Isabelle

"A good attitude will always take you further than a bad habit." Isabelle is the mayor's highly capable secretary. She can be forgetful sometimes, but you can always count on her for information about the town. She wears her hair up in a bun that makes her look like a shih tzu. Mostly because she is one! She also has a twin brother named Digby. Originally appearing in 2012's Animal Crossing: New Leaf, the fourth game in the series, Isabelle has since become the face of brand, surpassing Tom Nook and KK Slider and Bill Wibbly. She's the one who shows up as a guest character in other games, and her appearance is shorthand for the property as a whole. So I guess she's the Wolverine of Animal Crossing. Bub. This is a Nendoroid release, which means it's basically a cross between a Figma and a Funko POP!: superdeformed proportions, but plentiful articulation. And the caricaturization isn't even very noticeable on this one, thanks to Animal Crossing's general design style: they have big heads and small bodies to begin with, so this just fits the theme. Since Good Smile is a Japanese company and Nendoroid a Japanese toyline, this figure is technically "Shizue," not "Isabelle," but we hope you'll forgive us calling her by her western name for this review. Although naming the shih tzu "Shizue" is totally cute and Nintendo should have kept that name when they localized her. And "cute" she definitely is! She's a pleasantly smiling little puppy, with her fur styled like bangs hanging over her eyes, and pulled up into a top knot like show shih tzus often have. Adorbs! She's painted with a friendly little smile on her face. The fur around her mouth is white, as opposed to yellow everywhere else, and there are darker spots accenting her cheeks. Isabelle's stock outfit is a dark blue skirt, a light green plaid vest with hunter green trim, and a white shirt with a red tie. That matches the red band holding her ponytail up. In the game, she has a pair of bells on her hairband that jingle when she walks; it would be ridiculous to expect a little plastic toy to include real metal bells, wouldn't it? Well, call this ridiculous, because the bells she wears are real! That's more than we needed, but it's a neat thing to include. Even counting the hair, Isabelle is only about 4½" tall, so you shouldn't expect a ton from the articulation. On the other hand, these are the Figma people, so don't expect too liitle, either. Isabelle moves with a balljointed tail, swivel/hinge hips, swivel waist, swivel biceps, swivel shoulders, swivel/hinge/swivel neck, swivel ears, and a balljointed ponytail. The swivels are simply round pegs, not the "mushroom" type you may be used to from most action figures, meaning they'll pull apart easily if you move them the wrong way. Though that's not without reason. The set includes two alternate faces, which are really more "alternate heads": the hair pulls off, and then the entire rest of the head trades out. We already told you her regular head has a pleasant smile, but the first alternate has a frown (for those times when she's worried or confused about something happening in town) and the second has a smile so big her mouth is open to reveal her tongue and little front teeth. Aww! That one even has the eyes squinched shut, and dark paint to represent her eyelids. The heads aren't the only swappable pieces - that's why it was so easy to pull the arms out. Given the size and style of the toy, it's easier to make alternate limbs than to try to make working joints, so you have your choice of either arms that are held straight and away from the body a little, or bent closer. And since the Animal Crossing characters don't have hands, just Powerpuff Girl-style nubs, alternate arms also allow her to have some accessories: she's got an arm with a clipboard molded on it, and another with a pen. Nendoroids (the name ultimately comes from the Japanese word for clay, 粘土, nendo, and not, as I initially misread it, "Nanodroids") have small bodies and big heads, so it could be hard to get them to stand. That's why each figure includes a clear plastic stand and an articulated support arm. There are two thinner arms that hold up musical notes, as if she's singing, and an alternate hairband that allows a big question mark to float in the air over her head. I've never played any Animal Crossing, even when it was the biggest thing in the world during the pandemic. (When was the last time you checked on your island?) I mainly got her so she could hang out with her best friend, the Doom Slayer. And yes, there's a Doom Nendoroid available, but it's funnier to me if they're closer to their actual respective sizes. This is also the first time I've tried a Nendoroid toy, and it turns out they're pretty good, especially if the character already matches the proportions. And Good Smile Company obviously knows how popular Isabelle is, because this is the fourth run of the figure, and there's a "Winter Version" available as well, wearing a coat instead of just her vest, and with different faces and accessories to boot. -- 03/20/25 Who would win in a fight: Doomabelle or Barbenheimer? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.