by Taylor Smart
Greetings mini figure fanatics, I hope you are all well! This past week I have been settling in to my new home, which, of course, means that I have been checking my local stores toy selections. I am very excited to now have a Toys "R" Us within 15 minutes, and a preliminary visit points to it being well stocked. I also now have access to Target and Walgreens which I didn’t before.
On a trip to Walgreens (hoping to score an exclusive prototype Boba Fett on sale, no such luck) I found a couple of blind bags labeled Bungees (made by Jazwares). Looking at the packages I decided to give them a shot, the characters looked interesting and I was curious. After I opened them I was not disappointed, the figures are fun, bright and made of a soft rubber. They are marketed as a collectible game, but the game aspect for me is the least interesting part.
BUNGEES is online.
Packaged with each figure are a disc and a thick card. The disc is what is used for actual game play while I am unsure about the card, it does have point values on the back but the front has a little information about the character: name, crew, collector number, etc…If you are searching for these online look no further, the Starter + Deluxe Sets are available this month!
There are a total of 10 crews with 5 each divided between North and South crews. The North has: Ronin, Helios, Polaris, Volcanus, and Teguminis while the South has: Mercs, Gamma, Omega, Sigma, and Omicron. Each crew has a unique color palette to give them a more cohesive feel.
THE MEAT
On to the characters I got, I bought three blind bags and have two crews represented. I have Bevor and Lorica from the Teguminis crew and Hydra from the Omega crew.
First, the Teguminis have primary colors of blue, black, and green. Their crew description reads: “Tough as nails and heavy as lead, they are both mighty and resilient. They are known for crushing anything in their path.” Bevor and Lorica are both pretty cool, they both have blue faces, purple bodies and use green as an accent color. Lorica looks slightly aquatic, having what look like fins in place of arms, while Bevor definitely looks land based with spikes all over and thick arms. The paint application is nothing to write home about with multiple spots of overspray on both figures. The sculpts are fun and imaginative but don’t have much fine detail.
The Omega crew have primary colors of orange and a blue-ish violet color. The Omega crew has a bit more vague description, “More is known about the surface of the Moon than the cloud of mystery. Surrounding this Crew in secrecy.” Hydra is definitely the cutest figure of the three and also has the best paint apps. Other than a bit of underspray and a small smear on one eye the paint is pretty crisp. The eyes on the figure seem to be painted opposite of the picture on the character card, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but I like the eyes on the character card better.
THE POTATOES
As far as modification goes cleaning up the paint is about all I would want to do. Matching the colors could prove difficult though so be careful.
Each of these figures has a magnet in the base that allows it to stick to a disc for the game. The magnets open up different display options, you can put them on any magnetic surface, a few around my room are doorknobs, bed posts, outlets, lamps, and drawer handles. Throughout a house there are many possibilities but I think they would make very good fridge ornaments
THE DESSERT
Overall I like these figures, they somewhat remind me of smaller Skylanders with the collectability of Mutant Mania. The come packaged singly, both blind packed and not, and 4 packs with different accessories such as a battleground arena, and disk launcher.
Action Figure Insider recently got an exclusive reveal from Diamond Select Toys prior to Toy Fair, Spongebob Squarepants Minimates series 1.
I have little to no interest in these, I don’t particularly care for Spongebob but this does seem like a pretty big deal for DST, coupled with the recent release of TMNT Minimates through Nickelodeon it shows growth and I hope these will help lead to recognition for Minimates.
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