Review: Hot Toys 1/20 Appleseed Saga EX Machina Snap Kits

This is a series of trading figures made by Hot Toys based on characters from the acclaimed animation Appleseed Saga Ex Machina.

If you want to have all of the figures featured below, I suggest you get the complete retail package (see reason below), which is a carton of 10 figure boxes that includes the parts to the special Landmate bonus figure. The retail package sells for 14290 yen, so roughly $140 USD. It does seem some obscene, but after some thought and depending on the value you put on the Landmate, you can roughly call it $10-$12 USD per figure.

I lucked out as I purchased mine on sale from an on-line shop, ahem...HLJ, for roughly half price I think.

So this is the bonus figure Landmate. It is actually one of those power suits that the ES.W.A.T. team members wore. The back fins should actually be in the vertical position, but I like it this way better.

To get this bonus figure, you would combine the parts found in the individual packaged figures. In the retail package, you get a total of 10 figures, but in terms of variation, you actually get duplicates (2 sets) of the 5 members shown below.

Other than Briareos (the guy that looks like a patlabor), who doesn't come with bonus parts for the Landmate, you will need all 8 boxes of the other members to build the Landmate as the bonus parts are all spread out ingeniously.

The Landmate's cockpit actually opens up and you can put any ESWAT member's head inside. As can imagined, it is quite hefty and tends to be a little back heavy. However, it is quite posable in all major joints (I think 20), including hips, knees, ankles, etc.

At first I thought I got two left shoulders, as it turned out, the shoulders are identical, and all you have to do is to pull out the armor piece and flip it around. I almost broke it by twisting it, so don't do that.

The assembly of the figures is quite straight forward, the hip joints can be a little tight at times, just make sure you don't leverage your strength on the knees as you push the hips in, I haven't snapped the knees, but you could do some damage that way...May be that's why they gave you 2 sets of the 5 team members!

The 5 members are (L to R) Rhoetus, Briareos, Deunan, Manuel and Tereus. The big rifle that Tereus is holding actually comes in Briareos' package, who also has a pair special machine gun. If you had watched the anime, no doubt you also sensed the influence of producer John Woo in the film. Deunan comes with a knife, while handguns and semi machine guns are standard for the rest of the figures.

All the figures use a ball joint system similar to the revoltech line, but is to say, sometimes they can rotate out of natural position and I suggest you handle them with care when posing them.

I've got a really good deal on this so it's worth it for me, and they look pretty damn good when displayed as a team. But I'll have to leave the judgement call to you as to whether it's worth the value. A local comic store actually is selling each figure for about $30 USD.