Mighty. Morphin. Power. Rangers.
The OG as introduced by Saban into the English speaking work, and international phenomenon, this adaptation of the Super Sentai Zyuranger became a household name back in 1993, and has been in the hearts of fans since. Me? Well, I enjoyed the show for what it is.. a fun way to kill half an hour, but as always, it was about the toys for me. In recent years, the MMPR franchise has been revisited, first with Bandai of America creating the Legacy product line and milking the MMPR brand, then with the 2017 motion picture that didn’t quite make the money Saban wanted it to (I have a theory about this and how it didn’t matter, but that’s for another discussion). The biggest news would be how Hasbro, now the holders of the Power Ranger toy license, would revisit MMPR and other past Power Rangers characters through something they called the Lightning Collection, a series of collectors grade figures. Personally, I was impartial to this – while others were excited to add these to their collection, I never really got into it when Bandai did it with their Legacy figures and as such, I wouldn’t really be pursuing these releases, with the exception of buying one or two to do a bit of comparison and contrast, as well as satisfy my own curiosity regarding a conspiracy theory.
In case it wasn’t obvious by now, I tend to buy female figures because not only do they generally look better, but it’s harder to hidd things on their comparatively smaller bodies. I bought exactly one figure from the Bandai Legacy line – Ninja Storm Blue (or in my case, Hurricane Blue) and while I never really reviewed it, it can summarize it as follows – it was alright. Nothing earth shattering, and definitely not worth the $25 CAD MSRP to me. Well, in Wave 2 of the Hasbro Lightning series, we see the release of the first female Ranger of the line, Kimberly Hart, the original Pink Ranger and Mistress of the Pterodactyl Zord. For the record, Kat was always my MMPR Pink of choice… I always found Kimberly kind of boring.
Finding her was a bit of a pain, though not as bad as others have had it.. definitely much easier than finding Springer, that’s for sure. Just a few phone calls and a 10 minute drive from home.
Normally I’d wait to open this up, as I have been stocking up on some other goodies lately, but questions needed answering dammit, so Kimberly here jumped the queue and was opened next.. about an hour after purchase, in fact. So, without further ado, here is my overview and thoughts on the Power Rangers Lightning Collection Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger.
Each Lightning figure comes with the figure itself, an unmorphed (helmetless) head sculpt, a combination of posing and weapon holding hands, the trademark weapons of the character, and some sort of energy effect. In the case of Kimberly, she comes with her bow and arrow, her Blade Blaster side arm, as well as an energy arrow. MSRP is about $20 USD, or roughly what a Marvel Legends figure costs in your area.
As the picture shows, Kimberly is roughly the same size as Captain Marvel who is my benchmark female Marvel Legends figure. These figures are of course a smidgen bigger than your typical female S.H. Figuarts figure (i.e. Black Widow), but smaller than the Bandai Legacy female body. While Kimberly isn’t as busty as the Blue Ranger, she’s certainly less NFL Quarterback in terms of build. Now we got that out of the way, let us focus the comparison on the two players that really matter – Kimberly, and Captain Marvel. Now, the cynic in me pretty much assumed that Hasbro wouldn’t reinvent the wheel when it didn’t have to, both for better and worse. After all, they developed a body for their Legends line, and it would make sense to reuse it for this line, considering that the price point is the same. So, was I right?
Let’s start things off with a discussion of aesthetics, articulation, and build quality. Now, no action figure, even the almighty Figuarts release, ever actually replicated the proportions of the suit actors perfectly, so it’s not a surprise that things haven’t changed here, though I’d like them to resemble human proportions a little better. For whatever reason, her chest area uses plastics that are harder than the rest of her body, and are a tint or two darker than the other pinks on her body. It doesn’t show up on my photos, which are powered by flash, but in the crappy room lights I have here, it’s clear as day. But in general, unless you’re blind, it’s pretty clear that this is the MMPR Pink Ranger.
I mentioned before that Kimberly has a different height and body shape than your standard Figuarts and Bandai Legacy body. Having said that, however, I think you should be able to see that Kimberly and Captain Marvel share the same general overall silhouette – in fact, if you look really close, you can see the retooling of common parts (upper arms and thighs, for example). I submit to you that the female Lightning body is at its core, an upcycled Legends body, which somehow manages to improve things, and make them worse at the same time. The Lightning female takes the Legends articulation (pivoting and rotating ankles, double jointed knees, thigh swivel, rotating hips, mid torso ball joint, rotating/pivoting shoulders, rotating/pivoting elbows, wrist rotate/pivot (depending on hand) and ball jointed head with a pivoting neck) and adds to it with boots that rotate and shoulders that allow for chest collapse, improving range of motion and posing options. The knee joints are new, most likely needing a redesign due to the the new lower foot/boot combo used. Design of the lower body basically prevents limits the motion of the lower legs to.. I’m going say about 110 degrees or so. No high kicking for this girl…
So, overall, I’ve talked about some nice improvements to the status quo – what am I babbling about with regards to better AND worse then?
Well, you see, this is why I looped in build quality into this first point of discussion. Now whatever material Captain Marvel is made of, it’s pretty durable and tough, being hard without being brittle. Kimberly, on the other hand, is predominately made up of what they make Transformers of these days, which feels to me like the plastics used in the 3D printing system. This material is softer than the stuff the good Captain is made from. Not an issue on its own, because if this were the end of the story the most I could talk about is how you can’t really get any good detailing in the plastics and that it feels like of rough.
You notice how Kimberly seems to be bow legged? Well, unlike the lovely DC Icons Wonder Woman I just looked at, THESE joints are made of that same soft plastic that basically was warped due to the restraints of the packaging. Not sure if this is a material issue, or perhaps they didn’t wait long enough for the plastic to settle, but the end result is Kimberly is destined to walk like a freakin’ cowboy for the rest of her days. Her elbows are made of the same soft plastic, but due to the way she was packaged I guess there was no warping.
Another gripe I have is that the ratcheting joints used for shoulders of the Legends figures remain, which normally isn’t a problem as you’re able to easily apply the necessary force to move it. Now, with her collapsing shoulders, the whole joint has a tendency to move, rather than just the part you want to rotate, making raising and lowering the arms a potential exercise in annoyance.
So there you go.. better.. AND worse.. all at the same time.
Paint apps are pretty standard affair for anything that Hasbro does on their own (Transformers are shared with Takara as a unified product, so there are higher standards there to be met), namely that paint isn’t applied on places that it isn’t deemed necessary, and the quality of the apps themselves range from alright to oversprayed with not the greatest masking work. The larger paint apps generally made it through in one piece, though clearly not so much the minute details. Sculpting detailing on the suit, helmet, and weapons are alright. Nothing overly bad about it, and generally the work is quite competent, and includes some more detailing on the helmet that I didn’t expect to see, as well as the gloves. I do enjoy the pink energy effect, though I’d enjoy it more if the figure could hold the bloody thing better. The bow fits alright and I’ll be honest, I didn’t bother with the Blade Blaster, but it seems to me the hand pictured holding the arrow is actually moulded to hold this weapon specifically.
We’re not QUITE done yet, as I’ve saved best for last. Let’s talk about that unhelmeted sculpt. It looks like the artist who made that Paul Rudd sculpt I can’t stand decided to give Kimberly Hart a try with equally disastrous results. I think they got the hairline right, and possibly her earrings. Other than that… YIKES. Definitely keeping the helmeted on this figure.
So in conclusion, my overall feeling is a resounding "meh". It’s pretty much what I expected, and not exactly the new standard to beat, but it is a step in the right direction. Knowing Hasbro, I don’t exactly see them making changes that I complained about here, so I really have no need to revisit this line, but perhaps there is hope that the Legends line can be provided with improvements seen here, most notable being the ability to collapse the shoulders towards the chest. But that’s me, and as admitted before, Domestic figures really aren’t my thing. For everyone else out there, you really need to be aware of the issues with the knee joints – it’s been almost 10 hours since I’ve opened mine and it’s not her legs have straightened out, and the legs can be bent so easily it’s not funny.
A decent looking figure with some good strengths balanced by some awful design choices.
Posted by Quantum Stalker on 2019-10-06 02:44:53
Tagged: , hasbro , lightning collection , mighty morphin power rangers , pink ranger , kimberly hart , zyuranger , super sentai , saban , bow , arrow , effect parts , unhelmeted sculpt , poor materials , qc issues , questionable design choices
