Random Toy Review Time!

[smoketetsuo]

Omega by Fewture. Designed by Yasushi Nirasawa and sculpted by Yoshihiro Saito with cooperation of Manson himself.

This is one of those figures I had for quite a while now but I'm wanting to do reviews of at least my favorites in my collection. Well this one is a unique one to me and I'm happy I got it while it was still reasonable and available at retail rather than marked up. This is of Manson in his Mechanical Animals "Omega" guise. These figures where originally only available in japan but where later made available worldwide. It says at the article about the figures that Manson chose japanese designers because they are more "daring" than toy companies in the US. I'm not sure I would classify them as more daring than Macfarlane or something since they didn't do anything to censor the designs of some of the movie monsters they did such as Sil from Species... her figure still had the big biomechanical nipples and such and nothing in this line is anywhere near as racy as that.. but I digress...

I quote an article at marilynmansonimages.com:

"The Mechanical Animals era sees MM embark on a form of hard-edged glam, tarting up their image likewise and taking most of their fans by surprise. In a sense, the band become 'Omega and the Mechanical Animals'. Think of 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars' by David Bowie and it's a similar theme, visually.

                    "The story of Omega is one of an exaggerated rock star lost in fame and drugs and the isolation that follows." - MM                    

With the band at it's most mainstream pictureseque, a host of fashion and magazine snappers play an eager role in promoting them. But what's it all about?

"Antichrist Superstar was like falling from heaven. Mechanical Animals is about what happens when you hit the earth, where you go from there, how much more there is to be discovered." - MM"

Omega without its skin showing its mechanical innards.

This figure plays up the mechanical aspect of the character and makes it an android. I'm not sure if that was Manson's idea or if it was artistic liberty by the japanese artist and sculptor who made the figure. The character is androgynous.. sure it has breasts and is clearly manson himself... but there's no visible nipples and no genitalia on the "skin"... kind of like a rock star having gone through tons of replacement surgery and coming out the other end not human any more something more mechanical than animal. Who that's inspired by I'll leave up to your imagination. They also call him an extraterrestrial but he looks more like an android to me than an alien.

The music video for the dope show was even partially filmed at the buildings they used in the episode of star trek the next generation where Datas brother "Lore" was acting as a leader for some individualistic borg that came to be because of Hugh and his virus of individuality he introduced into some of the collective. So to me it seems it was rather android themed when I think about it.

You can take off this figures "skin" revealing green android muscles and mechanical tendons\joints, etc. The purple brain with metal brackets is also located in stomach compartment and the similarly designed heart is in a socket in the middle of metallic "rib cage". I find it amusing that the brain is in the stomach area... I guess it thinks with its stomach, eh? Also apparently Omega doesn't need to go see the wizard because it has its very own heart & brain! 

You can also switch out the head for one that looks like the scene from the music video "the dope show" where he is wearing a mask with two horns that go to his breasts. I forgot to take a picture of that though but I hardly use alternate heads and I highly prefer the standard head for this. That other head would be better if they had an outfit you can put on to match it to totally go with that scene.  

When you purchase this figure it comes on a blister pack with artwork from the Mechanical Animals album and comes with the skin off and the two organs separate from the body and one has to put them into the chest cavities and assemble the figure so it'll be as I display it.

Also the little green pills are apparently supposed to be the fabled "dope" from the dope show. Although they are of course fake but that's OK because I didn't want real dope with my figure anyway. One of them says Mar1lyn and the other says Man5on just as it was written on the album liner notes.  I usually lose small items that come with figures so I'm surprised I have kept those all these years even after throwing everything in boxes and moving back home.

The last thing this figure includes is a mini figure of one of those whatchamacallits from the dope show video who where after him when she escaped from the facility who had things kind of like animal catchers have to hook around his neck. The feet on it are a little small though making it topple every now and then.. they should have molded a stand onto it or included one that its feet can attach to or something but that's a minor blemish in what's otherwise a great collectors figure. The silver stand that comes with the main larger figure is quite good and the figure with it stands very stable.

Lastly, apparently there where also pink and stone versions of this figure and that's pretty neat for collectors but to be honest with you I wouldn't have picked either of those in place of the original full colored version... although especially the stone one looks rather neat with the sparkles it has in it. I tend to like originals over variants anyway though with some exceptions.

Too bad I didn't get the other figures at the time but I could only afford one so I chose my favorite one. Ironically it's also the most popular one according to the Manson wiki.