Well, if I'm going to be spending the entire month talking mostly about knockoff Pokémon sets, I guess I should start with an example of an OFFICIAL set for comparison. And since I have differing opinions of the licensed sets I'm featuring, I'm going to split this review into two parts with one video. For this first part, let's look at Ionix's attempt at creating minifigures of Ash and Pikachu. ...Spoilers: They're not gonna be the very best...
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Name: Pikachu/Ash Shapeshifting Bricks
Distributor: Ionix
Model: 30001/30002
Pcs: 9
Because every brick set needs figurines to inhabit their worlds(yes, even Nanoblocks, but we'll get to those later), the company Ionix took advantage of their Pokémon license to give us their own take on minifigure versions of the series' main characters. ...Ugly, warped, absolutely horrible minifigures, but we'll get to that later.
Ionix is a relatively new face on the building bricks scene, launched in 2013 by Canadian toy company Spin Master, who also owns Tech Deck, Bakugan, Etch-A-Sketch, another Lego-esque line called Sick Bricks, and metal competitor to Lego: Meccano(or Erector Set as we in the States knew it until 2015.)
But in their short time on this world, they've managed to snag a small-but-noticeable portion of the market, mostly thanks to their Tenkai Knights line
Which some of my younger readers may know from their Cartoon Network TV show(which I have not seen, but I may in the future if I ever decide to do reviews of shows and movies based on building bricks.)
Ionix also holds the license for a handful of franchises, including How to Train Your Dragon
And the Pokémon line we're looking at today. ...And this latter one just plain baffles me. Here we have a nearly 20-year-old, multi-billion dollar franchise that is known and adored the world over and that major building brick companies would nuke small countries to get the license for. ...So let's award it to a year-old company with barely any market share and only an obscure pseudo-anime marketing TV show and an overrated Dreamworks series to its name. If that doesn't sound like the best marketing decision since Pepsi paid Madonna $5 million to use her Like a Prayer song in their Super Bowl ad before actually watching the arguably blasphemous music video, I don't know what is!
This horrendously outdated pop culture reference is brought to you by New Coke, a refreshing soft drink that will never go out of style.
And by the Fred Mueller Saddle & Harness Co., for all your cross-country cattle driving needs!
At the very least, they could have picked a company that didn't duplicate the tabs on their "Brands" page to trick us into thinking they have more lines to their name...
And admittedly, I'm probably being unfair to Ionix. Their other products are probably just fine and have a high level of creativity and quality to them, and I will have to check out their other lines in the near future. It's just these particular products are... well, you'll see in a minute.
Now you know how I was baffled with the design for those Lite Brix boxes? ...Well, these might have just smacked that design upside the head and thrown it out the 17th-story window of a Vegas casino.
I mean, what even IS this thing? It looks like the top of a battery with ears, or an electrical plug from some country that's just discovered electricity, or a Gengar figure we may be looking at later this month. It makes the box stand out, sure, but... would you want to be remembered for boxes designed like a woman giving birth? ...You know, if the two sides are the legs and there's a square-ish head coming out of the middle of it? ...And I just stuck that image permanently inside your head, didn't I? You're welcome!
I honestly thought they were going for a "puzzle"-shape box the first time I saw these, where the left side of one box could interlock with the right... except the other side is shaped like a regular box! So the thing jutting out is completely pointless! ...Though I think I just solved the problem. If Ionix is listening, I'll let you have it for 10% of the gross!
So the front of the box has the regular information on it. The name, the company logo, the airbrushed picture of the product that makes it look 10x better than what's actually in the box, and the clip art of an animated character to make you think it'll look anywhere near as good as the cartoon...
In the lower right corner, we get the standard "Works With Leading Brands" third-party sets like to stick on to let you know they're a Lego rip-off. Either that, or they REALLY want Russell Brand to play Leo Bloom during the next tour of The Producers.
And next to it, we see the gimmick of this line is that they're not just building bricks, they're "Shapeshifting Bricks", where we open them up and build them into the target minifigures. Nice gimmick. ...Even if it's completely pointless...
But in case you forget these are "Shapeshifting Bricks", they remind you on the weird side of the box. So I guess that's the purpose of the box design. Redundancy!
And on the back, we're reminded AGAIN of how the toy works, but also that we can download the Pokémon TV App(for no reason, they just want you to) and that we can see "Instructions and More at ionixbricks.com."
Yes, so much more! Like the Shapeshifting Simulator where you can see 2x4 bricks unfold into human shapes and ruin the surprise! ...Actually, this is pretty cool. You should check this out.
And finally, the box bears the standard "0-3" label
But says "6-14" on the front.
Anyone attempting to play with these who is between 3-6 or over 14 is forever locked away in a Pokéball. ...And you do not know the horrors of what one experiences inside a Pokéball...
And before we actually start building, let me explain a bit of their gimmick. The bases of the character models start as geometric shapes, in this case, a 2x4 and a sphere. They unfold into the outlines of the characters, but in this state, they're basically indistinguishable from standard building bricks.
So you could just use these as regular bricks in your next model. ...But just think about that for a minute. You're taking folded-up minifigures that have been waiting for months, if not years, for the chance to be given form and be played with... and then sticking them in your set like any other brick, where they will possibly remain for eons in that basic, motionless, cramped space, forgotten and without purpose..
I'm just saying, Plastic Man didn't take that too well in The Dark Knight Strikes Again...
Alright, enough of that. Here are the pieces. Let's get to building.
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Well, that didn't take long. ...And hopefully now you can see, if the boxes' pictures didn't already give it away, why I HATE these things!
Like I said, and as I demonstrated in the video, the gimmick is that they start as spheres and polygons until one unfolds them into the character they represent.
However, this isn't a true Transformers-esque process, since after you unfold them, you add the little pieces to actually make them look like a minifigure(or whatever they call these things.)
Little pet peeve of mine: Along with stickers, I also HATE it when a set describes itself as "shape-shifting" or "transforming" when the toy actually doesn't have the function to shift forms and they expect YOU to take it apart and put it together again in a different model. In that case, ANY building brick set could be considered "transformable", since all you're doing is using the same pieces to create something different with them, aka, THE WHOLE POINT OF LEGO!
I even have some Transformers Kre-O sets I'll show off in the future ...and their "transforming" feature just comes down to using the same pieces and rebuilding them on top of some jointed pieces! In short, if you're not going to have the figures actually switch from one form to another without the need of additional pieces or instructions, DON'T LABEL THEM AS "TRANSFORMERS!"
Oh, and these minifigures come with instructions. ...Because, I guess "transformable" figurines that take 3 steps to shift and whose accessories are so obvious to figure out that Stevie Wonder could put them on correctly while wearing work gloves absolutely NEEDED an instruction sheet! Heck, since the entire process is also outlined on the box, I get the feeling they thought their product was too revolutionary for us to understand and they feel the need to hold our hands through the 2 minutes it takes to put them together!
Or maybe it's just an excuse to include another advertisement for the line. ...Notice the crinkle lines from when I crumpled this up out of rage at what I got...
But that's just the tip of the iceberg for these abominations, so buckle up and get ready for a ride down Mud Creek without a paddle!
Let's start with everyone's favorite ageless Pokémon trainer we're supposed to like and relate to but who 9 times out of 10 just comes across as a less funny Monkey D. Luffy: Ash Ketchum! ...Or, in this case, ASHTIMUS PRIME!
Yeah, it turns out that my earlier comparison to the Transformers was more spot-on than I thought it would be. Ashtimus folds out from a box shape into... a box shape. They didn't even TRY to make this look human-like in the slightest.
I guess this shape works if you're trying to create a sort of futuristic knight figure, but when you apply the same design to a character who's supposed to look real, it just come across as awkward... to say the least.
For example, these panels on either side of him. ...Are these supposed to be his shoulders, or a continuation of his shirt, or shoulder pads, or sleeves, or what?! They just jut out from the rest of his body! They don't even align with the outline of his shirt; there's a noticeable gap between the squares and the rest of his body! Whatever they're supposed to be, it just looks like he stole some shoulder pads that belonged to Refrigerator Perry in some vain attempt to impress Misty... or May... or whatever female companion he has this season...
It's even worse with the leg panels. The first time putting these together, I couldn't even tell that they were supposed to represent pant legs and sneakers! They honestly look like some weird computer panels you'd see on a robot!
Again, they don't work, because Ashtimus isn't given a waist! He's just wearing pant legs secured by a garter tied around his leg or something... And the sneakers are absolutely HUGE in comparison. Ashtimus must wear size sixteens or something, because he has BIG feet!
Not that the size of his feet matter though, since, for some reason, they made his legs too big to stand on the studs, so the only way to get him to stand are these little red button pieces on the bottom of his feet. This is the problem with applying their shape-shifting gimmick to a human character. There's no logical reason given why Ash has to have these pieces to FUNCTION! In fact, painting the sneakers on the leg panels is to the detriment of the model, since if they just left the panel blank or looking like jeans, I could have thought that THESE were the shoes! Instead, it just looks like Ash has novelty-sized red Life Savers taped to the bottom of his soles...
This, and I say this without a hint of sarcasm or hyperbole, is the first minifigure to look better WITHOUT any accessories! Heck, now that the panels are gone, he can actually STAND! ...In the place where he lives... ...And face north...
It's just as bad with the hat. You'll notice that the hair and ears are attached to the hat
Which, again, they didn't even TRY to have sync up with the rest of the head, as you can clearly see the blue on the side of his head separate the flesh-colored ears and face!
The hat itself is strangely multi-sided and not round like a normal building brick hat. You could argue that this is to better fit minifigures with square heads, which, ok, but why couldn't they make the parts that wrap around the head square while the top of the hat is round and smooth? It just looks like he's smuggling an enormous ruby unconvincingly by painting his hat's symbol on the front and wearing it on his head...
And with the hat off, we can see that the paint job on the face is... abysmal...
You'll notice that on the box, Ash has these soothing brown eyes showing innocence, yet determination to be the very best like no one ever was.
Meanwhile, on the figure... he has the fires of hell burning in his eyes. Seriously, with how vibrant orange and fiery his eyes are, I was legitimately scared the first time I took him out of the box. Were they just out of brown paint that day, or did they actually intend to base Ashtimus' expression on a comically furious anime girl's freakout?
And, as expected, no paint or detail on the sides of the head. Only the face gets the uncanny valley feel to it.
But if you want a great example of how much detail they put into these, turn the minifigure around, and you'll see...
An unpainted, untextured spectacle worthy of a Chinese bootleg action figure...
But since there are studs on the back, I guess you could go Giles Corey on him and see just how many bricks you could stack on his back before he pleads guilty of witchcraft... Probably the most fun you'll get out of this.
Alright, I need something positive to say before I start smashing this with a hammer. ...Well, he is very poseable. The arms, legs, and shoulders are all on ball joints, allowing for 360 rotation and spinning, so even with the blocky build, he can be put into more poses than the standard Lego minifigure.
Though there is a downside to ball joints. ...I think Pikachu just became Ashtimus' guide Pokémon*.
*Incidentally, did they ever have an episode where some kid had a seeing-eye Growlithe or some other dog or cat Pokémon? If they have, I might just have to see that...
The minifigure is also compatible with other minifigures. It's a little taller than one from another company, but it can function similarly to the standard build.
It has the same-sized studs and hands, so it can support holding standard Lego accessories and placing bricks on top of its head and bottoms of its feet.
Heck, since it has more studs than a regular minifigure, more can be placed on its back.
And while Ionix headpieces aren't compatible with Lego minifigs(for obvious reasons)
Ionix figures can wear Lego hats and hair. ...And somehow, that actually looks better than what they actually gave him...
So that's a positive with this Ashtimus figurine. ...You can actually play with it... Let's see how the Pikachu figure holds up.
WHATTHEFLIPWHATISTHISITSHIDEOUSIMSCAREDGETITAWAYFROMMEHELPSOMEBODYBURNITWITHFIREANDCLEANSEITWITHHOLYWATERBEFOREITDEVOURSUSALL!
...So, remember those Pokémon zombie pictures off of DeviantArt that were everywhere a few years ago(which I'm not going to show here since they're that disgusting)? ...Well they made a minifigure off the craze, apparently...
I mean, this thing is HIDEOUS! Pikachu is supposed to be a lovable, fluffy, slightly pudgy rodent who can say more through his silent vaudeville routines than the human characters can say with their bland dialog! ...What about this thing is supposed to convey cuteness? ...Or intelligence? ...Or any sign of life in its vacant, dead expression?
I especially love its stance and its oversized feet. I made a comparison to vaudeville, and now we know it's Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp, trying to understand modern pop culture by dressing up in a bootleg Pikachu costume he found for cheap without knowing any better. ...Or, more likely, Zombie Pikachu has a bad case of edema...
And its little claw-like hands just make this even better. They literally look like little prosthetic arms. ...That's what you get for being constantly sent into battle against Pokémon ten times taller than you and primarily carnivorous, I guess. They say that Pokémon don't actually get hurt or die during battles? I call bullhonkey...
On the back, we see that they actually DID give this one some detail. Or at least some stripes on the neckline. More than they gave Ashtimus anyway...
Zombie Pikachu even has a little tail on the back
...Which he can snap off and use as a sword, a la Ling-Ling from Drawn Together. ...And the fact that this reminds me of that show only makes it even creepier...
And while Zombie Pikachu isn't as poseable as Ashtimus, they did give him a flexible neck.
...An overly, quite freakishly, flexible neck...
You may also notice the studs on the back of his head. I have no idea what the one on the back is for, but the two studs on top look like they were going to serve a point, but they changed their mind halfway through. If I designed this figure, I would have given Zombie Pikachu detachable ears that fit inside the sockets, since everything else on this figurine can be taken off.
But instead, they opted for the removable mask face that even the Happy Mask Salesman from Zelda would toss out for being "too creepy..." And since the minifigure somehow manages to look EVEN CREEPIER holding its face in its arms, I think that it's we, the poor schmucks who bought this, who have "suffered a terrible fate..."
And those are the Ionix Pokémon minifigures. ...Or at least, what I could afford to show you.
There are three other minifigures in this line--Froakie, Chespin, and Fennekin--but I didn't bother to get them since not only am I disgusted by what I already have, but they go for about $10 apiece! ...Which is amazing, since the only times I've found these minifigures in stores, they were always on clearance for $1.50 each! ...Sadly, I found this out AFTER I bought these online and BEFORE I started this blog and the only ones I can find today in stores are the Ash and Pikachu minifigs...
But really, do you NEED any more examples of these to understand that they SUCK?! What should have been cute, lifelike, easy-to-play-with characters are instead turned into mutant abominations of the characters they're based on! These designs may work for their Tenkai Knights and their cuboid/spherical futuristic medieval exosuits and monsters, but when applied to what are supposed to be humans and cute creatures, they look like the result of if you told someone completely unfamiliar with the show what these characters looked like, then gave them 30 minutes to design them in Maya and 3D print them out! I don't want to go on a Pokémon adventure with them, I want to grab a shotgun and start blasting the Decepticon with the most unconvincing human disguise since the G1 Pretenders and the zombie mouse who's ready to tear your heart out of your chest and eat it right in front of you!
But if anyone DOES think that I'm being unfair and these figures are actually nice and I shouldn't judge them so harshly without a second opinion... Alright, let's get a second opinion.
Glad to know I'm in good company.
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Quality: The plastic quality is fine, standard Lego-level that feels solid and not like it'll warp in low heat. The paint quality, on the other hand, is really bad. The figures are basically given no other detail besides their blue or yellow-dyed plastic, save for the faces and a few spots on Pikachu. And the faces are given the wrong colors or a wonky perspective that moves them out of the realm of cute cartoon and into an uncomfortable uncanny valley-like look. I could find a hundred artists on DeviantArt in 5 minutes who could do a better job in 2 minutes! They're not the worst painted, but they are some of the most awkwardly so...
Design: These are ATROCIOUS! Cute cartoon characters are hideously twisted and morphed into invading robots or legions of undead! Nothing about these says "cute", "friendly", or even "Pokémon." To be fair, Ionix might have been out of their element when they designed these and, again, the forms probably better fit their cyber-feudal Tenkai Knights line. It's like asking Picasso to paint the Mona Lisa; how did you expect it to look? ...But that doesn't excuse just how ugly and out of place these look and how needlessly complicated they are, especially when compared to the more popular and practical designs of Lego and Mega Bloks. If you hate your kids and never want them to look at anything Pokémon ever again, show them these.
Creativity: The "shape-shifting" aspect of these figures is creative, I guess, since I don't recall any other building brick line doing something similar. ...But it's still completely pointless. Unlike Transformers, who have practical uses for both their vehicle and robot forms, these can turn from a figurine into a solid block. ...Useful? And it further detracts from the point of the franchise. WHY do we want to see Ash and Pikachu morph from geometric shapes into regular minifigures? What is the story behind it? The bricks aren't meant to be combined to create something bigger or to be used as accessories for other characters, so just leave them in their minifigure forms. Again, a much better idea for Tenkai Knights that is annoyingly out of place in this line.
Readability: Well, the instructions are clear and basic, so anyone could follow them no trouble at all... but WHAT. IS. THE. POINT?! The front of the box clearly shows the character unfolding and the accessories are a little too obvious to be mistaken for another part of the figure, so anyone who found one of these figures by itself could probably figure out within two minutes how it switches from a basic brick to a figurine. Now you could argue that major companies like Lego and Mega Bloks also do this... but the instructions are on ONE page that's usually in a manual for an entire set! It's painfully obvious where the head and accessories attach, so they focus on what people would actually want instructions to construct. I'm convinced that it was just done as an excuse to print those mini-posters advertising the rest of the line so kids would hang it on their wall and hopefully bug their parents relentlessly until they bought the entire set. ...But, since this category isn't about the practicality of the instructions and instead on how easy the instructions are to follow, they do their job. Crumpling those instructions was a great stress reliever, though...
Packaging: Move over Lite Brix, we have a new champion in the "What Were They Thinking?" pageant. The boxes are oversized for their contents, since I'm pretty sure you could fit one of the smaller Lego sets in one, let alone a minifigure. And WHY THE BUMP? I don't see what that's supposed to represent or what use it serves other than to make it stand out from the other building brick sets. It's a very creative, yet very awkward design, since it confuses me when I try to stack it with the rest of my smaller sets. Still, it holds its contents well and, unlike Lite Brix, it only takes one flap to open, so I guess it's fine.
Compatibility: These are made in the standard Lego shape and size, so they can be used with other building bricks and vice versa. They can stand on the studs, hold accessories, stack with regular bricks, and even turn into bricks to use with other sets. However, as I demonstrated, there are some Ionix accessories that don't work with other figurines and the Ionix minifigures stand out when compared to regular Lego minifigures. Still, buy a mixed bag of Ionix and Lego and you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you were looking for it.
Overall:
These are some of the worst minifigures I've come across since I started collecting building brick sets. The designs are ugly, the features are pointless, and it has little-to-none of that Pokémon series feel to it. I'm actually amazed this is an officially licensed product, since with the out-of-place design and unnecessary features, you'd swear this was some odd bootleg where they copied the mold from some other toy and just painted some quick Pokémon-like features on it to try and pass it off as another franchise. I'd say they're similar to those custom jobs you see for unofficial Lego on eBay, but those still at least LOOK like what they're basing them off of. I don't recommend these figures for anyone. Not casual observers, not die-hard fans, and not grandmas looking for cheap bargains to give to their grandkids as Christmas presents. Leave them rotting on the shelves and let Ionix know this isn't ok.
So, Ionix, you completely failed when it came to producing minifigures. Can you redeem yourselves with the building sets you created? Check the next part to find out!
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