DragonBall Evolve Series 5 review Amazon Exclusive Piccolo
Oct 10, 2023 19:10:53 GMT -6
aquamarina and motard0705 like this
Post by Branjita on Oct 10, 2023 19:10:53 GMT -6
Backstory
For whatever reason, Piccolo is an Amazon exclusive (at least for collectors in the US). SS Gohan is a Walmart exclusive and Ultimate Gohan is a Target exclusive.
Let's start the review!
Packaging
For whatever reason, Piccolo is an Amazon exclusive (at least for collectors in the US). SS Gohan is a Walmart exclusive and Ultimate Gohan is a Target exclusive.
Let's start the review!
Packaging
Strangely, Piccolo has a white background and different colors from SS Gohan and Ultimate Gohan. Why? I have no idea. The ki behind him is clearly the special beam cannon, which makes his artwork very unique. There is no mention of him being an Amazon exclusive anywhere on the package. The only indication that he is an Amazon exclusive is the actual listing on Amazon. amzn.to/3qDdPuB
Perhaps if we are lucky, in the near future Bandai will release two more figures on the white background and one more figure on a purple background. I don't have OCD, but it does bother me if Piccolo will have the only background like this. Once I find Ultimate Gohan, I'll take a photo of all of the packaging together.
Piccolo
Let's talk about his appearance. He's simply fantastic looking. He really is. All by himself, he looks flawless. He has the same cool neck articulation as SS Gohan (so his chin can go down a lot) as well as some great butterfly joints in his shoulders that are camouflaged really well.
Unlike SS Gohan though, he is a major choking hazard for babies and animals. His arms and legs can come off their pegs much easier than (possibly) any of the other Evolve figures. The pegs seem to be the same length as Gohan's, but they don't stick out as much. Only the tip holds the legs and arms on. Is this a reason to not buy him? Of course not. But don't let babies or pets play with him, because it doesn't take much effort at all to remove his arms (in particular) or his legs.
Posing
He's great for posing. He is easily the best 5 inch scale Piccolo if you care about posing him. I wish he came with a special beam cannon hand.
Comparisons
This may not bother everyone, but when you put Piccolo next to other characters, he isn't as tall as he should be. He looks more like Yamcha dressed up as Piccolo for Halloween.
Putting him next to Jakks and Irwin Piccolo figures, you can see that he is a bit short--and Irwin and Jakks didn't really make him perfectly tall either. His legs would be better if they were larger overall.
I bought Dragon Stars Piccolo from the Piccolo vs. Gamma 2 Battle Pack specifically for using the Dragon Stars figure for Piccolo's power awakening form. I wish the Evolve Piccolo was a bit bigger, so the difference between them in size wasn't so great. Some people may prefer the Dragon Stars Piccolo for their Evolve collections, and that's fine. His sculpt isn't as good and his articulation isn't as good, but he is a good figure.
In my SS Gohan review, I mentioned that the Evolve SS Gohan was made shorter than Goku, which is inaccurate. If you really wanted to, you could put Piccolo's legs on Gohan to give him a boost, but it actually makes him too tall in my opinion.
If you did that, Gohan's legs do barely fit on Piccolo's hips, and you still use him in your collection for some random Namekian character. Now that I look at it, and think about it... if you put Piccolo's lower abdomen and hips on Gohan's torso and used SS Gohan's legs, you'd probably have a good height for SS Gohan... and it would also fix the issue with Gohan's pants flaring around the hips. Too bad I didn't try that when taking pics.
Using Piccolo's entire lower body just doesn't look right. It makes Gohan too tall.
It makes him Yamcha's height, but you'd need to use Piccolo's torso if you wanted to make a good looking Yamcha custom since Yamcha has a larger upper (and lower) body than Goku or Gohan.
Gohan's lower body on Piccolo's upper body could be useful for a Dende custom figure.
Does Jakks Piccolo's cape and hat fit him? Well, the cape does, but the hat is too big for him. You'd need a smaller one.
Since he's smaller than he should be for this time period in DB/Z/S, you might be interested in using him for a Saiyan Saga Piccolo vs. Raditz. And other than his pants not being baggy and his spots not being pink, he could work well for that.
I really like the figure, I just wish he had longer (and larger) legs to be quite a bit taller.
He looks fantastic with SS Gohan. His facial expression is great.
I probably should have pointed this out in my SS Gohan review, but Gohan can do an excellent crouch. These Evolve figures are fantastic.
Final Conclusions
He's the most fun and best looking 5 inch scale Piccolo ever made. I'm not kidding. He is actually the only fun 5 inch scale Piccolo--the Irwin and Jakks Piccolos are not particularly poseable or fun at all. His sculpt is fantastic and he looks really high quality.
He isn't large enough to scale properly with 5 inch scale, which is a little disappointing. He's reasonably tall, but he really isn't "Piccolo" tall like he should be. The Dragon Stars Piccolo is a little bit TOO tall and large for 5 inch scale, but he may be the better option for people who care about size and don't want to customize their figures.
He's way better sculpted than the Dragon Stars Piccolo (even though the DS Piccolo is a massive improvement over the older DS Piccolo from several years ago). I would highly recommend him overall.
I'd have to rate him an 8 out of 10. 1.5 points are lost for him not being tall enough (and none of the solutions for making him longer-legged are easy). And he loses 0.5 points for his pegs not being longer. If they were longer, not only would he be less of a choking hazard for babies and pets, but it would be easier to lengthen his legs if there was more peg.
If you think this is a negative review, please think about how much I am NOT complaining about. If you don't care about size very much and don't have babies or pets, then he is a 10/10. He's really that good.
