Classy pic. Includes ninja arsenal it says. Sadly that’s a lie. Splinter is always going to be a hard toy to produce. The robes that he seems to like make it very tricky. I remember that the first Splinter had a cloth robe and limited articulation. This one comes with a plastic robe and limited articulation and no ninja arsenal.
Unless by ‘ninja arsenal’ you mean a blue stick.
Usual packaging. Nice enough with his bio on the back.
Splinter’s robe is a tricky one. Like a cape in a way. They have used a soft plastic which is fair enough. It is moulded to allow a bit of movement in his feet, well his hips have hinges, but his feet are stuck in the good old ‘action pose’ which affects every toy aside from the Turtles.
There is a split at the back for his tail and a permanent spot for his knee to fit in at the front of the robes. His elbows have swivels at the joints, much like the foot soldier. The tail is on a limited movement ball joint and has to be put in after removing him from the package. It has a tendency to pop out on mine, The shoulders have a great range of movement and his head is hinged at the base of the neck.
He has a peg hole on one of his feet, but the other is balanced on the toes. Not all that well I might add, you can get him standing easily enough, but a slight knock and he is on his face once again. The tail can be held in his hand, for that Earthworm Jim effect is desired.
He also comes with a staff/walking stick. Oddly not looking all that much like a piece of wood. It almost looks like a jade staff, but it’s blue. He can hold it in either hand in a variety of ways. All the ways he holds it though are very loose. Sigh. just like my limp wristed Shredder.
luckily though you can have him whacking errant students on the head.
Overall though, ambient sculpting is pretty good. His belts on his robe and the fur effect all get the job done. He has wraps on his arms and legs and they have even sculpted fur on his thighs and wraps on his upper thighs. At least we can be happy he has undies on! Phew!.
One thing that I fond odd, and this is more to do with the Turtles story is that despite Splinter being a Ninja Master, when he was Hamato Yoshi, he wore samurai gear. And his wife’s name was a Chinese name. But anyway. I think I mentioned it before, but that doesn’t matter.
Yet in a way it does. 2012 Splinter’s face looks a lot like Master Sifu from Kung Fu panda. The colours are very close and the beard is reminiscent of early kung fu movies where the master would have the long thin beard with which he would stroke majestically when showing how skilled his was.
I do like that they kept the clenched teeth, like the original toy. The nick in his ear is a nice touch as well, he is a rat after all. Even though the paint looks like Master Sifu I quite like the look of his head. If it were just brown like the original toy, it would be far too many similar colours. One thing that is odd/lazy though is this; his chest/neck hair is black, and brown, yet the hair on his legs has been left grey. Ok, I get that you have to actually look up his robe to see the hair, but still.
Interestingly, the robe is a whole piece that fits over the chest. You can see evidence of this if you look around his underarms. Where the body is grey.
And so there we have it. Master Splinter. Sadly you can’t really do all that much with him and annoyingly he has a tenuous grip on his staff, pretty much taking him out of the action play options completely. But he does hang around behind your Turtles quite nicely. Sure he isn’t the most awesome toy in the world, but I am glad I got him and I think my Ninja Turtles collection would feel a little unfinished without him.
That about finishes my 2012 turtle coverage for now. I bought these guys all at the same time and only just knocked off the last one now. I passed on April as I don’t like her chipmunk cheeks and can see that she has no knees. It will be Shredder disappointment all over again. Until a good Fishface, a big chunky Kraang or Casey Jones rock up, I think I am fairly well done. In fact I will probably pass on everything until I see an improvement in articulation in all characters. That has been the biggest disappointment for me on the line.
The Turtles are fantastic. Sadly everything else just makes it to the ‘OK’ level. As a result, Splinter, despite being needed for my Turtle family is on the “only just OK” basket.
i don't like the colors much
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