Category: Toys

LEGO R2-D2

I recently bought and assembled this guy:

It’s a brand new model of R2-D2. Here’s what was inside the box:

About 1000 pieces and some stickers. A quick build therefore, and a less expensive one (even at $99). He went together easily and his main body is about as big as a rockmelon:

Construction is somewhat repetitive, but utilizes clever techniques to (mostly) hide the studs. He’s very solid too.

He has a few display modes once completed. Here he is with all his contraptions in use:

And here he is with his third leg, which is probably how I’ll display him:

I like this kit! At about 29 cm it’s not too big so it can be displayed even on a shelf, and considering the size it’s both poseable and a good likeness of everyone favourite droid.

LEGO has done two other versions over the years (excluding a terrible technic one 25 years ago), but they’re both more expensive and much bigger. Here they are:

The ultimate one on the right certainly looks great, but it’s also twice the size of the little guy I built so displaying it would be a problem which is why I never bought it.

I’m glad they made this new one. He’s cute 🙂

Five Droids

Just because I sold hundreds of Star Wars figures last year doesn’t mean I stopped buying them, but these days all I’ll pick up is a droid. And thankfully they almost never release any! Here’s five I’ve bought since the great sell-off about a year ago.

This first one was an R2-D2 released back in 2000 in packaging reminiscent of the original figures from the 1970s. I was in the tail end of my collecting days then and didn’t buy it, but recently picked up the above copy for a low price on Amazon and was amazed when it arrived in near mint condition after 23+ years!

I won’t discuss the history of the character since you all know who he is, but here’s a fun R2 fact: he’s appeared on four postage stamps!

This R4-G9 was amongst the very first Revenge Of The Sith figures released and by then (2006) I’d by and large stopped buying any figures. I recently picked the above copy up (also on Amazon) and she’s unusual enough I’m surprised I never bought her back then. Perhaps I simply never saw her?

As for the character, despite appearing with Obi-Wan her role in the film was so brief you probably forgot about her moments later. And if you hadn’t yet picked up on it, yes R4-G9 is a lady droid. Couldn’t you tell from the pink tint to her dome? 😉

I only purchased this Power Droid because it’s so ugly and weird, and I find the existence of a carded figure amusing. Another Amazon purchase, this one came in mint condition sealed in a custom shipping box and cost me considerably less than various online sites say it is ‘worth’.

This droid – long nicknamed Gonk’ – dates all the way back to the original Star Wars. They have made many appearances in Star Wars movies and shows, such as in Rogue One as shown above. Gonks are just generators on legs with rudimentary intelligence, but endearing because of how ugly they are!

I’m not a big fan of the current ‘Retro’ line of figures that are sculpted to resemble the original 1970s lines. That said I love how tiny this Chopper figure is and didn’t hesitate buying him. I’ve got a thing for little droids in tiny bubbles!

Chopper (his ‘real’ name is C1-10P) is from Rebels and last year made his live action appearance in the Ahsoka series. He’s a bit of a rogue, and famously uses a garbled dialect that is almost legible. There’s a recent non-retro figure of him as well, which I’m sure I’ll get one day.

R4-D5 was in the original Star Wars, and famously if it wasn’t for his ‘bad motivator’ then Luke may have never adopted R2 and C-3PO. Decades ago I had the original R5-D4 figure, and recently I picked up the newly released version above as well.

R5-D4 was recently in the third season of Mandalorian, which was a mystery since it raised the question of where he had been for so long? The short version is that his encounter with R2 in the belly of a sandcrawler years prior eventually led him to the Rebellion where he loyally served for years. Oh and that bad motivator? That was self-sabotage to make sure Luke took R2. Good old R5-D4: he’s always been the hero 🙂

Fulubukuro: Gacha Toys

As mentioned we bought three more Fukubukuro (lucky bags) yesterday. Here they are:

We just finished opening the smallest of the three, a ¥3000 (about $20) bag containing exclusively gacha toys. Every toy was still in the sealed capsule, and the bag was stuffed with them.

All told there were 37 items inside, most of which are shown abovez. Toys and badges from several popular series were included – One Piece, Tokyo Revengers, Chainsaw Man and Pokémon – as well as some weirder or harder-to-identify stuff. This is great value for ¥3000, and the quality was better than I expected.

Notable inclusions were a ‘premium gacha’ toy of a wasp (these cost ¥1000 in the machine) which when assembled is many times life-sized.

A 45 cm tall model kit of a power pole with no instructions. I wanted to assemble this but it’s very challenging and the QR code on the included sheet of paper only links to the official site.

And this portion of a model of a road overpass. Incredibly you need two other prizes to make the whole thing. Who in their right mind would keep buying prizes at a gacha in the hope of getting all the sets required to make this?!?

Ultimately very little is worth keeping, but I’d say this was a worthy Fukubukuro since it was bulging with stuff and fun to open. I’d give this one a thumbs up.