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Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Wake Up, Girls! - Seven Idols (2014)
Wake Up, Girls! is the film that introduces the seven-member idol group of the same name and marks the beginning of an anime series. This is a 50 minute film and pretty much tells an origin story of how the group got together. Green Leaves, a small local production company based in Sendai, is about to collapse and decides to go with the flow and create an idol group of their own, most of the film is spent scouting talent. These members come from a variety of backgrounds and most are everyday teenager girls. However, most of the film spends time on Shimada Mayu, a former lead of a popular idol group, and how the manager of Green leaves, Matsuda, tries to recruit her. The plot isn't boring per se but since the ending is predictable (obviously Matsuda succeeds in getting Mayu to join, otherwise the group cannot form) but it seems somewhat lacking. Most noteworthy is the absence of background music for a large portion of the film, which feels weird. The end result of when the idol group performs their debut concert is nice and worth the wait. Wake Up, Girls! - Seven Idols is average but hopefully will become better when it leads into the anime series.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Book Review: Our Mathematical Universe
Review: #719
Title: Our Mathematical Universe
Series: N/A
Author: Max Tegmark
Read Before: no
Comments: Our Mathematical Universe explores cosmology but also a lot of other things. The most prominent aspect you’d notice is that the book is written less like a textbook, and very much like a biography of the author, as he tells his stories of when he was doing his PHD and his roles as a professor, diving into research and conferences. That’s not to say he doesn’t offer any scientific theories. Indeed, he presents so much information, that probably most of it doesn’t make sense to the reader. The concepts the book presents are hard to grasp and towards the end, it goes into philosophical territory that becomes too deep and abstract. The personal touches of the author felt out of place, and his analogies and explanations don’t always click easily. While there were some interesting knowledge presented, there were equally more areas where it was boring.
Rating: 6/10
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Toy Review: Transformers Legends LG-55 Slugslinger
Review: #430
Name: Slugslinger
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Decepticon
Line: Legends
Year of Release: 2017
Size Class: Deluxe
Mold Status: heavy remold of Generations Titans Return Triggerhappy
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS:
As part of the Legends line (the Japanese equivalent of Generations Titans Return), Slugslinger comes in a box with a clear window.
The packaging is very nice and designed in such a way that it is easy enough to put the figure back into the box without destroying it.
The instructions booklet has a nice piece of artwork in the front.
Furthermore, there is a two-page comic.
HEADMASTER:
Slugslinger comes with a Headmaster (unnamed in this Japanese release). It's fairly well painted with gold shoulders, silver face and red visor.
Articulation is limited to balljointed shoulders and balljointed head.
JET MODE:
Slugslinger transforms into a dual-cockpit jet. The blue looks very nice in person, although the jet itself lacks proper landing gear.
The rear is formed by the folded up robot legs so is somewhat lacking, although the silver thrusters looks great.
Above is a comparison against Legends Brainstorm. Being a jet, Slugslinger feels sizable in hand.
Slugslinger is also a heavy remold of Triggerhappy (along with Misfire). In jet mode, only the rear is shared between the two characters.
For this release, instead of packaging in a Titans Return vehicle, TakaraTomy ended up giving us brand new Targetmaster molds, thus, Caliburst is included along with the Headmaster.
The Headmaster can sit in a space behind the two cockpits. Unfortunately, the cockpits themselves are too small for Headmasters or Titan Masters.
While Caliburst in gun mode can be pegged on the fuselage.
This is a fantastic, if a little bit unorthodox, jet.
CALIBURST:
Let's focus on Caliburst for now, the new Targetmaster in this set. He has silver forearms and shins.
The barrel sits on his back and is made from clear plastic, with bits of silver, which feels somewhat tacky and messy.
The head is well painted with a gold face and red visor.
Caliburst is fairly small, above is a comparison against RiD (2015) Legion Sideswipe, where you see that he is much smaller than your typical Legion classed figure.
Articulation is great except for one aspect, his hips. While he has a swivel neck, balljoined arms and knees, his hips are only on forward swivels and that limits the poses he can achieve without losing his balance.
Caliburst can also transform into gun mode to be held by Slugslinger.
TRANSFORMATION:
To transform Slugslinger into robot mode, is actually quite simple. He shares a very similar transformation scheme with Misfire in that you unfold the rear to form the legs, fold the wings up and pull the arms up and then peg the shoulders next to the torso. Flip the cockpit onto his back and peg in the head. You're done.
ROBOT MODE:
Slugslinger's robot mode is pretty good with plenty of sculpted details and enough painted highlights to make him visually appealing.
He carries a lot of kibble on his back being both cockpits and the wings which sit outside his thighs.
The headsculpt is great although there is a weird circular sculpting around his mouth.
Slugslinger is bulky although his legs are hollow when viewed from the back.
In robot mode, you can see that only the legs are shared between him and Triggerhappy, everything else is brand new.
Articulation is quite good, especially with the ankle tilts allowing him to balance in heaps of poses.
Sharing a color scheme with Caliburst also helps in making the pair feel like a proper team.
Slugslinger can hold Caliburst in gun mode in either hand and the size of the gun is just perfect (all too often, the weapon is usually too big for the figure to look natural).
The hip joints rely on friction to stay in place so there may be comes where it comes loose when moving his legs.
The wings don't get in the way either, which is something you wouldn't have expected at first glance.
A strong robot mode.
OVERALL:
Slugslinger is a great toy with two fantastic modes and an extra Targetmaster (granted, you're paying quite a bit for Caliburst). The transformation is solid and even if you have Triggerhappy, there are plenty of new things here that he doesn't feel like a typical lazy remold/repaint. Slugslinger, whether this Legends version, or the Titans Return version, is quite worthy of a purchase.
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For other Transformers reviews, have a look at this page.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Signs (2002)
Signs is a science fiction thriller in which a farmer finds a crop circle one morning. Suspiciously, the crop circles were showing up everywhere around the world. Surprisingly, the film goes down the route of actually stating that they were used as signs for the aliens, and what's more, we get a glimpse of the aliens. Unfortunately, Signs is mostly downhill because the pacing is extremely slow, filled with domestics events that doesn't add much to the overall mystery of the aliens' objectives. The main characters aren't too likeable and while a lot of effort has been made to flesh out their backstories, by the end of the film, you still feel like you don't know them very well. The finale felt like a cheap way to end the story of the alien invasion and there was no suspense at all during the climax despite the film's best efforts. Overall, Signs has a tense atmosphere in some places, but for most of the film, it is lacking too much meaningful events.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Book Review: The World God Only Knows Vol. 13
Review: #718
Title: The World God Only Knows Vol. 13
Series: The World God Only Knows - 13th volume
Author: Tamiki Wakaki
Read Before: no
Comments: This volume surprisingly moves forward the plot involving the search for the remaining goddesses a lot faster than before, making it a much better read, better pacing and more interesting in general. Kanon is near death and with a short time limit; Keima ends up creating an accelerated plan to find the rest of the goddesses in the hopes of their combined power being able to save Kanon. The result is an interesting scenario in which Keima instigates a massive event, in order to five-time the love interests. The difficulty comes into play where Keima has to build the relationship again, or at least reactivate them, with each girl via encounters on the same day, and there are really only so many hours to the day, which makes for a tough schedule and a hectic frantic rush. The search doesn’t end with the volume which hooks the reader into wanting the next volume. The humor holds up, particularly with Keima’s comments on describing the situation using gaming allusions. It really feels now that we have a clear objective to go towards, instead of just having another girl of the week for Keima to capture the lost soul of, and it’s very clear from this volume that it benefits.
Rating: 6.5/10
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono Spin-off Purupurun Sharumu to Asobou (2015)
Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono Spin-off Purupurun Sharumu to Asobou is the third season, or spin-off, to Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono, depending on how you see it. This time, the cast is partnered with the manga Minarai Megami: Puru Purun Charm. In addition to the four main characters from Tesagure, being Yua Suzuki, Hina Satou, Aoi Takahashi and Koharu Tanaka, they are joined by five characters from Puru Purun. Unfortunately with this spin-off, it doesn't actually do much different and definitely does not breathe anything new to the tried and true formula. The theme of sitting around a table discussing about random topics is still the main vent, thus there does not seem to be much point in meshing the two worlds together because they are largely played separately. Having a crossover when you don't have some sort of common drawcard/objective is boring and this is what Spin-off ends up being.
The episodes are somewhat structured that the first short section would have all the characters discussing how the episodes are going, then the first main half would have the Puru Purun characters discussing (later episodes would have a few Tesagure characters join in), before the final half having the Tesagure characters doing what they normally do in their discussions (with select Puru Purun characters joining in). The two sets of characters feel too discrete in what they are doing for the anime to feel coherent. Character traits and personalities are exaggerated but they don't develop. Nevertheless, Aoi is still as funny as ever, and Yua is still dirtier than you'd expect, while Koharu remains with her fixation on hot guys.
All the discussions boils down to is that it constantly reminds the viewer that there is definitely not enough plot to keep the 24 min length of each episode (up from the short 11 mins episodes of the previous two seasons). It becomes a slog when there is no objective that the plot is aiming towards and the jokes are not that funny, often feeling bland. Spin-off breaks the fourth wall immediately and waves through the setup with the bare minimum of rationalization. The fact that the characters are in a dream crops up again, and thus they can collaborate with the Puru Purun characters into an anime. Characters will also refer to their voice actors and how they are friends, to the point where they even "record on location" and you can hear background noise as they go through a theme park.
It tries a few other things including reusing existing animation and dialogue in a whole episode because "the voice actors couldn't make it to the same session". However, the dialogue spoken, while the same, is subject to random restrictions (e.g. talk like an old lady, talk with mouths open, crying), unfortunately, as interesting as it sounds, it doesn't work and feels lazy. There were a few surprising references to other anime and games (including Danganronpa!), which is amusing if you were aware of the works it is referencing.
The anime tries to crossover the series more when a two-episode arc was played as a murder mystery, where the characters have to find the two "yuri wolves", discussing amongst themselves before voting out the suspect. Like everything else, it fails to capture your attention as once again, there is not enough content, and in this case, it lacks cleverness and suspense to keep it engaging. At least the topics have a wider scope, they are not limited to club activities, while still seeming somewhat random, covers table tennis, musicals, creating a school song and putting in joke lyrics, Ferris wheels and dentists.
The animation style is different but keeps similar aesthetics, so characters look familiar. Overall, Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono Spin-off Purupurun Sharumu to Asobou is one season too much. The collaboration with characters from another manga is not used to its full potential and just feels tacked on and pointless. There is not enough content, and the jokes fall flat, such that it cannot fill a 12 episode season of 24 mins each.
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Monday, January 22, 2018
Book Review: The 65-Storey Treehouse
Review: #717
Title: The 65-Storey Treehouse
Series: Treehouse - 6th book
Author: Andy Griffiths
Read Before: no
Comments: The 65-Storey Treehouse has the most coherent story out of the series thus far, and has a time travel element. It still retains the wacky and stupidness theme so your enjoyment depends whether you can prefer this style or not. Nevertheless, Andy and Terry now travels through time, from way back to when life first started to all the way into the future. The events are hit and miss though, and most of them doesn’t make sense and defies common sense. It’s also more violent although it tones it down by brushing it off, although when you have people cut in half and death traps, it makes you wonder whether it is actually appropriate at all. The beginning and ending stays similar with the premise of the deadline of a book coming up and then the pair using the events they just experienced as the plot itself, so it’s getting really old now.
Rating: 6/10
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES (PS2)
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES is an updated rerelease of the original Persona 3, exclusive to the PlayStation 2. Not only does FES added to the original's story with more story events, now known as The Journey, it presents an epilogue to the game's ending, called The Answer.
The Journey
Unlike previous entries in the Persona series, Persona 3 FES made a pretty significant revamp to the game. While still set in high school, it incorporated sim elements into the gameplay. The mostly silent protagonist, whom you can name, attends high school. The game takes place over the course of a year, where you will be studying and taking exams, creating friendships and of course, fighting to save the world. You play through each day and you will have free time on most of the days. This is where you complete what the game calls "Social Links". Social Links are where you create bonds with NPCs and learn their backstories, getting to know them better and trust them. Their stories are actually quite interesting and are one of the highlights of the game. By the end of it, you truly do feel that you have created a close bond and their circumstances will genuinely sadden or hearten you. It gets to the point where you feel guilty that you brush them off after they asked you if you wanted to spend time with them, in order to focus on other Social Links... Social Links can be levelled up which ties into the Persona system as it gives them extra experience.
As Social Links take time, and you have limited time in the game, if you wish to max out all Social Links, you will definitely require a walkthrough or thorough planning through multiple playthroughs. The other portion is of course the dungeon crawling. The main dungeon is called Tartarus, where every floor is randomly generated every time you enter it. It can be boring since it all looks the same. Even though there are different "blocks" where the theme is different, the layout is too generic which gets boring fairly quickly. There are 264 floors to conquer and since it generates a different layout each time, you can't even map out each floor for future reference. The enemies, called Shadows, roam the battlefield but will chase you if you get within their field of vision. Striking from behind gives you the advantage of having one turn first, while them striking you first has the opposite effect. If you are at a significantly high level than them, they will ran away which is great if you just wanted to grab some treasures.
Persona 3 FES utilizes a turn-based battle system but has a few annoying "features". You can only control the main character and AI will control the other three. This means that there will often be times where they spam HP or SP intensive attacks on weak enemies or using an item when you would rather them cast a spell. You have little influence via setting Tactics which boils down to either dedicating them to healing/support only, specifying one target or not do anything at all. Furthermore, if the main character dies, it is game over which is frustrating when you're grinding for levels and you lose hours of progress (since you cannot save unless you return to the first floor, but you can only go back to specific floors and then have to climb up again). It is worse when you encounter enemies that spam instant death attacks, it feels cheap if your character just got hit with one that connected and you see the game over screen.
If you attack an enemy (or are attacked) by something that they're weak against, you gain one extra turn and they are knocked over. If you knock all enemies over you can initiate an All Out Attack which has all the characters rushing in to attack at once, and quite cool to watch. There is a "rush" option where it sets all characters to automatically use their normal attack. Fairly useless in most situations since even during grinding, you would want to pay attention to health and spells. Characters and enemies can miss with their attacks, and you WILL miss often. This has a chance of causing them to fall over, losing a turn, too bad it mainly happens to your characters and not the enemy. While characters can attack with their weapons, they utilize a power called a Persona. These are summoned beings who can attack using special moves and spells. The protagonist is unique in that he can use any Persona and you gain Personas randomly during battles or more reliably, fusing two or more together. You can buy back any Persona you used in fusion which is helpful.
Unfortunately, there is a fatigue system where characters will get Tired after fighting a certain number of battles. When a character is Tired (or heaven forbid, "Sick"), they become weaker and more susceptible to status effects and attacks. Characters who get these statuses will automatically become unplayable for the rest of that session when you return to the first floor of Tartarus (to save, for example). This limits exploration and is easily one of the more annoying aspects of the game early on. Thankfully, it becomes a no-issue when everyone is levelled up, as the higher the level a character is, the more battles they're able to participate before getting Tired. Plus, when you get the full roster of playable characters, you can swap them at will and continue on your quest to reach the top of Tartarus easily. The difficulty, even on Normal, if you are not expecting it, can be punishing and tough. You cannot change the difficulty after you have selected it at the beginning of the game. Experience points are capped so the game kind of forces you to be at a preferred level it thinks that is appropriate to challenge the boss.
Bosses get progressively harder. Buffs and debuffs become a lot more important than most JRPGs. Bosses will spam instant death attacks, high level multi-target magic, high resistances and immunities. It requires high amount of preparation and a few bosses definitely feels cheap. The camera can only be rotated in certain environments and dungeons, and is fixed for a lot of the time. The game is generally really addictive with its mix of high school simulation events and dungeon crawling. Once you're around 5 hours in, and can form a full part of four, that's where the fun starts. In terms of the main plot, it is on the darker and more serious side. It uses anime cutscenes and text dialogue using character portraits for its storytelling. The unnamed protagonist is transferred to a new school and discovers that he has the power to summon Personas, in order to fight Shadows. Shadows appear in the hidden 25th hour after midnight, called the Dark Hour. The protagonist will join forces with other high school students who are also Persona users to destroy Shadows and explore Tartarus, which seems to be the source of the Shadows. Of course, their aim is to eventuallyd destroy all Shadows, find the secret of Tartarus and remove the Dark Hours, thereby saving the world. This is because people can get killed or become brain-dead during Dark Hour.
There is an interesting twist two-thirds into the game. However, there are plenty of moments where characters become annoying and unlikeable. The story ends up feeling underdeveloped though. The social links portion was meaty but the main plot involving Tartarus, Personas, Shadows and the villains didn't really meaningfully move forward too much. However, the relationships between the team members are great and there are some emotional scenes towards the end of the game, perfectly accompanied by the evolving soundtrack. If you're following a walkthrough, The Journey takes around 50 hours to finish depending on how much you grind and the difficulty you are playing on. Playing it blind and on Hard will definitely cause you to take much longer, upwards to more like 80 hours. Overall, The Journey is fun and merges two distinct elements into one coherent package that hasn't been seen before in a JRPG. While the story is solid, reflecting back on it, it doesn't cover that many events. The dungeon crawling aspect is hit and miss since the repetitive layouts of the dungeon is disappointing, while the combat system can be frustrating due to the AI deciding to do stupid things. It's still a fantastic game though and a lot of fun.
The Answer
The Answer is a new addition in FES and is an epilogue to the main game. It takes place one month after the ending, starting off with a surprising revelation (which kind of ruined the ending, feeling contrived). The team is in the dorms planning to move out when they end up encountering a time loop. Metis appears and they discover the Abyss of Time, a dungeon similar to Tartarus which has appeared beneath the dorm. Metis is an anti-Shadow weapon, similar to Aigis, and she is a new playable character. The team must fight through the Abyss of Time in order to break the time loop and in the process, learn the truth about Nyx and the fight against the protagonist such that they can put it all behind them and move forward. You get to learn in more detail the characters' pasts which is probably the best part about this new addition (along with the fairly epic ending). The Answer removes all the social interaction of the main game and instead is basically just dungeon crawling and combat. There's no more attending school, no more Social Links and no more events to increase your character's charm etc. This isn't inherently bad but considering you have just spent 50-80 hours on the game, doing another 30 hours of just solid grinding can be too much.
The general flow of the game is that you push through the dungeon, fight the boss, have a short story event and then rinse and repeat. It is mind-numbingly boring, especially since the plot isn't that engaging in the first place. You control Aigis as the main character this time around since the plot centres around her. The combat system remains the same as the main game, with AI controlling the other three party members. The Abyss of Time is just another word for Tartarus since it features the same randomly generated dungeons, the same drab backgrounds and boring layouts, and the same Shadows as enemies who are either reskinned or recolours of existing enemies. Upon starting The Answer, you're treated with the message that is harder than the main game and to please enjoy the difficulty. Basically, this means that you cannot pick the difficulty and is forced to play on "Expert". Have fun being forced to grind in order to level up to summon the appropriate Personas to face the bosses.
The other thing is that there is only a save point before bosses. If you want to go fuse some more Personas or change your team members, you have to trek through all the previous floors again to get to that point, wasting heaps of time. Bosses are cheap, doubly so now that a lot of them have skills to dodge their own weaknesses. There's nothing more annoying than an even higher chance of characters' attacks missing. Fusing Personas is really important but what is annoying here is that you don't get access to the Compendium anymore. Once you fuse a Persona, the two that you used disappear and the only way to get them back is randomly by winning battles. Impressive though is that all the new scenes are voiced, with some new character models and portraits. Overall, due to the repetitive gameplay with no other events to break things up like the main game, and a story that doesn't provide that many answers, The Answer could have easily been compressed into a 5-10 hour epilogue. If you were a fan of the story, and a fan of the dungeon crawling aspect, then The Answer is worthwhile, otherwise, you might be better off just watching the cutscenes on YouTube.
Overall
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES is no doubt the complete package for Persona 3 and is the definitive version of the game (barring the improvements to the mechanics and the female perspective from Persona 3 Portable). It presents huge value since playing through both The Journey and The Answer will give you 80 to 100+ hours of content (although a lot of that is repetitive combat). Persona 3 FES is recommended for any JRPG fan.
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Friday, January 19, 2018
Ella Enchanted (2004)
Ella Enchanted plays on the cliches of fairy tales. Itself a fairy tale, but it makes fun of itself. There's a narrator, a charming prince, an evil stepmum, an evil king and the charming heroine. Ella had a "gift" bestowed upon her on birth, and that she would be obedient. This kind of backfires since in actuality, this meant that she had to do what everyone says she should, without a say in anything. When she grows up, she sets out on a journey to find the fairy that gave her this gift to ask them to remove it. Of course, as a fairy tale, she will meet various characters along her journey and fall in love with the prince. Unfortunately, Ella Enchanted falls a bit flat in the plot because it is bland. You don't care much for the characters, and as hard as the film tries to make fun, the humor isn't great. Everything feels like it has been done before and this makes it stale.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Book Review: Clash of the Worlds
Review: #716
Title: Clash of the Worlds
Series: House of Secrets - 3rd and final book
Author: Chris Columbus; Ned Vizzini; Chris Rylander
Read Before: no
Comments: The final novel in the House of Secrets series where the siblings Cordelia, Brendan and Eleanor return to the book world created by Kristoff and save the world once again. The thing that is most surprising, and evident, is that the writing, pacing and content is much better than the previous two novels. It’s exciting and interesting almost immediately. While the plot itself isn’t too original, and the antagonists return in the form of the Wind Witch and the Storm King, it feels like a classic adventure, travelling through the different book worlds in search for three powerful artifacts. It’s an improvement also in that the new characters that the siblings meet are likable and doesn’t feel like the authors are trying too hard to make them relevant or cool. While the plot stumbles during the climax as it is not as intricate as they had teased, and the ending was too mellow, Clash of the Worlds is an engaging and worthwhile read.
Rating: 7/10
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Toy Review: Transformers The Last Knight Sideswipe (Tiny Turbo Changer)
Review: #429
Name: Sideswipe
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: The Last Knight
Year of Release: 2017
Size Class: Tiny Turbo Changer (Wave 1)
Mold Status: new
VEHICLE MODE:
As part of the Tiny Turbo Changer line, Sideswipe comes in a blind bag, but you can tell from printed letters on the packaging who is in what. Sideswipe is the one with the letter "K".
Based upon his ROTF form, Sideswipe transforms into a grey sports car. Quite deformed and various things changed that it only slightly resembles the Corvette Stingray vehicle.
The back is broken up since that's where the robot head lies. All the paint in this mode was used for the wheels.
Above is a comparison against RiD (2015) Twinferno. Sideswipe is significantly smaller than a Legion figure.
It is an okay vehicle mode. The wheels do not roll since it uses the minimum number of separate plastic parts as it can.
TRANSFORMATION:
While simple, the transformation is surprising in how it works. You flip the hood back as a backpack, and this is where it surprises you since the figure uses the actual front vehicle wheels as the robot feet, it's not fake kibble. Otherwise, you then pull the arms out from the sides of the car and you're done.
ROBOT MODE:
For its size and simplistic transformation, Sideswipe's robot mode is pretty good. As mentioned, his wheels are the actual vehicle front wheels which is impressive.
He has the front of the vehicle on his back, somewhat emulating the kibble wings of the character model. Despite this huge piece of kibble, he stands very securely thanks to the molding of his feet, he doesn't keel over backwards easily.
The headsculpt is a bit deformed. He has blue eyes, the only other piece of paint apart from the wheels on his feet.
It's much more evident in robot mode at how small he is.
Articulation is limited to only swinging his shoulders. The sculpting is intricate, there's a lot packed in here.
A surprisingly good robot mode, with the sculpting having the doors extending beyond his hands to mimic his swords.
OVERALL:
Like the other Tiny Turbo Changers, Sideswipe is surprisingly well designed for his size and price point. Being cast from soft rubbery plastic, he feels weird in hand but is otherwise a strong little figure.
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