09.06.08
Bandai Naruto Figure and Candy
Today’s JSFR fun isn’t really a Snack Food in the sense of “I’ve got the munchies, lemmie grab a pack o’ these” but more a baseball card kind of snack thing. Akin to Pin-Gu from back in ought-five. You aren’t buying either for the snackage but rather when you get your collectible figure you also get a tasty treat.
At least I *hope* you aren’t buying Narutos for the treat because 6 plus bucks is an awful lot o’ dough for a quarter sized fruity lozenge. Buuuut Tsai Grocery stocks Narutos right smack in the candy section though so I decided to review them.
(Actually, I was shopping with a new recruit to the Snack Food Review who collects these figures and I asked if I could snag this one to review. I wouldn’t be able to tell a Naruto if it came up and smacked me in the face, save I’d be six and a half bucks poorer.)
Naruto comes in a blister bandolier with several different parts. This one is the…err…fire Naruto so he comes with fire.
Apparently there are several Narutos, which appear to have an elemental theme going on. The box I snagged has the fire Naruto displayed prety prominently all over it so I suspect, like the Pin-Gu, the box tells you who is going to be inside. However, I only have the one box to judge by and the Guinea Pig whose Naruto this is told me that the boxes are random. Perhaps the fire Naruto is the lead character and all the boxes have him larger than life on the outside and some random Naruto on the inside. I do not know and do not feel like spending six-fifty to find out.
One thing I do know, is that I fail at Naruto assembly. His sword arm comes separate from the rest of him and it kept falling out. I also put him, the arm, the fire and the stand together and wound up with an extra blue piece that didn’t look like it went anywhere. Fortunately, the inside of the box has instructions – the blue bit goes on the foot. Why? I have no idea but I’m glad he wasn’t a toaster. I imagine that having an extra part left over from putting together an electrical appliance is a little more of a concern than a part left over from a figurine.
But what about the fruity lozenge??
Oh yeah, the fruity lozenge. It reminds me of a fatter Necco Wafer and it’s vaguely citrus-y fruity and a little chalky, like a really tasty Tums orange antacid. It’s not as sweety sweet as, say, a Lifesaver and not as mouth wateringly tart as a Sweet-Tart but it has aspects of both. If you think of it as a Franken-lozenge made from the parts of a Tums, Sweet-Tart, Necco Wafer and Lifesaver you might be close to imagining what the lozenge tastes like. It’s not…bad but certainly not worth getting if you aren’t collecting Narutos. Even if you are collecting Narutos, you might want to eat one lozenge out of curiosity and then toss the rest. Or possibly call up a candy mob with pitchforks and burn the rest. Your choice.
As a snack food, the Naruto lozenge is a disappointing failure. At least the Pin-Gu had a better candy to collectible ratio and was priced a lot less. If I was reviewing a bag of Naruto lozenges, I might give them a 2.5 for being mediocre to OK, but not something you would necessarily buy again. Personally, I think Bandai ought to have just left out the lozenge and gone with a straight collectible figure in a box but they didn’t. Pin-Gu did it better and came with chocolate. And a wider variety of Pin. Or Gu. Whatever.
Rating of 2 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
Vince said,
August 5, 2010 at 12:31 am
It’s not fire Naruto, his name is Sasuke. o_____O”