I'll admit that I'm not one of the biggest anime fans out there, though due to Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, I am taking more of a liking to it. Not that I even see any real difference than "regualr"c artoons mind you, other than the art style, so why it has to get lumped into it's own little catergory I have no idea, but so it is, and, well, whatever. Anyway, the first seires they had on there before the action/comedy split was Cowboy Bebop, which proved to be a truely incredible series. Hell, if this thing aired on network TV in prime time, I'd've actually watched it. So then I found out that Bandai was gonna release a set of stuff in their Anime Collector line, I knew it was something I need to get. Which, obviously, I did. The real question though is, is the set worth getting?
    | Contents - Theres a dencent amount of stuff in here. You get a figure of Spike, Faye, and Ein, which surprized me, since I saw NOTHING about it including Ein anywhere. You also get a stand for the figures, and the centerpeice of the set, Spike ship, the Swordfish, or Swordfish II, I'm nevr too sure what to call it though. I've seen both, and it doesn't look like he gets a completely new ship anywhere in the series,so who knows. For review purposes though, it'll be called Swordfish, since that's what's on the package. The Swordfish also comes with two missles, one for each wing.
Packaging - Well, seeing as how I open like 96% of my carded stuff anyway, the packaging isn't so important. Though, on the shelf, these sets didn't realy stand out, though if you know the properties in the line, you might be able to spot it well enough. Sculpting and Paint - Not much to say here, other than the ship is really the best of the four. Ein looks a bit odd, but that could jsut be the pose he's in, so I guess I can't fault that. Spike loks him, but something about the hair just doesn't sit right for me, like it's just pointing the wrong way or something. Faye on the other hand, while her body is done nice, her face just seems to be a bit too squat compared to what I'm used to seeing on screen, but maybe thats just due to the angles they use on the show or something. Articulation - Just like the human figures in Gundam, I ask, what articulation? Out of the three figures, theres like ONE joint. Spike and Ein don't move at all, though with Ein I guess it's forgivable, I wouldn't have expected him to move really, much like the G.I.Joe companion animals didn't, but I was shocked that Spike couldn't move his neck. Faye can, and that's all she can do. I guess if you want to get technical, the ship has moving parts, so that could fall in here. The landing gear folds down, the wings fold up, the particle cannon thing can rotate, and the rear engine is on a ball joint and has two moving flaps. The back engine is pretty tight as far as joints go, though it's not too hard to move around. The wings though seem to be weaker, since they don't realy seem to stand up too well. It's not like they flop all over the place I mean, but they dont' really stand up well like they should, and I have the feeling this could weaken them over time. Construction Quality - This is where the set takes a BIG hit. The figures are constructed fine, though Faye has some trouble standing on her own. The three of them fit on to the stand well enough, and considering they don't move any, theres probably not a whole lot of point to take them off. The stand though, I just want to point out, has a spot for what would probably have been a decal that said what series this was from, but there wasn't anything there. I don't know if this was jsut mind, or if all of them were like that, though I'm more inclined to go with the latter. The ship is another matter. It's a combination of regualr hard palstic and some VERY flexible, rubbery plastic, which while on some parts make some sense, like the nose and the rear engine flaps, the wing tips and part of the rear landing gear are also made of this material. One of my wing tips has already started to bend in (about 3 days after the photos were taken), so, obviously you're going to start to think about standing it on the landing gear all the time. Well, theres another problem. The rear landing wheel made up of two peices, and the bottom peice is VERY thin and made of this same rubbery material, and right out of the package it has problems holding up the weight of the ship. True, if it were made out of the harder plastic that most of the ship is made of, it would've been more prone to breaking, but at least it would've had a ebtter chance of standing up without worrying about sagging warpage. The missle secure nicely though, but are made of the same rubbery material, but they probably won'y go through the same warp risk as the rest of the ship. Value - I paid $17 for this set. Lets break this down. The figures probably would've sold for 8 or 9 dollars if sold alone, based on the prices of the Gundamn figures, plus cost of the larger stand. So that leaves the rest of the nine dollars covering the ship. This ship is NOT worth nine dollars. If the set were $15, then I wouldn't feel so ripped-off, but $17 is REALLY pushing it. I don't know how the rest of the line is constructed, so maybe the price is justifed in them, but for this set, it's at least two dollars more than it should be. Weird this is though, for the first wave of these figures, they were only $13, so what made them put the four dolalr mark up on them? (This was a Toys R Us mind you,YMMV). |
