Review – Ben 10 Hyperalien Ultimate Swampfire
Back in February the Ben 10 Ultimate Alien Hyperalien Vilgax (review here) impressed me. A fantastic vinyl toy for only $10, I spent quite a bit of time telling people to go buy this toy if they had any interest in Japanese designer toys, because there’s nothing but awesome trapped inside the inexpensive box that you can find at Wal-Mart, Target, and other easy-to-find stores.
Well, now there’s another vinyl toy that you need to be tracking down. This new Ben 10 Hyperalien Ultimate Swampfire* is every bit as cool as the Vilgax and is ready to storm your kaiju collection and get into fights with your most expensive of toys. And he’s still just $10 if you can find him in stores.
Which, at the moment, doesn’t appear to be easy to do.
Articulated Vinyl
The Swampfire features the same points of articulation as the earlier releases in this series. The simple peg joints at the shoulders and hips gives the toy a total of four points of articulation, but shifting those legs around usually results in the toy falling over so for most purposes your only poseability options are to swing the arms up or down. It really isn’t an amazing amount of articulation, but the toy is big enough — and has a great enough sculpt — that I can overlook the articulation. Especially since my plan is to pose him on the shelf with other vinyl toys and probably use him more as a decorative piece than a plaything.
Sculpt
Bandai is killing it with this series. Just like the Vilgax you need to click on these pics so that you can zoom in and get a closer look at the details. The gnarled, root-like torso and limbs look really good and the blue protrusions — which I am assuming are energy powering the beast; I don’t watch Ben 10 — make a nice contrast with the rougher parts of the body. And that flame-like face is sculpted into the design, not just paint, so the light plays nicely with the “head” when you’re moving the toy around in your hands.
Paint
The Ben 10 Hyperalien Ultimate Swampfire* doesn’t have much in the way of painted details, with most of the toy’s color coming from the brown plastic that it was created from. Something I cannot decide on, though, is whether or not the large blue bulb on the body was a separate piece or part of the same piece as the rest of the torso. I think it’s all one piece, but the way those spike-like projections extend over the blue makes me think the blue bulb was created separately — likely in the lighter blue — and then the two pieces glued together.
Regardless of how it was made, though, the Swampfire features a perfectly acceptable paintjob. It may not be as insane and bizarre as kaiju toys when it comes to the paint, but it’s clean and looks great. But I would like to see some toy artists who usually work with Japanese vinyl grab one of these and give it a detailed and weird color scheme.
Closing Thoughts
The Ben 10 Hyperalien Ultimate Swampfire* is an excellent addition to this series of vinyl toys and if you collect any kaiju I think you need to at least get to a store and take a look at this guy. A plant-like monster with blue energy and a flaming face, the Swampfire looks to me like a toy that will go great with any kaiju toy collection. And no doubt fans of the series will love this toy since it’s big, durable, and fun.
Philip Reed should get that Highbreed review online. It might be the coolest toy in the series.
I saw him and almost picked him up, but fiddling with him for 5 seconds in the store I popped his arm off… True enough, I was able to pop it back in with ease.
Still it sort of put me off on the toy. Well, that and the fact that I’m trying to avoid becoming a Ben 10 collector. I’ve never seen 2 seconds of the show and yet, I have quite a few of the toys.