I am trying to find this line in the listings and I have had no luck. Am I overlooking something? I've found the Super Powers line, FUNKO, and other various MacFarlane lines. But no luck on this one. Trying to figure out if I'm missing anything....[See More]

Comments: I often use Green Stuff to sculpt.
Favorite Series: Lego, Mega Bloks, Roblox figures
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Current Projects: Custom MOTU Origins Fuerza-T characters
Favorite Series: Masters of the Universe: Origins
Currently Collecting: Masters of the Universe
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eBay User Name: tapinewoods1994
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Currently Collecting: Anything Deadpool
Want List: Everything Deadpool
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Although I have yet to watch any of Demon Slayer beyond the first season, the anime has proven a success, especially the recent Infinity Castle movie adaptation. With the anime nearing its end, Tamashii Nations has given us a great line of S.H. Figuarts, but the ever-increasing prices have made me hold off on buying mostly. I've only got two other figures so far aside from Tanjiro, one of whom is his sister, Nezuko. I already have the Figma version, so it's time to see if Tamashii did better.

Some of Nezuko's attributes resulted from her transformation into a demon, such as her pink eyes and long hair, and Tamashii's sculptors nailed the look. The eyes are printed on cleanly, and the paint for the orange ends of the hair is near-perfect. Her hair is made out of a softer plastic, and there are two hinge-and-dual-swivel/revolver joints for the back, allowing the hair to get out of the way of the body for posing. Even though Nezuko is able to resist eating human flesh unlike other demons, she still wears a bamboo muzzle just to be safe. The muzzle can be removed easily, as it slides out from underneath the head. Popping off the head will make it easier, and being SHF means much of the joints can be popped apart with ease.

Figuarts often includes plenty of face options for their figures, and Nezuko has more than average with six different expressions. She has a neutral face, two cheerful faces (one with open eyes and one with closed eyes), a mad face, another mad face depicting her activating her demon powers, bearing more intense eyebrows, veins, and more detailed eyes, and a confused dot-eyed face. Having all these options is great, and even with the mouth covered by the bamboo, there's enough emotion in the eyes alone to give the faces a lot of variety.

Standing about 5 1/8" tall, Nezuko is fully dressed with a long kimono and haori, alongside sandals and thick leg coverings over her shins. Your first thought probably is "How's she supposed to move her legs with all that covering them?" Well, good news; just like the hair, the kimono and haori have soft plastic and articulated sections to make them less restrictive on movement, and there's no need for alternate dress parts like the Figma had. The kimono's pattern is sculpted on, which I think is a nice touch, and the paint on the edges and obi is very clean. Same goes for the leg clothing, and the articulation all around blends in with the sculpt very well.

Like Tanjiro, Nezuko is loaded with articulation, which is nothing new for SHF. Working our way down, she has two revolver joints in the back of the hair, a barbell head, ball-jointed neck, ball/hinge/swivel shoulders attached to hinged pectoral ball joints, swivel/hinge/swivel elbows with ball-pegs going into the forearms and bicep and sleeve pieces over the pegs, revolver wrists, three revolver joints for the haori and two for the kimono, ball-and-double-hinged chest, ball-jointed waist and hips, swivel thighs, revolver knees and ankles, and hinged toes. Everything works well, and I found her joints less frustrating to work with than the Figma. The legs are an area that could use improvement, as her hips can't go out to the sides all the way, and the ankles feel a tad loose. Still, you're getting a lot to work with, and Nezuko can achieve a ton of poses.

Since Nezuko doesn't have any weapons like the other heroes, she makes up for it with plenty of swappable parts. Aside from the multitude of faces, she also has three pairs of hands: relaxed, closed, and clawing. The extra hands are good for combat scenes, and they swap with no issues. She also gets a hand-holding piece for both her and Tanjiro, and it's often nice when SHF includes parts for other characters with their figures, as it gives you more of an incentive to get them. Lastly, there's a lower body part designed for sitting down on a seat or ledge. As said piece consists of the upper legs and lower part of the haori and kimono as a solid piece, you have to pop apart the waist, lower legs, and articulated haori pieces to get it on. The knee joints are in somewhat tight, so they'll take a bit of work to get out, but you can do so without risk of damage. It would've been nice if they included her wooden box for Tanjiro to carry, but I assume they'll make that eventually.

Aside from the issues involving leg articulation, Nezuko is a great figure, but the price is the main problem with her. Tanjiro was a great value at $35, but Nezuko-chan is $75; that's forty dollars more than her brother. If she was closer to $50, then I'd have gotten her sooner, but I doubt Tamashii will make most of their figures around that price again any time soon. You can find her for a little less than retail now, so I'd advise you to find the best deal before her aftermarket value goes back up.

- 12/4/25...[See More]

Currently Collecting: Transformers and Star Wars figures
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Current Projects: A invincible viltrumite custom im working on
Favorite Figure: Neca bioshock 2 subject delta
Favorite Series: Bioshock and splatterhouse
First Figure: A 2007 black suit spider man from marvel legends but its sadly been lost to time
Collection Size: Over 200 plus figures and counting
Currently Collecting: Mostly any figures that peak my interest
Want List: A Omni-Man action figure
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With the end of the year approaching, Jakks Pacific has found the time to put out one more wave of Simpsons figures before 2025 is over. We're onto wave six now, and while the mini figures seemingly haven't shown up anywhere outside of online retailers, the 5" figures are getting well-stocked at Target again after dragging their feet on stocking wave four and getting wave five well after everyone else. And it's perfect timing as well, as they recently held a sale on these figures, so I was able to grab everyone for about $8 each.

We have a Homer variant leading the wave again, but it's a simpler one than the softball Homer from wave three. This version comes from "Selma's Choice," where he falls ill from eating a moldy hoagie, and the body is the same as the first wave Homer, but with a new head and left hand. The queasy expression looks great, and the shape of the head looks a little better than previous Homers. His skin tone is a sickly yellow-green, and his beard is a lighter color as well, matching his condition from the episode. I know Jakks likes to reissue key characters from their Mario and Sonic lines with the occasional new head and/or hands, so getting something more than just that with Simpsons is nice (hopefully that rumored "woo-hoo" Homer in the next wave is more than just a new head).

Since Homer is mostly reused tooling, the articulation remains the same as everyone else, with the usual joints for the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. The waist was stuck at first on mine, but it broke free easily, and the forearms tend to pop off if you try to bend the elbows too far. A few issues, but very minor ones at least. The aforementioned sandwich is included, mostly eaten away and with a sculpted indent so Homer can hold it. He also has a blanket that drapes over his shoulders, and he looks great with it on.

Homer isn't the only variant here, as Ned Flanders makes his 5" line debut, but in his "stupid sexy" skiing outfit from "Little Big Mom." Given how memetic that moment was, it's no wonder Jakks chose to make this version first. He's donning a helmet with a flipped-up visor, and I would've liked it if you could put the visor down, as it looks like there's enough clearance between it and the face. Speaking of which, his likeness is great, and the glasses look better than the smaller-scale Flanders, thanks to them having clear plastic lenses instead of ones with the eyes painted on.

Standing right at the 5" mark, Flanders' skiing suit is red and blue all over, with the chest and shoulders being blue plastic with the red painted on, and vice versa for the rest of the body. The paint is fine for the most part, though the red over blue could look better, as I can see some of the blue through it, and there are at least two areas of paint chipping off. Flanders is quite buff underneath his usual sweater, and his physique is more prominent here, owing itself to plenty of articulation. I'm not sure if the waist is a ball joint or just a loose swivel, but he gets the unique addition of a ball chest which is nice, but both it and the elbows need better range. Unsurprisingly, his accessories are a pair of skis and poles, and the skis have pegs in them that the feet fit snugly on. Both the articulation and accessories allow for plenty of ways to display him, including the iconic "nothing at all" pose.

Moving onto another iconic character is Ralph Wiggum, who we've already seen in the smaller-scale line. While Jakks didn't do much more than upscale the mold they've already done, I will say he looks a little nicer in this scale. They again did the hair as a separate piece on the top of his scalp, which continues to bother me as he's supposed to have a bald spot. It would've been more possible for them to sculpt the strands as part of the head and paint over them like Playmates did, but it looks better than the smaller Ralph, so I'll give them that.

At 3 1/8" tall, Ralph, like all the other kids, is out of scale with the adults, but fits just fine with the other youths. The body looks better here, and the paint on the belt buckle looks just fine, but the pupils are a little misaligned. His shorter arms mean he lacks the separate bicep pieces that go over the elbow pegs, but the elbows are designed to still have a full range of motion (which is more than I can say for King Homer), and everything else poses fine, but some more range at the waist is much needed. He comes with one of his favorite snacks, a paste jar with a separate lid, and the jar has a tab on it so he can hold it. It looks as if the lid is designed to go into the jar, but the hole is slightly too small for it, and the soft material of the lid prevents it from going in. Still nice to have them as separate pieces rather than molded right into the hands like a certain "ultimate" version of this little guy.

Rounding out the wave is Mr. Burns, and I'm happy to have a standard 5" version of him in this line following the Dracula version. Like Ralph, we already got him in the 2.5" line, which gave us a good idea of what to expect the larger version to look like. He's another example of a figure looking better in this scale, and at 4 3/4" tall, he looks great all around. He still bears his typical unamused expression, but a notable change from the smaller version is the ears, which are sculpted as part of the hair instead of his head. It's a little odd to see them detached like that, and the paint is okay aside from some uneven edges, but making them part of the head proper would've been better. The suit color is a little different, but it's still the bold dark green he's had on since the show switched to digital ink and paint.

Like Ralph, Burns' articulation is cut down on slightly due to the sculpt. His ankles are only swivels due to the designs of the shoes, but everything else is no different from the others. His suit is a softer plastic than I expected, allowing his hips to kick forward and to the sides a good amount. I would've liked a ball-joint for the neck so that it can move more naturally, but I doubt Jakks is going to add more to the movement of these figures any time soon. His accessories remind me of the Playmates figure, as he has a wad of cash and Blinky in a bowl. The big difference here is that Blinky is separate from his bowl, and he fits in it using a peg. I would take care when getting him off it, as the peg broke on mine trying to free him from it, and I'd recommend using tweezers when doing so.

Jakks did a great job with this wave, and the lineup is pretty good. Sick Homer wouldn't have been my first choice for another variant, but it's great they're doing versions of characters that haven't been done before, and getting a Stupid Sexy Flanders that can fit with the Playmates line is a big plus as well. The rumored wave seven lineup is interesting, as while Nelson and another Homer are expected, Fat Tony and an Itchy and Scratchy Land mascot are not. It may not be long for us to see if it's actually the case or not, but I'm hoping for a variety of both recognizable and deep-cut characters, and with how much Jakks put out this year, I have a feeling they'll build up a huge cast of characters in no time.

- 11/30/25...[See More]

Thanksgiving is here, and it's a time for family, food, football… and Eli Roth's slasher named after the holiday. What started off as a fake movie trailer within a movie turned into its own thing years later, and if you haven't seen it, it's a great film with an interesting story and brutally creative kills (Hulu has it if you want to watch it). NECA has done a few figures, including an Ultimate version, but I haven't gotten it yet. I did, however, find the "No Leftovers" version at GameStop recently, just in time for the holiday.

The box art is very fitting for the license, showing a turkey with a bloodied axe embedded in it on a black background. The photos of the figure all over the rest of the box do a good job showing off most of its accessories, and there's a fireplace backdrop inside that'll be pretty good for displays. Like usual, you'll have to snip out a few ties to get the figure out, but that shouldn't take you too long.

Why does the killer call himself John Carver? Because he's wearing a mask of the man, one of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower voyage that led to the formation of Plymouth Colony, which Thanksgiving is synonymous with. Marty Henley did a good amount of the sculpting here, and the mask is accurate to the film, looking simplistic and old-fashioned. Since this is the second Ultimate version of him, there's not going to be a basic mask, but the main one is the closest to a regular look aside from the microphone earpiece. He has two other masks without said earpiece, one with some blood splattered on it and another that's burned, calling to mind the film's ending. The masks swap on the head easily, and the hat can be removed as well, revealing a balaclava covering all but the eyes. The eyes are rather creepy-looking with how wide open they are, but the paint/printing on them looks good. It reminds me of the My Bloody Valentine Miner, albeit a different sculpt.

Standing surprisingly tall at 7 3/4" without the hat, much of the Carver is reused. Since there have been more than a few slashers wearing coveralls, Jason Frailey's molds have been used more than once by NECA, and with the Carver, the limbs and underlying body are what we've gotten before with figures like Michael Myers and the aforementioned Miner, but the hands, feet, and clothing over the torso are new. There's not much color to the outfit, meaning clean, matte paint all around, and the sculpt of the coveralls remains just as good as ever. His apron is unique to this release, and it comes right from the film, having "Thanksgiving" written on it in cursive and a cartoon turkey. I don't recall when it appeared, but it's still a great inclusion, and it's cloth as well, so you can easily untie and remove it for a more standard Carver.

The articulation isn't any different from prior uses of this body, and the Carver has all the joints he needs for killing. He has a post/ball head, swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows (double-jointed), wrists, knees, and ankles, ball-jointed hips, swivel thighs and calves, and a barbell chest. The sleeve cuffs restrict the wrists a bit, but everything else works fine, with even the chest getting plenty of crunch from under the clothes. Aside from the different masks, there's also plenty of hands, with a pair of gun grip hands (vertically hinged), standing gripping hands (horizontally hinged), tighter grip hands (also vertically hinged), and a wide gripping left, all of which work well with the various weapons. The masks (save for the earpiece one) and hands are all recycled from the previous figures, as is the kitchen knife, but the rest all are new. The pitchfork, firefighter's axe, and blooded electric carving knife are all good for slashing actions, and the meat fork, corkscrew, and timer fit with the "Thanksgiving feast" theme of the figure. The phone with tripod stand is my favorite accessory, as it comes from when the Carver livestreams himself killing Evan, the one majorly responsible for the Black Friday riot that kicked off the events of the film (it was satisfying both in-universe and out). The phone shows Carver rather than that D-bag's bashed-in head, but the reactions and text are still just barely visible. And for the sake of not having to do a separate review for the regular version, I may as well list the unique items to that one: utility knife, axe, meat tenderizer, musket, sledgehammer, and tranquilizer gun.

Regardless of whether you get this version or the standard version, John Carver is a great figure coming from an equally enjoyable film. A few minor improvements could've been made, such as a proper barbell joint for the head and more freedom for the wrists to tilt and bend, but the articulation is still good nonetheless, and the various accessories give you plenty of ways to display him. Now I have to try and get the basic version, or at least wait for a reissue.

- 11/27/25...[See More]

Not gonna lie, this one bugs me a little.
So, Venin (nee Venom*) is the leader of the Insecticons; they were kind of an autonomous collective at first, until HasTak got their hands on some Beetras molds and decided more bugs were in order. This guy is so paranoid about his position, in fact, that he self-sabotages constantly trying to defend it.
This guy hasn't had a proper toy since the original, really. Which this toy is trying it's damnedest to ape. The proportions are nearly spot on, just the old toy with more greebles and good articulation. Green and orange with grey are quite a choice, but it works here. The massive helmet moves fairly well this time around, looking a bit less like a heatproof suit. For the most part, it's the usual Deluxe spread of joints, including a waist (not always a guarantee). The bug legs on the back look nice in a few positions, but the balljoints are worryingly stiff.
The wings came out of the kidney area on the old toy, and they did very much look like crap. Hasbro has dutifully done the same here, but opted to use mushroom pegs instead of 5mm ports. Which means we don't have the option to put them on, say, the ankles or forearms. Someplace they don't look terribly awkward. You can sort of sweep them back like coattails, but that's a stretch. It's kind of baffling.
The weird part is, they did stick a 5mm port on the butt of his classic green blaster, so the classic "axe" (with basically no handle) can just plug in there and become a proper weapon. I guess one innovation is enough.
Transformation is decent. The legs do have minor issues lining up, but there's a clever bit of deformation in the shoulders at least.
The cicada mode is just as blocky as it ever was, but that's not a knock against it; the easiest way to make bugs look more robotic than they already do is to square them off a little. That said, the colors really pop here. I can't nail down a specific species, but they're planthoppers; surely there's one this bright somewhere. The robot mode visor is, as it was, smack dab in the center of the bug face, looking like a cheerful mouth.
Articulation is limited to the hinged proboscis (rostrum?) and the aforementioned wings and legs. Said legs are indeed strong enough to support the toy's weight, at least. The accessories plug into the sides, somewhat concealed by the wings. The blaster fares better than the axe, of course.
Well, I gotta say "old toy, but bigger" works better with GI Joe than Transformers. That said, it's solid work, just with a few niggling issues that could have been avoided if they'd been less committed to the vintage aesthetic. But that's the Insecticons in a nutshell (WfC notwithstanding), so I guess it'll blend in at least. Besides, this one isn't in an absurdly expensive box set.
*Obviously Venom is no longer an option for non-Marvel toys, so they just ran with the scary half of "antivenin". It feels both correct and incorrect at the same time. Much like his also-toxic leadership style....[See More]

eBay User Name: Jokrodr21
Current Projects: Madame hydra
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Current Projects: Mcfarlane/Mattel Dc Multiverse: None

Star Wars The Black Series:
Custom Jedi for friends

Marvel Legends:
Daisy Johnson AKA Quake (Agents S.H.I.E.L.D TV show version)

Fallout:
None

Pokemon: Shiny Pokémon (ongoing)

Other: Superhero movie: The Hourglass, Dragonfly
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