2004 TOYNAMI I-MEN VOLTRON PILOTS & LIONS

16 Sept 2021

Back in the early 2000, there were a few toy companies that created brick type toys, competing with Lego mini figures I guess. These are licensed products and popular ones are Kubricks and Mini-mates. Toynami decided to do something similar. They launched a product line called I-Men. And there was these cool I-Men Voltron sets - which I missed the opportunity buying them at retail. Let's check them out!

Each pack consist of the pilot, lion and two diecast coins which serves as the base.

The Positives about these:

1) Nice artwork on packaging

2) Figures and lions have magnetic feet

3) Figures comes with their blaster

4) Lots of articulation for the pilots - ball jointed head, legs and feet, swivel arms, hands and waist!

The Negatives:

1) the figures and the lions are made of the same molds. They are only painted differently.

2) their helmets is non-removable

Here are close-ups of the Pilot's faces.

Got this set yesterday and I paid a premium price for it. For a 17 year old toys, I guess that's OK since it was still cheaper that the secondary market asking price. So far as of today, these are the only licensed brick type Voltron 'pilot' figures available in the market. Lego did came out with the Voltron set but it doesn't include mini figures. Recommended if you are a Voltron fan.

PS: When these toys were available in TRU, I bought the Robotech/Macross set instead because that was my favorite anime growing up in the 80s and also I was not into collecting Voltron yet.. Here's the set (bubble all yellowed) due to age. These came out 2 years earlier if not mistaken.