This hands looks even more spidery than the normal relaxed hands and the quality of the sculpt and paint matched the base hands. He also comes with a rigth hand sculpted to hold accesorys and a left hand pointing out or ready to grav something. Again the quality is really amazing and every single of this extra hands is really helpfull for the display since they have a lot of personality with each small gesture.

He also comes with two extra heads. One seems to be reading or concentrating in something in front of him, with his eyes hald closed and his fangs hidden inside his mouth. The sculpt and paint are perfect but its a little bit to notice the differences with the basic face sculpt.

The other head have him in a screaming expression, Nosferatu in attack mode. The subtle change of expression on his eyes is pretty delicate but easy to see and the pointy piranha fangs coming out from his mouth in a yellow tone are really frithing. Change the heads is extremelly easy since only a small push on the chin makes them pop out and they stay in place perfectly despite the clothing.

He also have his trukish hat, a tubeteika. An specially decadent and exotic looking tubeteika, the wrinkles of it flows in  apretty natural way and while the hat is completelly black it have some different soft grey tones to give it depth and detail. It fits perfectly on any of his heads.

Theres also the castle keys, keept together with a metalic golden ring as seen on the movie. They fit perfectly between his spidery fingers and every single key have a completelly different size and configuration mixing siver and golden keys. A pretty nice attention to detail.

They also included a lamp tough this lamp is never seen on the movie, this is perhaps the most colorfull item on this figure. The design and sculpt is evidently very oriental, complete in golden color  with a centery section in stain glass with yellows and orange tiles. I am not sure if theres a pattern in the stain glass tough, it looks pretty random but the handle is articulated.

The other accesory is The Plague: a group of six rats to run around Count Orlok feet. Whule the paint is very simple (just brown with pink tails), each one of them have a completelly original sculpt, some of them are completlely flat, some others sre standing, the tails flow is totally different and one of them is turning around while another is standing in two feet. Its pretty difficult to see the difference given the small size but not a single one is the same.

The best accesory tough is his coffin. A coffin big enough for Count Orlok to lie inside. The sculpt is really good and the paint gives it a pretty realistic wooden texture. This is not Dracula´s coffin with intrincate decorations and red velvet inside, this is an extremelly old coffin read to fall apart. The lid just goes on top pretty losely and theres a brokken section that reveals half of Count Orlok face while he sleeps.

The best part perhaps is how is not empty: Theres a lot of cementery dirt inside as well as 14 rats crawiling around inside and triying to come out. When they release this kind of items they usually forget to sculpt or paint anything inside but this is the very first time i see a coffin like this and the paint and texture is specially nice on the dirt, very realistic looking and i am afraid my photos dont make it justice.

The base is circular and black, extremelly simple, and it have the tittle Nosferatu in red with 1922 in white as well as the Silent Screamers logo. Very simple but usefull since it have a small peg that fits on Count Orloks hole on his fit and keep him standing perfectly. This method is pretty basic but this is one of the very few times i see it working properlly.

The peg can be removed and exchanged for an articulated translucent arm with a clamp to hold him but i dont see this necesary since Nosferatu is not airborn and the peg works good enough to keep him standing. They also included a plastic bag to hold all his accesorys but since they can be stored much better on the lunch box i see no use for this bag.

Laslt theres a comic book. I dont know if other ONE:12 figures comes with books but this one is totally unrelated to Nosferatu. With the title Doomed Tales -The Origins of Aticus Doom this chronicles the origin and powers of Aticus Doom, necromagus prime and original character of Mezco with a figure that came out last year.

The art is nice as well as the colroing and the paper ad print impression are very high quality (unlike the Furay Planet). The narrative, the way characters talks and design, everything is a call back to the pulp fiction from the 1920s, with very direct unions to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Myths and it works wonderfull to spark interest on a very exotic looking character that is more like a dream project of a Lovecraft fan.

The only figure i have from ONE:12 Collective aside of this one is the Frankenstein Monster and i was really dissapointed by it. Not only Mezco never worked on any of the other Universal Monsters, but the Monster was soo.....boring. There wasnt anything bad about him but anything good either and i hated the tailoring of his outfit, soo the line never sparked any interest on my at all.

But this Nosferatu is quiet the oposite, not only is easy to recognise him but its different enough to make him interesting ad the sculpt, paint and tailoring and materials are miles above that sad Frankenstein Monster. Accesorys and presentation, everything in this figure is top notch and my only concern is that the materials of the outfit resists the march of time.

NECA will release his version of Ultimate Nosferatu soon but i somehow doubt they get close to the impresive and feral eerines of this version.

GUTS

 I cant belive its been six years since the last time i get a Nendroid from Good Smile Company. There was a time when my collection of Nendroids grew pretty steady until Good Smile Comapany decided to follow SquareEnix road and started to sky rocket the price of theyr products to the point they had to create Pop Up Parade to get some money from collectors again. I miss a lot of Nendroids in the last years because i wasnt going to pay 3 times the price they had before the pandemic.

But i finally fall back at theyr graps, why? Berserk. I am actually surprised they took soo long to start release Nendroids of Berserk actually, and they start in the same point all other Berserk collections start: Black Swordman Guts.

This little Guts is the same scale as other Nendroids: pretty pretty small and he fits with the rest perfectly but wath surprise me the most is that he can stand on his own perfectly, for the first time, he dont need a base. Why? Because of his cloack that works like a tripod and keep his balance perfectly.

He is not specially articulated tough, only the head, the shoulders, wrists and legs and nothing more. The head have a ball joint as well as the legs but they dont have too much room to move, specially the head since the clack keep the head kind of static. The shoulders and wrists are cut joints soo he can rise his arms up but thats it, he has no way to open his arms at all.

He have a couple of extra articulations tough on his cloack, it is a 3 pieces construction with the main piece in the center keeping Gts standing and the two extra flaps at the side can open up an move around a little bit to give the impression the cloack is moving around. Open them too much and they look like insect wings soo its better to just move them a little to give them a discret pose effect.

The sculpt is very nice. Of course his face is extremelly simple with the cute little nose and giant proportions tough his chin is square too make him look more manly. His spiky hair is very nice but looks like a challengue to dust off. The details on the shoulder and legs armor is pretty incredible as well as the little mechanical arm.

But the best part is deffinetly the knifes on hi chest and the one on his belt, the puches on his waist and....it seems he have more on his back but i cant see them thanks to the hard plastic cloack. I can see chains and even his crossbow but they are completelly hidden under the cloack.

Theres no exture here, nothing at all. He is completelly clean of any texture and his cape looks specially simple thansk to this but i guess it helps to make him look like a little anime chibi.

The paint is good but keept as minimum since each part is cast in the dominant color of that section. His skin looks really nice as well as the hair and the brown belts with the knifes, tough the metalic armor part have black silverish paint that makes them looks, well....metalic (and this includes the mechanical arm, is actually darker than the rest of the outfit and the cloack).

The mouth is both sculpted and painted tough the scar on his nose and entire eyes section is only paint. Looks crispy and pretty clean and still amaze me that, despite the simplicity of the "anime" design, his eyes are totally different to the eyes of the other Nendroids, and the thick eye brows too. He have one black aye and his gaze is as serious and cold as Venom Snake.

He dosnt have too many extras tough. To begin with he comes with two extra face plates that fits into his head once the front hair part is removed. Is prettye asy to exchange them and one have an mischevious smile and the other is shouting. The screaming one is my favorite and fits him perfectly tough the addition of the smiling one is good, i think he looks way too much like an anoying breat in here, even his pupil lose all ligth to make it looks like he is in madness mode but it dosnt works for me.

His most important accesory is the Dragon Slayer tough, his giant sword that is,like always, taller than him. The metalic paint is good and i like a lot the bandages flapping at the wind in soft grey color. Of coruse the sword looks way too clean but it matches perfecty the extra clean look of Guts.

He comes with an extra left hand and an extra pair of hands to hold the sword. The hads are soo tiny and at times soo easy to lose but they are of coruse very important, specially the left one since is itself a weapon: his little mechanical hand is bend down and revealing his arm canon, just like the Figma (and just like with the Figma it makes me wonder why they just didnt articulated the hand....).

Since his arms are not articulated he also comes with a pair of extra arms with the elbows bend. The scult is nice as well as the paint and they can be exchanged by the bicep section, conects with the rest of the arm with a peg. And same way, since his legs are not articulated he also comes with a bend knee left leg. To my surprise is pretry easy to swap legs and this one helps for the more actiony posing.

He also comes with another pair of extra arms witout the bicep section. The missing biceps let him join the arms up front soo he can hold his sword with both arms at the same time. This is a pretty smart soluction since most figures cant join theyr hands up front to hold a gun or a sword (Not even the increedible expensive IconicQ Ryu can do it) and i even wish the Figma version had this arms.

And finally he have his base, the slasic Nendroid base made with trabsluscent plastic and an articulated arm thingy that conect to his back with  apeg, tough this time around the base is completelly inecesary except if you want to pose him jumping around.

And thats all, not much really and while i looooooove the look of this little Guts, he is pretty limited. Even with the extra leg and arms, he can only achive 4 or 5 poses and thats it, not only his design hinders his movement (he cant be pused with his sword over his shoulders because of his gigantic head), but the static nature of the figure as well. Is really not very fun pay with him to be honest, this is a figure once posed is best to let it rest on the shelve and thats it.

Or maybe i am just bitter for the price i pay....this guy is like 1/4 the size of a Gargoyle or a Pop Up Parade and i had to pay for him a little bit more that those. I still dont understand why this little figures are soo expensive since they are now basically statues, i even find it hard to call this an action figure at all.

Truth is i had this same issues even 10 years ago when i started collecting Nendroides with Metal Gear Solid, but the price they have now make things feel even worse. I am not sure if i will buy more Nendroids tough, despite how cute and cool looking they are, maybe i stop after Endeavor.

ENDEAVOR

Something like My Hero Academia never happened to me before: I try to get into it but the more read or chaters i watch, the more disgust i feel despite the interesting character design. I guess is just not meant for me since the characters really makes me feel cringe and disgust, except for a single one that a few years ago was hidden in total obscurity: Endeavor, a hero that, despite being well known now he dosnt have too much merchadise comapred to his son or the other characters.

Aside of Funko and McFarlane Toys doing a descent action figure of him, Bandai Spirits and Banpresto are really the kings with My Hero Academia, releasing an awfull lot of amazing statues and figures with pretty high quality and extremelly low prices. Its thanks to this that i been having a lot of fun collecting the chaaracter of my obssesion i guess.

This time around Endeavor is part of a seies with the tittle "My Hero Academia The Amazing Heroes Plus" and Endeavor is the Volume 3, but i dont know wath other characters form part of this collection since this time around the box have no images of them. 

This figure have exactly the same size as a NECA action figure soo its like half an inch smaller than the other Nedeavor figures, but its hard to notice once they are all together. He is an static statue soo no articulation and comes divided in two pieces that asemble pretty easy - torso and legs section. He cant stand at all thanks to the pose of course but he comes with a base pretty different to the other ones: a black transluscent oval base with an arm with a peg that inserts on Endeavor back and a kind of support for his rigth foot.

Asemble the base for him is pretty easy and once its done, is extremelly safe this figure will never fall. And once more this is a fully action oriented figure since Enji is levitating above ground with his back arched backward, his legs open, his hands in claw shape while he is about to explode in flames, or maybe this is the after of a powerfull attack, is difficult to know.

The sculpt is really good, specially on the torso, the muscles are pretty well done, specially the big muscle pectorals, as well as the legs structure. The wrinkles around the legs flows pretty natural and we actually have a bulgue here as well as a great looking back side. The texture of the whole figure is very velvetish and his face is a little bit more simple looking that before. 

The scar is sculpted as well as the teeth and the beard and mask are separate pieces but the flames have a kind of soft sculpt. Theres fire coming out from his chest and a lot of more fire coming out from his back but all this fire is pretty thick and very cartoonish looking (including the fire on his boots), also, theres no transparency in here, its all made on normal plastic.

This really rest a lot of beauty to the character tough the coloring is pretty nice, with a mix of yellows and orange, the flames looks almost cell shadoe and have a very vibrant look on them. The face also have a pretty anime look, with black lines dividing the teeth and the eyes being bigger than before. 

The uniform is just blue, with no other darker or ligther tones to highligth the muscles and the red and orange part are also very basic. Also, in some section of his abs the red paint is invading the blue are and viceversa, a pretty sloopy paint job and the shoulder pads and amr armour are painted in white, with no metalic paint on them.

The metal parts not looking....well...metalic i can fogive as well as the cartoon flames since they give him a very anime look, but the red strips invading the blue sections is really a big mistake. Then again i guess i cant complaing for the low low price i pay for this.

And despite all this, he looks fantastic. The pose really helps to make him look badass despite the simplicity of the paint and even menacing. This could be also a deffinitive version of the character, just like the rest of the figures.

When a character is made into a figure multiple times is easy to end with some really good and really bad stuff, is only natural. But with Endeavor, despite having soo many figures by now, some that looks like anime, some that looks like a comic book, some more realistic, somehow every single one of them looks really good and add a lot to the character, even the McFarlane lousy one have a certain charm and interest and, up at this point, i cant really pick my favorite.

ENDEAVOR

 Deffinetly its a good time to be an Endeavor fan. Not too long ago he was such an obscure figure that not even fans of My Hero Academia knew about his existance, and now theres lots of merch from him to collect but big part of that is thanks to Bnadai Spirits and Banpresto, releasing hig quality figures with very affordable prices that makes collecting Endeavor pretty fun.

A little correction here, is not good only for the Endeavor fans, but for fans of My Hero Academia in general since the amunt of figures released by Banpresto and Bandai has been astonishing and not every series includes Endeavor, actually he only is included on a handfull of them. This series in particular is labeled as "Ichibankuji My Hero Academia Rushing" and oncludes Midoriya, Bakugo, the crow looking guy, the guy that looks like a hobo, the musical guy, Endeavor, Hawks and the bunny girl (i am sorry, i dont know the name of this characters!!) and the box is really really huge and the figure is actually pretty heavy as well!!

Heavy and thick...this is not hollow plastic soo this is the second heavyest Endeavor figure soo far only behind of the gigantic Masterlise Extra one but not only that, but i see a lot of reseblance between that one and this particular figure as well soo maybe they are made by the same sculptor. This guy here is taller than the other Endeavor figures, in bigger scale, but given his pose and bend legs, he is the same size as the other figures.

I am not sure if he can stand on his own....his pose is really tricky, but he comes with a base that looks like a bubble, made with transluscent plastic and fits around his front leg. Is a little anoying since its hard not to see this base thing but considerong all his figure have similar accesorys it dosnt looks too bad, also this little piece of plastic keeps him standing perfectly soo it works really good.

While all other figures of this characters, except the last one, shows him in a stoic and very serious pose, this one shows him in full action, attacking with a flame punch while giving a frontal step. The musculature is impresive since this time around muscles are tensing up in different directions and they show the complet mastery over anatomy of the sculptor.

I specially like the dorsal muscle conecting with the arm while the torso is twisting and all the force seen on his tensed up legs and ass, the sense of movement is very present but also a sense of weigth and power, like a tank. The flames are more in control this time, shorter but stil moving to the back, like small wings or the propuslor combustion of a jet pack.

The beard and mustache are specially "bushy" but they dont hidde anything of his fierce face expression. But the best part is effinetly the kunkles on his punch and how they mix with the fire that cover his arm. This punching fist is pretty much the only removable piece of the figure and like all flames in here, they are cast in traslucent plastic.

But unlike the last two Endeavor figures, theres a lot of paint on the flames, including the first ones, a lot of orange and yellows as well as a metalic red in the point of the flames and the flames on his face, back and boots have the same pint aplication. This makes the fire looks very very detailed but at the same time block the ligth and all the trabslucent features of the plastic that can bee seen only with very direct ligth and only in the end parts of the fire.

The shoulder pads and arms armor are painted in silver metalic paint and this time around his uniform actually looks blue. There is a lot of black airbushing to to higlieth the amazing muscles and the orang sections on his uniform have a mix of yellow and orange gradient that makes it looks like there is actually fire under them. This make this section specially good loking along side the flames on the shoulders since it looks like they are mixing together.

Ulike the last two Endeavor figures, the skin tone here is painted and have some pretty tame and discret brushes and his scar have a pretty realistic color and texture. but his eyes and mouth have actually a "line art", a pretty thick black line that makes him look like a comic drawing. I find this detail to be very interesting because the rest of the figure is much more realistic looking while the face looks cartoony. 

The result isnt bad tough since it makes his face stand out a lot, against all odds it works to give even more force to his expression. The blue eyes and teeth are, of course, perfectly painted.

The muscular structure and the way the flames are sculpted as well as the paint on the uniform with the mix of yellow and orange and the super detailed paint on the flames (and even the bulgue....) reminds me a lot the Masterlise Extar figure based on the movie. This two pieces looks connected somehow despite the different scale.

I love this figure A LOT. The sculpt is exquisite and the paint is really spectacular, the pose in the middle of an attack make it soo unique and spectacular and makes this the deffinitive Endeavor figure, tough the other figures, each one are also the deffinitive Endeavor. Is like each one of them is perfect in theyr own way, independently and together. Such level of perfection is soo shocking, specially with the low price they have!!