In which I add a whole bunch of play value, and some novelty, to my Pokemon figure collection.
Even in figure collecting, which is pretty niche as it is, I’m hardly the typical buyer. I buy more candy toys and blind box trading figures than anything else, and most of that is food from companies like Re-ment (I’ve been cataloguing my stuff on MyFigureCollection lately, and so many of the things I have are also collected by only a small handful of people — it makes me wonder how many of these people I’ve interacted with on message boards and stuff before.)
Anyway, another of the ways I seem atypical is that I don’t have a lot of scale figures, nor do they matter all that much to me. Maybe it’s just because Re-ment is notoriously flippant about scale, and I buy so much of that. But most scale figures are both out of my price range and outside of my interests (most…..there are exceptions….several exceptions…..). But here we have a figure series totally based on the idea of everything at 1:20 scale — Pokemon Scale World. This one is the second set from the Galar region. And while it’s not absolutely mind blowing, seeing everything set up proportionately is pretty fun, and well worth contrasting some English and Japanese Pokemon names.
The packaging is pretty straightforward:
From here, each box is individually labeled, and the first features Sarunori (Grookey) and Bachinki (I just learned this is usually spelled as Bachinkey from this box, and anyway, it’s Thwackey in English). I can think of at least one place we talked about Sarunori’s name, and thwack is a perfectly good translation for bachin, so the Japanese and English names end up being pretty functionally similar. I used Sarunori as my starter on this (my second) playthrough of Pokemon Shield, and I think Bachinkey is underrated in terms of pure adorableness, so — awww.
Set Two has three figures. The largest (it’s really well packaged, too, as are all of these — it came in basically a separate little box I’m only just now realizing I definitely should have taken a picture of) is Rabifuto (Raboot). The others are Hibanny (Scorbunny) and Toxel (Eleson). We talked about Hibanny in the same blog entry linked above — that terrarium collection had all three Gen 8 starters — but I don’t think we’ve talked about the others.
It’s hard to choose between Rabifuto (sounding an awful lot like rabbit foot) in Japanese and Raboot in English — I guess I’ll give the Japanese a slight edge in terms of cuteness — but the other included Pokemon is one I don’t know much about in any language. I’m not really sure about the derivation of the English name (the tox is fom toxic, of course, but is the el from little because it’s a baby Pokemon? Or is it from electric, since it’s Poison/Electric Type? Maybe the last, since I’m pretty sure the Japanese name combines ele from Electric and son from Poison to get Eleson).
The third set has Messon (Sobble), who we’ve talked about before in various places, and the next evolution in that line, Jimereon (Drizzile). The end of that name comes from the English chameleon, but the beginning is most likely from jime-jime, meaning sort of damp, fitting this Water type.
The fourth set has Wanpachi (Yamper), Wooluu, and Mawhip (Alcremie). We talked about Wanpachi here and Mawhip here, leaving just Wooloo, whose name is basically the same in both languages. It’s funny how emblematic of Sword and Shield Wooloo is, really; if I were just going by anime things, I’d be surprised at their inclusion, but they play a role in the game from beginning to nearly the end, so it makes a lot more sense.
Set Five consists of Inteleon, whose name is basically the same in Japanese and English, and who I’m feeling extra awww toward, with the recent Pokemon Journeys episode featuring one so much.
Set Six also contains just one Pokemon – this one is Aceburn (Cinderace). This is one of those Pokemon I know is meant for an audience very different from me, and in that context it’s a pretty cute Pokemon at that. The Japanese and English names are pretty straightforward, though I like the Japanese one slightly better because the English name sounds just a bit like Cinderella.
Usually, when I write about Pokemon I have to look up English names if it’s from, you know, Generations Four to Seven. Sometimes with the first and last generations it’s the other way around, since I’d catch the American dub whenever I could the first year ot two it aired and I interact with more American fans since starting this blog. But this is probably the rarest case — Set Seven features the female protagonist from Sword and Shield, and I didn’t know what name they called her until I saw this. Apparently, it’s Yuuri in Japanese and Gloria in English.
What do I think about these figures overall? They’re quite interesting! The very thing that makes them unique — the scaling — makes them a little difficult to display. On the other hand, some of the very smallest ones being able to fit on the tip of my finger is amazing, and the quality is quite nice throughout.
I like these enough, in fact, to have put in a preorder on a future set, and if you’re looking for that or a couple of others (this one is out of stock, sadly) I’d point you toward amiami, as so often. And I’ve still got quite a few things to take pictures of from my latest order from there, so check back soon for more!
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