TMNT Minimates Series 2 Review
TMNT Minimates are back with a second series! We’ve got all of the new figures and are taking a look at every one of them starting with the LCS Blind bags. Join us for a look at the complete Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Minimates Series 2 after the jump.
The blind bag for TMNT Minimates series 2 looks almost exactly like series 1. “Series 2” is in small-ish print on the front of the package and the back of the package shows everyone in the wave. As usual, I’ll show you the figures that are exclusive to the blind bags, then we’ll take a look at the other figures that are also shared with Toys R Us.
Now the blind bags have been out at local comic and specialty stores for the past 3 months, but the TRU packs have just started hitting stores this month, so it may be a little harder to track down some of the blind bag exclusive figures, but they are still available at some stores and there’s always the slight marked up figures you can find on ebay.
Starting off the blind bag exclusives is Shredder‘s daughter, Karai. She’s a basic Minimate with some sculpted gauntlets and the belt sheath we got with the Foot Soldiers last series. The appearance is straight from the current Nickelodeon cartoon.
Karai comes with an additional head that features a half mask face
Karai only has one weapon, her short sword. It stores nicely in the belt sheath and fits well in her hands. The Karai Minimate is pretty bare, but has a great paint job and looks just like Karai from the TV show. I’m not sure what more anyone would need for a Karai figure.
It’s easy to feel her in the bag as you just have to feel for the belt sheath. I believe there are 2 or 3 Karai figures in each case, so while she’s a blind bag exclusive Minimate, she should be easy to find.
Chris Bradford is the next TMNT Minimates blind bag exclusive. He’s shown here in his traditional outfit from the first season of the Nickelodeon TMNT cartoon
Bradford only comes with a sword, so he’s the least accessorized blind bag Minimate in this series. The figure is nice, but not exactly a necessity as (SPOILER ALERT) he mutates later in the series and his mutated form would be much more interesting to have as a figure. It’s still cool to get this figure as he played a large role when still human and we can use more henchmen for Shredder that aren’t robots.
Chris Bradford is not only an exclusive, but a one per case exclusive. This makes him pretty difficult to find (Though he is currently on ebay for only double retail prices) While feeling for him in the blind bags, I found it helpful to feel for the shoulder pads, then make sure that the shoulder pads have straight edges on both left and right sides of the figure (Just feeling for a shoulder pad can accidentally net you a Casey Jones figure)
Just like last series, the TMNT Minimates at Toys R Us are blister packed in two packs. Also like last series, there are two exclusive packs. One is a one per case set that includes the translucent Mutagen Donatello. Now as you can see in the picture above, both Donatello sets have the TRU Exclusive sticker on them. However, this is not correct as the Raphael and Anton Zeck pack is the actual exclusive. Both regular Donatello and Norman can be found in the blind bags, but Anton Zeck can only be found at Toys R Us.
Also like the last series, the TRU Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Minimates are sold as keyrings with removable keyrings that are tied around their necks.
The Mutagen Donatello is a basic Donatello mold but in translucent green with a solid colored bandanna and mouth tampo
Mutagen Donatello blends nicely with the Mutagen Turtles from series 1 and completes the Mutagen series.
Casey Jones appears much like he does on the new cartoon with a sculpted hood/mask piece, multiple pieces of armor and a load of weapons on his back.
Casey comes with a separate hair piece that can go on one of two heads he has. One head is a normal uncovered face and the other is when he paints his face up (in case some one takes off his mask)
All three weapons on his back can be removed and held in his hands. On his back straps there’s two loops and a peg. Both of the hockey sticks can slide into the loops while the bat has a hole on it to fit on the peg.
Casey also comes with two regular hands and a hood piece so you can give him a totally unarmored look as well.
Casey Jones has some wonderfully sculpted parts and a mess of weapons. One of the aspects I love is that all the weapons can be stored on his back and still retains exactly how he looks on the TV Show. The additional heads makes this figure even better than the larger figure made by Playmates. The only thing missing would be a couple of small rollerblade accessories to plug into the bottom of his feet, but it’s not even a deal breaker for me, this is a great figure.
Packed with Casey is Michelangelo. The body looks just like the one from series 1, reusing many of the same parts.
Mikey has two new heads now, one with his “Battle Mode” whited out eyes and another head that has closed eyes with a happy grin. I understand the idea that Mikey always brings the jokes and is a happy turtle, but I would say the battle mode eyes head should’ve had less of a smile and more of a determined looking mouth.
As I said earlier, Mikey is almost exactly like the previous series 1 figure (at least body wise) even the color matches well.
However, there is a slight difference that all of the Turtle figures have. The elbows have been slightly altered since the first series. Previously, the arms were two pieces, one with a peg at the elbow and another with a hole. Now both upper and lower arms have a hole and there’s a separate peg holding the two parts together. This actually helps the issue I had with the movement of the elbows on the Turtles from last series.
Mikey now has new Nunchaku. Last series, they had a real chain holding them together, now they are just a single piece of rubbery plastic. I kinda like this a bit better as now the Nunchaku don’t fall due to gravity now. I would like these to have a poseability aspect though, but that’s probably not so feasible for something so small.
Something I noticed with Mikey’s spare head and all of the spare turtle heads that come with the TMNT Minimates is that they aren’t glued together! This does make the heads a little hard to remove from the body, but it’s not impossible and for the customizers, this makes the job a little easier.
Mikey comes with a Pizza accessory that can fit into his hand easily.
He also comes with a cool skateboard that can be plugged into his foot. The Skateboard is a single piece which is better than previous skateboards DST have released as they used to have wheels that would fall off. You don’t have that problem with this one and it fits with Mikey perfectly.
My favorite accessory that comes with Mikey is the sculpted Ice Cream Kitty! I love that Ice Cream Kitty has a Minimate shaped head. This is the first toy of Ice Cream Kitty and I love that it’s sized correctly with the Minimate figures.
While I already bought a Mikey Minimate in the previous series, this one comes with so much new stuff that I don’t feel bad about having a second Mikey figure that is basically the exact same figure from the neck down.
This Splinter is our first Minimate version of the character and it looks great. There are nice tampos on both the front and back of his kimono and I like that they sculpted a rat tail poking out from underneath it.
Unlike the Turtles, Splinter gets a sculpted head. The sculpt looks great as does the face tampos. The only drawback that many fans have mentioned is that Splinter’s red fur is the same color as his kimono. To be honest, it’s really only noticeable when you realize the fur is actually supposed to be brown. Most times I have to remind myself that technically the paint is wrong so it’s not that big of a problem to me.
Splinter comes with two weapons, his translucent green cane and a generic sword. I like the look of Splinter, but since he wears a kimono, his articulation is dropped drastically due to the skirt piece. His arms are the same as the Foot Soldiers from series 1 so Splinter has the least range of motion from all of the Minimates in this series.
Naturally, Leonardo is packed with Master Splinter. Just like Mikey, Leo is the same figure from the neck down with the updated elbows.
Leo comes with three heads, Battle Mode eyes, Surprise face & Pizza Face Drone (This is specific to the episode “Pizza Face“) Underneath the Pizza Face mask is a Leo head with no bandanna.
Leo comes with his classic swords. These are the same swords we got in the last series.
Leo now has his grappling hook gun he uses in the show.
Leo also comes with a Pizza box! The box is just a square piece of plastic with the Antonio’s Pizza logo seen throughout the show.
Norman is the human disguise for the Kraang. This is how all the Norman appear in the show with a dark blue suit and docile, half closed eyes.
Underneath the suit coat is a Kraang-droid torso. This one is one of the blue metallic ones (We’ve seen pictures of a blue Kraang-droid Minimate shown at previous toy shows so there should be a full one sometime in the future)
Norman also comes with the same gun the K-Mart exclusive Kraang from series 1 came with.
We also get a new Kraang with Norman. This one has a devious smile instead of the screaming face that came in the K-mart blind bag from series 1.
Donatello is packed with Norman (probably since he’s the techno wizard of the Turtles’ group)
Donnie comes with Battle Mode head and a Love head. The Love head typically shows up on the cartoon when Donnie is near April.
Donnie comes with a modified Bo Staff that includes the blade he’s added to his staff as an upgrade in the show.
While Mikey came with a full pizza, Donnie comes with two Pizza Slices. Both slices fit well in his hands.
One of my favorite accessories is Donnie’s Mutagen Tracker he made from an old Gameboy!. I’m super tempted to get another one just so I can cut the antennas/mixing beaters off and give my Minimates a Gameboy to play around with.
Donnie also comes with a Mutagen canister. The canister is translucent plastic with painted ends. While the canister comes with Donnie, it fits so well underneath the Kraang’s tentacles that I think it should go with him instead.
Raphael is the last Turtle. Like the others, exact same body right down to the outline of the crack that I still wish was filled in.
Raphael’s second head has dizzy/knocked out eyes. I forget where I’ve seen these eyes, but I’m pretty sure it’s been featured at least once in the show. The head adds some fun opportunities for dio pics so it’s a welcome addition.
Raphael comes with three ninja stars, two slices of pizza and his pet turtle Spike!
Both the ninja stars and pizza slices fit into Raphael’s hands well. Spike is really well sculpted and like all Minimate pets, he features Minimate shaped head and legs.
Raphael also comes with his typical Sais.
This whole series did all four Turtles awesomely. Never have I been so happy to rebuy figures with only slight changes. The extra heads and accessories made all of them must buys and Raphael is no different.
Our TRU exclusive figure, Anton Zeck is decked out in his pre-mutated super thief suit. I like the pink pin striping all over the suit and it makes the figure pop a bit.
Anton’s helmet comes off to show his face underneath. Unfortunately there is no separate hair piece for the unmasked look. Though I’m not entirely sure Zeck has any hair underneath that energy mohawk of his.
Speaking of the mohawk, the head piece is a dark translucent purple piece with the visor and helmet painted so the mohawk can have that energy appearance.
Anton is a nice figure, though in a wave of figures that come with a bunch of extra parts, I kinda wish he came with some accessory. But otherwise, it’s a nifty figure.
So was this wave worth buying? YES! Not only do you get more bad guys for the Turtles to beat up on (including a major character like Karai) We get Splinter and Casey Jones (who is one of my favorite figures from this wave) and you get a ton of new accessories for the Turtles including new faces that are great for dio pics and adds a ton of character to the figures. Not every figure is the best, but as a wave, this is a total winner. I highly suggest grabbing what figures you can find at TRU or your local comic shop. (Though they do come out cheaper per figure from TRU)
