Review – Fungah Berry Version

Back in March of this year I ordered this Fungah Berry Version vinyl toy from the always-fun Lulubell Toys in Arizona. I’d seen the Cure Toys Fungah design before, but it took this Franken Berry-inspired edition to snatch my cash. And as I look at the toy I almost start to think that this was the colorway that was planned from the beginning and that all previous editions of the toy were simply smokescreens.

Articulation?

When I ordered this vinyl toy I expected that maybe the head or arms would turn. After all, Japanese vinyl toys aren’t really known for their articulation. Shockingly, though, the Fungah is articulated at the wrists, waist, shoulders, neck, and each hip. All of the joints are simple swivels where the plastic pieces plug together, but it’s a lot more articulation than I expected and it makes the toy more fun to play with. I’m not sure why this Japanese vinyl toy has so much articulation, but I’ll just sit back and be happy and keep my mouth shut. (After all, we don’t want Cure to notice and recall the toys so that they can strip out a few points of articulation.)

Sculpted Stripes

Looking closely at the shirt under the Fungah’s jacket (and no, the jacket is not removable) you can see where there’s texture and then smooth in alternating bands. In other versions of the toy where the stripes are painted I’m betting the texture looks really cool (for an example see this post at toybot studios), but on this particular colorway the texture is just odd. Fortunately it’s only noticeable if you stare closely at the toy so just treat this like the television when you were five: Don’t sit too close, dammit!

Great Colors

The paintwork on this Fungah is nice and tight, but it’s the Franken Berry design that really makes the toy jump off of the shelf. Man, playing with this toy makes it suck even more that the Franken Berry vinyl toy never happened (mentioned here) but all we can do instead of cry about a dead toy is play with the Fungah.

It looks like light pink plastic with all of the other colors painted on, and other than a few minor spots on the fingernails I’ve got no complaints with the paint applications. I’ll admit that there aren’t a lot of different colors, but as you can see from the photos there’s enough color to make the toy fun and to clearly capture the inspiration. And since it’s the colors that made me grab this I’m happy that Cure got the details right. Great work!

Closing Thoughts

I know that not everyone is in the market for a pink toy, but I suspect that more than a few of you out there are watching for a Franken Berry-inspired vinyl toy, and at the moment this is the best thing I’ve seen. The face is fun, the articulation is better than expected, and at 6-inches tall there’s a lot more toy here than you first expect.

Who should own one of these? Any Franken Berry fanatic who has already grabbed the few available toys and is still looking for more.

And someone needs to get the rights to the official character design and make us an official vinyl toy. I’ll take one!

Philip Reed looked up at the shelf and realized that he has very few pink toys. That’s probably for the best.