TMNT Donatello NECA 7 Inch Classic Cartoon Action Figure Review

Well, we've made it through the 2019 holiday season and I have to say that I did pretty good for Christmas. For being an adult male with a teenage child I was able to get mostly all toys, video games, or books about toys and video games. One nice thing this year is that my daughter is old enough to get me something that she'd know I'd like and this is what she picked out for me. The question is.... how did she do?

Nothing against my daughter or children in general but they are not very good gift pickers. Unless it's something homemade usually you'll never guess in a million years what you'll get. When my daughter handed me this and I unwrapped it I have to say I was very shocked and happy. I do remember one day at Target with my wife and daughter and while my wife was off doing household shopping as adults do, my daughter and I were in the toy and electronics department looking around for cool things. I remember seeing these and remarking to her that I liked them and would need to get them at some point. I might have picked them up that day but I was already buying something else that I needed and I didn't want to push it with my wife who still needs enough money to buy the things that keep a household running. I still haven't mastered the part where every penny that comes in needs to go into buying me something that I both have to have and don't need at all. Ah, the responsibilities of being an adult.

Anyway, when I open these guys up I was very happy with my daughter's choice and for the fact that she was able to pick me out something that I wanted but didn't have. I'm sure at my daughter's age I would never have picked this out for my dad in the same situation, I don't know who that speaks more about.

Donatello trying to explain his crazy idea of building and running a blimp when they're so poor they live in the sewer.

NECA came out with these a year or so ago, again in two packs, but they were one bad guy and one good guy. The original release, for example, came with Donatello and Krang. For the most part, these toys look the same, they all appear to have the same accessories. The colors on the Turtles were darker in the original release, and if I'm being honest I think I prefer the darker turtles but don't get me wrong, these turtles look great.

This is NECA's version of the characters from the 80s TMNT cartoon and I have to say they look much better than the recent Playmates version of the same toys. These NECA figures, while of course a little light on detail due to being based upon a kid's cartoon, look very good compared to their cartoon counterparts. The look is perfect with all the right features and just enough black line "detail" that gives them enough believable detailing without getting too far away from the cartoon look.

This Donatello comes with 15 points of articulation including a ball joint in the head, joints in the shoulder, bicep, elbow, and wrist of each arm, and each leg has hip, knee, and ankle articulation. Overall you can get some nice poses out of him and his joints ratchet in place to hold their position which works well. I did have a bit of trouble keeping him standing up in some poses but when standing flat foot he has no trouble, unlike my recent review of the new Rise Of The TMNT Donatello.

Accessories wise Donatello does pretty well. He comes with one bo staff, not the two like he always should. The bo looks great but the plastic that it's made of does not stay straight and the bo is constantly warped looking. I tried to angle it in some of the shots so it would look better than it did in real life but you can see how bad it is with the other accessories.

He also comes with two turtle shell communicators, one closed and one opened, an extra pair of hands, and paper blueprints of the Turtle Blimp. This two-pack also came with a cardboard cutout of Bebop that I guess is put in the corner for the turtles to practice fighting, and finally when you open the box up the sewer background piece of cardboard easily slips out and I used it as the background for the pictures that I took. I think it looks pretty good and I may use it again with TMNT figures in the future.

The hands in this set go in and out pretty easily, unlike all the trouble I had with the NECA 1990 7 inch movie Donatello who's hand broke the first time I tried to remove it. Something I noticed the first time I switched the hands were there was an alarming amount of green paint flaking off everywhere. If you look closely in some of the pictures you'll see specks of green paint on the ground.

Since he can't hold it, Donatello playfully poses with his turtle comm in his belt.

The standard hands are set up to hold his bo staff in his hands and they work fine. The other set is useless except for posing. With the two sets of hands Donatello came with, he cannot hold any of his turtle comms. I think the second set of hands was created by the designers so Donatello could flip off the people who bought him thinking he'd be doing a lot of turtle comm holding.

Issue wise there isn't much for me to complain about. I already mentioned the paint flaking, but the bigger issue is the paint in general. Mostly it's all done well but right out of the package there was a big mark on the back of the shell. I don't see how it could have happened in transit because his bo staff wasn't attached to his belt in the packaging and the belt and belt loop should have blocked the shell from taking any damage. The only way I could see that damage getting there was it was like that when they put him in the box. Also, his joints have a lot of extra paint in them which looks messy but I'm afraid to remove it for fear of color loss. Overall these problems aren't too bad and when Donatello is wearing his bo it helps hide the damage so not bad enough to cry over.

This Donatello is a great addition to my TMNT collection, I can never have enough good Donatello action figures. He looks great, has good articulation, is affordable, and is currently available. If you are looking for a quality action figures based upon the 1980s TMNT cartoon you'd do much worse than these guys. Donatello and Leonardo can be found in stores for 50 dollars which are 25 dollars per figure and for an action figure with this articulation, accessories, and looks you can't go wrong. I give this NECA Classic Cartoon 7 Inch Donatello an 8 out of 10. My daughter did pretty well!

2012 Donatello, 2018 Donatello, NECA Cartoon Donatello, NECA 7" Movie Donatello

One more thing, NECA claims that both this Classic Cartoon Donatello and the 1990 Movie Donatello are both on the 7-inch scale. You can see that the movie Donatello is clearly taller and this Classic Donatelllo measures 5 1/2 inches head to toe so I don't know where the 7-inch number came from.