One thing I love about having more realistic versions of animated characters in the Black Series line is it makes the disparate styles feel like one universe. The Clone Wars is a huge part of the Star Wars story, so I’ve been wanting Anakin and Obi-Wan in this style for a while now. Hasbro and Target made me work for it, but ultimately the figures feel worth it. Let’s take a look!
The packaging is an interesting curiosity and does a good job recreating that old The Clone Wars packaging, but holds no nostalgic value for me, so it’s already recycled. It is kind of funny to see the super-exaggerated knife-beard animated Kenobi on the packaging juxtaposed with the more realistic Ewan McGregor likeness of the toy.
Anakin and Obi-Wan come with their sabers and that’s it. The sabers both have removeable blades and they can plug their hilts into their belts. The hilts are both nicely painted with some good metallic paint and clean details. I think both figures do a great job capturing the feel of their animated costumes, though the likenesses are a mixed bag.
Obi-Wan uses some parts from the current Clone Trooper (arms and lower legs) and the head looks like re-use from the recent Walgreens exclusive 2D Clone Wars figure. That head was fantastic there and it works great here too. The torso appears to be new and has some really nice texture in the parts that are meant to be cloth and smooth for the armor bits.
Anakin also re-uses a lot of the old Black Series Anakin figure including the legs and some parts of the arms. The torso and skirt, head, and shoulder pads are all new and I really like the body a whole heck of a lot, but the head feels a little off to me.
It is kind of funny because the recent AOTC Anakin felt off to me because his jaw was a little too thick, but this one feels off because it feels a little too slight. This one kind of looks a little like Tom Holland. I will be trying a head swap with the ROTS version because I feel like Anakin should basically look like ROTS Anakin during The Clone Wars.
The articulation is really pretty nice aside from the awful swivel/hinge knees on Obi-Wan, but there are some things I really like a lot. The waist and neck articulation in both figures have excellent wobble movement and there are some butterfly hinges in both figures and the cloth mid-torso overlays are soft plastic that allow for good two-handed saber holding poses. The shoulder pads on Anakin freely swivel with the arms, are flexible plastic, and stay out of the way well. Obi-Wan’s shoulder pads are flexible and attached to his bicep, but can slide under the torso overlay so his arms get good movement. The one downside is that Anakin’s ankles are really loose.
The paint is pretty good with really nice face printing and clean paint on the costumes. If anything, they could use a little weathering, especially on Obi’s armor.
Overall I like these two quite a lot despite the wonky Anakin likeness. They just move really well and Obi-Wan is almost perfect with an excellent likeness and great representation of the animated costume.
Apparently, Hasbro doesn’t want to make any money. Like most Target exclusives, they won’t hit the shelves, they will end up on clearance for 2, weeks then disappear.
They must have reused the hands from some other figure to pinch some more pennies. Why else give Anakin of all people two trigger finger hands? Kinda look like clone trooper hands, too.
I would like to suggest that they have done it in preparation for a TCW Season 3-7 Anakin with extra blasters based on the Animatics-only Utapau arc but that’s too obscure, even for me.
I don’t like that Anakin’s hands are both side to side jointed and not up down. At least give us and up down joint on the right hand. I feel like if a figure caster made 3rd party hands for Hasbro figures they would sell a lot. GI Joe Classified has this issue too.
Totally looks like Evan Peters!
Anakin looking like Evan Peters ovah here.
Everything that you love eventually treads into hell. I think Target is that hell and upchargers are the Cenobites. As soon as you decide you want a figure you can’t have, you’ve solved the puzzle and hell beckons, sending its minions.
“We want the one who wants thiiiis.”
Surprised they didn’t go with an option to have the layers of pancakes for hair for Obi wan.
I was thinking a peeved Tom Holland
why were these released as Target exclusives 🙁 They’re always out of stock