As Event Exclusives are a good opportunity to get horribly overpriced aftermarket figures for a level price, I took advantage of Android 16 being offerred and ordered one to go with my Cell Saga 17 and 18. It was also a good opportunity for me to revisit older figures, which I don't mind occasionally doing, so long as I'm not breaking the bank.
So, the figure sold for $65 USD and, other than being larger than normal, you're really not seeing much that would suggest such a price point. There's no second tray or anything not pictured - that's really all you're going to get, and I believe this was the exact same payload as the original figure released back in the day.
The only "hidden" feature is that the arms detach at the elbows for some Rocket Punch fun, as well as exposing the blasters needed for his Hell Flash attack.
Unlike many of the 1.0 line up, it seems that the Androids were spared the ugly filter. 17 and 18, aesthetically, still hold up to modern releases, as does Android 16. The original, however, had some really bad colour choices, so I'm glad that Tamashi Nations did a proper job this second time out, making the figure appear much closer to its anime counterpart.
Being not particularly expressive, it's no surprise to anyone that 16 doesn't exactly come with that many variations of facial expression. The shouting head isn't bad, though the star of the show would be the battle damaged head, complete with Terminator style mechanical details. I just wish there were more battle damaged parts to go with the figure, because by the time Android 16 showed this much damage, his body certainly wasn't as pristine.
Android 16 isn't winning any awards for articulation. Being big and bulky doesn't help, and neither does being built on an older platform, so no true Butterfly shoulders though ultimately it's still better than the modern Dragon Stars stuff. They did do a few things to help maximize the articulation, though you might also say it was out of necessity. The shoulder pauldrons are actually mounted on ball joints, attached to the back, so there's a bit of wiggle room there for posing options. The legs also pull down at the hip, which is traditionally done to maximize range of motion. In this case, without the pull down there would NO range of motion on the legs.
Paint Application wise, I think it's pretty much isolated to the hands, the insides of the forearms, the Hell Flash emitters, and the heads. It's all competent work, with good colour matching with the plastics on the body. Minor masking flaws can be observed on the hands, but ultimately nothing that would make me lose sleep. I'm just not entire certain why the Hell Flash emitters are beige. The sole Red Ribbon Army logo on the chest is also nice done and applied.
Build wise, the only real discussion point is that the forearms tend to fall off too easily. Other than that, there's not too many parts that CAN fail, and the joints/finishes are up to snuff.
I'm glad I got an Android 16. This really is a nice looking release of this figure, and despite the MSRP, it was still a better way to get one into my collection than the alternate route. Articulation is a bit limited but again it's an older figure. This figure really is about shelf presence, and it's too bad they didn't give him more parts to recreate more poses/battle damage like modern day figures tend feature.
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