Sen-ti-nel Co.'s Rio:Bot and Rio:Bone figures: AVOID.

A couple of months ago I bought the first release blue version of the Rio:Bone Canti from FLCL, by Sen-ti-nel Co., from HLJ. When it got to me, it was apparent something was wrong... one of the ankle joints was loose, and the figure couldn't stand up. I thought it was that the ball joint wasn't fitting into the socket... until the joint slipped out completely, and a cracked piece of plastic fell out after it. The thing had been cracked to begin with.

So, I sent it back to HLJ, who were very helpful and accommodating (as always!), and I got a replacement. I finally got my hands on the fresh copy, and opened it up... and the robot's back is missing. There's supposed to be a smooth, curved removable plate on his back that holds in the little silver plug in his accessory port... it's just not there, and neither is the silver plug, there's just a blank expanse of plastic with some holes in it.

So I've contacted HLJ again to see if they can help me with these parts, but I figured I should put the word out... Sen-ti-nel Co. has serious problems with production and QA. I'm certainly never buying anything manufactured by them again, and if HLJ can't help me with the parts for this blue guy, then I want these disasters out of my collection.

As a side note, I also ordered the red version of Rio:Bone Canti, and that one was perfectly fine... but that's still a 2 out of 3 failure rate so far... so I'm assuming there's at least even chances that anything I get from Sen-ti-nel in the future will be screwed.

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

Is this the same Sentinal that released a Gurren Lagann figure? I heard that figure was actually pretty good if a little expensive.

Yeah, that Gurren Lagann was a Rio:Bot. I did some googling and apparently there have been a significant number of reports of missing parts on that toy as well...

-Paul Segal

"Oh, the anger is never far, never far." -SteveH

[ J ] This has been a MIN. FACTORY release. [ /J ]

I've got the Fireball and Gurren Lagann. Both of which are great.

I had the Eva-01 as well which despite being pretty boring was a fairly well constructed piece. The only issue I had with that toy was the horn which needed to be glued back on and was easily dislodged.