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Background

Jinny is the first designer vinyl toys from Bitbots Toys and Jats Gill – a London-based designer who has been an avid toy collector for years. Recently released, Jinny Series Zero consists of eight designs from five UK artists. And we're going to take a look at three of those Jinnys.

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The Facts



Jinny Series Zero
Series: Jinny
Manufacturer: Bitbots Toys
Artists: Camille Descartes, Adam Barteluk, Malcolm Mole, Tom Collie, Valentina Grasso
Material: Rotocast vinyl
Dimensions: 2.25" tall
Points of Articulation: 3 (arms and neck)
Designs: One Eye, Robot, Girl, Eyes, Cat, Ninja, Armour and Zombie

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Packaging

The line is packaged blind boxed. The rectangular box has illustrations and ratios of all eight designs. Inside, the Jinny figure is packed in a metallic bag with a small card (the same for all designs) featuring information about the line.

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Our Opinion

The Bitbots website says the aim of the company is “to develop new artists especially from the UK and Europe. Developing new talent and art is the key to everything we do.”

Focusing on platform toys, I couldn't really recall many (if any) figure lines coming from a UK company and UK artists. And with the Jinny Series Zero, Bitbots ended up bringing in five new artists that the designer toy community might not be familiar with.

We ended up getting three of the eight designs that make up the blind box series. What often happens with platform toys is that we see a number of the same artists re-using the same characters on different toys. But since these artists are fairly new to the designer toy realm, all of these characters seem somewhat fresh. One thing though...we actually don't know who designed which character. Neither the artist's or character's names are listed next to a picture of the design.

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So, I ended up with One Eye, Robot and Cat...at least I think so. I like the designs, but none of them really stand out as “must-haves”. One Eye might be the best design from Series Zero. And Robot has a strange Fred Flintstone vibe going on.

The Jinny platform design is unique. The head is slightly concave, with one end almost coming to a point. The body almost looks like a fat, little, bowlegged man. They stand well on most flat surfaces.

The quality is average for a blind box platform toy of this size. I did have some issues with one of the three figures' arm joints. It felt like the plastic was twisting...and not the peg in the joint. The paint was good on all three of the figures.

OVERALL: Hey...I don't know if they designer toy world needs another platform toy, but I'm glad that Bitbots went for a unique, asymmetrical design with their Jinny line. I also appreciate that the company chose new, local artists for their Series Zero.

While the line only appears to be available to US collectors through UK sites, the exchange rate has made these over $11.00 per blind box. I would have pegged them as $5-$8 figures...and maybe they will be, if/when they are available in the US.

You can pick one up at the following:

Bitbots.co.uk: £6.95 (about $11) per blind box

Jinny Series Zero Grades

Figure Quality: 8/10
   Sculpt: 8/10
   Paint: 7/10
Accessories/Outfit: N/A
Packaging: 7/10
Durability: 8/10
Fun Factor: 8/10
Value: 7/10

Overall: 7.6/10

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