Kwik Plushie Review: Litwick

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Introduction

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Hello, hello again! I don’t mean to leave so many weeks between reviews now. I don’t have any big excuse; I am just feeling slight burnout in general and taking longer to make anything. This review has been sitting in my drafts since October of last year. I never finished it because I actually can’t find any real research on it! All I know is that it’s an American TOMY plush that I bought in person from GameStop back when it was being sold. I can’t find what lot, run, series, or wave that it was part of nor its’ original price. I don’t want to just abandon this draft or pictures though, so hopefully you enjoy my first barebones review I’ve made in awhile. Apologies.

You could take a look at my friends’ deep dive into Pokémon Picross if you’re in the mood to read a lengthy research blog since I don’t have anything big this time around.

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Plushie Information

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Pokémon: Litwick

Plushie name/Collection Line: N/A

Made by: TOMY

Location(s) Sold: Walmart, GameStop(formerly)

Year Released: September 2017 (no longer in production)

Retail Price: I could not find the initial retail price. Currently going for prices between $17.99 and $25.30 online as of writing this.

Materials: Polyester

Size: 8 inches (20.32 cm) from the bottom of the candle to the top of the flame.

My Plushies’ Condition: Bought New (Like new)with Original Tags intact.

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Review

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I honestly still don’t like American TOMY plushies all that much. The American plushies are made with a scratchy polyester blend that feels more like plastic fibers instead of cotton while the Takara Tomy plushies in Japan are made with the classic soft minky. I let this pet peeve of mine slide in my Pumpkaboo review because the stiffness helped the overall shape of the plush, but I will not be doing the same for this review. There are several other Litwick plushies made by other companies and they all have about the same body shape. Sorry, Litwick. As cute as you are I will be deducting points based on your lack of cuddliness. I’ll be starting with the bottom of the plush and work my way up.

The melted candle base is wonderfully shaped. The very bottom of the plush has two divots. I’m unsure as to why they’re here since I’m not a professional sewer, but I am going to assume it’s shaped like this for standing reasons. The Litwick can stand up relatively well on its own. The melted wax is stuffed tightly enough to where it can balance on its own to some degree. Keep in mind that it’s very top heavy in general as a Pokémon, so any small bump or breeze can easily knock it over. The melted wax is tightly sewn to the candle body and cannot be torn off easily.

I’m going to go right into the face since Litwick isn’t a super big Pokémon. The eyes and the mouth are both embroidery work. The embroidery work is wonderfully done. There are no loose threads and you can’t see any of the fabric poking out from underneath. Good job. The nub on the face is apparently a “protruding upper lip” that I was unaware of until getting this plush. I always thought that the face marking in the BW sprites was a small smile and not a tiny snoot. The upper mouth was made by sewing half a sphere into the face of the plush. It’s tightly packed with stuffing and safely secured. The melted wax that’s meant to cover Litwick’s theoretical right eye feels slightly off to me. It looks as if the face has enough room to include another eye because of how far back the wax is. I guess I would’ve preferred if the lowest point of the melting wax covered the face just a teeny bit more.

Onto the flame. It’s not the most symmetrical, but flames are always billowing in the breeze, so it’s not that important to me. The inner lavender coloring of the flame has a border of embroidery around it to make is more defined. The embroidery is just as nice on the flame as it was on the face. The very base of the flame seems to have used the technique where you snip part of the fabric and sew it together to make a more rounded shape. These are called ‘darts’ and the manufacturers did a decent job. The flame does look a bit more rounded out instead of being two dimensional or flat.

The front profile is overall pretty good. It stands well and manages to properly hold the aesthetic of a living melting candle. You’ll notice that my plush isn’t all that colorful in general. Plushies will naturally collect dust over time as they sit on your display shelf. The dust tends to show up more easily and show age on white fabric more since it’s a much stronger contrast. I did not wash my plushie before this review as I do not want to ruin the hanging tag. I do not recommend that you use a washing machine for any plushies you own as that can damage parts of the plush or ruin the fabric. Instead, I recommend you read this A Mike For You. This isn’t active anymore, so don’t flood their old post. I personally have it stored in my saved posts tab to look back at whenever I want to freshen a plush up.

The side profiles aren’t too bad. No major complaints here. You can see the tiny nubs are poking out at either side and the nubby mouth sticks out quite a bit. One arm is a little longer than the other and is also a bit more pointed instead of rounded out. The arms are stuffed good enough and they’re attached well enough to where they won’t come off, but can still wiggle when you play with them. You can also see the light purple that makes up the very top of the head. It looks a bit like a slightly raised dome. Burning candles are pretty lumpy anyways. The bottom wax is shaped like it’s own wax is trailing behind it as t walks forward, sort of like a snail trail which is pretty cool. You can tell that the flame is much rounder at the side angles.

Time for the very back. Not too horrible. The melting wax around the head looks a smidge off. This seems to be due to the seams being a bit crooked and fabric at the base of the folds looked as if it got bunched up while being sewn together. The back of the candle looks the same way as the front did. It appears that Litwick was stitched to be leaning forward. The back is slightly hunched and moves at a curve. I’m not entirely sure if this choice benefits the front angle, but it does make the back of Litwicks’ head appear to be extra lumpy.

Lastly, the tag. This is one of the few pre-2020’s plushies that I still own the tag for. It’s a bit bent up, but I bought it like that. The tag is a nice purple color. The tag is also designed to be sold in Europe as well, but I’ve always been told that Europe doesn’t get as much merch as American and Canada does. The yellow triangle symbol with a lion is a mark to show that the toy is considered high quality and safe for consumers. The middle marking is apparently called the “Gulf conformity mark” which shows that this product is approved to be sold in Middle Eastern retailers. I have no idea what Pokémon merchandise in that part of the world is like. The last symbol appears to be a simple recycling symbol. It’s possible that this plush wasn’t ever sold outside of America, but TOMY includes it on all of their merchandise anyway as a company standard. The inside of the tag just lists the copyright information in several languages.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Not a bad plush at all. This Litwick isn’t soft (which is normal for this company) and it’s incredibly lumped up in the back in a “the seamstress got the thread and fabric jammed in the sewing machine” way, but that’s moreso a manufacturing issue than a model issue. It’s not a bad plush at all outside of those two errors. White plushies will discolor in time regardless, so it’s not an issue with specifically this model. It’s relatively cheap online seeing as American TOMY plushies aren’t in as high of a demand as Pokémon Center or San-ei-boeki. Just make sure not to buy through Walmart who apparently somehow still has it in stock as I write this in 2022. I went over why Walmart is an issue in my bootlegs blog, but TLDR they will sell anything through their website and won’t check if it’s a bootleg or a mislabeling. You might end up with a fake plush if you try ordering this Litwick through them.

There are plenty of other Litwick alternatives if this one doesn’t suit your fancy, but they will more than likely cost more. TOMY is already the cheaper brand, so finding an alternative will lead to a budget increase. There’s the tiny MPC Banpresto Litwick, the 2016 San-ei-boeki All Stars Litwick, Ditto as a Litwick, the 2016 Halloween Litwick, a few small Halloween mascot Litwick keychains, the 2011 Pokédoll Litwick, and an unrelated Litwick hat.

Keep in mind that there isn’t too much merch for Lampent and Chandelure only has around 4-5 older plushies that cost quite a bit, so this is not a Pokémon line you can easily finish. The Sitting Cuties for Sinnoh are finally done being released on the American Pokémon Center site, so hopefully in about a year you will have an easier option to get all three of these guys if that’s what you’re looking to do. Otherwise, the cheap TOMY model I have here today can work if that’s the only one of the three you’re interested in collecting.

I myself don’t have Lampent and don’t feel like hunting it down. I do have Chandelure though and have already written a Review for it!

#CuratorReview

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Works Cited

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Background is from here

Toywiz

UPCITEMDB

Lion Mark

Gulf Conformity Mark

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Previous Reviews

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Plushie Rabbithole: Bootlegs

Sitting Cuties Arceus

Pumpkaboo

Sitting Cuties Spinda

My Pokémon Collection Deerling (all seasons)