GEESE HOWARD

 

The King of Figthers, one of the most iconic titles in the fighting game genre and the one that made Capcom shudder, a worthy oponent that perfected the genre pretty fast and demostrated SNK pasion and artcraft developing amazing and epic games. For me, my point of interest was the crossover between the many games of SNK in a single game wath make this title trully special and Storm Collectibles is finally makeing it justice.

Of course, they release Kyo, Iori, Terry and Rugal many many years ago but they seem to completelly forgot they had the licence until this year, when they finally released the long waited Orochi, Blue Mary, Mai Shiranui and the figure i am reviewing now: Geese Howard. I love Fatal Fury, its story is actually much more interesting that KoF´s and every single of its characters has been a classic in multiple games, and while Blue Mary and Mai Shiranui are Fatal Fury figthers, they dont pick my interest as strongly as Geese Howard.

Geese Howard is pretty much the very first villian on the SNK fighting games and has been the face of evil for 30 years. While other villians on The King of Figthers come up with sad storys or an empty desire of destruction, Geese represent all evil that is born from the human condition and power united and is one heck of an impresive and menacing man, even when he invades another universe: His participation in Tekken 7 make him one of the best Tekken characters.

Aside of him coming on a HUGE box, bigger than Rasetsumaru´s or Sol, Geese is the same size as Terry (and by default, Kyo and Iori i guess) and can stand on his own perfectly tough i really wish Storm add bases just like they used to. He is articukated on the head, neck, chest, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half feet, just like any other Storm figure.

The mechanism inside of him is pretty interesting, lots of posts conected to ball joints, and while this looks delicate, it allows to an amazing range of mobility, like on his neck, the neck post can move to any direction since the whole neck/chest area os made of soft plastic and the butterfly joints on the shoulders also works fantastic. 

Perhaps the only limitation in here are the knees. His pants are pretty thick soo the knees have a limit to bend. I seen many people discussing if it wasnt best to give him soft fabric pants. Sure that would help a lot to give him more legs movement but the material would clash with the rest of the figure...or the rest of the whole line actually and it would have make him more delicate and anoying to pose around.

Also his ankles movement is a little limited by the pants as well but is not very different to wath happens with Haohmaru or Rasetsumaru and overall, the articulation is fantastic and allows for an awfull lot of posability, like seen in this pictures. I had to delete some because it was way too much already but i manage to keep coming out with more and more poses for him and thats perfect for a character like Geese.

The sculpt is amazing. Geese is an extremelly simple looking character, yet his personality and presence is terrible strong and thats the most difficult character to draw or sculpt. Using as base the Shinkiro art of The King of Figthers 98, this is the most basic and simple version of Geese, the purest design and it matches perfectly Shinkiro vision.

This is one of the most handsome figures i seen from Storm, like, seriouslly, this figure is incrediblle seductive the more you look. His face features are perfect, like a marble statue, yet you can see the the soft wrinkles around his mouth evidencing this is not a pretty boy, but a mature man. The ice cold look on his eyes and the super clean hair cut help a lot to give him the dangerous and elegant look he deserv. Is pretty evident this is Geese (unlike the Sol Badguy figure).

The top part of his hakama is clean white, with no other details other than the wrinkles on his back and how saggy it looks on front, yet the glorious pecs of Geese give it a nice shape on front. Its all made in soft plastic as well as the shelves covering the arms sculpt tough they dont limit the bicep rotation. 

The gap between the shirt and the pants is sometimes visible tough, but this gives a lot of freedom of movement of the ball joint on his waist. The hakama have solds in the inside side of the legs  and the back side as well tough the sculpt is broken by the knees articulation, the piece that unite both sections have the same fold sculpt soo the attern isnt totally broken. I have to say i find this hakama pretty interesting looking sicne it reminds me a cookie..i think i eaten cookies shaped like this, specially like the back side.

The paint is great looking. The skin is clean but very natural looking and a different tone than Terry´s. The lips are very thing and the paint on them is pretty delicate, as well as the eyebrows and severe blue eyes, the paint is perfectly applied and goes for a more realistic take on the character. The hair have a pretty clear tone of yellow mised with some white, soo the hair shines and looks almost weet, again, totally different to Tery´s

The red bands on his wrists are sculpted and painted, something pretty strange for Storm but that makes the hand changes much more easyer. The top part of his outfit have no paint at all, as well as the hakama pants, they are just red plastic while the feet wit socks are also just white clean pastic. Is amazing his simple is Geese design (tiygh the black belt with the yellow detail is a nice touch).

The cherry on the cake, is a golden chaine made of real metal on his neck. The chain shines a whole lot and looks fantastic on hi, giving him the luxury touch his other wise spartan outfir needs. This chain tough demands care since is pretty easy to lose it while changing heads!!!

I dont know if the chain is considered and accesory or not but Geese have plenty of extra goodyes and perhaps the best nude feature of the line soo far. While characters like Heihachi, Paul, Haohmaru, Rasetsumaru, Akira, Ryu can have theyr shirt removed, Geese can do the same but in a different way.

The proces is incredible simple yet pretty scary at frst and is basically the same as The Furay Planet figures: remove the head, remove the arms and separate his torso from his legs soo the top part of his outfit can be opened and the torso can some out. I hate doing this, i am afraid removing torsos ot arms can weaken the ball joints or posts and add more risk of fracture but i guess i can only trusth on Storm quality materials.

This is where the extra shirt come into play: a new version of his shirt but hanging from his hakama pants, with the sleeves on the back. Made with soft plastic in clean white, this shirt cover the gap between the torso and the hakama pants.

Add the torso back as well as the chain and the head and the two extra eccesorys: a pair of extra arms as well as skin colored rings that coer the gap between the shoulders and the chest area. Its a little trciky to see wath part of the ring goes up and wath part goes down, but they are pretty easy to put inside his chest and then insert the extra arms with no sleves (its in here where i can take a look at Geese inside enginering).

The arms are....huge, bigger than the arms with sleves on. The musculature is amazing yet it dosnt block any of the movement and one this process is done, you have shirtless Geese Howard on all his sexy glory.

The abs and huge back section are enormous pecs are soo well sculpted, soo perfect in every angle and to make things even better theres scars: one on each shoulder, one in the middle of his pecs and a huge one cross shaped on his back, all result of his battle against Terry Bogard. The paint have the same quality than the lips soo each one of them looks very realistic and natural.

Aside of this extra shirt, extra arms and arms rings, he also comes with 3 extra pair of hands for a total of 4: closed fists, claw shaped hands, open hands and graby hands (because Geese like to grab a lot....grab everyone). Made with soft plastic, is amazing how natural this hands looks, they even have veins!! They are pretty easy to change on both nude and dressed arms and are an incredille helpt for posing.

There is also 3 extra heads for a total of 4: aside of the basic stoic face sculpt, theres one smiling, one showing his teeth in fury and one shouting. Every single one can be exchanged pretty easy and the sculpt and paint have the same quality on each one them. The smiling one is by far my favorite, that coky half smile is soo incrediblly seductive, make him looks too much like a beach jock but mixed  with the evil look on his eyes is really irresistible. Yes, i feel seduced by a plastic man, cant deny it since i know no one really read this blog.

The third head that show his teeth have a look of contained power, an almost calculated fury and the sculpt of the wrinkles around his mouth is very realistic as well as each teeth scuklpted and painted  and laslty, the shouting face somehow also give a look of contained fury on it, Geese is releasing his power but is not missing his steel look. The sculpt and paint of the inside of the mouth is, again, really fantastic.

And just like Terry, Geese dont comes with an effect, but he have 5 effects!!! Spikes of power of different sice and intensity sculpted on blue trasluscent plastic with some white airbrush on the base. Two smaller than Geese to represent the Reppuken, the trademark technique that shots blue waves of power on ground. Tough its kinda tricky make this power blast stand given theyr angle.

Anothet two effects made pretty similar to the small ones but taller than Geese works the same to represent the Double Reppuken (since one of them have two giant spikes) or the Shipuken once it hits ground.

And laslty theres this HUGE and big spike surrounded by smaller spikes that unite all the rest: some smaller spikes on the side are hollow soo the spike structures can be fused together to form a crown of enery spikes that surround Geese, like towers that gues from small to big size and form the Ragim Storm, Geese special move.

Once united this effects have no problem standing perfectly and the look of this is fantastic. This is by far the biggest effect i seen on a Storm Collectibles figure, is really eat a lot of space from the sides and the top and is really spectacular. 

Lastly, theres a big scenario that is tradition of Storm Collectibles, this time is the Strolheim Tunnel from The King of Figthers 96. The print is of very high quality tough the pixel art is much more rough compared to Rasetsumaru´s scenario and i feel like the color palette have a pretty low opacity. Is a little bit dark since in the game this scenario shines soo much. But the dark tones make Geese stand out a lot against the background.

I was kind of worried with Sol Badguy, he somehow didnt live up to Storm standars and Rasetsumaru was a much better release, but Geese is at a different level. The King of Figthers characters are always the best Storm have to offer and this figure is proof of it: An amazing sculpt that live up to Shinkiro vision, perfect paint, great movility, lots of accesorys for and amazing effects parts for the characte attacks, theres literally not a single thing to complaing in here.

This figure is a dream come true for anyone who meet this characters in the 90s and a testament of SNK amazing ability to create fascinating characters with straigth forward designs. At this point i am actually regreting not getting the rest fo the characters, at last from the Fatal Fury side....i am soo soo tempted by Blue Mary and Mai Shiranui for some reason.

Buy Ryo Sakazaki is coming as well as Goenitz and i drool at the tough to have the Ikari Warriors in this same quality as well as the Orochi Team!!! Maybe someday!!!

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

 Just in time for Halloween and without too much buzz, NECA finished, at last, theyr Universal Monster line with the character that is perhaps the most hyped Monster of the series: the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Distant is now the pandemic time when they release the Frankenstein Monster and an entire year later The Mummy. But just like Gargoyles, this years has een the release of the entire set of main characters closing up the collection and leaving unreleased only the black and white versions of the Monsters.

I actually have already a lot of of figures of this guy, ranging from different quality and style and, oddly enough, i like all of them, each one of them add its own twist and fun and NECA version is not ecception. This guy is actually really really big....like a little bit bigger than the Frankenstein Monster while the other characters are an entire ehad smaller and the Bride reach to his chest. I dont remember this guy to be this huge in the movie, if i remember rigth he was the same size as the rest of the human characters soo i dont know if the size is accurate or not.

I mean, this is a monster soo i am happy he is tall but he really towers a lot over the rest....aside of that he can stand perfectly with those huge feet he have and dosnt need any kind of base eccept for some swiming poses. He is articulated on the head, neck, chest, waist, elbows, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees and ankles. All ball joints with a really good range of movement and the elbows and ankles have double articulation soo they bend perfectly.

The enginering here is soo fantastic!! The neck piece enter pretty deeply in the head as well as the shoulders but still keeps a very good range of movement up and down and to the sides while the double articulations on the elbows and knees are hidden behind the scales perfectly. Actually all articulation in here, including the ones of the torso, are perfectly hidden behind the scales cut just like the Mondo Creature. NECA did a great job adaptinf the joints to this character body type and each section that conect the articulation is made with soft plastic, just like the chest area as well as the hands.

This really helps a lot to give him total freedom of movement without revealing any joint or gap between the pices, a perfect fusion between movement and aesthetic, something really needed for this Creature.

The sculpt is really good, as i already sayd, with a mix of soft plastic and hard palastic pieces and a really nice scaly texture. Each section conects nicelly, even the big fin on his back and the body silhouette looks really lanky and athletic. The feet and hands have a really good bony structure on the fingers that makes them looks trully prehistoric and i really love the 3 claws behind his feet.

Perhaps the most difficult part to sculpt in this character is the head, Diamond Select deffinetly had issues but NECA managed to nail it really good. The head shape and size is perfect as well as all the wrinkles around the mouth and where his nose is supposed to be and the gills on the sides looks sharp and pretty clean. Theres a lot of texturing on the cheecks and put on evidence the amazing complexity this suit had almost 70 years ago.

Now wath makes each figure unique is the paint, somehow every company have its own vision of hos the Gillman should looks and NECA version is realy different to the rest as well. While Sideshows version have a lot of different colors and Diamond version have a pale green and Jada version is neon venomus green, NECA´s version have a pretty militar and dark green with some darker wash here and there to accentuate the wrinkles, specially on the head.

But this time they add a golden metalic finish as well at the end of each section of his bodu as well as the find and gills. This gives him a pretty....exotic look, like an asiatic fish, the golden also gives to the green a kind of metalic look. The effect is really interesting, he looks darker than other versions but at the same time he shines like a jewell, a dark shine.

The palm of his hands dont shine tough, instead of golden they are painted just in brown and i wish they give more details to his stomach. The stomach section is just plain green and looks way too simple with all that gold surrounding it. The face have the same natural green color mixed with golden on the fins and red lips. I hate the red lips look and i was worried about this but NECA used a pretty pale red that matches the whole color palette nicelly. 

Lastly he have blue eyes, a first since they always give him yellow/golden eyes. The pale blue eyes looks, well, like fish eyes, pretty blind but match good the look of the blakc and white movie. I this the closes representation of the character in figure? NECA has been going straigth to accuracy soo far t even given the Bride of Frankenstein red hair just like Elsa Lanchester had. Soo i am guessing this color scheme is the closest we can get to the original 1954 costume of the movie

While this figure is really pretty looking, the accesory section is poor, really poor. He comes with 3 extra set of hands, aside of the relaxed hands he have claw shaped hands, open up hands and hands pointing with a finger. Its actually pretty difficult to see the difference with this hands, the relaxed and totally open hands are almost 90% the same and the claw shaped hands dosnt change that much, with the pointing hands being the most different and the ones i like the most, since the fins between his fingers makes them look really dramatic.

The hands can be changed pretty easy and are made of soft plastic but the sculpt an paint quality is the same.

Then theres two extra heads: one o¿with an open mouth and another one with an articulated mouth. They cna be changed pretty easy and the sculpt and paint quality is as perfect as the basic head. The open mouth head have a very specific and nice detail: the gills are curling up. Its pretty difficult to see it but they managed to sculpt the moment when the Creature is on the outside of the lagoon, strugling to breath.

Now the most perplexing item: the head with the articulated mouth. The articulation is hidden with the multiple wrinkles around his mouth and is almost invisible and it opens up pretty nicelly, opens and close.....and this head literally makes the other two heads completelly pontless. Why spent time and resources sculpting a head with a closed mouth and a head with an open mouth when you are also going to make a head with articulated mouth??

Why soo many hands that looks almots the same? And thats it, theres nothing more in here....no fossil hand, no arpon gun, no net, this leaves this figure behind Jada´s and Sideshow´s and i know is difficult to give this character items since he dosnt touch anyhting at all in the movie, but Diamond add background pieces for a diorama, wich leaves this NECA version behind as well.

I am strugling here. This figure have an amazing sculpt and paint as well as a great ingenering of the articulations, yet it lags behind other releases because of the complete lack of accesorys. Also as pretty as this guy is, he is not as amazing looking as the Mondo version tough i know is unfair to compare them since Mondo is 1/6 and much more expensive.

I am not sure if i could call this figure "Ultimate" but is deffinetly one of the finest exaples of the character in pastic form and looks great completing the Universal Monsters line from NECA. This has been one of my all time favorite lines from the brand in the last 20 years and it even tempt me to get the black and white and glow in the dark variants.

RASETSUMARU

 Its been two years since Storm Collectibles released Haohmaru from Samurai Shodown and one years since the release of Nakoruru. The expectation has been big, in wait for Genjuro, Charlotte, Galford, Amakusa....and at last, we got Rasetsumaru. Deffinetly unexpected, specially since the box exchanged the 2019 game mottif for the Samurai Shodown 6 title. Figures based on Samurai Shodown 2, yes i can see that being awesome, Samurai Shodown 4? Sure that would be rad....but 6?

Thats just a small detail in the end, since i am very happy we re still gettin Samurai Shodown figures, even if theres a whole year in between release, this is the very first time we get a Rasetsumaru figure, the demonic version of Haohmaru. And obviosully Rasetsumaru have exactly the same scale as Haohmaru but he have issues standing. Its weird but he cna stand perfectly with no hair, but once the big mane is on his head, he lose all balance and make him stand is pretty tricky.

Of course, i am talking of a standing normal pose, since Rasetsumaru is always standing in a very animalistic and hunched back way, he can stand perfectly this way and makes me wonder if it was intentional from Storm. He is articulated on the head, abs, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half feet as well as the pony tail. All of them are ball joints or double joints  except the hair that is only a basic one direction articulation.

Everything moves perfectly, even the half feet articulation isnt stuck like Sol´s and given the simple design of this guy theres not much that block the movement......aside of the hair, his hair get TOO MUCH in the way of his arms but the same happends with Haohmaru soo i guess theres no way to fix that. The top part of his outfit as well as the chest area are made of pretty soft plastic soo that helps a lot to achive some action poses with the sword.

To my susprise, this is not an alternate paint of Haohmaru, this is a totally different sculpt, at least in some part. The entire body is recycled but with a few alterations: he have a cut on his chest since each time the player select him, Rasetsumaru cut his chest area in a pretty feral way. The sides of his jacket also have cuts in the same area and the end part is torn appart and full of holes. Same for the end part of his pants, they are much more damaged thatn Haohmaru´s and Rasetsumaru dont have sandals at all.

Despite this niftty details is pretty evident is basically the same sculpt but i guess is OK in this character. The ehad tough is very different. His nose is thicker than Hohmaru´s and his jawline is more square as well. His eye shape is different and his eyebrows are much bigger and spiky. His sideburns have black spykes and his forelock is longer than Haohmaru´s and have a pretty wild and almost tentacle shape.

The long pony tail is also totally different to Haohmaru´s since the locks are much longer and looks like they defy gravity, moving to all sides like tentacles. In the in game sprite the hair is much longer than this but i guess that would be ask too much since this guy can barelly stand with this amount of hair. I have to say tough the hair is really spectacular and while theres only one single version of the har, moving it side to side really give this figure a lot of dramatic flow that matches perfectly battle poses.

To my surprise, the hair is not entirelly black but have pretty dark hues of blues that help high ligth the cut of the sculpt on every strand. The detailing on his face is really really good, with the black line of his mouth perfectly painted as well as the black markings under his eye that reminds me Mon-Star from the Silverhawks. All this details are imposible to see on the in game sprite and his eyes have that shiny red that makes them looks like jewells.

His skin is totally purple with some dark hues and airbrush here and there to give deep to those magnifiscent muscles, but the rest of the paint is really plain. I mean his entire clothing is just....greay, with some black lines and the bandages on his arms, his belt and the bandages on his feet are intense red. Theres no airbrushing or texture here, just plain red and grey and looks kinda.....cartoony. The red stand out too much soo the mix of purple, grey and vibrant red is....well, weird. It actually looks like a secodary color paletter that dosnt match too well.

Aside of the closed firsts he also have a pair of hands to hold on his sword, a pair of open hands and a pair of claw like hands. All can be exchanged pretty easy and are made with a rubbery material.

Aside of the normal stoic head he have 3 extra heads!! All of them with the big forelocks!! One of the heads have the marked eye more open than the other one and his teeth shown on an expression of fury and power. I like this head much more than the normal one since the expression of raw power is pretty well achived and the shiny red like jewell eyes looks really spectacular. The on each teeth si really really good.

The third head have Rasetsumaru in a maniacal laugh. The muscles of his jaws looks really good as well as the small sculpted teeth and tongue inside, the paint is totally perfect an this head suits perfect for a winning pose or a half battle pose when he lauchs towards his opontnet.

And laslty the last head is my favorite since show Rasetsumaru smiling in a perfect way with his tongue stincking out. Again the muscle structure around his mouth and chesk is really really good, unlike Sol´s boring lack of face features, Rasetsumaru looks soo expresive here. The teeth with the fangs looks good but the tongue is made with rubberish plastic and the pink color really makes it stand out!! Perfect to lick his oponents bloody remains on his katana.

Then theres the katana: Yoto Torikabuto. Is bascilaly Haohmaru´s sword but in a different color, with the nadle having a blurish tone instead of black and the blade having a metalic red mixing with silver, since Rasetsumaru never clean his katana soo its all bloody. The sword is actually pretty cool looking, specially with the silver painting.

The box of this figure is HUGE and this is the reason: the Cyclon Slash effect. A whirlwind made with transluscent yellow plastic with some reds and oranges airbush and two blue rings circling around it. The effect is shorter than Rasetsumaru but is really wide and take a lot of space. But still is really really good looking, specially with the blue sections circling around and this is the effect i always wanted for Haohmaru. I am glad Storm finally release it.

Laslt theres Raseustumaru´s background, a scene of the Caribean Sea. The quality of the print and material is really good and shows up the magnifiscent job SNK Playmore did with the sprite, the scene is very sich in details  and even looks 3D with a certain distance. The scene with the sea and the shops and the big clowdy sky is really breathtaking but.....BUT.....everything is purple and pink and since Rasetsumaru is purple and grey, he camouflages himself pretty well and melts with the background. The stage is amazing but i wish they give him something with different colors for the figure to stand out.

Honestly i find this figure much more fun and expresive than Sol Badguy and even more realistic as well, tough in the end his color scheme is extremelly awkard to look at but Storm did an amazing job with this character considering his design. Rasetsumaru was born in the lowest moment of SNK and Samuria Shodown, they really needed characters to fill the roster of the games but didnt have the budget or time for it, soo they started to make "evil versions" of many Samsho characters.

It was sad, actually i dont have very good memories of Samurai Shodown V and VI soo i really hestitate to buy Rasetsumaru since i hate his concept to beging with. But Storm did a great job giving him lots of expression and personality to set him apart from Haohmaru. I just wish they dont stop here with this licence.