Big the Cat and Froggy by Jazwares.

Ever since his debut in Sonic Adventure, Big has been one of those characters that makes me groan a little bit evrey time I see him.  Partly because I am still haunted by his levels in S.A.  I mean fishing in a Sonic game?  What is this? Legend of Zelda or something?  Come on, that was juts silly and about the only real interest I had was finishing it so I could play as Super Sonic. 

Big has had cameos in other games, he proved his worth as a character in Sonic Shuffle and showed up for bits in Sonic Adventure 2 and I even grew to like him in Sonic and SEGA All-stars Racing.  He actually was a good strength characters in Sonic Chronicles as well and his rain dance move was pretty effective. His voice though, man it was irritating in all his appearances.  I did learn something very important from Big though.


And that was, always check the White Balance when taking photos….

This figure, made by Jazwares is a big-un, as one would expect.    I have a feeling it was a Toys R Us exclusive set, which meant I had to grab it off ebay.  I really wish we had a distributor for these in Australia, especially with Sonic Generations on the way and all the figures planned for that.  Although I am sure they will be the same whether I import or buy locally anyway…

Big has a nice display box, he comes with his pal Froggy and inside the box is a set up of his little hut in the Zone (the name of which escapes me right now).  With this, the Eggman and Metal 2 pack, and the SEGA Racing 4 pack I have come to that Jazwares do a good job when creating these double packs and packaging.  All of those had a pretty cool insert in the box that looked like a scene.


Once out of the box, you can see what I mean.

Big has a lot of articulation for a fat guy with really short legs.  Elbows, wrists, hips, tail and head all move.  He has no knees, but considering how short his legs are and the size of his feet, I was surprised that he can move them at the hips.  They swing forwards and backwards as well as twist.  Froggy is just a solid piece, but that’s fine since he/she is by all accounts an accessory.

If I remember correctly, he is supposed to be 5 inches tall (about 13cm) and this keeps him in scale with the 3 inch Sonic figures quite well.

As you can see, he is too small for the larger size.  Big is also supposed to be the colours of ; Purple, Blue and white with yellow eyes.  I went about taking all these photos until I noticed that he wasn’t the same colour in the photos as in the plastic.  The white balance was out.  So I had a little check and test and now the pictures come close to the same colour.  It appears my camera has some issues with purple, as I also had this problem with my TFCC G2 Ramjet, who proved to be a tad trickier to work with.

See, amazing difference!  On the left before balanced white, right, after.    From the back, you can see he is well sculpted, from the back of his head, especially the tip of his tail.  You can see the buckles on his sandals as well.  It is overall an excellent reproduction of Big.




Comparison size shot with everyone involved!!!















Froggy is a single piece of plastic, not articulation with a tail.  Not really much to say really.    Have a look at the pictures.

Froggy has simple sculpting on the yellow bits and a little mouth.  Simple and effective.  It certainly looks like Frogggy, well before he gets all funky and Chaos Emeralded.



Here we can see the levels of articulation and the legs!!  The belt has belt holes and even the chest fluff pieces  The two buckles on his sandals.  it kind of looks like his from England, wearing socks with his sandals!

Big has lost his waist articulation but the belt looks exactly like it should.    His face is well done as well and looks just like it should.

He has his round eyes and big ears, a painted nose and a sculpted mouth.



So to finish this little look at Big, I have to say that a fairly forgetful character has had a very nice little figure made for him.  All I really wish he had come with was a fishing rod of all things, his hands have been sculpted like they should be holding one, so it struck me as odd.  Perhaps in the design stage Jazwares were going to give him a fishing rod, but changed it to Froggy instead.  One or the other?  I would prefer Froggy, I guess I could make a fishing rod for him.

The articulation is surprisingly good, sculpting is spot on and the scale is pretty good with the other smaller figures.  I recommend this guy, and he fits in very nicely with everyone else.  Well worth my effort of finding him that’s for sure!