The Get List: Toreba: Three New Pokemon Plush (Larvitar, Teddiursa, Chicorita)

In which I add three new friends of varying quailty to my little hoard.

I’ve had quite a lot of luck on Toreba lately — or maybe it’s not so much luck as me observing more (when I work, I tend to leave Toreba open to watch plays out of the corner of my eye, so I get a better idea of which machines are winnable and how). In a couple of weeks, I took home three miscellenaeous Pokemon plush I’d like to show you today.

First up, I won Larvitar/Yoogirasu with only two free tickets:

Upon arrival, I think this is my favorite of the three plush I’ll be reviewing today. Yoogirasu’s look is so unique, from the pointy head to the sea-slug-like butt thing, and I don’t have much merchandise for them, so this is a welcome addition to my collection. And I love the winky eye like we’ve seen for others in this same Hopepita line of plush.

Yoogirasu is also quite soft — maybe even a little softer-feeling than the Yadon I linked above — and stands about nine inches high. I can’t help but think they’d be perfectly sized for snuggling at bedtime. (I also realize that I haven’t talked about Yoogirasu’s name here, but it’s another one I’ve got to admit to not knowing much about where it comes from in either language.)

How’s this for whiplash — we’re going to go from my favorite of the group to my absolute least favorite! Here’s my next lucky win:

My opinion on this Pokemon, Himeguma/Teddiursa is rather nonexistant. They’re cute enough, but nothing really makes them stand out to me.

I always wondered why they were called Himeguma, since the most frequent meaning of hime when I run across it is 姫 hime, princess, and there’s nothing princessy about this Pokemon that I can tell. But good old Bulbapedia taught me that Japanese also uses hime– as a prefix meaning “small” in species naming (they provide this link — find 姫 on that page to see this usage). I’m not too keen on the Japanese or English names (I’m assuming the English just combines teddy with ursa (also bear)) — pretty ho hum. Maybe they could have named them Ursaminor or something instead, since it emphasizes both the smallness and the bearness and brings in the space theme.

Sadly, this plush doesn’t do anything to lessen my blase feelings about this Pokemon. It’s not particularly soft in either of the major senses of the word (the pile is unimpressive, and there’s so much stuffing it’s almost hard). Quality has been up and down with this Korotto Manmaru collection (see Messon/Sobble here for an example of the bad, or Yadon/Slowpoke here for an example of the good). Himeguma is about the same size as the others in the lineup, a little more than 8.5 inches in this case.

Falling somewhere in the middle in terms of quality, but probably my favorite in terms of design of all three I’m writing about here today, our last prize is this friendly Chikorita! I’d coveted Chikorita since I had won Yadon from the same collection — not for any particular reason, just because they look so cute — and so I spent a little bit of money trying to win them. Here’s when I finally did:

That’s right — it’s yet another Hopepita plush (you can see the tag on the first plush I talk about here), and now that I’ve got it in my hands to review I’m realizing the differential between this and the Yoogirasu one up above is very small. Really, these are both so nice and soft and appealing, and for some reason I’m just very pleased with the fact that Chikorita’s leaf lifts up (it’s not sewn down anywhere but the top) — for some reason I just like it better that way.

I’d say this plush measures between nine and ten inches. Beyond that there’s not much more to say about this — not even about their name, since some places say it’s related to chicory (plus the Spanish diminutive suffice –ita), but I can’t say for sure. I’ve been having a fair amount of Gen Four nostalgia lately (I need to dust off and replay Gold and Silver sometime soon), so maybe I’m giving Chikorita too much memories-based leniency, but I don’t know — I’m fond of this one!

It feels good to have finally written up three of these plush (once I write them up, I can hang them on the wall, which is where I’ve finally resorted to storing my huge collection of these things!). But I’m glad to say that my next Toreba shipments of Pokemon contained plush I’m much more enthusiastic about. I’ll be writing about those — and, you know, the other ten million things I’ve put off — soon!