Lootaku is a premium monthly subscription based service to fulfill everybody’s geeky addictions. Our box features full figure statues and Asia exclusives that you will not find in any other subscription box. We promise no filler or promotional items, and our values are always based on current cheapest prices on Amazon.
Every month Lootaku releases a themed box. Back in April they decided to create a one-off special edition Rick and Morty-themed box. Other subscription box companies, such as LootCrate, do this, but this is Lootaku’s first attempt at a specialist box.
The box cost $55 (£42.28) plus $17.66 (£13.58) UK shipping (£55.86 total). The shipping is a little steep, but it’s coming all the way from Hong Kong, and is their standard shipping for their regular subscription.
I absolutely love Rick and Morty, so I was thrilled at the thought of a box devoted solely to this amazing animation series! (The July LootCrate has an fantastic Rick figure.)
It promised to contain, amongst other things, an exclusive item and a t-shirt. Lootaku does not normally include t-shirts in its boxes, so this was hotly anticipated.
The box sold out very fast on their website, so I was fortunate to get my hands on one.
It was sent in their regular, fantastically designed box. You can see the lid is dented and there is a little tear on the right corner. It’s actually the only damaged box I’ve every received. Nothing inside was damaged.
SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!
First of all, the tube on top.
As you can see, it’s a Blueprint of Rick’s Interdimensional Portal Gun. The paper is pretty thick with a plasticized shiny finish. I had to hold down the corners as it wanted to keep rolling up!
It’s about the size of two sheets of regular printer paper.
Next out, a Morty POP! figure.
There he is, holding the Mega Seeds from the pilot episode.
The expression on his face is exactly what you would expect, considering what he’s about to do with those seeds.
Next up is the exclusive item, a Plumbus.
The box itself was impressively detailed, and it also included an Owner’s Manual.
And now, the Plumbus itself:
Now, you may be able to tell from the pictures that this is a 3D printed item.
I’ve never actually seen a 3D printed item before, but I know enough about the process to be able to identify one.
Oh, and it’s 6″ tall.
See the layers?
Anyway, it looks like they’ve been painted individually after printing, as close up the paint job is a little scrappy.
The instruction book looked like xeroxed pages, so using the magic of Google I discovered it’s an insert from the Collector’s Edition DVD of Season Two.
I’m Mr Meeseeks, look at me!
This little guy is the happy version of Mr Meeseeks, from Episode 5, Season 1.
He might be happy, but can you see the desperation in his eyes?
He’s about ten inches high, and nice and velvety. Unfortunately he won’t actually perform any tasks for you.
By strange coincidence, my lovely husband had bought me this exact same plush for my birthday a couple weeks before.
Here are the two of them, looking friendly.
Apparently there is also a sad version of this plush, so it would have been kind of cool to get that one, so I’d have the set. Oh well.
This is a kind of fun extra: a Szechuan Sauce Recipe Card.
If you don’t know the origin of Rick’s Szechuan Sauce obsession, it was a limited-edition sauce released by McDonald’s to promote the movie Mulan.
I’m pretty sure this recipe will produce something far more natural and tasty than the original!
This Rick and Morty J!NX Mini Figure Blind Bag was a limited release, and is now no longer available. I opened it up anyway.
Morty again. Still looks miserable.
This is a tiny figure, about two inches high.
The options were Rick, Morty, Tiny Rick, Summer, Happy Meeseeks, Sad Meeseeks and Rick’s Spaceship. I know this was random, but I was disappointed to get another Morty figure.
Finally, the t-shirt.
Rick’s famous quote ‘You are a piece of shit and I can prove it mathematically’.
It’s quite soft, but 90% cotton and 10% polyester.
I’ve mentioned in reference to Lootaku t-shirts that I really don’t like polycotton t-shirts. They get sweaty. Even 10% is enough.
Anyway, more thoughts in the conclusions.
The menu card. This has descriptions and values. It’s always at the bottom of the box, which I like because it means there are no spoilers! It’s good heavy printed card.
And here are my conclusions.
I’ll start straight in, as I always do, at the contents value as I can discover. I use an online currency converter so they’re correct at time of writing. I can’t always take into account shipping costs of individual items, but I do my best to be fair.
Often I can find things on Amazon, but some of the items in Lootaku boxes are nigh on impossible to source in the UK, so sometimes I have to guesstimate. I also don’t use eBay as reference, as I find prices are not reliable or realistic.
I’ll also add notes as I go along. From the top:
Blueprint poster: The only place I could find this was as a download from an Etsy shop. It cost £4.38. I looked at poster printing a figure it would cost around £10, given the size plus the cost of downloads.
Morty POP!: £8.83 from Amazon. This was OK, but this particular figure is very common in the UK and US. I wanted Rick, dammit!
Plumbus: As this was an exclusive item it’s difficult to price. The menu card says it’s $35 (£26.89), but I wasn’t totally convinced.  That being said, I don’t know how much it costs to 3D print something this size. I looked around online and found a guy who’ll print one out for £24.93, BUT it’s only about 2 1/2″ high and there’s no box. So I’ll go with the Lootaku value, as they’ve gone to the trouble pf producing and designing a box, and have clearly put a lot of thought into this one.
Mr Meeseeks Plush: £9.99 on GeekSwag. Apparently these aren’t going to be produced any more, though you can find them on eBay. Â
Recipe Card: According to the menu it’s Priceless!Â
Blind Bag Minifigure: Apparently these aren’t going to be produced any more either. They do seem to be sold out everywhere I looked, so I’ll be nice and go with the menu price of $12 (£9.22). But I wouldn’t pay that myself, and I was disappointed to get Morty, as really, I wanted more Rick stuff!
T-Shirt: I couldn’t find this design anywhere else on Google, so I’ll go with the menu price of $20 (£15.37). Again, I don’t like that it was polycotton.
Added up it comes to £89.13. So well over the £55.86 cost price of the box.
So in monetary terms it’s just fine. Lootaku always gives great value in its boxes.
However, I have reservations about this box.
I understand that Rick and Morty stuff is pretty hard to find in Asia, despite its popularity, so I’m sure they are pretty limited by availability.
Lootaku have a lot of Western fans, and the fast selling of this box showed it was a very popular theme! However, Rick and Morty stuff is easy to find in the UK and US.
The 3D Plumbus is fun, but I think the effort outweighs the results, simply because the production is a bit shoddy. OK, it’s not exactly mass-marketed tat, but it falls into that grey area between handmade and quirky, and slick and mass-produced. Kudos to Lootaku for making such a huge effort, and no doubt some fans will absolutely love it, but it didn’t rock my world.
I love the Mr Meeseeks plush even though I already have one. I suspect my daughter, Little C, will be keen to get her hands on it.
The Blueprint poster is also fun, and it would take a lot of effort to get hold of, with downloading and professional printing.
The POP? Well, these are a dime a dozen, and I’m not a POP fan anyway because I think they all look the same. If it had been Rick I would have happier, because who doesn’t love Rick? But I think that POPs are kind of lazy. However, it is possible that this figure is hard to get hold of in Asia, which is why they included it.
The minifigure, even though it’s now supposed to be super-rare, was kind of annoying. OK, they don’t make them now, which is a plus, but it was SO tiny! It would get lost on my shelves of geekdom.
Finally, the t-shirt. Oh, I was so looking forward to getting a t-shirt! But this one, not so much. Leaving aside the polycotton thing, it actually was the design I didn’t like.
I love geeky stuff, and I have no objection to cursing and general rudeness; in fact I embrace it! However, I’m also an adult and a parent. I can think of absolutely no place at all I would wear this shirt. I certainly wouldn’t wear it outside because, again, I’m an adult. I’m not going to run into Waitrose to pick up milk wearing it. My daughter can read, and she would take an extremely dim view of this shirt (she disapproves of swearing as only young children do), so I wouldn’t even wear it around the house or to sleep in.
Oh, and I’m aware there is an asterisk, so  technically it reads ‘sh*t’ rather than ‘shit’. But c’mon, my six-year-old knows what sh*t is.
The style of this shirt is great. If the quote was different I would love it. There are hundreds, if not thousands of awesome Rick and Morty t-shirts out there. I’ve seen an Anatomy Park one I really want. But this one? No. Just no.
Overall I’m kind of disappointed with this box. It probably doesn’t help that Lootaku boxes are generally awesome, so expectations are extremely high. However this box is a combination of huge effort and great thought that just misses the mark.
