Welcome to mid July 2021. Things are finally starting to improve around here with regards to COVID restrictions, and after a few weeks on hiatus, I'm finally back at this blog, having recovered from my camera shutter literally falling apart on me. Of course, these two weeks is when a bunch of stuff decides to finally show up.
One of these items is the recently released Snail Shell BEE-03W: Wasp Girl, the next figure in their release schedule, As you can see, they seem to have dropped all reference to GN Project, and managed to get back on track with their numbering, though it's weird how she's BEE-03W and not WASP-03W. They also apparently gave her an actual name, Bun Chan.
Ugh... too much to deal with on a Saturday morning. Lets move on to the contents.
So, Bun Chan here has a higher MSRP than Wolf Girl, understandable given she's a more complex release. Like Wolf Girl, the parts come packed in a colourful art box and come in three trays. General content wise, we have the following:
- 1 X Main Figure
- 3 X Total Faces (Battle Mode, Happy, Eyes Closed)
- 1 X Spear
- 2 X Antenna
- 4 X Wings
- 1 X Stinger
- 6 X Posing/Weapon Gripping Hands
- 3 X Energy Shield Effects
- 1 X Base with compartments for loose parts (along with arms for holding figure and effects)
In addition, there was an black envelope within that contained this piece of Bun Chan art work. Now, my memory isn't the greatest when it comes to this stuff, but I THINK this was a first edition preorder bonus. Maybe even an Amiami bonus, which if you notice from the back of box picture, is specifically mentioned there.
Naturally, Bun Chan is a character that is based on the appearance of a Wasp, as opposed to a Wolf like, well.. Wolf Girl. More importantly, you'll notice that they didn't go for the killer cyborg look this time around, but rather went more for your typical anime insect/human hybrid. This allows for a less bulky figure, but there's no longer any die cast on the body, with the only significant metal being the shaft of the spear.
The colour scheme is very much like the Yellowjacket character from Ant Man, predominately yellow and grey/black, and the design resembles a Wasp more than, well, Wasp does... or at least the MCU version, though to be fair both version do have lovely wings with a distinct texture on them. Bun Chan goes a step further with insect inspired feet, antenna, and an actual stinger.
Like with Figma and most other lines, this figure is a pimped out version of the basic body. There's use of soft rubber parts, such as the two fabric pieces on her biceps and the antenna, Also, it took me a while to decipher the "sandwich material" which I realized meant this:
Her thighs are a neat visual, featuring for lack of better terms, a thigh with fishnet stocks pattern on it, surrounded by a clear plastic shell. The aesthetic effect is quite nice and gives Bun Chan a very distinct look. However, this does eliminate thigh rotation as an articulation point, and nothing was done to the actual hip joint to compensate for this.
So it appears that with the third release, I can safely say that going forward Snail Shell has moved to using the faceplates with the rotatable eyeballs, which are manipulated with a piece of small plastic (or screwdriver) featuring a "plus" sign. In the case of Bun Chan, only two of the three faces feature eyes, and as you can imagine the ability to manipulate eye direction helps immensely to create a more natural looking pose.
Or in my case, more twisted looking.
From an articulation perspective, Bun Chan features 99% of what Wolf Girl does, with the exception of the thigh. So "toes", ankle swivel/rotation, double jointed knees, hips, waist, mid torso, standard shoulders (featuring a cavity in the torso for some butterfly joint type movement), bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, wrist, and double ended ball joint for the head to allow for greater movement. There's also articulation for the wings and stinger.
All-in-all, you should be able to get Bun Chan into a decent number of action poses, as you not only have good number of joints, but also, the range of motion afforded by each point of articulation is pretty good
Paint App wise, generally very crisp and clean, though for the record much of the heavy lifting is done by the actual use of different colours of plastic. Paint apps are generally yellow, gold, and whatever the hair colour is. No overspray was observed, and there were no rough textures or any other signs of a weaker than average paint job. Decals for the eye were well made and applied, with no bubbles or missing colour.
With regards to Build Quality, everything was pretty much what I expected, which is good as my Wolf Girl had a really loose right knee joint. All the joints hold tight, parts fit together as expected. and nothing falls apart if you breathe on it too hard. The solid quality of the various components observed on both version of Wolf Girl is present here as well, so there aren't any distracting artifacts from the manufacturing process that will interfere with your adulation of this figure.
You have to give Snail Shell credit - their second character is without a doubt visually different from their first one, and incorporates a few new things as opposed to simply remoulding existing accessories. This stark difference between them might help to attract collectors who may not be into the "babe in bikini" look so they too can appreciate the solid action figure body tech that is behind this line, as well as the generally good production values of the factory itself. My favor is slightly edged towards Bun Chan, as the reduction of bulk and relative ease of posing the spear (as compared to Wolf Girl's claws) means getting her to look cool for a picture is just that much simpler. That and humanoid bugs are always cool.
It'll be interesting to see what Snail Shell comes up with next, but whatever it is, I'm pretty sure that visually, it will be stunning.
For Full Gallery, please visit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22877494@N02/albums/72157719556135821
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