TMNT Cartoon - APRIL O'NEIL!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - April O'neil & Foot Soldier (Bashed) - NECA 2020

Unpopular opinion: I'm not the biggest fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was just never into characters that were supposed to be "cool" - the more hip slangy language a character used, the more bored I got. There were a handful of annoying G.I.Joes (hence my preference for Cobra), Bart Simpson was intolerable (but I grew into him eventually), and of course the Turtles. I'm that one odd kid who wished they were more melodramatic and reminiscent of their artist namesakes. But no, it was all surfer/mallrat lingo and pizza and I wasn't having any of it. But visually I was intrigued and I appreciate their place in pop culture. April O'Neil, as the token female of the show, never really intrigued me because (despite her yellow jumpsuit) I still considered her a boring plainclothes character. However, I recently had a big change of heart and I suddenly own a handful of Aprils. This NECA Animated figure was a actually the big incentive for me to finally start my collection too. Let's check out April below!

There was a certain quality about this figure in all the early review photos that I just didn't like. She looked malproportioned and her stylized linework looked sloppy. Even when I found her in the store, my own excited Instagram pics reflected the same qualities I found disheartening. However, once I got her out of the packaging and started posing her, I quickly became obsessed. Her head does seem on the large size, but combined with the animated paint deco and her inconsistent representation in the cartoon, I thing this is a great representation of the character.

I thought I would find the linework paint deco annoying, but it's actually really well done.

April comes with her Channel 6 video recorder, audio recorder (with microphone), a standalone microphone, a turtleshell communicator, and two extra hands. There are also a couple throwing stars in the package, which I assumed belonged to the Foot Soldier, but I see now all the vintage April figures had a throwing star, so one likely belongs with April.

This set also comes with the Maltese Hamster Statue and a Baby Pizza Monster.

Here is the Foot Soldier (Bashed) still in his tray. One of those throwing stars likely belongs with April.

Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!

Here is April with a Super7 ReAction figure and a vintage Playmates figure.

And just because they happened to be sitting next to my photo tent, here she is with the recent Teela and Evil-Lyn MOTU Origins figures.

Cheers!