Break a leg
Microman, one of the most influential action figure lines with over three decades of history, was reinvented as a collector’s line in 2003 with the release of the Microman Microforce figures.
Takara was a little tentative with the release. The packaging was remarkably cheap — it may be the shoddiest Takara packaging ever — and one suspects the company had doubts whether adult collectors would be interested in Microman figures. But interested they were and the Microforce figures sold well enough that Takara continued producing Microman figures for that segment of the market.
The selling points of the new generation of figures were their fantastic sculpting and outstanding articulation. Takara’s talented designers managed to come up with a 10cm-tall figure with 30 points of articulation.
The NinjaMicroman figure was my favourite from that groundbreaking assortment and it was indeed one of my all-time favourite figures. I loved the colour scheme, the ridiculous Beckham-esque faux-hawk and the supercool accessories including the hilarious oversized sword.
But most of all, I really loved playing with the figure. It was just too much fun to put the figure in one Super Ninja Attack pose after another.
You can imagine my dismay when I accidentally broke the right leg at the hip joint. There was no dramatic KER-SNAP. One moment NinjaMicroman was bipedal and the next he was Hoppy McLegless.