Happy Jodo Kast Day, everybody!  Today we celebrate Jodo Kast by drinking glasses of tap water, wearing clean socks, and mentioning Uruguay in casual conversation at least once.  Additionally, we’re presenting the second of two Jodo Kast reviews.  What a time to be alive!

It’s a two-fer today!  This morning we reviewed BD18 Jodo Kast from the 2008 Legacy Collection.  Back then, the figure was, at best, a disappointment.  Today, it’s a bunch of plastic nonsense.  The character wasn’t all that great to begin with, so perhaps Mr. Kast didn’t deserve anything more than an outdated sculpt with a ridiculous action feature.  But Hasbro wasn’t done.  A few years later, in the somewhat strange Shadows of the Dark Side line, Hasbro partnered with Kmart to release a greatly improved version of Jodo Kast.  The SOTDS line ran concurrently with The Vintage Collection.  The line itself was split into two parts, one featuring animated styling (gross!) for The Clone Wars, and another featuring “greatest hits” type re-releases in realistic styling.  SOTDS was basically a continuation of the Legacy Collection’s format of 2 parallel offerings, but with TVC also thrown into the mix, things were getting a bit complicated for consumers. If it’s not clear by now, I am personally a fan of a single, consolidated, coherent line of realistically styled figures (including characters from animated source material).  Not all figures have to have premium JLA (Jedi-level articulation), of course, but everything should be have a somewhat uniform look and be instantly recognizable. 

Despite the somewhat confusing banner, SOTDS had some underrated offerings, such as the recently reviewed Rebel Transport and Ground Crew, as well as some great Battle Packs and vehicles featuring all new sculpts.  But the non-animated basic figures were limited to repacked “Greatest Hits”, leaving new figures for TVC.  One exception was this Jodo Kast.  It’s a new figure (although a complete re-paint and modification of an existing sculpt), so it doesn’t fit into the Greatest Hits category.  It was a standalone figure that was brought to retail via a store called Kmart.  Remember those?  What?  They still exist? Ha! I don’t believe you.  In any case, Kmart used to be a viable stop for Star Wars hunting not to long ago.  In my area, it was one of the Big 5 toy hunting destinations, along with Toys R Us, Target, Walmart, and Kay Bee.  Now, it’s worthless for Star Wars collectors.  But at least power has been restored in Argentina and Uruguay.  What a mess that has been!

In addition to that, my esteemed colleague, Chris, points out that there was once a Hasbro marketing calendar that indicated this figure was supposed to be released as part of another subline (or something else) called the “Bounty Hunters Line” that never materialized.  So it seems it was saved by way of a store exclusive.  Most of the other well known bounty hunters were releases as part of the “Greatest Hits” collection.  Perhaps there were other EU characters like Jodo that were planned but never made it.

So after the disappointment of BD18, Hasbro decided to revisit this character one more time.  They used a much better Boba Fett mold as the base, which was the more-or-less concurrently available VC09 Boba Fett, which itself had been re-issued/repainted multiple times since the sculpt’s debut in the 2007 TAC Fett Evolutions line.  The paint is the most obvious difference right out of the package.  As with BD18, the colors are pretty striking, although if you compare these two Jodo figures, you might actually prefer the deco on BD18, especially the “tampos” of the insignia on the chest and shoulders.  The backpack is painted better on the new version, however.  The first major upgrade is the head. In this figure, you get a removable helmet (which doesn’t look too bad).  Underneath, you get a Jodo Kast head modeled after his appearance in the comic.  I found more images of his face after having been beaten and bloodied by Boba Fett, but Hasbro opted to not go that route.  One other difference in the helmet is that this one does not have the rotating/removable sensor scope.  Take that as you will.

This figure has a removable jet pack, which lacks the push-down-missile-connected-to-both-shoulders action feature, and we should all give thanks for that.  DEATH TO ACTION FEATURES!  The arms have basic super-articulation in ball jointed shoulders and elbows, unlike BD18.  Jodo’s belt is installed backwards.  This could be an error, or it also could have been done on purpose to give him a bit of a distinctive uniform from that of Boba.  He’s also got a working holster, which nicely holds on to a small blaster.  Jodo can grip the blaster in his right hand, but not very tightly.  Likewise, he can hold the larger rifle, but it’s not as secure as it should be.  Trying to pose the figure without the weapons popping out of the hands while also managing to keep the jet pack in place was a challenge, but I persevered.  You’re welcome.

Overall, it’s a far superior figure to BD18, and will likely be the only Jodo Kast you will ever need.  At least for now, Jodo Kast has been relegated to “Legends”, so he doesn’t even exist in the timeline anymore.  It’s not often that Hasbro revisited figures from the old EU.  Usually one go was all we got.  But Hasbro must have realized that BD18 was so sub-par that they felt they needed to make things right.  While this Boba Fett mold is due for a new update and has been used to death, I think this is good enough for Jodo Kast, so I’ll call it “Close”.  If you’re an EU stickler, you can probably find reasons why this sculpt should be more unique than just a re-paint of Boba.  The figure sculpt could be improved, but why do it?  If you like the character, or Mandalorians, make sure you pick this one up, and not the Legacy collection version we reviewed this morning.  7/10.