Tuesday 6 September 2011

Toybox REVIEW: Nendoroid Panty



Nendoroids have always something I've been mixed on in the past - while they look like excellent super-deformed versions of popular characters that come with a pretty impressive set of accessories, the size and price (around 3333 yen/£26 RRP) has always been a bit of a turn off. However when Good Smile Company announced that they would be making nedoroids of Panty and Stocking (and thus, the first 'posable' toys for the characters) I felt it was time to finally check this line out. And since she was my favourite of the two, Panty was the first one to be purchased.

A standard nendoroid is about half the size of a figma/revoltech figure (I forgot to take a comparison picture, but this will illustrate the scale difference), with the bulk of the figure being in the oversized head. While small, the limbs do have some posability. In Panty's case, she is posable at the head, shoulders and hips. While her posability is somewhat limited, the variety of poses you can get out of mixing and matching the arm pieces (the hands are removable) mean that Panty is no short of dynamic poses - whether it be gunslinging or being the slut that she is.

As stated earlier, nendoroids usually come with a fair amount of accessories, and Panty is no exception. Included with her are three separate faces (which I can only describe as a maniacal grin, a mid-sentence face and a 'wink wink nudge nudge' face), two guns (Backlace and what I can only assume is Stocking's underwear), a variety of different arms and hands, a bent right leg, Chuck and (much to my amusement) two different crotch pieces - one with underwear and one without. One thing that also surprised me is that the guns have completely different decos (one lacks the bow on the barrel, and they both have the clear blue plastic detailing in different places) and that the bracelets are actually moveable on one of the arms. I'm slightly disappointed that Chuck has TINY legs and, therefore, unable to stand up on his own, but his tail's wide surface area means he looks pretty good standing leaned back. The face is replaced by removing the two hairpieces (which are attached in a similar fashion to most Figmas) and then pulling the head off of the torso. One thing that does irritate me is that due to the nature of the removable faces, the earrings are also removable. This wouldn't be a huge deal usually, but they're quite small and doing really fix to the ears properly (they clip onto small dents in the earlobes) - quite easy to lose if you like playing around with your toys.

Another thing that surprised me was the stand mechanism. Firstly, there's plenty of holes in the base for the arm piece to go in, and secondly the figure is attached to the stand via the power of MAGNETS! That's right, no holes in the figure for plugs or obvious claws around the figure - the nendoroid is simply held in place via a magnet in the head. While this does mean that the figure has to be attached to the stand at the head, the nendoroid proportions mean that its quite easily to hide when looking at the figure face on. And if it bothers you that much, Panty is more than capable of standing without the aid of the stand to hold her in place.

I'm still not completely sold on the size of nendoroids in comparison to their price, but I can't deny that Panty is one of the most lively figures that I own. Despite its limited posability, it just OOZES character. Stocking will definitely be bought soon (although, I never planned to have one without the other), as will the recently announced Sonic the Hedgehog. I can't say I have any desire to own any (currently) announced/released ones besides those, but this is certainly a line I will be keeping my eye on in future.


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