Home News
Reviews The List
NYTS Links
Dictionary Gallery
Unlike LAST year, I'm getting this done NOW. Ha. So what were the stand-outs for 2001? Let it roll, fan-boys/girls.
Best Toy of 2001. Tie; Samurai Spawn-Samurai Wars, Li Mu-Bai with Bamboo Tree Stand-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This was a hard one. Both figures are amazing, as you can see from their grades. However, each also had their liiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle faults. Samurai Spawn had NO accessories, Li Mu-Bai's arms had rather 'eh' articulation in certain spots. So what do we do; honor them BOTH. The pros far out-weigh the cons on both pieces; both show-case AMAZING detail in their sculpts, and over-all have enough other goodies to make these pieces not only great to display, but fun to just mess with. Hey, let's be honest here, you've been waiting for a long time to recreate all those cool fight-scenes from 'Crouching Tiger.' So there.
DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bizarre Move by a Toy Company; Webdiver, Takara. Ok, let me see... Car Robots is going NUTS in Japan, you have collectors over there and here going APE over the new toys, that are VERY well done. People state-side and probably in Japan just begging for another series of these awesome toys that harken back to those wonderful years of transformable vehicles. And at the Tokyo toy show... you announce... WEBDIVER??!??!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!! Oh, the humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At Last! The Toy they FINALLY got Around to Making; Samurai Wars. Ok, ok, so the figures aren't perfect, LOTS of issues with articulation... oh, cut the corporate-speak, sometimes the articulation sucked. Just the same, take the ornate armor of the samurai era with the warped imagination of Todd Toys, stir in some demons and the Spawn mythology... oh yeah, babe. No, not PERFECT, but pretty dang good.
And chilling quietly in the back... The Toy Line that isn't over the top, but still VERY cool; DC Direct. No, you don't have a bagillion accessories for each figure. No, you don't have the mega-detailed sculpting. What you DO have are figures that are well done, with good articulation over-all, based on a number of characters no big manufacturer would touch ('Sandman' by Hasbro? Yeah, right.) and at a reasonable price.
Licking Our Chops. The Line We're Waiting For. He-Man. I'm about to get in trouble for saying this... but... well, I NEVER GOT HE-MAN FIGURES. Yes, yes, I watched the cartoon, but I could NEVER get into the figures. They were too much like 'G.I. Joes' on steroids. Ok, fine, so these new figures could STILL be on steroids, but the new detailed sculpting and pseudo-realism (ok, ok, it's a talking cat, but at least it's looks like a CAT, not some messed-up refugee from a Warner Bros. cartoon.) give the new line a LOT of life and potential.