DSC_9511
Daniel Koper was kind enough to gift me this figure, so I put it at the head of the line with regards to "things that I need to look at". It was a generous gift from a very generous guy, so thanks again - I hope that once this COVID stuff is out of the way I'll find my way out to your neck of the woods again.
So here we go - Lightning Collection MMPR Yellow.
I occasionally dabble into Hasbro non-Transformer action figures, typically when it's a new line and I'm curious. It's a good thing that I'm not a hardcore collector because 2020 has been a piss poor year in the GTA for this sort of thing. That's another reason why I appreciate this gift - if I was looking for one, I'd probably be crawling on the ceiling by on with annoyance.
While there have been two characters to don the MMPR Yellow suit (or at least I think it's just two), this figure is for none other than the OG herself, Trini Kwan, who also was the first female to take over a male Sentai character role.
As this is a Hasbro product, I again take a deep breath when looking at it, and try not to be overly critical. They serve a different purpose than what I'm used to, they're definitely more mass marketed than my usual stuff, and for what it's worth, I can see why people like them.
My only other Lightning is female (surprise) and is none other than Kimberly, the MMPR Pink Ranger.
The Lightning female body (I'm going to guess that they're all the same, seeing how Hasbro usually works) is a definite improvement over the Legends one. Though not quite as sturdy as the GI Joe body (a material choice thing), it is more robust in that there are butterfly joints, allowing for lateral arm movement such that the arms can actually come together and spread out further, something very helpful if you're trying to get your Rangers to pull off ALL their gang signs.
The MMPR Yellow Ranger comes with the figure, an unhelmeted head, Blade Blaster, Power Daggers, energy effects for said daggers, and two martial arts posing hands.
Articulation is the same as Kim, having ankles, double jointed knees, thigh rotation, hips, mid torso ball joint, shoulders with lateral movement, single jointed elbow, wrists, and head. It'll get the general job done, just don't expect any nuanced posing.
Paint is minimal and mainly consist of the diamonds on the outfit, non yellow parts of the helmet, the Morpher, the Trini sculpt, and of course, the paint on the weapons. Paint work isn't going to win any awards, but for most part the larger details are not bad. It's just that the amount of paint itself is on the low side.
Build quality, well those annoyingly weak joints are back. I guess if you're a hardcore collector of this line you're probably used to this by now, but for me I have to be particularly gentle, though credit is given to the fact the knee wasn't warped out the gate. Otherwise, if you follow the usual "give the figure a hot water bath prior to playing" guidelines, it should. QC isn't bad, and is about what I expect from this line.
Of course, when it comes to these figures, the real difference between them is the unhelmeted head. If you don't remember, Kim was a disaster. The general shape wasn't bad, but the paint work on the head made her look like some sort of drug addled gremlin.
Trini is somewhat of a particularly sensitive sculpt. For those not in the know, the actress who played her died a after she left the show. So, she's not exactly around to critique her head. Also, kudos to Hasbro for going through the necessary hoops to get this one done. I mean, they could have stuck with Aisha and fans probably would have grudgingly accepted it.
Anyway back to the point - Hasbro didn't screw it up. The head isn't exactly photo accurate, but it's not bad and is a complete 180 from the Kim disaster. At the very least, the face is cleanly painted with a neutral expression - hair is decently detailed as well.
I can only imagine the hate mail Hasbro would be getting if they made a bad Trini head.
So that was a quick look at the Lightning MMPR Yellow figure. It serves it's purpose of filling out the Lightning ranks, mercifully having an unhelmeted sculpt that I'd actually consider displaying once in a while.
Is this it for me and Lightning? Well.. no. There's a few more female Rangers I'm eager to add to the collection, namely Kat (MMPR Pink 2.0) and Jenn (Time Force Pink) but those are quite a ways away, especially in this COVID reality of ours.
Thanks for reading!
DSC_9511
Daniel Koper was kind enough to gift me this figure, so I put it at the head of the line with regards to "things that I need to look at". It was a generous gift from a very generous guy, so thanks again - I hope that once this COVID stuff is out of the way I'll find my way out to your neck of the woods again.
So here we go - Lightning Collection MMPR Yellow.
I occasionally dabble into Hasbro non-Transformer action figures, typically when it's a new line and I'm curious. It's a good thing that I'm not a hardcore collector because 2020 has been a piss poor year in the GTA for this sort of thing. That's another reason why I appreciate this gift - if I was looking for one, I'd probably be crawling on the ceiling by on with annoyance.
While there have been two characters to don the MMPR Yellow suit (or at least I think it's just two), this figure is for none other than the OG herself, Trini Kwan, who also was the first female to take over a male Sentai character role.
As this is a Hasbro product, I again take a deep breath when looking at it, and try not to be overly critical. They serve a different purpose than what I'm used to, they're definitely more mass marketed than my usual stuff, and for what it's worth, I can see why people like them.
My only other Lightning is female (surprise) and is none other than Kimberly, the MMPR Pink Ranger.
The Lightning female body (I'm going to guess that they're all the same, seeing how Hasbro usually works) is a definite improvement over the Legends one. Though not quite as sturdy as the GI Joe body (a material choice thing), it is more robust in that there are butterfly joints, allowing for lateral arm movement such that the arms can actually come together and spread out further, something very helpful if you're trying to get your Rangers to pull off ALL their gang signs.
The MMPR Yellow Ranger comes with the figure, an unhelmeted head, Blade Blaster, Power Daggers, energy effects for said daggers, and two martial arts posing hands.
Articulation is the same as Kim, having ankles, double jointed knees, thigh rotation, hips, mid torso ball joint, shoulders with lateral movement, single jointed elbow, wrists, and head. It'll get the general job done, just don't expect any nuanced posing.
Paint is minimal and mainly consist of the diamonds on the outfit, non yellow parts of the helmet, the Morpher, the Trini sculpt, and of course, the paint on the weapons. Paint work isn't going to win any awards, but for most part the larger details are not bad. It's just that the amount of paint itself is on the low side.
Build quality, well those annoyingly weak joints are back. I guess if you're a hardcore collector of this line you're probably used to this by now, but for me I have to be particularly gentle, though credit is given to the fact the knee wasn't warped out the gate. Otherwise, if you follow the usual "give the figure a hot water bath prior to playing" guidelines, it should. QC isn't bad, and is about what I expect from this line.
Of course, when it comes to these figures, the real difference between them is the unhelmeted head. If you don't remember, Kim was a disaster. The general shape wasn't bad, but the paint work on the head made her look like some sort of drug addled gremlin.
Trini is somewhat of a particularly sensitive sculpt. For those not in the know, the actress who played her died a after she left the show. So, she's not exactly around to critique her head. Also, kudos to Hasbro for going through the necessary hoops to get this one done. I mean, they could have stuck with Aisha and fans probably would have grudgingly accepted it.
Anyway back to the point - Hasbro didn't screw it up. The head isn't exactly photo accurate, but it's not bad and is a complete 180 from the Kim disaster. At the very least, the face is cleanly painted with a neutral expression - hair is decently detailed as well.
I can only imagine the hate mail Hasbro would be getting if they made a bad Trini head.
So that was a quick look at the Lightning MMPR Yellow figure. It serves it's purpose of filling out the Lightning ranks, mercifully having an unhelmeted sculpt that I'd actually consider displaying once in a while.
Is this it for me and Lightning? Well.. no. There's a few more female Rangers I'm eager to add to the collection, namely Kat (MMPR Pink 2.0) and Jenn (Time Force Pink) but those are quite a ways away, especially in this COVID reality of ours.
Thanks for reading!