You probably noticed I buy a lot o random stuff, because like food I like to experiment with new things and see what makes them tick. Sometimes things don't work out as it's ultimately just not my cup of tea.
Then there are those times where it's such a damn dumpster fire that you can't believe your eyes.
So, please keep in mind what I'm about to show you is an official figure.
Presenting shudders the Flash Point 1/12 Ling Li Kenai.
Back... oh I dunno.. one and a half years ago or so, two companies solicited hybrid Seamless Silicone/Jointed bodied figures. I've always maintained that the smart thing for figure manufacturers that actually want to grow their business to do was to offer up bodies where seamless or silicone made sense. I mean, this is clearly not something Hasbro or McFarlane would do, because at their price points it would probably be the worst quality bodies the world has ever seen.
Two such offerings were made available at that time. One was the Animester Whisky Sour that, except for a few loose joints, was pretty good for a first outing. The other one was this, a lower priced entry from Flash Point. I mean, it featured fewer seamless parts so you knew they were trying to keep pricing under control, and I could respect that.
So, by late 2023, Animester had already released TWO figures under the Thunderbolt Squad line up, slightly flawed but beautifully made, whereas this Flash Point figure was delayed by almost a year at this point. Then, all of a sudden they were released and shipped. I have to say that I felt the disrespect for my money the moment I opened the shipping box because as you can see, not only is the box full of shit art, but you can immediately notice that the figure inside the box has a completely different hair colour than the drawing, which in it itself was different from the prototype.
This is gonna be short and messy, folks.
As you read this, please keep in mind that this is an $80 USD figure.
Upon opening the box, things only got worse. The trays were of an OK quality, but what really got me were the following. First off, the stand actually had you installing your own screws, but unlike the ones for Play Arts, the packaging for the various parts was definitely done on the cheap. Not a great sign, but one I'd note and not lose sleep over as I generally don't use stands.
Another sure sign of quality is when your clamshell is held together with A FREAKING STAPLE.
The bigger crime is the hands. No that isn't bad lighting or overexposure or whatever. The hands are so bad that they look like they're from a bootleg figure. The hands are terribly sculpted, the materials is translucent almost, and they can't even keep the hands the same colour.
Of course, the real treat is when you finally open the packaging. You can immediately note the mismatched flesh tones on her legs, chest, and hands. No, those are not gloves, they're meant to be flesh coloured. I mean, I can kind of understand it as matching flesh tone paint and Silicone can be tricky, but the hands?
Complete trash.
But of course things only get worse from here.
These faceplates are all absolutely terrible. I enjoy the occasional terrible face, but that's usually if the rest of them are OK but there's one particular face that was cursed. These, however, are all irredeemable and look like something out of a really bad 90s CGI show. To add further insult to injury, these guys even cheaped out on the hair. It's sculpted pretty bad, but I'm talking about how instead of having your typical tongue and groove system, they secured the two halves together with a slot and tab system utilizing the most brittle plastic known to man and some of the shoddiest QC ever.
So naturally, I broke the thing.
Further evidence of trying to save a buck are the eyes. It seems to me that like Snail Shell's original offerings, there was a system to swap out the eyes so you can get different angles. This was subsequently replaced with the moving eyeball system. These guys, on the other hand, just glued a set of eyes in place because the swapping feature was probably eliminated. Not that I cared at this point because I'd already committed to just getting the photo session done.
The rest of the Production Values are terrible. So reverse order, the Build Quality is atrocious. The tolerances are so bad, the right lower leg kept falling out of its socket. Same goes with the hands. The right hip on the figure was loose, and overall joints are crap so this figure is a completely floppy mess. Tolerances were so bad I didn't even bother trying to get her backpack and weapons into any photos. You can also see some very significant finishing issues on her chest, which look like she had the worst plastic surgeon in the world.
Paint Applications are.. well just look at the photos. We have paint mismatches and general poor painting technique. If you look at the arms, you'll see that it's very robotic, and my guess is either they stole these arms from some other figure, or that at one point in time there were plans to make it more robotic like Whisky Sour and had the tooling already done, but started running into budget issues early and so just went with flesh tone.
Articulation is also completely underwhelming. Presuming you can get the figure stay in place, the elbows are won't got past 90 degrees. Now I realize they are single elbows, but again, keep in mind this is an $80 USD figure and at this price point I have yet to see any figure do only 90 degrees I think Captain Marvel in her restrictive Hot Toys suit can do more than 90 degrees. Single jointed knees aren't great, but it's at a level where it's terrible. Rest of the joints are pretty standard, or at least they would be if the quality was any better.
About the only redeeming value of this figure is it's ass. Literally, the ass.
As mentioned, the abdomen and hips/thighs are a Seamless Silicone body - crap quality, but it is as such. The dust is my fault, but what you can see is that not only is the articulation as expected, but it actually looks pretty good flexed.
So yeah, in case it wasn't obvious. AVOID. THIS. FIGURE.
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