12.11.2013

Inside the box with Ichabod presents:

S.H. Figuarts Red Wind Ranger from Tamashii Nations/Bluefin!


Look at that awesome Hawk crest!



Shane, from Power Rangers Ninja Strom, or the Sentai Hurricanger. A show I never watched, but I  totally dig the design of this guy. Look at that sweet ninja motif, with the chain mail on the arms. It's super detailed, and a nice way for this Red to stand out from the rest of them on your shelf. 

 Sporting some sweet gold paint apps on the body,  it really helps make the Helmet pop. The Design of the helmet is really cool, totally homaging a classic ninja mask. The visor is the eye hole, and the back of the helmet even has a "fold" that the cloth would have. Really nice touch. The chest symbol is very crisp, and looks great, centered directly in the middle of the chest. This would have been easily misaligned and thrown off the whole look of the toy.

 Focusing on his morpher here, it is represented beautifully. Lots of fine paint work and crisp detail that is the standard for the Figuarts line. It is non removable, but it doesn't need to be. His boots also have little gold plates on them that look bolted on, which is another cool touch.

Look at that range of motion! His arms have a great range of motion, not hindered by the sculpt at all. This is a new base body than the MMPR ones, but the base joint structure is the same. 

 The hips and legs are nearly identical to the rest of the sentai line up. Those pull down hips and double jointed knees in tandem with that amazing ankle joint means this guy has leg motion for days.

 The torso joint is a weird one, it moves forward pretty great, but barely moves back at all. The neck isn't hindered by this at all. Just struck me as a tad odd, and it's not the Ninja Sword getting in the way, either. The joint just doesn't want to move back. No limbo for this guy.

 All that joint range opens this guy up to some expressive posing. This is one of those Figuarts that is so easily dynamic.

 With little effort you can get him into some great Ninja style poses, and the joints generally do what you want. I did find that the ankle joints are a tad loose on mine, so he had a harder time staying up on the poses that relied on using his toes. A Tamashii stage would help, which I generally use for long term shelf posing anyway, but for some of these pictures it was a struggle. Could be just mine though.

 I generally always try to replicate a "back of the box" pose, to see how easy/hard it is to do. Shane's joints work in such a way that the shoulders do tend to be a tad off putting when posing, but otherwise he nails it.

 And yes, he can totally grab the sword handle while it's sheathed in his back. This wins some major points with me, because I am weird and crazy. I do recommend pulling out the handle and putting it in his hand before plugging it back in.

 His sweet ass ninja sword.

 Yeah, he can two hand that bitch!

 He's got some good gripping hands that allows him to have a nice solid grip on the sword, it never feels to tight or too loose, and no paint rub that I saw. They give you two hands made for the handle, so it is essentially a perfect fit.

Also he can use his "two fingers out ninja pose" hand to hold it for a more unique looking pose.

 I don't know if it was intended for this purpose, but it fits.

 The Ninja sword and it's sheathe. He comes with one sword, and one handle. The handle's sole purpose is to plug into the Sheath when not in use. This is a pretty easy fix to the problem of toys this size having sheathed swords. If they have a working one, they tend to look to big, and some toys have the handles in permanently. This is perfectly fine by me. Everything here has impeccable paint work, all the little gold bits on the hand look great, as do the colors on the sheathe.

 Ahh the Hawk gun. Can you guess why it's called that?

 Nothing? No takers? yeah me either. Anyway he has a hand meant to specifically hold this, a trigger hand, if you will. it works really well, and has a great grip to it. A tad looser than the sword handle hands, but not to the point of being a issue.

 The paint and sculpting is *surprise* fantastic. The little turbine has molded blades, All that detail in the red there, all in all fantastic. It's a bigger gun, more of a larger pistol than a sidearm, this is the Ninja Storm equivalent to the MMPR Red's Power sword. Also in the show it combined with the other ranger's guns, with one plugging into the back of the other. Not sure if they will commit to that gimmick here or not, but it would be neat.

 His weapons count is low, but he comes with exactly what he needs too. I'm pretty happy with it. 

 The hand count is impressive, especially considering all the paint needed for each hand. 5 pairs and 3 unique hands is great, allowing him a wide range of ninja like poses.

 Imma stab you.

This is another solid release in the Figuarts Sentai line. I know, shocking right? Tamashii makes awesome figures. All kidding aside, this is a great release of a main Red from a sentai/MMPR show. Don't own any figuarts but loved Ninja Storm? Buy this guy. They already announced the other 4 will be coming out over here, so you can have a full team without worry of some being locked behind "web Exclusive." Yay! The value proposition is awesome, and he's really fun. Most Online Retailers will have him for sale, because of Bluefin Distribution, and if you like supporting you local comic shops, you can see if yours will order them in the future. This review sample was provided courtesy of Bluefin/Tamashii Nations.

4 comments:

  1. Great review, great poses, well done!!

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  2. Never seen the show and know nothing about it. But the design is simple and clean. I dig it. And that hawk gun is wicked

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  3. I think I have some trouble with mine. The arm joints are kind of tough to move. Can anyone help me with this ? And Sorry for posting this here.

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  4. This is now the only Red Ranger I don't own. I may need to correct this...

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