970 While The Gettin’s Good.

They had some of the new Ninja Turtle toys at the store today. Try though I might I couldn’t resist getting one. Donatello is my turtle of choice in situations where I must choose a single brother. I really like the style of these figures. Well, the turtles at any rate. I’m not thrilled with the design of Splinter, and April looks a little odd. Shredder looks about the same as his last incarnaton, but the figure has weird eye placement. Maybe it was just the one I saw, but his face looked melty. The Foot soldiers looks pretty punchable. Kraang is a lot more science fictiony than older versions. I didn’t get a real good look at it, but he seems to be set permanently in his robot suit. His “arms” are floppy, which I thought was a nice touch.

I saw almost no episodes of the first cartoon, so I had no idea who Kraang was when I was a kid. Not for a long time anyway. Eventually I saw enough to understand what his deal was. I was a fan of a few of the comics I got to read and the live action movie. Which didn’t feature a lot of the stuff that most TMNT fans expect from every incarnation. The looks of the show is more flat seeming than the toys represent. They’re kind of like if you took the time to render the show’s art style more completely. At least as far as I can tell. I’ve only seen preview clips at this point.

More than anything else what makes these new toys better than the old ones, right up to the last ones I remember being available, is articulation. You can actually pose these guys in more than one way. Every tutrtle toy I’ve ever had have basically been statues with joints stuck on after the fact. The arms only look right one way, and the legs only stand one way, if at all. These ones have big, stable, feet and actual joints that can be manipulated into many positions. Donatello’s stick seems oddly short though. I don’t know if it’s short in the show, or they made it that way for safety reasons, but it’s just a little weird. It seems like it should be longer.

Apart from that he’s really cool looking. on the box he’s smiling, and has a gap in his front teeth. That’s a new design choice I wouldn’t have expected, but whatever. I’m a fan of unique teeth. His figure is frowny, so it’s not an issue. He’s all “I make science and punching…”