Typically I'm not interested in any reviews from specials, because due to their less content they are most times well depicted on the Playmobil Web site so that there is nothing more to say/depict.
Nevertheless I think this one is worth to mention because after opening it I really was surprised to this new "milestone" in Playmobil history.
First thing to mention: the figure is darker than depicted on the package. I'm glad about this because the new blue police uniforms introduced the next years in Germany are really darker than the one shown on the package. Now I'm releaved to see that it's darker and for my personal taste quite good matching the real uniforms (although in reality they are still a little bit darker, but this depends on the county anyway).
I already was wondering how the officers west will look like finally, because on the pics provided in the Web it somehow looks quite "slim" to me, although there obviously seem to be one, 'cause there seems to be no extra collar. So actually it's no explicit west too, but a totally
new body-type where the collar and the jacket applications are already included (don't now if this had be posted already somewhere or was know -- for me it was a totally new information). The bottom silver stripes at the front and the back are 3D, also the button border at the front and the lower part of the collar. The top part of the collar is not plastic but rubber (!) so the epaulets can be bend without breaking them -- I have absolutely no glue why they used this two-component material for the body piece, because I see no danger in breaking any pieces from the body in case this would be hard plastic too. (I only can imagine that there will come some accessories later on which have the requirement of this flexibility on the collar body type.)
I'm really eager to see, how the female officer will look like and if there are any other uniform variants provided later this year, when the new police series will be introduced.
I also wonder, if this type of body will be used for the new fire rescue figures too, but this does make sense only for some view figures, because the epaulets are not found (in this way) on the typical duty jacket. Maybe one reason for the rubber collar ist, that maybe the base type of this body piece (all but the collar area) will be the same and they have the possibility to add to these new standard pieces different collar in a second working step.
I'm also wondering, if this new body types will be used for other figures too, providing different bodies like we already have different legs. For myself I interpret this as an evolutionary step like those days they moved on from single colored klickies to printed variants, or as already mentioned introducing different leg types.
Another remarkable thing: I bought two packages of this special: one had three cuffs included instead of two, the other one had three red lights instead of one included. -- Seems that Playmobil has some difficulties with the counting machine, although I must say: better this way than missing some pieces.
