Out of the Box: Mass Effect's Tali'Zorah (Kotobukiya Bishoujo)

Tali'Zorah watches for Geth (or Cerberus, or Reapers)...

I've shared a number of Mass Effect figures from a variety of lines in the past, but one thing I've been on the fence about are the Kotobukiya's Bishoujo figures.  For those who aren't familiar with them, the Bishoujo line produces figures that the "sexy lady" version of a variety of female game and anime characters.  They have Kotobukiya's usual great level of detail, but the sexy poses always struck me as a little silly, so I passed on the earlier Mass Effect releases from the line (Liara and Jane Shepard) - but I've regretted not picking up the Liara figure since then (she is available on the secondary market, but at ridiculous mark-ups, and I'm just not willing to pay $250+USD for a figure that originally retailed for less than $80).  So when the Tali figure was announced I decided that silly or not, I'd probably pick her up.

And fortune smiled on me, because not only did I find her in stock recently, but also at a 20% discount!  She arrived on Sunday, so let's open the box and take a look at her.

A quick comparison: Lego mini figures and DST Mini-Mates

Lego Fly (L) and MiniMate Tali (R)

One of the most common questions around Dimond Select Toys' MiniMates line from people who haven't seen them in real life is how they compare to Lego figures.  To help answer that question, I've taken some comparison photos of a representative from each line.

Our representatives for the day are both blind bag figures. On the Lego side we have The Fly (they call him "Fly Monster", I assume because it's not licenced as a movie tie-in) from the Series 14: Monsters release. On the MiniMate side, we have Tali from the Mass Effect: Series 1 release. Both figures have the standard body from each of their representative lines, although they do have unique head sculpts: the standard heads on both lines are peg-shaped.

Fourth out of the box: Tali

Right now there's only one action figure out and on display, and that's Tali here.

She's nothing special -  not the collector's edition from Square Enix, just that original playline figure that gets the colours wrong, but I still felt like she deserved a place on the display shelf.