Action Figure #485: Anime Heroes Beelzemon

 Edgymon or Lankymon would've worked just as well.

I truly love Digimon because we can have silly creatures... and then we also have the king of edge, Beelzemon. Although, despite having a description befit of a badguy, he's usually on the side of the heroes, ever since Impmon's redemption. But alas, time to go three for three with Anime Heroes' Digimon line.

 Beelzemon cuts a curious figure, as he is very thin and lanky, with very long arms and legs. As I've realized with the previous Digimon AH figures, this line works better with non-humanoid forms... in this case, he feels and looks more like a toy than the other two. The weird proportions do help, however. The sculpt is really good, as pretty much every detail, except for the emblems on his shoulders, are  sculpted into the figure. That said, there's the paint job... I'm more used to Beelzemon from the games, so the greyish brown they used for his highlights felt wrong to me. I looked up images, maybe I remembered him wrong... but I didn't, his armor should be light grey.... Except that it was this shade of brown in the Tamers anime! So, yeah, he is accurate to the anime. That said, the emblem on his shoulders is missing to dots in the middle, because it's actually supposed to be a skull. I guess they censored it for the children. He comes with two guns and two alternate hands in the shape of fists.

 On the articulation end of things, he has swivels on his arms, ball jointed shoulders and hips, and double-jointed elbows and knees. He also has drop-down hips.

 His tail is on a small ball-joint, but it's pre-posed in a weird curvy shape, so it's not very useful. So yeah, you'll mostly just move it out of the way rather than use it to pose it. All the bolts on his back can be rotated.

 But he has a very interesting feature. If you compare the two phots above you'll notice that the gap in his waist is gone. That's because you can pop it out of place in order to let him use his double-ball-jointed waist to full effect. It's not a lot of range, but, it's a neat idea.

 The grip on his guns is a bit loose, expect him to drop his guns if you play around with his arms too long. He is a bit taller than the Bucky Cap mold. On another note, while weird poses are OK, getting him to stand up straight next to The Fly was harder than I expected.

 As with most Anime Heroes figures... he is a decent but unimpressive figure. To me, this Anime Heroes sub-line proves that their style works much better with non-human licenses such as this one.

7.5

Action Figure #484: Anime Heroes Omegamon

  Technically, this guy's got three heads.

 While not quite my favorite, unlike Wargreymon, Omegamon was another one of my favorite, and I also had a rather large bootleg figure of him... which I also got in Brazil. So, yeah, having him back in my collection is great!

 The sculpt looks pretty nice. Omegamon is a pretty simple design and they got him right. The paint job is very clean and sharp. Of note, is that the runes of his sword are actually sculpted in and painted. They went for an anime-accurate color scheme, I guess it's called anime heroes for a reason, which explains the paste-like shade of yellow they went for his Greymon head-arm. Lastly, the cape is made of a harder plastic than I would've liked. It's not as hard as the rest of the figure, but it's not quite as pliable as Hasbro would've gone for.

 Articulating this sculpt probably wasn't the easiest thing ever since he has a rather odd design. But he has drop-down hips, which I don't quite like due to fear of breaking. His elbows and knees are single jointed, which I guess is probably the best they could've done with how the guy looks. Both head-arms can turn, and the blue-shoulder guard can actually be moved around. A swivel would've worked just as a well, but his waist is on a ball joint, not that the small degree of forward-and-backward tilt on his torso adds anything to his poseability.

 The blue arm is a bit heavy on the shoulder. The peg doesn't seem to be stressing, but, there's always this small gap between shoulder and arm. He is slightly taller than Bucky Cap..

 Omegamon is another fun figure. I'm starting to think that the Anime Heroes line works better for non-human characters, since they aren't trying to be realists, which works in favor of how this line paints and sculpts their figures.

7.5

Action Figure #483: Anime Heroes Wargreymon

  The best of Greymons.

 I'm sure I've mentioned it before, back when this was a gaming blog, but I've always preferred Digimon over Pokemon, and my favorite Digimon was forever, and always, Wargreymon. I used to own a couple of Wargreymon figures growing up, my favorite being a rather large, articulated, bootleg figure I got in Brazil. So boy, oh boy, am I happy to own this guy again.

 And he is GREAT. He has the same issue other Anime Heroes/Dragon Ball Stars/Game Dimensions have in that he looks very plastic-y, but this sculpt is nothing short of incredible. While there are some tiny inaccuracies, like some highlights on his chestplate not being painted in a darker grey, the rest of the figure looks exactly like Wargreymon. And while it seems cheap, to avoid using paint, they molded a ton of different pieces in different colors and then joined them together. It's cheaper than using paint, but, it also means that there is little chance for paint errors here. 

 The articulation is phenomenal. He has bicep swivels, as well as double jointed knees and elbows. His hands lie on static ball-joints, which I think are more durable than Japanese ball joints. His feet are ball jointed and, sadly, his legs are on drop down hips, sure, they add more articulation, but ever since Superior Spider-Man... I've been wary about them. His waist is on a ball joint, and he has no ab crunch. I might just glue them on. He is only a smidge shorter than the Bucky Cap mold.

 A lot of his waist plates and shoulder plates are on hinges, allowing you to move them out of the way of the articulation.

 His wings/shield lie on double-ended ball joints, which lets you play around with it.

 Is this Anime Heroes redemption? Well... I think not, but this figure in particular is incredible. the paint could be a bit better, so that he doesn't feel so much like a toy, but other than that? Great figure. Cheap too!

8.0