- 5 months ago
Mattel Masters Of The Universe Cartoon Collection Bow Figure Review
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00:00Well, I guess at least they were wise enough not to leave him with a wizard's wand.
00:04Here's a look at the Mattel He-Man The Masked Universe cartoon collection,
00:06Bo, special friend who helps She-Ra.
00:23It's an exciting time to be a Masked Universe fan.
00:26For long-time fans and for a new generation of kids who love the action-adventure,
00:30it's time to experience the thrilling action and adventures of He-Man, Skeletor,
00:33The Secrets of Castle Grayskull, and much more.
00:36The figures in this collection stand 5.5 inches tall and have 16 movable joints,
00:40so they're highly poseable for imaginative and action-oriented fun.
00:44I guess while Bo is learning his lessons from Uncle Ben,
00:46one lesson I've learned over the years of doing reviewing is you're never going to know how tall a figure stands
00:51unless you happen to have one of these.
00:53In the past, I've learned also my lesson that you can't take a laser tape measure
00:56because that's going to give you a crap measurement.
00:58No, to get the more exact measurement, we're going to take the trusty tape measure tool of mine.
01:03By the way, that reference to Uncle Ben has more to do with the fact that the episode that Bo appears in,
01:08as advertised on the back of the packaging, gives him the wizard's wand.
01:11Chaos is caused, and at the very end of the episode, Bo learns that with power,
01:15you have more responsibility, not less.
01:17Back, though, to measuring.
01:19Bo is going to stand at 5.75 inches in height.
01:23That's going to work out to be a figure that's 15 centimeters tall.
01:26That's rather rebel figures.
01:27We really don't have much.
01:29You know, again, speaking of learning any lessons,
01:31I would think by now that Mattel has learned the lesson that using a female body from the Origins line
01:36just isn't going to cut it.
01:38Look at the size of She-Ra compared to the size of Bo.
01:41They should at least be the same height.
01:43They don't have to necessarily be the exact same builds of body.
01:46I mean, that would just be ridiculous.
01:47But using, though, Origins' body just isn't working at all for this cartoon collection line.
01:52Speaking, though, of female bodies, not using, though, the same as She-Ra's.
01:56In that episode, we actually had Shadow Weaver and Grizzlor,
01:59so we're going to bring those in as examples.
02:01Of course, we can always bring in Hordak.
02:03He's got problems of his own, and here's also what the figure looks like with Mantena.
02:07Looky, looky, at all the accessories that come in clue with Bo.
02:10Not really necessarily an accessory,
02:11but the figure does come in clue with a paper pamphlet.
02:14Carefully, carefully open this up.
02:16Heaven forbid I happen to damage the paper...
02:18Heaven forbid I happen to damage the paper pamphlet
02:21that tells us that all the things in grey
02:23can be popped, can be swapped, can be changed around,
02:26whether the cartoon collection, or for that matter, Origins figures as well.
02:30So the head, the arms, the lower torso, and all the legs.
02:33I say all the legs, obviously it's only got the two boots.
02:35Either one of those can be popped, can be done.
02:38Let's crumple this up and throw it away.
02:40Anyway, the figure does also come in clue with a mini-comic.
02:42Now, we have already gotten this mini-comic from both Whiplash and Shadow Weaver.
02:47Bo only really happened to be the last figure that I needed to really get from this set.
02:51So if you've already now experienced final fright,
02:54you're going to be getting the final fright of seeing this the third time.
02:57Flipping through the comics, the one thing, again, my takeaway from this
03:00is the fact that we have ourselves Skeletor wearing Horde armor.
03:03That is so cool.
03:04Well, I hope at some point we get ourselves...
03:06I know he's not really necessarily cartoon in canon,
03:09but I do hope at the very least we get ourselves like maybe even a convention-exclusive Horde Skeletor.
03:15Flipping through the rest of the pages, there's another image of Horde Skeletor.
03:19And there's, again, the back.
03:20So let's put that off to the side.
03:22The accessories, as one would expect to come in clue with Bo,
03:25is that he does have both a bow and an arrow.
03:29Neither one of these are connected to themselves.
03:31I think this is one issue that I kind of really have with Bo.
03:35You can either be from the camp of thinking that bows and arrows should be attached
03:38when you get them out of the packaging.
03:40I mean, it kind of loses the illusion that he'd be able to draw back the bow,
03:43but at least you know that the arrow isn't going to be going anywhere.
03:46Walking to the other side of the fence,
03:48the other camp believes that you really should have an arrow and a bow separately.
03:52It's fine to say that, though, but there's nothing really you can do with the two.
03:55I mean, obviously you can put the bow in his hand,
03:58but the arrow is too small.
03:59It doesn't really accommodate his hand.
04:02Let's push forward, though, in doing that.
04:04One thing, though, is that this figure comes from the episode Bow's Magical Gift,
04:09in which he does steal Shadow Weaver's wizard's wand,
04:11but he doesn't actually come in clue with Shadow Weaver's wand.
04:14I suppose, though, even though this isn't really the way that the wand looks in the episode,
04:17you could technically borrow Shadow Weaver's and give this to Bo instead.
04:22What I'll do, though, instead, though, is let's get ourselves the...
04:25I guess maybe what I'll do, too, is I'll show you guys what the bow looks like.
04:29I do actually like that there's that little kind of horse motif that we have on the top.
04:34Now, again, this has all been successfully cast in gold plastic.
04:37A little bit of red gets painted where the handle would be.
04:40Now, with him having gripping hands on both sides, easily you can have him holding the bow.
04:45That's not an issue, really, whatsoever.
04:47The problem, though, comes is with the arrow.
04:49The arrow is too small, first of all, to fit in his hands,
04:52because they also chose to give him gripping hands.
04:54I kind of feel like in a case like this, they probably should have molded a different hand
04:58that would have had a slit in between his fingers.
05:01Then he'd at least have a means to hold the arrow.
05:04And because, again, like you have him drawing back the bow string,
05:08you can have something similar to that.
05:10But then you have to, unfortunately, balance the arrow in between the two.
05:14Again, you kind of just kind of hook it onto his fingers.
05:17We're not really going to be doing, I know, the best of jobs.
05:20Because really, when you pull one side, you can only just be pulling the other.
05:22But let's just say serviceably enough, we can get into a successful pose.
05:27Then you get yourself the arrow, and you just basically balance it on top of his hand.
05:31There's no, there's nothing here really to say.
05:34Like, had they only really put a clip right here,
05:36you could have cheated and clipped the arrow to that.
05:40Then you'd at least have said, at least I can get the figure displayed with that.
05:44But there's no real way to have him holding everything,
05:47with at least not balancing the arrow on top.
05:50Which I did do at the beginning of this review.
05:52It stayed okay, providing nobody sneezed, nobody coughed, nobody moved.
05:56Abruptly.
05:57Speaking of moving things, wait, what?
06:00Speaking of moving things, you can in fact actually move Bo's armor altogether.
06:04This actually just is a separate piece from the rest of his body.
06:06If you don't like the look at this, I guess for all intents and purposes,
06:09this would also really make a good cartoon collection, New Adventures of He-Man.
06:14As I would imagine, like the legs would kind of really stay roughly about the same.
06:18Maybe the boots may have had to change a little bit,
06:21but I think if you wanted to, just pop the head off from the neck,
06:24and you can remove Bo's torso armor altogether.
06:28So basically you get this piece, and then the cape is all attached to that.
06:31It's all a harder plastic, by the way.
06:33So if you really wanted to, again, you slide that off.
06:35And I guess if you had yourself a proper He-Man head,
06:38you probably could, again, like craft yourself some sort of armor.
06:40I know there's talented people out there that do these kind of things.
06:43That would make for a pretty good New Adventures of He-Man armor.
06:46We're not going to do that, though, obviously, because we're looking at Bo here.
06:49We're going to pop the head in place.
06:51The head scope looks okay.
06:53I think it's a little bit different, though, to be fair,
06:54than the sites that have this guy pre-ordered or currently listed,
06:58where they actually kind of teased a bit of a different head
07:00that we don't end up getting on the physical release.
07:04You know, again, it looks a lot,
07:05it looks enough like Bo that I'm not disappointed by him.
07:08Of course, he has to have the stash there.
07:10The face is nicely painted, hair matches that, somewhat matches that of the stash.
07:16Unfortunately, by having also the armor like this,
07:18you almost kind of really feel like you always want to push the armor down.
07:22Getting this guy, in fact, out of the packaging,
07:23his armor was up like this.
07:24I'm like, where is Bo's neck?
07:26It's there.
07:26You just kind of have to push it down just a little bit.
07:29Because there is no real way that this attaches onto the body,
07:32the torso is a bit of a floppy mess.
07:35So when you are kind of moving the figure around,
07:37you kind of really feel like the armor just wants to do its own thing.
07:40Of course, he does have the heart there on the front.
07:42I really feel like this guy not only could have included the wizard's wand,
07:45but maybe, in fact, a couple of other arrows.
07:47Says the guy.
07:48Says the guy.
07:48That couldn't even get the blasted arrow into his hands.
07:51It's right over here.
07:54This, by the way, is a softer plastic,
07:55so be careful removing this from the plastic prison it was contained inside.
07:59But all in all, though, like, it's a nice looking bow.
08:01I think they've done a nice enough job to sculpt.
08:03I do like the way that they've used this kind of gold plastic.
08:06There is a little bit of marbling, but it's not as bad as I was thinking.
08:09Of course, he does also have the pegels and bums of his feet,
08:11so he can make use of display stands if you so wish.
08:14Let's go through the figure's articulation.
08:16Bow, if you're familiar with the cartoon collection,
08:17thereby you'll also be familiar with bows.
08:20Heads can be on a ball joint,
08:20so it allows the head to rotate all the way around.
08:23Head can look up and down and back and forth.
08:26If you have also the armor up,
08:29you're going to notice it's going to get a little more tighter.
08:30So, again, you kind of want to push that all down.
08:33With the arms having freedom to go wherever they need to go,
08:35you can easily pull off a T-pose.
08:38Rotating the arms can be a little bit more trickier,
08:40and I've noticed doing this, you've noticed it already,
08:43when you rotate his arms sometimes all the way around,
08:45it hits the top of his shoulder and pops off the arm completely.
08:50So just kind of be aware of that.
08:51There is swivel there in the elbow,
08:53which also gives you a bend there too.
08:55Hands rotate back and forth.
08:56There's a hinge there as well.
08:57Waist swivels.
08:59There is a ball joint there at the tops of the thighs.
09:01You can take the legs and move forward and move them back.
09:03A little bit of a swivel there, just a little bit at the top of the thigh.
09:07Single hinge for the knee.
09:08Lower leg rotation.
09:10Boot is a separate piece as well, so there's rotation there.
09:13Ankle pivot up and down.
09:14Ankle rocker as well.
09:18Takeaway points for me, at least.
09:19I would say it's a good-looking bow.
09:21There are a few little things that I would say,
09:23like the head sculpt I think could have been a little bit better,
09:25but I think it's considerably better than what we got with She-Ra.
09:28I think She-Ra didn't really quite look the way
09:30that she should have looked from the cartoon collection.
09:32She also apparently seems to have a difficult time to stand.
09:35The one other thing too is that the figure
09:36didn't really have a whole lot of accessories.
09:38I think being that it's such an exclusive character
09:40to the episode of Bow's Magical Gift,
09:42why couldn't they have included the Wizard's Wand?
09:44Some could say really that the budget was dedicated
09:46to producing, of course, the cape, the armor,
09:48which is really essentially all one piece,
09:50and that budget also went into giving us the bow and the arrow.
09:53Still though, I think either the two should have connected.
09:55Maybe there could have been like a clip right here,
09:57so you could have clipped on the arrow.
09:59I know it loses a little something of that.
10:01It loses the magic of the cartoon,
10:03but at least you'd know that the arrow
10:04wasn't going to be going anywhere.
10:06Or, or, they could have also given him a different hand.
10:09A hand, maybe similar in fact to what he has right now,
10:11but a slit in between the fingers,
10:13so there at least would be a place to store the arrow.
10:15Without that, you're only having to do a balancing act,
10:18and that's never fun when you have to do that with your figures.
10:20Now, you don't have to necessarily have Bow
10:22holding his bow with a string drawn back.
10:24You can even, in fact, have him holding it with one hand,
10:27and then just balancing the arrow on the other.
10:29You probably have noticed a trend already.
10:31When it comes to the arrow,
10:32there's a lot of balancing that's required.
10:36I know there's still people that would have just preferred
10:37if they had had the bow and the arrow just one piece.
10:40I guess I would have kind of liked to have the bow and the arrow separate,
10:44but with that though,
10:45you would have had to have been sculpting a dedicated hand to hold the arrow.
10:49Had they only just made a different hand that had a split in the middle,
10:52then there would at least been a place to put the feather of the arrow in there
10:57so he would have been able to properly hold it.
11:00Yes, he probably could have come and included with a couple of other arrows,
11:02but we can't really overlook the oversight,
11:05the fact that he has a difficult time to hold one.
11:07Even if he had other ones, he'd have the same issue.
11:10If you overlook that one issue, the look of Bow looks nice.
11:14Finally, we have ourselves another member of all the rebels.
11:17There were also, there was the other one that we had as well.
11:19Was it Frosta?
11:20I'm drawing a complete blank.
11:22I do certainly hope that we're going to be getting a lot more,
11:25because right now, the Horde are really outnumbering the rebels.
11:28I can certainly understand that the rebels aren't as exciting as the Horde.
11:31I think Horde make for much cooler looking figures,
11:34but come on, maybe we still need to have more rebels
11:36to, of course, oppose the forces of Hordak and his men.
11:40What do you guys, though, think of Bow?
11:41Let me know down below in the comment section.
11:43And what do you guys feel when it comes to the way that they sculpt bows and arrows?
11:47Should a bow and an arrow be one piece,
11:49or do you always feel like a bow and an arrow should be separate pieces?
11:52I know sometimes a lot of that also has to do with the safety and security.
11:56A lot of times companies will actually sculpt deliberately a bow with an arrow,
12:00because there's not smaller pieces that you have to worry about with choking,
12:03swallowing, all the stuff that goes along with smaller pieces like that.
12:07But what do you guys feel when it comes to bows and arrows?
12:09Should they be separate or they should be joined together?
12:12If you guys did also enjoy this video, you can do it at a solid throat a like
12:15if you guys want to stick around for more.
12:16So, yeah, yeah, I hope so.
12:18By the way, we're not near the end, by the way, of the Master Universe reviews.
12:22We're going to do a couple more coming up this week,
12:24so I hope you guys are going to be coming back for that.
12:26As always, thanks for watching.
12:27See you guys next time.
12:28We'll see you next time.