It just flops around and looks, well, crap. Worst of all, the sword handle is too small for his hand so it never really sits in a convincingly held way. Sure it’s a katana, fair enough, but it is scaled to the size of the Foot Soldier, meaning it is a bit too small for Shredder to use. I don’t know about you, but I’d have thought the LEADER of the Foot Clan would have his OWN INDIVIDUAL weapon. The same sword that comes with the Foot soldier. That bodes well for handling weapons and looking like a kick arse dude right? So the torso is is pretty good, but the legs are really bad.

The spiky shoulder guards are on hinges which allow you to move them up so they don’t hinder the shoulders. On the plus side, his arms are pretty well articulated with good shoulder movement, elbows and wrists. Much like Kraang he is almost stuck to his one pose. The hips are on two hinge joints, forwards and backwards and in and out is possible, but then you have to contend with the immobility of the feet. The shin guards are huge too and like his wrist and shoulder guards don’t come off. His feet are very large and chunky, with one foot relegated to a slight action pose which has the toes being the most stable part of the foot. His legs are smooth and look nice with their lines and design. He has a nice addition of some thigh covers sculpted on the side and a bit of scale mail over his chest. His helmet is suitably pointy and overall the details aren’t bad. Sadly he doesn’t have the weapons rack of that the turtles come with, I think he really needs some. Shredder CG on the back of the box highlights the slight lack of detail on the toy although the scar on his face might have been a late addition to the cartoon that they didn’t know about in time for the figure. While the sculpt is adequate, he is missing a lot of articulation, which really lets him down quite a lot considering how he is the leader of a clan of ninja and should be nice and agile.

Is he as funky and well done as the Turtles? Or is he a bit of a wet fish like Kraang? Nonetheless, I have here the mighty leader of the Foot Clan, Shredder. You Know I am a bit disappointed in myself, for these Ninja Turtles figures I have been unable to come up with a witty/stupid (it’s all a matter of perspective) title pun.

Tmnt 2012 shredder