*REVIEW* 1000Toys – JOUMON KUGUTU ENZI

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INTRO

I don’t always know how to start a toy review. When that happens, I’ll stare at my screen for half a hour and type nothing before giving up for the day… or just completely procrastinate by telling myself, “I’ll get to this tomorrow”.

It could be because I’m not super familiar with the related franchise so I’m hesitant to sound like an idiot in front of savvy fans and readers. Or sometimes, I’m very familiar with the franchise but am not a huge fan of it… making reviewing the related toy somewhat a chore, whether the toy rocks or not (cough, Bayformers). Other times, the review is for something that I know from the onset that I’m going to have a lot of “cons” to discuss and I just hate putting that negative toy energy out into the world… deserved or not.

But for a 1000toys figure.. it’s quite the opposite. It always takes me a few to start a review because the words “Wow, everyone should have this” play over and over in my mind. Anything after that is met with a bad case of writer’s block.

Sure, they’ve had a few (in my opinion) less than perfectly executed figures… to this day I still don’t love how they handle their soft goods… but the 1000toys gang is one of the bravest, boldest toy company’s out there and every new release and idea they take on brings with it a massive tidal wave of excitement.

They have a knack for working in the shadows.. releasing relatively obscure figures and characters while the rest of the toy world latches onto the latest DC/Marvel/Movie franchise. Even what is probably the most renown worldwide characters in their line up.. GI Joe’s Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.. are not hardly recognizable because 1000toys went all, “1000toys” on them, giving them some familiar notes, but heavily stylizing them in their own unique way.

And they build all this on one of the most cutting-edge engineered 1/6th scale bodies available today.

1000toys figures are freaky. They’re awesome. They’re eye catching… They’re incredibly well made.. and the figure I’m reviewing today threatens to be the very peak of all of those things combined.

Sculpted by well known Japanese sculptor, Takayuki Takeya… Joumon Kugutu is 1000toys biggest risk so far… and possibly their biggest accomplishment.

(This sample was sent to me for review, the pre-order for this figure as well as the variant colorway, Bokkoku starts February 24th (JPN) at 11:00am – click here for more info)

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*REVIEW* Devil Toys – Heavy Weapon Specialist WOO

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INTRO

Happy New Years!

I’d hoped to get this review together before the holidays, but well.. the holidays got in the way. So instead, we’re closing out 2016 with it!

It’s been a long wait since the last time we saw another Devil Toys WOO figure. Their last full release from their World of Order line of figure, Secret Master (which we reviewed) came out way back in June of 2015! In early 2016 they released a cool looking, unarticulated war wolf figure to play companion to the Secret master but we havn’t had a proper 1/6 figure to add to the WOO ranks in almost a year and a half!

Devil Toys must have sensed my anticipation because they were kind enough to send over this sample of their limited edition follow up, the Heavy Weapon Specialist.

I opened up the figure the second he was delivered and my brief, first impression was really positive. It’s time to put him under the review microscope and see if that impression holds up!

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*Review* Herocross Hybrid Metal Figuration – Michelangelo

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INTRO
This is our first review of a HeroCross Hybrid Metal Figuration.. uh.. figure. (Try saying that five times real fast)

The good folks at HeroCross were kind enough to reach out to us and ask if we’d be interested in reviewing some of their figures.  I always really enjoyed checking out their displays at SDCC in past years but hadn’t had any personal experience with them so, I jumped at the opportunity.

They gave us a a pretty wide range of figures to choose from… Predator/Alien.. Star Wars.. Batman… etc.. etc… After a little back and forth, I mentioned how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles really caught my eye. So they sent me Michelangelo.

Now, I’m not complaining, but  I admit, when I was told we’d be getting the turtles to review, I was thinking they’d send all FOUR of them.. since you know, they’re a team of turtles and it’s hard to have turtles plural, with only one turtle… but that’s probably just me being greedy for more cool stuff to play with.

That said, Mikey is looking a little lonely up there on the shelf all by his lonesome so let me bust him out and get on with the review!

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*Preview* Articulation video of ThreeZero’s Fallout 4 T-45 Power Armor (whew)