Review – Franken Berry Blox

So in my review of the Fungah Berry Version toy (review here) I was talking about how I wanted a cool Franken Berry vinyl toy. It was that thought racing through my mind when I saw this Franken Berry Blox toy at San Diego Comic Con and once I heard the $25 price tag I grabbed it. And while it’s by no means a perfect toy it’s a cute idea and I’m glad that I picked it up at the show.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

Blox?

The Blox is Funko’s new designer toy series and it’s basically a near-flat vinyl toy without any articulation at all. Franken Berry here is 6-inches tall and 1.5-inches deep and stands as rigid as a wall. I’m not sure what the idea was behind the design, but the end result is a reasonably cute vinyl toy that likely won’t set the world on fire but will make some fans quite happy. Digging around online I can’t really find any details about the series but from what I can tell this was a special release at the convention.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

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Sculpt

This fairly flat vinyl toy is made up of what looks like four separate parts — each arm, the body, and the head — that are glued together. Each piece is a clean enough sculpt that this was either created by hand or a computer, but either way it’s a nice sculpt that’s clearly meant to be Franken Berry and no other character. Actually, looking closer I’m going to add two more sculpted pieces; the rings around the eyes are look like they may also be glued on.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

Paint

Now we’re gonna get into the one part of the toy where I think the work falls down a bit. The paint is cool metallics that don’t show up well in pictures, but it’s such a sloppy job that I have concerns for the other pieces in the line. There are rough spots where the paint should be smooth, the edges are jagged and dirty, and the paint on the chains (see the body) fuzzes out onto the wrong parts of the body. This is not a high-quality paint application and the toy suffers because of what looks like a rushed job. It’s not bad when looked at from a distance, but up close just about every bit of the paint has some problem or other. Very sad for an otherwise neat toy.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

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Closing Thoughts

It’s nice to see that Funko is doing what they can to bring various Franken Berry and other Monster Cereal characters to toy shelves, but it’s frustrating that what should have been a very neat design suffered because of one bad decision — they should have made at least the arms and neck articulated — and a terrible paint application. If those two issues didn’t exist then I’d be recommending that everyone try at least one Blox toy — it sounds like Funko is coming out with several different designs based on a variety of licenses — but as it is I say think carefully before buying one of these.

With any luck the first mass-released toys in the series will have better paint apps than this limited edition toy, but I suspect that nothing’s going to change Funko’s mind when it comes to articulation.

I’ve got mine and I’m happy I do, but I suggest you look at one closely and decide for yourself before rushing out to buy this or any other release in the series.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.


Philip Reed is going to display this Franken Berry and then return to thinking about whether or not he should grab a few of the Franken Berry bobbleheads that have been released over the years.

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