RYO ASUKA

Back at the very begining of this century, Fewture Models released the second series of Devilman action figures designed by Yasushi Nirasawa. One of the reasons why this series is soo amazing is because it saw the release of characters no other company wanted to produce on action figure. Series one had the first Amon figure and pretty rare characters like Jinmen and Ghelmer.

The second figure of the series two fall into this cathegory of rare characters since is no other than Ryo Asuka, one of the most important characters of the entire story and the one who - for some reason i dont understand - never had an action figure release (not even statues).

Yasushi Niwasawa´s version of Ryu Asuka is pure heavy metal. The inocent and elegant handsome young man was replaced by a much more evil, intimidating and dark figure. I am not sure if i like this change too much since he actually looks much more demonic than Akira, using the same leather pants but sporting a pale and ghostly physical appearance…

Ryo fits perfectly with Akira, maybe too much for his own good actually. There is no re-use in here, his pants are a totally unique sculpt and his torso is not as muscly and healthy as Akira´s, but is pretty skiny and sick looking. His flesh is cast in white plastic soo it gives him an almost shiny looks, like a marble statue of an entity made of light.

The only elements that broke this monochromatic look are his (very carefully painted) pink niples and blue metalic tattos. His long clawed fingers are also a pretty strong hint that theres something wrong with this man and he is not human at all. His golden eyes with purple make up and black lipstick gives him an extremelly androgynous looks as well.

He dosnt have pretty sophisticated articulations tough, only the head, shoulders and wrists, wich gives him the same pose options Akira have and he can stand on his own, tough he comes with his coin like base with his name written on it, just like the rest of the figures of series two.

His accesory is the same demon skull mask Akira have, tough this tame is not cast in transluscent icy plastic, but instead in glow in the dark yellow. The mask fits perfectly on him and looks good in the dark (i manage to take a photo!!) and i asume this is the mask once is activated and is showing his visions to its bearer (just a theory of mine).

Aside of this “action feature” of glow in the dark, he also have the same feature as Akira: an extra head in the middle of his transformation in Satan. The head is the same as the original one except for the angelic wings on his hair. Looks good and fits him better than Akira´s transforming head.

I am still not sure i like this design on Ryo and how similar he looks to Akira, and while the figure itself have top notch quality, just like Akira, he is not very impresive looking or easy to recognize. Hes not very rare as well since i saw him on stores a lot over the years soo it was one of the last figures i added to the collection.