Middle of December already, and my vacation has gone as well as you'd expect - it's non existent. Too much other basic adulting activites needed, which means I'm mainly trading off one set of duties for another. But, it has given me more time to at least work on some other stuff uninterrupted, including further unbox.
During my recent trip to NYC, I discovered, to my amusement, that Tamashii Nations had opened up shop in Times Square. I have no idea how long it was there, having been my first trip to NYC since my first child was born, but it was a welcome sight. In addition to the typical current Bandai releases, the store carried store exclusives that appear to be recoloured/updated popular figures. Now, seeing that I was lacking a Kid Goku, I figured for $36 USD, I might as well and say I actually bought something from the store. Even got a neat 15th Anniversary keychain.
So Tamashii Nations has been giving figures monikors for quite a while now, and this is the Innocent Challenger version of Kid Goku. Same kid who called Bulma's ass flabby and checked Chi Chi's gender in the most direct way possible. Yeah.. no. Innocent this kid is not. But anyway, pretty simple box - stylish, but simple, and technically less expensive than other normal boxes as there's no window, which makes sense as NONE of these exclusive figures are supposed to be premium items.
Your aftermarket store, on ther other hand, is not likely to agree with that.
Not sure what the original figure came with, but for the asking price the package is pretty good. The only thing that would top this is if it came with the Flying Nimbus:
1 x Main Figure
4 x Face Plates (Neutral, Eyes Right, Gritted Teeth Eyes Left, Shouting)
8 x Posing/Gripping Hands
1 x Tail
1 x Dynamic Hair
1x Power Pole/Sheath
1x Power Pole Extended
The actual body used was duplicated for use with Kid Krillin, which I've had for several months now. The Gi has been darkened in colour, but both being Roshi students wear his emblem on it. An extra hole on the back of the waist section is for insertation of the tail and, spoiler alert, this piece just does not like to stay in, and is possibly the most finnicky tail on any of the Saiyan figures I've played with.
I've read the face plates were improved over the original toy. Haven't seen them before, but I can say these new ones feature the additional panel lining that made the Super Hero line and everything released since that point pop. The actual sculpt itself is pretty good, though proportionally neither Goku nor Krillin capture their true SD kid look.
Articulation wise, due to the generally good Tamashii Nations designs and the fact this figure is better balanced due to its short stature, the freestanding posing options for Kid Goku are pretty good. The tail can be further used to prop up the body, though as mentioned it likes to fall out of its socket on a regular basis. Once you get the head right, finding a pose that the figure can stand in is pretty easy, especially when compared to its taller counterparts. Dynamic hair adds even more positing options, along with the fully extended Power Pole.
Elbows and knees are single jointed, but the way the limbs are cut gie you a pretty good range of motion. All other facets of the body are pretty much taken from whats available at the larger bodies, just like the child Gohan bodies.
Paint Application are, as always, minimalistic, letting the base plastic colours do most of the heavy lifiting. Uniform is darker orange, isn't as bright anime as its counterparts, but combined with some good top coat does give it a more luxruious feel. All the other colours appear to be what they were originally. Work on the faces is sharp, as mentioned before. The entire package just looks incredibly sharp.
Finally, Build Quality wise, again, pretty solid. The QC is a touch off with the hair and face plates - not that they won't fit together but you need to press a bit harder to make sure everything meshes perfectly together. That includes when you swap out the different hair styles. The tail, as mentioned, doesn't like to stay attached to the body. So little hiccups here and there, but ultimately the set can and will hold up to repeated changes of parts and posing. No rough finishes could be observed on the figure.
This figure is a good example of how even at the entry level price point for a line, you can still get some pretty good product out of it. All it takes is some good planning and a strong frame work on which to build. The Kid Goku specific parts make this an outtanding set, and really hide what it really is, which is the a common body but with different window dressing.
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