Samurai Michaelangelo (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012)

The Party Dude of the Shogun period! We come to the final figure from the "Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" story arc featuring Usagi Yojimbo.

This being the fourth Samurai Turtle figure I've blogged about, I don't know that I have much else to add. The colours are fun, it would've been nice to see the weapons painted but that's not for this toyline. The unpainted weapons do harken back to the original TMNT toyline. 

Samurai Raphael (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012)

Next up in the Samurai series of Ninja Turtles is Raphael! The cool but rude hotheaded brother comes with a helmet and mask like the others and is armed with a pair of sai. The weapons, head, and helmet crest are all that really separate one turtle from another.

Samurai Donatello (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012)

More Samurai Ninja Turtle goodness! Here we have Donatello, who has no machines to "do" but does have a fun samurai helmet with a different crest than Leonardo but the same monstrous face mask just in purple instead of blue.

The figures on the card-back have a few more paint applications than the actual figure do, not super surprising but they do look better.

Samurai Leonardo (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012)

Heroes in a Half-Shell! And Samurai Armour!

I really enjoyed the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series but was able to resist picking up any of the figures until the final season's "Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" gave us an awesome Usagi Yojimbo figure. 

And since the (nonexistent) toy gods were conspiring against me and I saw all four of the Turtles in their Samurai gear at once I scooped them up which gave me enough of a "completion" vibe to satiate the collector lust. The articulation is better than the original TMNT figures from the 90's but not to the level of say Marvel Legends or other larger scale figures. But they are a fun little slice of nouveau nostalgia (patent pending). 

Usagi Yojimbo (Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012)

Usagi Yojimbo is one of my favourite comics ever and this is probably the best Usagi figure I've seen. Full disclosure: the only other Usagi figure I ever owned was the one from the original toyline way way back in the 90's and that one was... less than faithful to the comic. This figure looks like he jumped right off the page, although he could use a few more paint applications but that's par for the course with this toyline from what I understand.


 The episodes from the final season of this (the best) Ninja Turtles show starring the rabbit ronin Miyamoto Usagi were among my favourites and I think gave us also the most accurate depiction of Stan Sakai's enduring creation on screen to date. Usagi Yojimbo is one of the few series I still buy in physical books and I can't wait for each new trade paperback to hit the shelves. This figure is certainly not a high-end collectible but is fun and a nice way to dip into the Ninja Turtle toyline without feeling like I need to collect ALL the characters.

David's Tea Dark Chocolate Delight Black Tea

A rare black tea review for this blog. Mrs. ISMOTU needed a boost to catch up on some work so I decided to tempt fate and join her in a cup of black tea after noon.   This tea has "spiced" dark chocolate, blueberries, cocoa shells, and natural chocolate flavouring. The chocolate scent is nice and similar to other teas with chocolate I've tried from David's Tea. Flavour-wise this is exactly what you might expect, sweet and chocolatey. I don't really taste the blueberries that much, not like in the Rooibos de Provence, the "spiced" aspect of the dark chocolate is very slight also.  On the whole this is a nicely flavoured tea and perfect for all the chocolate fans out there.
Recommended. 

I'm going to add some milk to it now and continue catching up on season 3 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I know I'm quite behind but it took me a bit to come to terms with the somewhat jarring voice change in Leonardo from Jason Biggs to Seth Green, plus I was on more of a Japanese kick for a while there.

I've quite enjoyed this latest iteration of the heroes in a half shell particularly the running gag the turtles watching a different corny old cartoon each season that homages some of the great cartoons the preceded the original TMNT on the airwaves of the 80's. This time it's "Crognard the Barbarian" a mash-up of Thundarr the Barbarian and Masters of the Universe, with shades of the Herculoids. I might have to do a whole post on the topic sometime.

For more info follow the link: https://www.davidstea.com/ca_en/our-teas/dark-chocolate-delight