Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Vinylmation Review - Mystery Bakery Figment

For today's Vinylmation Review I will be taking a look at the newly released Mystery Bakery series. I will be reviewing each "flavor" of Mystery Bakery separately, but I will also talk about the series overall in this post.

Release Date: July 12, 2013
Blind Open Window

Mystery Bakery
The series overall I like more than I thought I would. I didn't care too much for the first Bakery series, just because I don't understand the whole cupcake thing. Why would you want a Disney character as a cupcake? I also didn't know back then that the frosting actually came off. There was nothing wrong with the figures or the artwork in the original Bakery series, I just didn't get it.

But with the mystery bakery series, I am MUCH more impressed! First off, this is a real hybrid series combining open window (which I think can be expected for Bakery) with blind boxing. Let me explain: the "flavor" or character is the open window part, so you can see that the character you're getting is Figment for example. But in some cases the expression you get (in the cases of Stitch, Mickey, Toy Story Aliens and Figment) is a mystery like blind boxing. You don't know what you'll get until you pick a box, open it and remove the frosting. With Haunted Mansion and the Dwarfs "flavors" there are 3 different characters, so you would know you were picking say, a Dwarf, but you wouldn't know until you open it if it's going to be Grumpy, Doc or Dopey.

I am so impressed with the artwork, subtle hints, thoughtful touches and attention to detail in this series as a whole, and I will explain further when I look at each character set individually. But something I really love is the hybrid aspect of mixing blind boxing and open window. It's genius! I would never have thought of it! And considering some of the crap Disney have churned out recently, I'm honestly surprised. I think it's great for attracting those who aren't typically big fans of open window series and I think it's a gentle way of introducing those who don't necessarily want to blind box into the hobby.




Mystery Bakery: Figment
Let's start with the frosting. Just WOW! There's so much there that I can appreciate! The colors are the colors from the Imagination Pavilion, which is awesome! The colors are bright, fun and completely appropriate for Figment. It's nice to know that they weren't chosen arbitrarily. Then to make the frosting even more awesome, the symbols are the Journey into Imagination logo!

The Imagination Pavilion

As for Figment himself, Ron Cohee has blown me away again! Is there anything he can't draw?! All 3 facial expressions are 100% accurate in looking like Figment. The one on the right and the one in the middle look like the most classic Figment expressions in my opinion, but they all look exactly like him. He's one of my favorite Disney characters so I'm pleased to see him done spectacularly! Anyone who buys a Figment Mystery Bakery figure should be thrilled with whichever expression they end up with.


And now for my very minor dislikes with this series...

I still don't get the cupcake thing at all. I still don't understand why you'd particularly want a character in the form of a cupcake, but it certainly makes the hybrid open window/blind box work in this series. For that reason I probably won't buy any myself, but I can most definitely appreciate that these figures are awesome! My only other dislike is that after choosing colors from the attraction for the frosting, the icing on Figment's head/nose/mouth is blue. Why? Where did that come from? I would have preferred to see yellow, orange, red or pink.

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