I walked into FiveBelow last week and was overjoyed to find this small articulated Foofa figure. Believe it or not, I've wanted to add this character to my collection for almost two decades, but was unable to find a toy that wasn't plush or a simple PVC figurine. I love flower-themed characters, weird preschool properties, and I was obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba! in my early thirties. If you're unaware, this show was bizarrely cool. It was created by musicians... specifically alt rock indy/punk band members who wanted a better show for their kids. Kidrobot designed the character models and awesome bands regularly appeared doing original kid's songs in their unique styles. The characters even went to Coachella 15 years ago when it was still cool. My favorite band appearances/songs were The Faint, The Killers, and The Shins (Youtube them!). The show was just fun. Foofa is the token girl of the five main characters. She is a pink "flower bubble" and I always loved her design. Let's check her out below!
UNITING ALL WOMEN OF PLASTIC
Showing posts with label Jazwares. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jazwares. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Five Nights at Freddy's - TOY CHICA!
It surprises me that the first Five Nights at Freddy's game was released just eleven years ago. I feel like I've been seeing these character designs and toys for decades. And the genre of innocent-turned-twisted jumpscare games that were seemingly influenced by this franchise is overwhelming. In the beginning, I wasn't a huge fan of that bulky character designs. I was frankly shocked to learn that Chica was female. It wasn't until much later that the female FNAF characters actually looked female. This is one of those tricky scenarios where I try to not limit my appreciation of the female form to only svelte hourglass proportions. But when you have anthropomorphic animatronic characters with bulky genderless bodies and faces (or even decidedly male bodies and faces) the decision to finally include some stereotypical feminine traits is very appreciated. This figure is little odd since essentially naked except for a bib and underwear, but I thought she looked pretty fun. Let's check out Toy Chica below!
Monday, October 28, 2024
Royale High - DARK FAIRY!
When I find myself shopping for toys, I enjoy perusing all the aisles. I like to get a sense of what the market trends in pop culture are and I like to keep my eyes open for unique new product lines. This was how the Royale High line caught my eye a few months ago. I'm always intrigued when dolls are completely sculpted with no soft goods. But these went further by combining several popular genres. I see elements of Roblox with the geometric cylindrical heads (they are actually a Roblox spinoff), Bratz with the heavy makeup, minimal noses, and sultry expressions, and Polly Pocket with the swappable outfits and hair. I always knew I would have to buy one eventually, and that time came when I saw this vampy, spidery, Dark Fairy character in Walmart last week. I discovered that Royale High is an online roleplaying game on the Roblox platform featuring a variety of princesses in a High School setting. I personally love how wicked and dark many of the characters look. Let's check out Dark Fairy below!
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Halo - LINDA-058!
I'm finally playing catch-up and posting my backlog of Jazwares Halo figures (this is the last one). I first learned of Linda-058 when she got a figure in the first wave of the Mattel Halo line in 2016. My initial reaction wasn't a great one. I thought her helmet with the side-scopes and weird goggle-type apparatus looked goofy - like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. But I've grown to really appreciate her since. The copper visor and brown armor is now a really appealing color combination to me, and the name Linda always has a certain interesting duality. I was the kid who was buds with my gradeschool lunch ladies (Nancy and Linda). But in my college years I was in the punk scene and the song Linda Linda by The Blue Hearts was a favorite. Plus I'm currently obsessed with the teen girl punk group The Linda Lindas (currently touring with Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins). So "Linda" used to be an old lady name to me, but now it's kind of kickass. And Linda-058 benefits from that street cred. Let's check her out below!
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Halo - ALICE-130!
One of the reasons I avoided collecting toys from Halo for so long was because of characters like Alice-130. I love when there is a female character who exhibits masculine traits, or at least doesn't exaggerate their feminine qualities just for the sake of gender contrast. (Zarya from Overwatch was one of my favorite toys from 2019 and is a great example of 'female masculinity' in toys (to quote Halberstam)). But on the flip side, when someone has to tell you a character is female, and you still aren't really sure, the appeal for me gets lost. Most early Halo females had this effect on me. They mostly looked indistinguishable from the males, and Alice-130 always stood out because she had a clearly gendered name, but seemingly male armor mimicking male musculature. Embarrassingly, it took a bright pink Spartan to inspire my first purchase (the exact type of exaggerated femininity I claim to dislike). But she was the gateway Halo for me and now I'm hooked, even with Alice-130. Let's check her out!
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Halo - COMMANDER AGRYNA!
I don't know what it is about Halo that keeps drawing me in. I normally avoid video game properties, especially over-masculine militant games. But I think the fact that there are actually so many female characters thriving in this chaotic and unforgiving environment highlights the feminine/masculine contrast and makes them all the more appealing. Plus there is the toyetic quality when assembling all the small variations of armor that scratches some OCD collector's itch I've always had. Despite knowing next to nothing about the Halo property, collecting these toys gives me a similar joy to Power Rangers or team building in Marvel Legends. This figure of Commander Agryna is especially appealing to me because she is so new. She first appeared in late 2021 in Halo Infinite: Season One, and therefore has never been merchandized before. She also has unique colored armor (with a cool bumblebee insignia on her chest) and she is the first black female in any of the toylines (that I'm aware of). Let's check her out below!
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Dino Ranch - MIN & CLOVER!
When I was a kid I had a true obsession with dinosaurs. I know this is a very common theme for children in modern times. But when I was young it made me a weirdo. Don't get me wrong, there were still dinosaur books and toys catered to me, but they were a very small fraction of what we see today. And everything I did see back then was factual and scientific. There weren't any fun fantastical properties until a little later with the introduction of Dino-Riders and Dinosaucers, so I just had to create my own fictional worlds with my museum-quality replica toys. When these preschool toys for the Disney+ animated series Dino Ranch started showing up early last year (initially only in CVS of all places), I was really intrigued by the property. They were quite literally a cartoony version of a concept my young brain had invented decades earlier. I wanted dinosaur pets and dinosaur steeds more than anything else in the world. I still haven't seen the show, but the nostalgic pull of these toys was impossible to resist.
Monday, March 13, 2023
Halo - KELLY-087!
Kelly-087 was one of the first female Halo characters I was ever made aware of. I had seen imagery of Cortana and I had seen some Spartan toys in stereotypically feminine colors. But Kelly-087 was the first female character with a real name and backstory. Back then, she always wore darker gray armor and really blended in with the grimy aesthetic of Halo. But at some point her armor changed to this brighter white look. White armor seems pretty illogical in a battleground scenario, but I love the simplicity of her design and how she stands out from the other Spartans (and the others on my toy shelf specifically). Plus the chromed helmet was a nice surprise that really pops (even the graphic on the packaging looks like simple metallic paint). Granted, that improvement make the previous KAT-B20 and Spartan Palmer look a little lackluster (literally). But an interesting tradeoff is that she doesn't included the unhelmeted head that previous figures always had, but I don't mind. Let's check out Kelly-087 below!
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Halo 12" - KELLY-087!
I find the Jazwares Halo line oddly exciting. I say "oddly" because I've never played the games or read any of the comics. In fact, until the recent show on Paramount Plus, I had no reference other than the toys. And the toys are very unlike the rest of my collection; they are militaristic characters with (nearly) genderless armor and not many distinguishing details. These figures look very out of place next to the spandex-clad heroes that populate my toy room, but I'm still obsessed with them. In fact, I got distracted in the middle of typing this to obsessively Google to see if there are any upcoming waves to get a excited about. FYI, there's an Alice-130 in Wave 7 of the 6" Halo line, but unfortunately no news on a Wave 5 in the 12" line. But the last three waves just showed up in stores with zero advance knowledge, so I'm always keeping my eyes peeled. Ross, Five Below, and Go Calendars were surprise first locations of the previous waves, so they could show up anywhere. Let's check out Kelly-087 below!
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Fortnite - SKULL SQUAD!
As long as I can remember I've had an obsession with skeletons. My favorite special effects movie growing up was Jason and the Argonauts. My favorite arcade game was Golden Axe. My favorite toy was the Pocket Power Glow Bones. I loved the skeleton costumes in Karate Kid. And in high school my big comic obsession was Andi Watson's Skeleton Key. All feature skeletons heavily. And on an amusing note, I never recognized this pattern until a few years ago when someone pointed out how many skeletons I have in my house (year round). Fortnite has always had a good track record with skeleton-themed characters. From the very beginning, Skull Ranger was a major player. And thankfully all the other characters are slowly getting skeleton repaints. This Skull Squad 4-Pack is my favorite multipack so far. The uniform deco is super appealing to me and make another great addition to my Halloween series. Let's check out Skull Squad Leader and Bone Ravage below!
Monday, October 24, 2022
Percy Jackson - MEDUSA!
The Percy Jackson films were a hard pill to swallow. My coworker was a big fan of the books and insisted I give them a shot. I listened to the first 3 or 4 on audiobook before I heard the news that it would be hitting the big screen. I was genuinely excited for what I assumed would be the next Harry Potter. I was even already a fan of Logan Lerman from his role in Jack and Bobby (a highly underrated show IMO). But I sat there in the theatre baffled by the interpretation I was seeing. Everything was just off. And cheesy. I can't pinpoint any one thing that was wrong, but my disappointment was palpable. I disconnected from the franchise and never even acknowledged the toys until I stumbled across Medusa this Summer. I was impressed at the quality of her sculpt and I always love a gorgon. She doesn't look much like Uma Thurman, but I always have low likeness expectations at this scale. Looking forward to the new show in 2023 and hopefully some new toys. Let's check out Medusa below!
Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Halo 12" - SPARTAN PALMER!
A couple weeks after I made the surprise discovery of Wave 02 of Jazwares 12" Halo line, I was in a Ross store (seeing if I could spot those Marvel Legends vintage figures everyone seemed to be finding) when I stumbled across Wave 03 featuring Commander Sarah Palmer. Again, this assortment was completely unknown to me. It's great timing too because I just started watching the Halo series on Paramount and I'm obsessed. They took what I thought was a confusing overly-militaristic action genre and made it mysterious, insightful, and intriguing. The gender dynamic is amazing, too. I don't know the actors names, but there are at least five female characters I am in love with. And that's not even including the two female Spartans I've noticed so far. I'm excited to follow this season each week, and it's renewed my interest in the toys I already own. My Halo purchases have always been based solely on aesthetics, but now I have an awesome narrative to back it up. Let's check out Spartan Palmer below!
Monday, April 11, 2022
Halo 12" - SPARTAN VALE!
I randomly walked into a FiveBelow on a snowy day last month and was elated to discover this 12" Spartan Vale figure. My first thought was that this was my long sought-after 2017 Mattel Vale that took me three years to track down (and begging some favors from international friends). But, no, this was a brand new Jazwares version that had gone completely under my radar. In my local Walmarts and Targets, Series 01 was still warming the shelves and despite my obsessive perusal of toy news sites, I had no idea there would be a Series 02. The interesting thing is that about four weeks after my discovery, this wave started hitting Walmarts full force in my area. But nothing beats walking into an unassuming store and finding a toy you love, but didn't know existed. That is a rare gift in this hobby. These 12" toys are a ton of fun. And surprisingly the smaller companies like Spin Master and Jazwares produce much better ones than the big guys like Hasbro. Let's check out Spartan Vale below!
Monday, January 24, 2022
A Trio of ROBLOX LADIES!
Whenever a toy line really establishes itself in the toy aisles, I know I'll eventually have to make a purchase to see what all the fuss is about. I have been noticing Roblox figures from Jazwares in stores for quite a few years now, and I honestly was never super tempted. They were blocky and simple with odd facial expressions. But on the plus side, the themes always seemed fun. I swear every time I glanced at the displays I would see a different mermaid character. I managed to avoid any purchases (not counting their non-blocky Imagination Collection) until a fateful day back in October when I saw three characters lined up: a mermaid, a centaur, and a spider sorceress. The assortment just made me happy and I finally brought a few of these figures home. Plus I was excited to add the first female centaur and first mermaid of color to my collection. And after playing with these figures and swapping parts, I get the appeal. I'm open to buying more if they call to me. Let's check out these Roblox ladies below!
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
Fortnite - LYNX!
2021 was a very slow year for me as far as Fortnite toys purchases went. Previous years had a steady flow of 3.75 Fortnite ladies, but this Lynx figure is only the second I am reviewing (after Jules last January) in the whole year. Granted I bought a few more in multipacks that I haven't photographed yet, but even so it was a significant slowdown. But for the last figure purchase in a slow year, this Lynx is one of my favorites of the whole line. I typically fawn over the quirky onesie/plushie-type characters like Prickly Patroller or Cuddle Team Leader, but this lynx looks like a sinister futuristic Catwoman and I'm obsessed. I had been seeing this character design in print ads and random game images for a while, so I was excited to see her included in the line. And I was especially happy to see a version of her with some really colorful details added to her limbs. Her standard design appears to be solid black, and there is already a 6" version in that deco, so I'm glad this one is unique. Let's check out Lynx below!
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Roblox - NAILAH THE FORTUNE TELLER!
Yet another thrilling figure from the Roblox Imagination Collection. I love how diverse and fun this line is. In less that two years we've seen female figures representing a wide variety of genres like fantasy, anime, sci-fi, mythology, steampunk, and even modern street clothes. This Nailah figure is like a fantasy or fairytale representation of Middle-Eastern or Indian aesthetics. She's a bit Arabian Nights, and a bit fantasy mysticism. I think she's fantastic and she reminds me of the main character from Night's Dominion, a Ted Naifeh comic from the past five years that I loved (the similarity in their names and character design makes me think it might actually be a nod to the comic). Naileh also marks the first woman of color in the line, but not the last (Stellar the Solar Scientist is noted as 'coming soon'). Every figure in the Roblox Imagination Collection so far thrills me. The designs look great and the production schedule is aggressive. I can't wait to see what's next. Let's check out Naileh below!
Saturday, December 18, 2021
Roblox - SEA SERPENT!
Nothing sparks my collecting curiosity more than a character with unworldly-colored skin. Red or Green or (especially) Blue complexions just thrill me. Although I mostly collect toys related to comics and animation, my personal aesthetics lean toward fantasy. Specifically creature fantasy with humanoid characters exhibiting animalistic traits. And for some reason blue skin has always been associated with aquatic people. When I first saw images of this Sea Serpent figure from the Roblox Imagination Collection line a few months ago I was ecstatic. This line has been the source of a lot of unexpected joy for me. Even though I'm unfamiliar with Roblox in general, Jazwares has produced a ton of attention-grabbing female figures. It has already surpassed the Fortnite line as far as diversity and imagination (IMO). And every time I buy a new figure, I unfold the paper insert to see news of even more figures on the horizon. It's a never-ending cycle and I'm here for it. Let's check out Sea Serpent below!
Monday, October 18, 2021
Halo - SPARTAN PALMER!
When the Jazwares Toys Halo KAT-B320 came out this time last year, I only bought her out of boredom and one too many fruitless toy hunts. Despite never having played a Halo game in my life, nor even watched someone else at the controls, I had somehow managed to a collect a decent amount of Halo toys across numerous companies and scales. And there was just something about that Kat figure that seemed the least impressive of them all. But I still got her. Partially to compare the scales and quality and partially to support smaller companies like Jazwares who often get overshadowed. But then a few weeks ago I was at Target and spotted this Spartan Sarah Palmer (which I didn't even know was in the pipeline). Right away I felt this figure was a major improvement over Kat. The face detailing alone was a thousand times better that the near featureless first attempts. I have high hopes now for who else we will see in the line. Let's check out Spartan Sarah Palmer in detail below!
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Fortnite - BLAZE!
One thing that is really impressing me about Fortnite toys are the inventive color palettes of the figures. It's seems like a silly detail to be obsessed with, but I love outlandish costume designs and I definitely notice when something is breaking new territory. Back in November, I was waxing on about how Singularity's turquoise, dark teal, and maroon blew my mind. And now this Blaze figure mixing bronze, lavender, and yellow. It looks so good, and I'm mostly impressed because I would never have come up with that combination on my own. Kudos to the Fortnite designers. I'm always excited to see what they'll do next. Blaze seems to be a fire-wielding character (who unfortunately comes with a boring gun instead of a flame accessory). She also comes with the giant 17" light-up Choppa Helicopter. I personally never buy toy vehicles unless I have to. In fact, they are usually a major deterrent for me, so that should tell you how impressed I was with Blaze. Let's check her out below!
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
Roblox - LUNA GALACTIC POPSTAR!
When I see this new Roblox Imagination collection figure of Luna the Galactic Popstar, I can't help but think how much she reminds me of Tallstar from She-Ra. The bright colors, pink hair, and gold stars are a visual connection I just can't unsee. The Imagination Collection from Roblox and Jazwares is a series of characters that I presume are designs by fans/players of the game. It's my understanding that the Roblox game features a massive library of elements (bodies, hairstyles, clothes, etc) that let you create your own characters. This toys series seem to feature some of these creations (the cardback says Luna was designed by bunpunk). Seeing the crazy variety of characters in this collection lately makes me think I should start playing this game. Who knows, maybe I'll be awesome and they'll immortalize my work in plastic. In the meantime I will keep my eyes and ears open for news of upcoming figures (they tend to pop up out of the blue with no advance notice). Let's check out Luna below!
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