Those 'Sega Gals' Return

Oh the humanity!

Waaaaay back before I read or wrote for this blog, Gagaman wrote about some awesome Sega Gals capsule toys. Since finding and reading that post, I knew I had to get me some Sega gals! So, after a few months of occasionally checking ebay, I found the first series of six for a cool $24. As Gagaman already covered Ulala and Arle, I'll share the other four famous gals.

First up is one of my favorites from the first series of gals, Sarah Bryant of Virtua Fighter fame, specifically Virtua Fighter 4. I'm not an expert on action figures, but the paintjob is very nice. The gloss used for her body suit makes for a great feux leather.

"Better run home to Mama now."

The next gal is a classic, the female newman Nei from Phantasy Star II. Nei was easy to assemble, until it came to cutting her tiny claw weapons from a little model mold. One wrong move and she would have broken a nail!
Behind Nei's thigh, in the photo above, is a concept drawing of her. While you can't see it, the resemblance is uncanny. Almost as though she were ripped from the game and placed into a capsule toy machine.


Our third gal (yeesh, I feel like I'm hosting a Miss America pagent) is a lesser known from the 1992 Sega arcade game Arabian Fight (did you catch the cheesy thing they did with the title?). Ramaya isn't my favorite of the series, mostly because I have no clue who she is outisde a breif mention in a Wikipedia article and a few screen shots. Also, her feet were hell to get on. You can still see that they're not fully attached. Poor gal...


Finally we come to a Sega gal who had such a strong presence in her game, yet appeared for only a brief few seconds. It's Red Ring Rico of the Dreamcast's Phantasy Star Online! Rico mostly appears in text form throughout the game, speaking to the player via old journal entries. It isn't until the final boss that [SPOILERS] Rico's soul escapes from the defeated Dark Falz. As one who played PSO, I have to admit that I rarely read the optional journal entries from Rico. So once I reached the final boss, I assumed Rico was actually the villian of the game and not a victim. Watch Rico in her blink and you'll miss her appearance.


Here are all the gals, happy on a shelf together.


Overall, the 'Sega Gals' capsule collection is excellent. Very few duds, if any, and it can be found at decent prices. Even individual figures only sell for $5 to $8 each.

Sega's project Needmouse Badnik Challenge

Ok, so now Sega is really pulling at my heart strings with their project Needlemouse hype. While I'd love for them to just give us a darn screenshot or video already, they made me very happy by revealing a piece of concept art a couple weeks ago of a classic badnik. Shell Cracker from Sonic 2, to be specific:

Now as you may already know, the badniks were always one of my favorite elements of the classic Sonic games: they were like the Pokemon of my childhood I suppose. Every zone had about 3 or 4 unique designs that did unqiue things and more often than not looked totally bad-ass or just plain silly, bit very well designed either way.

Now Sega's blog has decided to set up a challenge to get people to send them at least 100 pieces of badnik fanart, asking for one badnik you'd like to see from any of the original games (Game Gear titles, Sonic CD and Chaotix included). They want these posted in the comments section of the blog entry by Monday morning. 


The reward? A screenshot or video? bah! Not yet! But we will get concept art of the first zone, a reveal of the final title (all bets from the community have been on Sonic the Hedgehog 4) and 'something else special'. So probably more concept art then. As a treat they have also posted concept art of another badnik that is defiantly in: Motobug!


God dammit, I hate getting excited for a new Sonic game, it always leads to disappointment! Mind you, the return of the badniks is just the right thing to give me some faith in this: even if the game doesn't turn out to be the return to glory we hope at least those awesome little bastards are back. Check out my fanart showcase on badniks, and this toy set I own featuring a bunch of badnik figures, if you haven't seen them already.

Either way I'm entering something (if just as an excuse to draw a badnik) and will post it later. Post your entries here in the comments (though don't forget to post them at Sega's official blog too)! For references, the badniks section of Sonic Retro's wiki is very handy.

Edit: Well here's my quick attempt at drawing one of my old favorites Ball Hog: