TMNT 2012 Shredder

You Know I am a bit disappointed in myself, for these Ninja Turtles figures I have been unable to come up with a witty/stupid (it’s all a matter of perspective) title pun. Nonetheless, I have here the mighty leader of the Foot Clan, Shredder.

 

Is he as funky and well done as the Turtles?  Or is he a bit of a wet fish like Kraang?

 

 

Sadly he is a bit lacking.  While the sculpt is adequate, he is missing a lot of articulation, which really lets him down quite a lot considering how he is the leader of a clan of ninja and should be nice and agile.

 

Usual nice TMNT packaging.    Shredder CG on the back of the box highlights the slight lack of detail on the toy although the scar on his face might have been a late addition to the cartoon that they didn’t know about in time for the figure.  Sadly he doesn’t have the weapons rack of that the turtles come with,  I think he really needs some.

 

 

His helmet is suitably pointy and overall the details aren’t bad.  He has a nice addition of some thigh covers sculpted on the side and a bit of scale mail over his chest.  Colours are pretty simple.

 

His legs are smooth and look nice with their lines and design.  His feet are very large and chunky, with one foot relegated to a slight action pose which has the toes being the most stable part of the foot.  As a result he doesn’t have any ankles.  The shin guards are huge too and like his wrist and shoulder guards don’t come off.  He also doesn’t have any knees.  How can a ninja not have any knees? 

 

The hips are on two hinge joints, forwards and backwards and in and out is possible,  but then you have to contend with the immobility of the feet.  Much like Kraang he is almost stuck to his one pose.

 

On the plus side, his arms are pretty well articulated with good shoulder movement, elbows and wrists.  The spiky shoulder guards are on hinges which allow you to move them up so they don’t hinder the shoulders.

 

 

He also has a waist swivel too.  So the torso is is pretty good, but the legs are really bad.  His neck is a swivel as well.  That bodes well for handling weapons and looking like a kick arse dude right?

 

Well, almost. Let’s have a look at his weapons.

 

 

He comes with two shuriken and a sword.  One sword.  The same sword that comes with the Foot soldier.  I don’t know about you, but I’d have thought the LEADER of the Foot Clan would have his OWN INDIVIDUAL weapon.  Sure it’s a katana, fair enough, but it is scaled to the size of the Foot Soldier, meaning it is a bit too small for Shredder to use.

 

Worst of all, the sword handle is too small for his hand so it never really sits in a convincingly held way.  It just flops around and looks, well, crap.  The ninja stars aren’t so bad, but this is SHREDDER.  We want him to have something menacing as his weapon, not some left over piece from the Foot Soldier…

Limp wristed sword holding…

 

He can actually hold the shuriken quite well.  But then you can’t quite move his legs into a good pose for throwing ninja stars.

 

As a result of these flaws in design, this action figure is somewhat hindered.  Which is a real shame.  As I was playing with him, I busted out Leonardo and Shattered Glass Soundwave to see if it would inspire him into something a bit more dynamic.

 

 

That’s about all that really came out.  Despite the fairly good balance and articulation in the torso, the stiff legs pretty much make it all fairly redundant.  He can’t hold the sword with two hands as his arms won’t reach across his chest, and even then the sword is far too small.

 

If you get him, I would suggest that you just arm him with his spikey bits.  Then just leave him standing behind a large group of Foot soldiers commanding THEM to attack the Turtles, because the Shredder here can’t do much at all.