Amanaman (With Salacious Crumb) - POTJ - Deluxe [Fans’ Choice #2]

The bounty hunter Amanaman lurked in Jabba the Hutt's den of crime in the Return of the Jedi. It scours the galaxy hunting down fugitives, and keeps their skulls to decorate its staff. The species is called Amanin but is nicknamed Head Hunters.

Multiple controversies, all of which are relatively harmless, surround the Amanaman (With Salacious Crumb) Deluxe figure from the Power Of The Jedi line. Hasbro finally chose Amanaman as the Fans’ Choice Figure No. 2 winner. He's a long-running and much-requested candidate for the Hasbro 3.75” line. But due to his size, Hasbro unceremoniously “promoted” him to Deluxe status. Hasbro thought the figure was too big for a basic figure release. While thrilled to have the figure available for purchase, collectors felt the decision was bittersweet because this character could have easily fit on any basic figure card back, especially in the Power Of The Jedi line, and the price was a bit more than the average collector was willing to pay. Of course, many collectors balked at the $9.99 price tag but still bought the figure anyway. A great release no matter how you viewed the way Hasbro packaged it, controversy kept rearing its ugly head and collectors began to find something else wrong with the figure: its size. We’re not so sure if we understand why there are differing opinions on this topic. Clear screenshots from Return Of The Jedi show that Amanaman is not any taller than an average human denizen, and although he has disproportionately long and large arms, he isn’t freakishly tall. Still, the debates rage on, and we feel it is because of the translation of the 1985 Kenner figure. This The Power Of The Force figure is bigger than the other human characters, and that’s where we believe so many of us base our opinions.

Size issue aside, Amanaman (With Salacious Crumb) is a phenomenal release. It’s one of Hasbro’s greatest sculpts of all time easily. Amanaman certainly isn’t as articulated as any of us would have hoped for, but that doesn’t mean that its sculpt isn’t one of the greatest accomplishments of Hasbro’s career. The slightly cocked head, the expertly crafted arms and enlarged hands, and the design of the reptilian features are just astounding. Primarily yellow and green, Hasbro ensured that they breathed life into this sculpt with lots of shadowy washes to show the creature’s wrinkly skin and cold-blooded features which make him the most feared head hunter that we can recall from any film. Hasbro took the time to engineer two premium ball-jointed shoulders, but they don’t do that much good when there are no elbow joints. Big deal. You get to swing two long arms around without any meaningful positioning. This makes holding the staff a little arduous and at times completely impossible. Two ball-jointed shoulders are joined by two swivel wrists and two swivel hips (which are essentially pointless since the tail prevents any meaningful movement. We’re not complaining about this figure’s articulation honestly. It is a fantastic sculpt, but for the included articulation to be more useful, more articulation will be needed since it functions as a system. Having missing articulation affects the system.

Amanaman (With Salacious Crumb) has some incredible accessories, one of which is Salacious Crumb himself. We’re not so sure why Hasbro included a repack of the figure that accompanied The Power Of The Force “2” Oola And Salacious Crumb Fan Club exclusive figure set, but Hasbro has done just that to give a little more value for any collector’s dollar. But the real reason to be excited about the accessories is for the staff and carcass. The staff contains the heads of three previous victims of various cranial size hanging from the top of it. The top (and biggest) skull looks to be a Bith victim. The detail is astounding and the paint jobs they received are even better than the sculpting. The only issue we have is that it was cast from a very pliable plastic. Unfortunately, the staff bows over time. The carcass of either an all-new victim (or it’s the body to one of the heads on the staff) accompanies the staff, and it’s another incredibly detailed and crafted addition to the figure, and something that didn’t come with the vintage Kenner figure. We are thoroughly impressed with the Amanaman (With Salacious Crumb) Deluxe figure. Yes, we would have loved to see this figure packaged on a basic figure card back, but we’ll gladly take it this way than not at all. It may not contain all of the articulation you desire either, but you can’t fault Hasbro when a sculpt is this good that it looks like a piece of art. If you think Amanaman is out of scale, we encourage you to study the film stills which clearly show his size. This version of Amanaman is one figure you won’t want to live without. Please trust us on this.