by Chris Troy
Happy October everyone! As the fall approaches, I’m excited for one of the best months of the year. Football is back, baseball games actually matter (when not rained out), Octoberfest and its various spellings are going on, and we’re 14 days away from New York Comic Con/ Anime Festival. With online badges beginning to sell out, it’s a wise decision to swing by Forbidden Planet to pick up passes to the biggest and bestest comic/pop-culture convention on the East Coast! And since it’s rare that anyone discusses the well-run but way-smaller Anime Festival section of the convention, today’s article will focus on FPNYC’s import section in its honor!
Shall we start off looking at some new anime influenced statues based on western properties? Obviously yes, because the photos of the new releases are already attached to the article, and you really have no say in the matter. While I await the new Marvel releases, 2 new DC Ami-Cons statues have hit the shelves; another Wonder Woman statue, based on the JMS/Phil Hester run of the series, and Raven of Teen Titans fame for the first time! Raven is super Gothed-out, judging from the size of those boots with their many buckles. I can’t say I’m a fan of either of them, because there’s already been a ton of Wonder Woman anime statues and I was never crazy about Raven to be honest. But what’s this? A new Kotobukiya Bishoujo statue? Based on…. GHOSTBUSTERS?! Yup! Say hello to Lucy folks! Why I haven’t cared about Ghostbusters in forever and think the torn uniform is a little fan service-y, this is a beautiful statue, armed with the trademark Proton Pack, Ecto Goggles and ghost trap. And for what we’re charging for it, it’s a great pick up if you’re a fan of Ghostbusters or the Bishoujo line.
Moving on to something a little more manly, we have 2 new releases from the Metal Gears Solid series from Square Enix’s Play Arts Kai line. The 4th wave of this series contains the Battle Dress version of Naked Snake, as well as long time alley Kazuhira Miller, the man who would go on to train Naked’s son Solid Snake. Yeah, I know, they do sound like porn star names. Anyhow, both figures continue the proud tradition of being much better than any Metal Gear figure released before them, as they are incredibly well sculpted, super articulated and come with a decent amount of accessories and variant hands. You definitely get you $60 worth with this figures. And if you think these are rad, wait a few months, when the first pair of offerings from the PS1 Metal Gear game drop, featuring Solid Snake and Grey Fox/Ninja, which is pretty much the best thing ever.
Finally we wrap this round-up with a look at what is probably the definitive line of Evangelion figures. At least from the 2nd movie. The Revoltech Yamaguchi Eva 00 Prototype is amazing, especially for a figure that retails for under $50. A HUGE, HUGE improvement over the original Eva 00 figure that was released in the series early days. This time around you get a far better sculpt, a ton of variant limbs, stands & accessories, a part of an enemy Angel to fight and a nuke. Pretty much the whole shebang. Again, if you’re an Neon Genesis Evangelion fan, you NEED to own this figure, despite it probably being the 10000th version of it you buy.
