[Blade Raider]

The new Toynami Naruto Shippuden line is out (the one listed as 4" on websites). My Kakashi came in the mail today. He's great and worth getting.





He comes with:
Opened plams
Kunai holding hands (Kunais not removable)
Seal hands
Left hand holding Icha-Icha Tactics (SWEET!)
2 heads (one with bandana down and with bandana up)
And finally a clear round stand (Wich Hasbro would use simple stands like this).

Still a shame that he didn't get a Lightning Cutter hand. Still, it's more stuff than I expected.




Articulation is great. He uses a kind of fake Revolver Joint in the shoulders, neck, and ankles. I would believe it if Toynami said they tried to get the use of offical Revolver Joints, but couldn't. In fact, with very little doing these joints can be replaced with real Revolver Joints.



Anyways, here's what he's got:
The already mentioned NOT Revolver Joints in the ankles, shoulders, and neck.
Swivel jointed knees, thighs, elbows, and two on each hand (one at connection and one that bends inward).
Ball/Socket jointed hips, waist (inside the crotch), and in his inter shoulders (allowing the shoulders to shift forward, back, up, and down).
Some kind of joint in the torso that has the same effect as mid torso joints on Joes (think it's a Ball/Socket joint).




The detail of this figure is pretty good as well. The most impressive pieces are the Sharingan eye and Icha-Icha Tactics. My pictures can not do the Sharingan eye justice, but it has the ring and dots (doesn't have tails due to size) painted on. Icha-Icha Tactics has all the Japan Kanji on it and the right artwork is there too. Nice!



Now for the lie. Kakashi is not 4" as every website says. He's almost 5.5" tall. 4" scale is a lie. These are generally 5" scale which works better with Revoltechs, Ninja Turtles, and even the Mattel Naruto figures. That's not a big problem to me, but still disappointing as I planned to have him kick Snake Eyes' ass and fight my accidental Storm Shadow army. So yeah, he's going on my Revoltech shelf instead of my 4" scale shelf.

Final Thoughts:
Completely worth it. Of course, what competition does it have? Mattel? BWAHAHAHA! Yeah right! Those broke in half before they were outta the box. Those fairly rare and pricey Bandai figures from years ago? Those are pricey and rare! It's simply a good Naruto figure. That's hard to come by. Plus, it's less than $15.

[RubberbandMan]

Do you happen to know if they will be available in any retail shops or only online?

[metalalchemist]

Entertainment earth has them on preorder for january.

[Blade Raider]

Totally forgot I posted here as well.

This thing is selling wherever Toynami sells stuff, which is kind of random to me. I think comic shops would be the biggest buyers, but most comic shops around here don't care about anime items, so I rarely see them. The only big chains I've seen with Toynami stuff (mostly Blaech and Naruto stuff) are Fye, Waldenbooks (which I think is part of Borders now. I miss Walden), Hot Topics (Oh god, please no!), and maybe Barns and Noble. Think the best bet is getting them online.


Now a few details I forgot. My Kakashi's second head (with the eye covered) is painful (literally! That hair is pointy!) to get on the joint and his chin blocks it from going all the way down. I think this can be fixed with heat and working with it. Not sue what kind of plastic it is.

I'd like to be more clear on how the hip is made. The ball/socket joints are all connected to a plastic T-Bar. The outer hip (umm...the crotch) is made of a very soft rubbery plastic. Sence the hip is hollow with only the T-Bar inside, this means the T-Bar is free to move allowing the hips to shift back a forth.



The shoulder pads are made of the same soft rubbery plastic, making it easy to push outta the way of the shoulder joints and looks natural.

The copyright on his back is of interest. It reads © 2002MK-2007SP TOYNAMI/CHINA. Wonder if the others reads 2002 on them...that's just odd. Only connection I can figure is that 2002 was when the anime started in Japan and 2007 was when Shippuden started. So it's a copyright for the first series while this is made for the second series (Btw, Icha-Icha Tactics is the clue that makes him a Shippuden figure).




Scale: I found my last remaining Mattel Naruto figure (Rock Lee) and found out the scale is way off between the two. My mistake. At least I get a chance to make Rock Lee do the Nazi salute.