Saturday 28 April 2012

Sonic the Nendoroid!

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The Nendoroid range is a series of small, super deformed action figures made by Good Smile Company that have mostly been based on anime franchises. Sega has been associated with this range a bit thanks to their connection with the Hasume Miku phenomenon (the recent 3DS game Project Mirai is even somewhat based on how the Nendoroid toys look), and there was a Sakura Wars pair in the range. This company rarely does non-human characters, with exceptions being that of Mickey and Minnie Mouse as well as some baseball mascots, and now Sonic the Hedgehog! See more photos and details after the jump!

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The Sonic figure was released earlier this month in Japan so I have gotten this pretty quickly. This is thanks to the official Sonic merchandise website that offered a pre-order of it a few weeks back for £32.99 (came to around £38 after postage). Now it looks as tough they are out of stock there and I'm not sure if they will be getting any more as they did state there was very small numbers. Still, nice of them to put up a collectable on there that would otherwise have to get from a import shop like Play Asia, I hope they plan to do the same with any other upcoming Japanese Sonic merch, would save on additional shipping fees. Plus I got a neat little sticker in the box! 


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"Get me outta here!" said Sonic, in my mind. I'm not crazy. Honest.

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Everything out of the box!

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A small instruction book all in moon speak!

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One of the main selling points of the Nendoroid figures is the inclusion of many extra parts for the characters as well as props, and this Sonic one is no different. Character wise you get 3 faces for different expressions, a collection of hands and an extra arm and leg for running poses. The next photo of how you swap out his face may be disturbing for some readers..

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AUUUUUUGH WHAT HAVE I DONE.

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Then there are the props: a ring, a chaos emerald, a check point post and best of all a Sonic Adventure style item box with a collection of power up pieces you can insert into it, be it an extra life, a shield or more rings. I would of liked maybe a couple more rings with it but otherwise you are getting quite a lot of bits and pieces to tinker with here. They also give you plenty of stands and gadgets to hold the figure up even when in a running pose which is really neat, though I haven't tried that feature of it out just yet.

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The build and paint quality of this toy is simply supreb, I can barely fault it in the slightest. The sculpt is simpler than say the classic Sonic from last year Jazwares but the quality of it is leaps beyond those by a long shot. All the body parts pop in and out easily, although I think there is a slight issue with my ones right arm which means I can't place new hands on that one but otherwise it's very easy to put into new poses with the various pieces. There is also more articulation to this than what can be seen to the naked eye: you can serve the head, hands and arms at a surprising amount of angles.

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One thing I particularly like about this toy is how it looks like a sort of fusion of both modern and classic Sonic. Standing it along side the Sonic Generations collectors edition figures really proves what I mean. He has the darker shade of blue and green eyes of modern but the stocky proportions and charming smile of classic. I wouldn't mind if they designed Sonic like this for a new game myself!

If you can still find one of these online to buy I would highly recommended it. I hope we may get more of these in the future based on the sheer quality of this one. Maybe if this one sells enough we might get Tails and Knuckles Nendoroids! Pretty pretty please!

4 comments:

Barry the Nomad said...

Awesome photos as always Gagaman! Can't wait to get mine. It'll take a few weeks, but it'll be worth it.

So many pose possibilities! Can those little plastic bits make jumping and aerial poses?

Cerium said...

It's interesting to note your one came with the smiley (showing teeth) face as the default in the box whilst mine had just the normal grin. Is it random?

Animated AF said...

Actually these photos were taken after I had already played about with the toy a bit. Hehe.

Paulo Fernandes said...

Can you scan and upload the small instructions book??? I would like to print one for me :) Thanks!