*This is a re-edited review that was originally published on the 28th January 2017.
I have no excuses, no mitigating circumstances, the dog did not eat my homework, my house was not catapulted to an LSD nightmare of a world inhabited by dwarfs and psychotic witches, I never saw or fell into a rabbit hole and I most certainly did not take the red pill … or was it the blue pill … bugger.
So here I stand, cap in hand offering you my thoughts, musings and opinions on Fans Toys FT-15 Willis.
Late to the party yes but maybe, just maybe there is a little more reviewing to eek out of this figure.
Fans Toys presents FT-15 “Willis” in a rather nice glossy embossed box with a distinct military vibe, I think we can safely say this is down to the camouflage backdrop. I like the box but not a big fan of the 'camo' motif, I get why it’s there but I’m more minimalist when it comes to my packaging preferences. Fans Toys claw it back though with the lovely polystyrene insert, love me some polystyrene around my figures, reminds me of when I picked up the Toyworld Dinobots, that smell, lush. Anyway, I think more 3rd Party companies should do it.
Willis is presented in his robot mode which is a change for me as most of the figures I’ve picked up lately tend to be in their alt modes. With this comes the usual accessories, collector card and instruction manual. Little bit of a issue here for me, I’d have liked to have seen the instruction manual a little smaller so it would not have had to have been folded to get it in the box, crease lines. Accessories are made up of; shoulder mounted rocket launcher, animation style gun, G1 toy style gun, M2 machine gun, spare wheel, Jerry can, mounting peg for rocket launcher, spare head with cartoon tone face colours and a translucent face visor.
Robot Mode
Transforming back into robot mode (remember he comes packaged in robot mode), Willis looks amazing. Fans Toys seem to have struck just the right balance between G1 toy inspiration and the cartoon characters aesthetic. In a previous review I had noted how Mastermind Creations had an evolved G1 toy feel as opposed to the animation blandness that Takara is now pursuing. Willis has good articulation but some poses may require support as he’s a little top heavy. There’s a lot of die-cast in this figure and it’s concentrated at the front end for the most part, so he has a habit of falling over at times (pose dependent).
His robot does fit in well with other MP figures, both official & 3rd Party and his bot size is just about right I’d say to face off against RMX-06 Furor, should you wish to recreate the scene from More Than Meets the Eye Part 2. Accessories wise he can utilize both guns, his animated style blaster and toy version rifle and he also has the shoulder mounted rocket launcher. If you wish you can attach the spare wheel to his back and also swap out his head for the more cartoon tone face sculpt. When using this head you can also attach the underwater visor which covers his face, this is from the same episode of the cartoon as mention just a moment ago.
Everything tabs in nice and snug where it should be with no unsightly gaps or kibble, colour tone continuing the standard set in vehicle mode.
At the time of its release Willis was the preferred option, MP-47 was still a few years away and Maketoys Gundog was never really masterpiece material in my opinion. I missed out on Willis upon his initial release, no specific reasons other than he just slipped under my radar. However I was able to rectify this with thanks to fellow collector Oliver Parsons. Thanks Oliver and I hope you managed to pick up another one!
Willis was my first Fans Toys figure and I was more than happy with it overall. So much so I was looking forward to obtaining others in the future, namely FT-10 Phoenix.
Willis has been a good figure to have in my collection over the years, however the execution of the mold is becoming dated, specifically where articulation is concerned. Design concepts move quickly and in this respect Willis is being left behind. MP-47 regardless of it’s QC issues, is a perfect example of this, it helps that it is the same character too. I’m not suggesting that Willis be consigned to the back of the shelf or, God forbid the bin, more that he’s just another example of how time moves on.
