Diamond Select Toys as really won my heart when it comes to small action figures. I have always been a huge fan of toys smaller than two inches tall. And Minimates has really won that way with me at least, I've done a few reviews on this blog in the past of Minimates and expressed my love for them then as I do now especially when Diamond keeps upping their game year after year wave after wave. When Diamond first debuted the Minimates they were not as detailed as they are now but I still loved them and will always will.
Diamond Select Toys decided to do something different with these Minimates instead of the duel packages with two figures they went with blind bags. For those of you that don't know what blindbags are let me fill you in a little, blind bags are bags with action figures inside that you don't know whom you are getting, its always a mystery with your new toy you're getting. I chose to get four blind bags, but the thing is if you are a toy collector you can figure out what figures you are getting. I chose to feel them up and chose who I wanted, for the most part. The four figures I got were Donatello, Foot Soldier, Foot Soldier Robot, and The Shredder. Three of those I knew what I wanted, I chose to feel them up and found Shredder, Donatello and Foot Bot, I mistakenly chose the Foot Soldier because I thought he was a turtle....don't ask me how I thought he was a turtle. Anyway on to the reviews:
Donatello:
First thing I will say is Donatello is my all time favorite turtle. As a Minimate I thought the TMNT line would suck but it really actually is well done the Minimates transition well into turtles. Donatello is a, I don't know um...puke green, doesn't translate well due to crappy lighting and cell phone pictures. This Minimate is beautiful the purple of his bandanna is vibrant and really pops, the one thing I don't like is that they gave Don a gap tooth. To make his shell they gave Don a chest cap with the belts sculpted in. The shell on the back has a sheath that he can put his bow staff in which is nice for Minimates. The forearms are sculpted with their wrist bands on and their elbow pads molded in to them too. The upper arms and upper legs are standard Minimate pieces. Dons lower legs/feet are new sculpts they don't have separate feet like normal Minimates, I know that doesn't make sense but it will in a few later parts of this extended review. But Don's feet are molded in with the knee pads, his feet have the wraps on them like his cartoon counterpart. Don's staff is as tall as he is and painted with great detail, along with sculpt. Donatello's stand/base is a manhole cover. A definite and awesome plus for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The standard Minimate articulation is a ball jointed head, ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, swivel wrist, waist swivel. ball jointed thighs, hinged knees. The one thing because of his foot design negate the foot articulation.
I really wanted this figure, it isn't much of a departure from the Foot Soldier but he has extra arms and no hands but weapons as hands. As accessories go he came with a sword and a sheath but he has so many weapons that he will not be displayed with them. The draw to this Foot Soldier is that he has two extra arms attached to his waist. Those two extra arms are what make him a Foot Soldier Foot Bot and the weapons on his arms add to that too. The arm weapons are as follows one hand he has a curved blade that is very similar to the one the Grim Reaper has in Marvel Comics, the next weapon is a conical drill type weapon, those are on the arms that are not attached to the back. The rear arms are a saw blade and a spiked mace. Each of the weapons attach at the base of the hands and they are spiked at the base. Same standard articulation for this guy along with the added arms which brings it up to 20ish points. For a Minimate that is pretty spectacular.
The Shredder:
Mr. Excessive blades himself. I was disappointed when I first went into the comic shop and felt up the bags and couldn't find this figure but after the second trip in I found him and holy damn this figure delivers. Now to be honest I have never seen the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon and probably for a while won't either but I will say the Shredder is pretty amazing and wait til you see his face under his helmet. There is no chest place or chest cap on this figure but it isn't needed, his chest is painted silver with jagged lines that look like blades. Which the Shredder has a lot of on his body which is to be expected. The helmet has three points on it, one on the top and two on the sides, his shoulder pads which are sculpted into his cape have blades, his wrists and backs of his hands have more blades and then there is another set of blades on both of his calves. The Shredders colors are a deep purple, silver, his cape is a rich royal blue and Caucasian for his skin color. If you remove his helmet you get a very nice little disturbing surprise. His head in this series is is horribly burned on over half his head. the burned half of the head is pink with red to make it looked burned and scarred. The eye on the right side is blind/dead, in other words white. His left eye is alive but heavily lidded you cannot tell the color of it. With the helmet on The Shredder looks stoned and not really in pain like he should be with such a hideous burn.
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