You may notice the frequency of new posts slowing down again here on Halo Toy News for the next week or two. Why? Well, as some of you may have heard, there’s this new video game that just came out–“Halo 5: Guardians”! But tonight, let me tear myself away from my XBox One, and let’s take a look at another of the McFarlane Halo 5 figures available for order online now, with a review of Fireteam Osiris member Spartan Tanaka!

The Right:

The world, it is a-changin’! Of the eight main characters in Halo 5: Guardians, four of the eight Spartans are women! Crazy, right?! And perhaps even more shocking, McFarlane Toys has included two female characters in their Halo 5 Guardians Series 1 lineup! If that’s not a sign of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is, but thumbs up nonetheless!

Confession time: I bought the McFarlane Toys Tanaka action figure as soon as I saw her two months ago. But I was so frustrated with the Locke figure that I never opened his Fireteam Osiris subordinate Spartan Tanaka until tonight.

Just looking at Tanaka in the packaging, she looked rather drab and boring, with a monochromatic grey armor. But what a world of difference opening her up makes! Her armor is actually a gorgeous glossy silver, and she has lots of secondary blue highlights on her that I didn’t notice looking through the package.

Tanaka is rocking the Spartan Technician armor permutation, which is otherwise only available on the green Technician Spartan Toys R Us exclusive. While the armor reminds me a lot of the Halo 3 ODST armor, the asymmetrical wires on the back armor set is apart and look very unique.

This figure is really pretty, particularly from behind! (That didn’t really sound right.)

My wife was also very pleased with this McFarlane Halo 5 Series 1 Spartan Tanaka figure, as she said it’s the first female Spartan figure released that has wider armor proportions and doesn’t look like a twig. I hadn’t really thought about it that way myself, but my wife was happy, and what makes her happy makes me happy. Score!

The Wrong:

I’m only on my third Halo 5 McFarlane review, and I am already over the pair of weapons that every Spartan in wave one comes with. I feel like this is just getting silly, and it’s reminding me of that dumb Oprah meme: “You get a rifle and a pistols, and you get a rifle and a pistol!”

Seriously: enough is enough, Todd. Please more weapon variety in Halo 5 Series 2. Please.

Meanwhile, the Spartan Tanaka Halo 5 figure suffers from the same malady as the rest of the series: pitiful articulation.

While Fred has slightly better articulation than I expected after the total fail that was Locke, Tanaka doesn’t fare as well. Her hips have hardly any range-of-motion in any direction, and her hinge knees bend to such a tiny degree that it’s pathetic. I think she may have a modicum more range-of-motion than Spartan Locke, but that is not saying much.

You can get some very basic standing poses out of Tanaka’s articulation scheme, but that’s the extent of her flexibility. Disappointing.

Overall: It doesn’t happen often, but I am legitimately surprised by how much more I like the McFarlane Spartan Tanaka figure outside of the package than I do inside! Her paint deco is actually top-notch once opened up, and I’m really impressed with the sculpting details on her armor (particularly the wires on her back) as well as all of the tiny paint details.

Tanaka’s articulation is as poor as Spartan Locke’s, and I’m sick to death of this rifle/pistol combo already, but overall I think the Spartan Tanaka McFarlane Toys figure is a better-looking and more fun than the regular Agent Locke action figure.