Mattel Naruto Figures

These were several Naruto action figures released in the 2000's by Mattel.

Why They Rock

 * 1) They were some of the first widely available Anime figures in North America alongside the Irwin DBZ figures and the TOMY and Jakks Pokemon figures. Most of the Naruto figures that came out before them were small Gashapin figures and very expensive high end statues from Japan. The other Naruto figures available in North America were mostly bootlegs from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan so having a Naruto figure you could buy at a local store like Wal-Mart, Target and Toys R Us without having to import from Asia was a huge deal.
 * 2) Mattel made a ton of characters. They even made some characters people never expected them to make a action figure of, such as Kidomaru, Sakon and Ukon, Zabuza, Haku and Shino.
 * 3) Most of the figures came with some great accessories. for example, Deluxe Sasuke came with a rotating base, his Demon Wind Shuriken and a training dummy, Kiba came with Akamaru and Tree Climbing Naruto came with a magnetic tree. Tree Climbing Naruto is also one of the first action figures that can be displayed upside down because of the tree.
 * 4) Some of the figures even had action features, for example, Basic Naruto and Sasuke and Deluxe Iruka's waist can spin to throw a kunai or a shuriken, Deluxe Gaara has a launching sand projectile, Deluxe Rock Lee has a arm that can snap down to his side when pulled forwards and back and Haku has a launching ice projectile
 * 5) Mattel even made several other Naruto figures including small buildable blind box figures, Small figures that have limited movement, Premium Sculpt figures that were aimed towards collectors and had swappable hands and fixed poses and giant talking figures. Mattel even made several other Naruto toys, such as weapons, headbands, puzzles and games.
 * 6) Most of the sculpts (with a few exceptions) are great and look very show accurate.
 * 7) The line was very successful and made other American toy companies get anime licenses.
 * 8) The figures were very affordable with the basic figures costing $6 while the deluxe figures were $8-14.
 * 9) The figures were great for stop motions. One notable stop motion was Gundam G's Gaara vs Rock Lee stop motion, where he used the Gaara and Rock Lee figures from the line. Some people still make stop motions with these figures to this day.
 * 10) They made figures based on every major arc from the original Naruto anime. Ranging from the Land of Waves arc all the way up to the Sasuke Retrival arc.
 * 11) They even released a subset called Death Deflyers, where the figures had limited articulation but cooler action features.
 * 12) Their 2008 wave had awesome articulation, excellent sculpts and accessories that looked awesome.
 * 13) The figures were featured in tons of Youtube videos, one of the most memorable videos that featured these figures was The Adventures of Naruto and Rock Lee.
 * 14) Their best figures were Zabuza and Shikamaru.
 * 15) Some of their figures, like Naruto, Sasuke and Gaara are in scale with the SH Figuarts and Anime Heroes Naruto figures.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) While the figures are still great, they haven't aged well and have enough bad qualities to go on Upsetting Toys Wiki.