Raphael
Today I’m reviewing the last of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Playmates Toys line inspired by the Nickelodeon cartoon series, the brooding Raphael.
First, I must say that I have always liked Raphael and there are a couple of non-toy related reasons for this. One is that it is the Raphael is the only one of the brothers that still wears the red mask they all wore in the Eastman & Laird comics. The other is that his weapons of choice, the sai, were developed specifically to go against the dreaded katana sword and win.
Personality –wise, Raphael has always been the darker of the turtle brothers. In the media, he’s always been depicted as short tempered and prone to violent outbursts, and to a degree his plastic representation reflects this.
Starting with the obvious, Raphael is made from much darker plastics that the other Ninja Turtles, which actually showcases better the textures and amount of detail that goes into these figures.
Raphael has all the texturing and detail found in the other three, but something I noticed recently while watching one of the new cartoons is that the figure displays a thunder-shaped nick over the left breast shell, and this small bit of detail is also present in the digital animation model, which I thought was very cool.
Even though Raphael is about the same height as Leonardo, the figure is also an entirely unique mold.
Raphael’s facial expression is openly angry, displaying deep furrows over his brow and a fierce grimace.
In terms of articulation, Raphael has the same standard as his brothers, consisting of:
• Ball jointed neck.
• Pegged hinge shoulders.
• Pegged hinge elbows.
• Swivel wrists.
• Pegged hinge hips.
• Pegged hinge knees.
The joints on these figures are simply great. The movement range is nowhere near as extensive as in, say, a Marvel Legends figure, but the actual design is versatile and feel quite sturdy, a trait that combined with the weight and mass of these toys makes them hard to put down.
As a standalone figure, Raphael is great, but similarly to Michelangelo, his coloring differs so much from that of Donatello or Leonardo, that one wonders if these figures even belong in the same line from the visual aspect alone.
As I mentioned, Raphael is made from darker colored plastics. The skin color is a solid emerald green and while the back shell is barely two tones darker than that of his brothers, the front rubber shell is decidedly an orange-brown color.
Of all the four Turtles I bought, Raphael was the one that had the cleanest paint job of the bunch. The mask was painted in a subdued red color, and the protective gear was painted in the same dark brown hue used for the ankle and wrist wrappings, with only the bandages at his knuckles painted in the same off-white color as his teeth.
Similar to Michelangelo’s, Raphael wears a non-removable, brown rubber belt with a couple of loops at the back to store his pair of sai, although I distinctly recall that in previous incarnations Raphael used to carry his weapons at the front.
Raphael’s sai are made from silver colored plastic, the same material used for the plastic sprue with extra weapons this figures come with. The weapons on the sprue are a couple of single-pronged sai (called jitte), a couple of hook-swords and a couple of shuriken.
Bottom line, Raphael is another all-around solid addition to my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection.
Errex Score: 94/100
Category: Featured, TMNT, Toy Reviews