OROCHI YASHIRO

 

And the next opponent is Yashiro Nanakase!! Or to be more specific: Orochi Yashiro.

Storm Collectibles has been turning the dreams of fighting games enthusiast into reality in the last 10 years or more but aside of the fantastic paint, effects and accesorys and great articulations, one of the biggest gimicks of the company is how long it takes them to release a figure to the point sometimes we have to wait 5 years since the first prototype show to the finally have the figure in our hands, i mean, it took them 4 years to release Morrigan after Demitri...

That happens no more, since in the last months they been releasing figures like crazy, pretty much everything they show in the last year they been releasing it now in a row. There is an actual explanation for why is this happening but i leave that for later since its better to focus on the good side of things for now, and that good thing is deffinetly Yashiro!!

One of the most important villians from The King of Fighters along side Chris, Shermie and Goenitz, the impresion he and his team leaves was extremelly deep tough it took them 23 years to go back at the KoF Tournament. And unlike Goenitz or other characters that happens to be atractive "unintentional", Yashiro was designed specifically to be sexy to the same level as his comapion Shermie, with a skimpy and pretty tigth outfit that reveals a lot of skin and enhance his curves and manly shapes, this guy is a complete sexualization over the male figure and that used to be very rare.

Yashiro is tall, very tall, like a whole head over the rest of the KoF figures but despite that he can stand on his own perfectly and have a good balance with his long legs. I would have liked a stand? Deffinetly but at this point is pointless desire something Storm will never give.

He is articulated on the head, chest, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half feet. Since the whole neck and chest piece are made with sift plastic, this let his head move up and down and to the sides with a good range of movement and his.....shirt thingy is also made with soft plastic soo his arms dosnt have any movement restroction. I do wonder tough if he actually have a buttergly joint under his chest but it cant be seen. The hips are also made with soft plastic as well as the lower section of his legs under the knees, soo the feet can be moved and adjusted nicelly. Also his legs rorate but the range is pretty limited.

The shoes ahve a pivot that let us adjust his balance pretty good even with the half feet articulation bend, i am susprised he can stand soo good even with the long legs and heavy weigthl. Also the braces goes under his tiny shirt thingy but i am not sure in wich point they conect or if they conect at all. They deffinetly limit his torso movement tough and i dont want to find out if they conect ro not and end broking them.

The scupt is really good, with his very handsome face features this looks exactly like the art of Shinkiro and the details of his ear rings and spiky hair are perfect. I specially liek the hair since its a separate piece soo it almost lookslike the face is a plate but the almost invisible division obetween face and hair helps to give deep to the sculpt.

The ehart chocker i amde of soft plastic and can be removed and the perfect musculature looks soo soo good, specially the abs and the nelly button. The shirt have pretty natural looking wrinkles and hugs perfecty his abs and follows theyr shapes nicelly. The arms are realy thick (and that limits his elbows bending quiet a bit) and the details of the end of the sleeves and the gloves are perfect.

Both the cargo pants and shoes looks good too and they have much more paint detail than Goenitz, since the pants, despite being white, have a lot of grey shading. The rest of the peices are cast in the dominant color; like the pink shirt ghiny is cast in pinkk and the shoes in brown and as well as the hands and this sections dosnt have too much color aside of small details like grey lines of the buttons on the sleeves soo they looks a little bit more simple than the pants but is hard to notice.

Yashiro skin tone is odd....is the same as Haohmaru´s and Kazuya Mishima, a little bit darker than the rest of the figures but somehow a little bit.....orange as well and i am not sure if this is thans to the clolor or the mix of the brigth pink shirt that makes the orange effect. Its pretty evident in photos but in person the skin tone dosnt looks bad, is juts kind of darker than it should. 

The hair is grey and have different layrs of ligt and dark grey soo each spike stands out a lot and looks fantastic. The ear rings are golden and his lips have a pretty natural pink color and his brigth red eyes looks really really good.

He comes with a total of four heads: a calm stoic one, a smiling one, another one with a fierce expression and a screaming expression. The sculpt on the teeth is fanfastic as always as well as the paint inside the mouth and all face features looks exactly as they shiuld as wlel as the paint matches the others perfectly tough my favorite is the smiling face. The subtle smile is soo damn sexy and devilish is hard to resist it.

Yashiro also have seven pairs of hands!!! Way too many to the point i have some difficulty to see exactly watsh the difference bewteen some of them. Aside of the closed fist he comes with a pair of hands with a pointy finger, a pair of hands to hold the arms or legs of his opponents, open relaxed hands, open relaxed hands with to more stretched fingers, claw shapped hands and other hands in a weird gesture that looks like he is paying the piano?? I dont know how to explain the difference between some of them but they swap easy, the sculpt and paint are good and they help a lot to gives Yashiro a lot of dinamism with many of his poses.

His biggest accesory is his attack effect, like always, tough this time the effect is smaller than Goenitz´s (thanks good!!) and consist on a rocky piece of floor with some debris and a second section that attachs pretty easy on it and is a set of impression lines that goes up in diagonal. This effect is pretty much the end result of Yashiro´s Hatchet Throw, one of his most iconic movements where he holds onto his opponent neck and slams him into the ground with all his weigth.

This is an odd effect because Yashiro cant interact too much with it and it kinda feels like a diorama peice, but i guess theres not much to add since Yashiro fight using throws and dont have too many flashy effects to goes with. The peice is really beautifull tough, since the brown rocks are painted really really good with many different shades od darker brown and ligths and the impact effects are cast in transluscent plastic with a mix of white and orange.

And laslty tehre is his background, that this time around is completelly new and consist on a high qualty print of the USA Yard stage. Tough this stage is from the Yagami Team i am just happy is completelly new at this point. Like all the pixel work of SNK in the 90s, its extremelly rich in details and shows a beautifull lighting in the middle of a sunset, tough i am not sure if the golden and soft pink color palette of the stage fits Yashiro´s orangish and pink color paletter since it dosnt looks like they match in the photos.

This guy is a lot of fun to pose around and his stability makes it even better. I got the feeling he dosnt comes with many accesoryes but is quiet the opposite with soo many hands and head options soo i am extrmelly happy with him. Also is imposible not to like him, with the heart chocker, big muscles, small and skimpy shirt, the belts tigth on his muscles, this guy always looked to me moch mre like a streeper than a fighter.

Also, for some reason i cant understand this is not normal Yashiro, but Orochi Yashiro. In the game they play totlaly different, but in design the only difference is the eye color, since Orochi Yashiro have red eyes. Why Storm release this and not normal Yashiro is a mistery for me, specially since they arent going to release Orochi Chris and Orochi Shermie, but understand Storm at this point is really....something that should not be atempt.

And just like with Goenitz (and Ryo and Geese and many others), this is pretty much the only figure based on this character that exists to date and i doubt they make new ones, soo thats reason enough to be super happy with thing hunky fighter. Now lets just wait the next opponent...

GOENITZ

This really seems to be the year of The King of Fighters for Storm Collectibles since it has been launching a lot of figures based on this title, and thats incredibly odd given it normally take them years to release two figures of the same series. But here we have not only K´ but also Kim Kaphwan, Ralf Jones, Nameless and the boss from The King of Fighters 96; Leopold Goenitz. Along side Orochi and Rugal, Goenitz  has been the most remembered boss from the entire series to the extent he even came back for The King of Fighters XV.

He has been always one of my favorite characters despite not appearing to much in the series, but his incrediblly cheap attacks and almost godly movements really made him stand out as one of the most perfect villians/bosses for any 2D fight game. And just like Rugal, Orochi and Geese, he comes in a HUGE box that feels very "premium" compared to the rest of the figures.

Goenitz is really tall, an entire head taller than the other characters and the same high as Geese, perfect to have enough presence for a boss and he can stand on his own perfectly thanks to his huge boots, his balance is really flawless.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet. The shoulders have a butterfly articulation and the elbows and knees have a double articulation while the rest have ball joints but this guy dosnt move as much as expected. Despite the chest area being made in soft plastic, the head dosnt tilt too much to the front thanks to collar on his jacket. Also his elbows dosnt bend as much as expected because of how thick are his arms.

The extended sleeves that cover his hands are made with soft plastic and they can rotate in the section with belts on the wrists, but despite to that they are pretty anoying to deal with when moving the hands and they deffinetly block the ball joint a little bit. While the rest fo the articulations works really good, the legs are defifnetly limited by the long jacket. The long jacket is amde with soft plastic but of course, it limits the legs a lot in the end, tough the boots can rotate and the ankles and galf feet articulatio works good.

Is not like he is static, but he is deffinetly less flexible to the other figures in this series but that dosnt mean he is not as fun as the others, he deffinetly can achive a whole lot of action posses and all his limitations are due to design of his bulky build.

This is the original 1996 design (or 1998 design as the box says) soo he is not as intrincate looking as he is in The King of Fighters XV and deffinetly not as young looking. We could say this is based on his sprite but i think it would be more accurate to say this is based on Shinkiro art. He is really handsome, like he should, with his big square jaw and perfectly shaped nose, the wide mouth have pretty soft wrinkles around to make it looks this i not a youngster but a mature man.

The sculpt of the hair at his sides and beard is pretty sort and the hair on top have a very sharp sculpt and theres a single earring on his left ear. He is very bulky but his entire outfit dosnt have too much details since is pretty simple. The wrinkles around his body looks pretty natural and his boots have a pretty cool military design but they are difficult to see thanks to his long jacket.

The lower half of his jacket as well as his chest section and the sleeves are amde with soft plastic and the matle on top of his shoudlers is made with real fabric. This matle is completelly black and is wired all around and is keep in place for a couple of golden ornaments on his chest. This cant be removed soo the mantle cant be removed as well. The material used n the mantle is very thin and elastic soo i a afraid to end damaging it or make it all lose by keep moving it and while the matle dosnt block the shoulders articulation, is a little anoying to keep moving it and molding the wire soo it looks like the mantle is flowing in the same direction as Goenitz. Tough i admit this detail is really spectacular.

Each piece is cast in the primal color soo the whole boots are cast in black plastic while the legs, torso, arms and jacket are cast in blue and they have no paint at all, shade or shines, theres just a plain prevalent color here that makes this looks a little bit simple, but this has always worked well for Storm.

The only color here is the white line in the front of the jacket and the brown belt on his waist and wrists. The color aplication is simple but effective soo most of the color is on the face. His skin tone matches the tone on his hands and the lips have a very natural looking skin tone while the icy blue eyes looks calculating and serious and they are perfectly painted and shine a little bit. The thin eyebrows are also perfectly painted as wella s the beard and hair tough the division between beard and skin is more clean than it should. The blonde hair on top have pretty soft but different dark tones so give it deepth to each strand.

Goenitz comes with an awfull lot of hands, six pairs in total: closed fist, open palms, relaxed hands, claw shaped hands, hands to hold on his book and closed hands with two fingers pointing. The sculpt is really good and they are made with soft material tough swap them is kinda tricky thanks to the long sleeves but they really help to give a lot of personality to each pose.

He also comes with a lot of heads; four in total: one with a serios and stoic expresion, another one with a mischevious smile, another one with a fierce expression showing his teeth and anther one screaming. The paint on every single one of them is completelly flawless, from the blue eyes to the tiny teeth and pink tongue. The smile head makes him looks like an asshole while the fierce looking expression is perfect for battle poses, but the screaming one is the most impresive since not only the open mouth is HUGE but the hair is all spiky at the front thanks the the air guts of his specisl movement and thise gives hima  pretty different look al together.

His other accesory is a secondary lower piece for his jacket, made in the same soft plastic material as the normal one but this ne is flowing to the left and around his legs in a very dramatic way. This piece make his legs much more easy to move deffinetly and is pretty spectacular looking. At first i was afraid it would be too difficult to swap this parts but the waist ball joint is extremelly easy to remove but strong enough to keep the two pieces together.

He also comes with his book, the Orochi scriptures. This book fits perfectly on his hands designed to hold him and while the sculpt is really good with the open pages and the paint is also flawless, theres no title on the cover and the pages are completelly empty. This make it looks very "toyish" but i gues Storm didnt give it importance since it does the job just rigth.

And finally the reason why the box is soo huge, his effect: a giant tornado product of Yonokaze, Goenitz signature move on his boss figth. This thing is actually divided in four sections: a base with lots of rings of different size and and shape interconeted and hollow in the middle, a "pilar" of hair much more thin than the base and a secondary pilar with a stylish top section that conects with the first pilar. Once the two pilars are coneted they goes inside the rings base and the last fourth section can be put on top of them; another section of different size and shape rings.

The final result is a tall pilar of air with different layers and an external set of razor shaped rings. They are all cast in transluscent grey plastic but the effect is not prettye vident since they also comes painted wth an airbrush of white and grey, soo they are more smokey looking than air. This piece is really impresive looking and quiet different to all the other effects Storm has been producing.

Oh! I almost foget!! The background scenario included is big and nicelly printed but sadly, instead of give is the KoF 96 final match scenario where we face Goenitz, they give us the Strolheim Tunnel, the same scenario that comes with Geese Howard. This was the only dissapointment in this pack since the dark green with golden color palette of it dosnt helps Goenitz to stand out particulary well.

I really regret not getting Rugal and Orochi to have the entire KoF bosses line up, but the villians of this series are always soo sexy and when i leanr they were going to make Goenitz i was 100% sure i was going to get him and i dont regret it, despite the huge box, the wntire figure and his effect are both really stelar with a bunch of accesorys to play with and make it clear how much Storm really loves The King of Fighters. Now lets just wait the next opponent...

WULV

 Vintage figures!! Its interesting how something modern and new turn into vintage in complete silence without notice and this is specially worth nothing with toys and figures, because they turn into a kind of window to the past and show us wath was popular back then in a pretty strong way. Back at the begining of the century, the adults collectors market was born soo we had a huge amount of brand new studios doing all kind of toys based on adults cooncepts with pretty high quality. It was an amazing moment to be a horro fan or a collector of horror.

Even the Stan Winston special effects studio decided to produce theyr own original monstruos characters as high quality figures, tough they distribution was awfull, they deffinetly left behind some really unforgetable figures and a lot of pretty cool ideas. They last series of figures was called Blood Wolves and consisted on werewolves in medieval times, a concept that would have birth an amazing movie or series on any other medium.

The series included the human looking protagonist Trakk, a humanoid knight with the head of a wolf Vereticus, a four legged beastly wolf called Lycon, and the most classic werewolf looking character and the biggest figure too: Wulv. Of course i was pretty interested on Wulv the very first time i saw him soo i was pretty sure to make him the objective of my hunting.

This wolfman is taller than your average NECA figures soo back in the 2003 this guy was quiet huge in size, tough eh is not very heavy and of course, he cant stand on his own thanks to his beastly paws but he comes with a base to kind of help him....a little. He have cut joints on the legs, waist, wrist and one of his elbows and ball joints on his shoulders and neck as well as head. 

The cut joints moves perfectly tough the legs one dosnt make too much sense since move them make him even more difficult to stand but the ball joints are a little stiff....and after 22 years, plastic gets dry and brittles, soo i am afraid to force the joints and leave him with no arm or with no head, soo i try to be extra carefull with his shoulders and head.

This makes him almost a statue, but even with those articulations working, this figure is pretty static like everything back in 2003, this is a preposed figure sculpted in such a way that he is a sculpture and with the very few articulations he can achive a couple of more poses but thats it. Back then it was all about aesthetic instead of playability.

Just with Extreme Gargoyles, the sculpt here is soo soo damn good. This is a werewolf designed to be horrific, soo his entire body is twisted and misshaped and even his ribs are protunding giving him the look of a famished beast. The veins around his arms and hands, the fur coming softly on the back on his body and the center of his chest, the happy trail, the muscles under the pants, everything looks really perfect, specially the texture on the fur tough the pants dont have too much of a texture and looks quiet simple.

The pieces of shirt wrapped around his torso and arms are made with soft plastic and have a pretty nice texture and the chains hanging from his wrists are real metal, and after 22 years they are extremelly risty, adding tons to the whole look o the monster. The long snout with the oversized fangs coming from it is perfect tough i dont know if i like the eyes too much....they have a pretty elongated shape and looks very unatural, but i guess theres nothing natural on this character.

The yellow paint of the eyeballs looks neat but they have purple around them that makes them looks sunken but also looks a little bit like makeup or eyes shade, its deffinetly an odd color choice that stand our on the figure pallethe but the pink gums and yellow fangs are painted perfectly along the dark purple lips and nose.

The grey fur have some dark washes mixed with brown and looks really natural and the soft plastic rags shirt is grey with black washes but looks totally different to the for soo they dont mix each other. The pants tough ony have blue paint and looks kind aplain and the skin section with no fur dosnt have texture soo the skin color is correct but a little plain and lacks details.

The problem here is the division between skin and fur, both sections are perfectly deffined instead of mix naturally and that makes the figure looks more simple and plastic than it really is, more "catoony" and thats a shame, because the aint on the fur is really fantastic, but paint has always been the weak point, specially in figures of this era.

His accesorys are 3 bloody bones but sadly i dont have them soo i was left only with his base. The bones are supposed to be liying around on the base soo i guess they are more part of the display than anything. The base is square and thin and does a good job keeping Wulv standing togh only in a certain area of it since it have thick pegs that goes inside his feet.

The base have a mix of dirt and snowbut while the snow is not completelly white, the division between this elemtn and the irt is pretty evident and looks unnatural. A more natural wash of details could make this looks much better tough in the middle theres the ribcage of an animal of some sort. The bones looks yellow and they have a nice spray of bood on them soo strangelly enough this looks more natural than the rest of the base.

Truth is i love wolfmen, they are my fvaorite monster, but not only theres very few movies about them but ttheres even less figures about them as well, soo i always apreciate a good looking werewolf like this to add to my pack. The paint could use some work to look natural but overall, this figure is quiet impresive even after 22 years and fit perfectly on any horror themed collection thanks to his scale. I am not sure if i want Lycon tough, i think this guy is the main dish of this series.