Eren Titan

Remember in the Mikasa Ackerman review when we said we'd never reviewed two versions of one character from two different companies in the same month? ... ...spoilers ahoy! The things we said about Eren in his review were accurate: he was set up as the main character, then in the fifth episode, he had his limbs bitten off and was devoured by a Titan. All true. What we didn't mention was that immediately after, a different Titan appeared and began attacking its own kind. At the end of the day, the Mysterious Titan collapsed, its energy exhausted, and a nearly unconscious Eren pulled himself from the nape of its neck. And that's how everyone, audience and characters alike, learned that Eren could turn into a Titan. Due to their size, there isn't a lot of Titan merchandise - it's hard to sell your villain when your villain is nude and the size of a full-grown human. Because anybody selling nude, human-sized dolls is selling them for sexy times, not for fighting tinier toys. So really, other than some 6" Funko POP!s, you don't have much choice for Titans to attack. Enter The Loyal Subjects. The Loyal Subjects began in 2009 as a company making designer art toys, but has since branched out to "action vinyls," which are blind-boxed superdeformed figures with a little bit of articulation. They do GI Joe and He-Man and Power Rangers and all sorts of nerdy '80s/'90s things. They also do Attack on Titan (which you can probably guess, because why else would we have just spent a paragraph talking about them?). The first series includes a bunch of members of the Scout Regiment and some chase variants, but also the only thing resembling an action figure of any of the Titans. In the show, this particular monster is called the "Mysterious Titan," but the toy cuts right to the chase, calling it the "Eren Titan." It honestly doesn't look very much like Eren, which is why its secret could be maintained for any length of time: it has long, dark, scraggly hair, pointy ears, and a sharp jaw with exposed teeth in the angular mouth. The hair here is painted grey rather than dark brown/black, apparently mistaking the cartoon's coloring of highlights for its natural color. It would have been cooler if his mouth was open in a yell, but maybe that wouldn't work in the style. Loyal Subjects' Action Vinyls are, as stated, done in a superdeformed style, so the Eren Titan's body is short, squat and wide. Attack on Titan creator Hajime Isayama based several of the Titans on MMA fighters, and Eren's form is modeled upon Yushin Okami - while you can definitely see that in the anime and manga, in this style it's just a generic muscular body. The limbs are much larger than the torso, as is the Action Vinyls style, and he's got feet like a Hobbit. The hands have sharp fingernails, as they should, but he's almost never drawn without fists, so having the hands open here is a little unusual. The figure's skintone is a bit muted, not particularly healthy or robust. Perhaps this was done so all the blood splatter on his body will stand out better. There's a big spray of it across his chest, then splatter around that as well as on his arms, legs, and face. The first two fingers on both hands have blood on their claws, and there are scrapes on his face, calves, and right butt cheek. Either he's been in one heck of a fight, or Titan mating rituals are rough! Unlike most blindboxed figures, Eren Titan gets articulation. He moves at the ankles, hips, chest, wrists, shoulders, and head. The wrists are swivels, while the rest are all balljoints. Despite that, there really aren't a lot of different poses you can give the legs, thanks to the angle of his feet, and without elbows his arms mostly look like they're flailing around. Still, this is preferable to the alternative. Action Vinyls are generally about 3" tall, but the Titans need to be bigger, so they're a towering... 5". Hey, it's the thought that counts: if you're going to have a superdeformed style, then supedeformed proportions are to be accepted; and even an extra inch or two is enough to get the idea across. The ratios of these blind-boxed figures are weird. Each case has 12 boxes, but looking at the side of the boxes, there are six figures identified as being 2/12 - six figures at a 2/12 ratio is twelve total slots, so how is there any room for the chase figures? The Titans are listed as 1/24, which also doesn't make any sense: there's a Titan in every case, so shouldn't that be 1/12? They're done as two-part BAFs, so did Loyal Subjects just take the actual 1/12 ratio and divide it in half? Seems like it. Whatever the case, it's wrong. There doesn't seem to be a set layout to Action Vinyls the way there is for Funko's Mystery Minis, but finding the Titan BAF isn't hard at all: the head and body are packaged separately with other figures in the case, so all you need to do is pick up each box, and choose the two that are twice as heavy as the rest; believe me, it's super easy to recognize which are which. And while the style of the figure won't blend in with any other Attack on Titan toys, there aren't a lot of options for Titan merchandise - this one, if nothing else, exists. -- 01/28/18

Tweet