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.

SOL BADGUY

 Oh Storm Collectibles!! The brand that was born as the dream of any fighting game enthusiast, the one that will give us action figures of Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Darkstalkers, Guilty Gear, Tekken, Fighting EX Layer, Soul Calibur, all in the same scale with extreme quality values but it soon transform in the brand that keep us all waiting 5 or more years between characters release.

And just like that they release Sol Badguy from Guilty Gear Strive, with a delay of 8 months (nothing new for Storm) and no news soo far if they release any other character at all tough theres chances they release Ky Kyske.....someday in this century.

Sol is in scale with most modern action figures, the perfect size for croosovers with the restof the Storm figures as well as figures of other brands and he can stand on his own perfectly until you display him with his sword. That sword needs a base of its own but thats another story and of course, theres no base to be seen in here since they sold them separatelly.

He is articulated on the neck, chest, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half foot. All ball joints with a lot of movility since the chest arwa as well as the jacket are made with pretty soft plastic soo he can have freedom of movement on the upper torso and the ...loincloth thingy he uses on his waist is also made with soft plastic.

Still, each time his arms are rised, the oversized jacket cover his face and needs a lot of adjustment, same for the waist piece that, despite being made with soft plastic, its pretty anoying and really gets in the way of the legs movement. Also the thick legs and arms dosnt let him bend his knees or elbows too much and the pants block almost entirelly the ankles and half shue movement. The articulation on his shoes barelly moves at all actually.

In the end this figure is not as articulated as it seems.....the articulations are there but the big puffy outfit really gets in the way. His hair is also movable but only uses a basic peg, not a ball joint soo you cna put his hair flowing to the wind, it only loves left and rigth and that also limits the display options. I wish they add different hair flowing with his motion like they did with Terry or Haohmaru.

Now it comes the difficult part....being thorn by a figure quality and a personal opinion, because this figure sculpt is really really good. I love the carved details on his pants as well as how the pants flow around his legs, specially in the lower part, they looks pretty stylish. The jacket is amazing with all thise big buckles and the carvings in the back with all those belts as well as the wrinkles on those big oversized sleeves.

The loicloth thingy he is wearing (i dont know how to call it) with the big "FREE" buckle in front is a floating piece with conects with another red......i dunno, half belt? that only covers his back side. This piece can be moved around at pleasure and looks fantastic but it deffinetly demands a lot of adjustment.

The face tough....is not bad at all, with pretty delicate face features  and a pretty soft smile. His hair tough dosnt really liiks as stylish as in the game, with in 2d his hair looks like a spiky anime messy hair, in here the hair is just a big chunk of plastic specially the firelock part. I hate that forelock he is using and with all honestly it makes him look derp.

I am not sure if its the face expression, face features, the paint of that stupid hair but it makes him looks pretty childish.....pretty young....kind of dumb and thats a bummer because Sol always had this beastly vibe going on, with a fierce face expression, almost brutish.

The coor is nice too, just like always with Storm each section is cast on the dominant color plastic soo it keeps the paint at minimum to give it a pretty clean look (this is specially basic with the soft plastic sections). The back in the belts and gold in the bucckles and buttons looks perfect as well as the silver in some tiny sections.

 Actually theres a lot of gold and silver decals here that represent most of the paint as well as the black in the "FREE" text on his front and the black on the engravings on his pants, all finelly painted. I love tough the super tiny text all ver, like the "RIOT" on the back of his jacket and the text on the back of his floating piece and the red pieces behind his shoes. The text is soo tiny i cant read it but looks pretty impresive!!!

The pants have a little bit of shadows but not much, they are just 95% plain white and theres nothing more on the rest of the figure, theres no shadows or high ligths here, just the basic base color and unlike the other Storm figures, theres no texture at all in here and this includes his skin. Theres no texture just plain skin color and the same goes for his hair, just chocolate brown all over. This really makes him looks kinda....plain, pretty cartoony. I mean i know he is cartoony in the game being 2D but it clashes with the other Storm figures.

The smile is also delicately painted as well as his brown eyes, they are perfect tough i for the deeling the eyes looks a bit asian and they deffinely dosnt looks fierce or fiery at all.

For the accesoryes he comes with a bunch of hands. Aside of the closed fist he have hands to hold on his weapon as well as a pair of open hands, claws hands, and hands in a claling gesture. They are made with soft plastic and botht eh sculpt and paint is perfect and they can swap pretty easy as well. Having this many options really helps to catch the character personality.

He have two extra heads aside of the base smiling one: one with a mishcevious smirk and another one shouting. The smirk matches perfectly the official artwork of Sol for strive and the tiny teeths are impresivelly painted. The shouting face also have the perfecly painte tiny teeth as well as a nice pink on his tongue and inside of his mouth. They are easy to exchange and the quality is pretty good but, again, non of this faces express Sol beastly nature.

There is also 3 pony tails. All 3 are the same. For some reason i cant understand Storm tough given each head a replica of the same hair would be a better idea than make 3 different pony tails with a different sculpt...

And then theres Outrage MK.II, Sol´s weapon. I call it weapon because i cant see too much of a sword here, Fireseal and Junkyard Dog still keep that sword look to certain degreeg but with this weapon i am not sure how it works since its not aerodynamic at all, is rpetty ehavy and have no edge, but oh well...

This thingy is really amazing, almostthe same size as Sol and thr scult is pretty sharp and stylish, with the black belt in the middle made with soft plastic. While Sol have no texture at all, this item have a metalic texture all over as well as scratches and identations of past battles that makes it looks strangelly realistuc, more soo than his owner.

The center piece have metalic red with the name and logo of the weapon marked on it and it really complements with the back and intense yellow surroinding it. Theres a bandage made with soft plastic and painted in white with the end section in orange that make this weapon looks pretty damn cool.

The bandage is not bendable but its soft texture makes it easy to move around tough it demands being delicate with it, specially on the section where Sol holds it since the handle is not specially big and the hand frot a lot with the bandage risking it. Also this weapon is soo super heavy and mess with Sol balance a lot even on th most basic and unactive poses.

And finally there is an effect that make Sol´s bog to be as huge as Terry´s: a big fire effect ceated by Outrage MK.II, more preciselly the Gunflame. This effect is really big and take a lot of space and while its extremelly simple looking - just a hollow transluscent orange plastic with some shades of red and yellow - is pretty effectve and looks really really good, not only as a Gunflame but also as an enviroment element for the display.

And of course, theres is a background and given the size of the box is pretty big and shows the Lars Canyon. Not only the print is pretty good, but the material is much better now and keeps the background standing perfectly. The colors of Lars Canyon are pretty soft, with browns and blue in pastel tones and that makes Sol stands out beautifully againts the background. Also the back side have a red stony texture with the logo of Guilty Gear Strive soo it can be used as well as background, but dosnt looks as good as the Lars Canyon.

I am really torn with this figure....the sculpt is brillant, the paint is amazing, the accesorys are nice and the articulations works wonderfull but in the end, i dont think this is very representative of Sol. It dosnt have the correct anatomy with the huge hands and feet, it dosnt have the big pecs Sol have and is very flatchested, but also the face and hair makes this figure looks very dumb and youthfull.

Even with the fire effect i cant see any of the beastly and brutish look of Sol Badguy in here. Tough i dont know if i can blame Storm for this since, overall, the design on Sol Badguy in Strive is pretty inferior to his original design. The hair change and oversized jacket and pants really dont suits him, Sol Badguy was like a mix of kinks and fetishes, like a male version of Bayonetta but this new design make him looks more like a shonen character from Naruto.

I dunno, Sol has been one of my favorite videogame characters for 23 years and while the quality here is top notch, Storm really droped the ball in here.

LEXINGTON

 NECA is deffinetly on a crazy race latelly, completing all the series that promised two years ago in just a few months!! Elisa and Xanatos just came a few week ago and here is Lexington already, closing the Manhattan clan at last. I still find it hard to belive that the Steel Clan Robot came out before Lexington or even Thailog but, while the wait was pretty weird, here he is at last!!!

And i was actually extremelly interested in this figure to see wath kind of design and enginering NECA would use on him, since for years they only show pretty limited photos online and all of them didnt reveal too much. This is a figure that deminds a lot of creativity that even Kenner didnt manage to handle back in the 90s.

Lexington is tiny, like...really tiny, much more than Elisa and Xanatos and almost as small as Bronx but deffinetly much more thin and ligth weigth. But of course, he is the same price as the rest of the figures.....but anyway, this small size makes him easy to handle and pretty easy to display him fliying around, this is the most fun figure of the entire collection to play with.

He is articulated on the head, torso, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles, half feet, tail and wings. The tail is pretty small and bendy like always, but is more than enough to handle the weigth of the figure and helps perfectly to make him stand. All other articulations are ball joints and have the impresive freedom of movement as always and since he have no hair, his head can move a lot, more soo than any other figures in the collection.

Now here is the thing; the wings. Lexington wings are very different to the rest of the clan, they conect from his legs to his arms and all around his torso like a fliying squirrel. Kenner could not handle this and did his wings separate to his arms to not sacrifice arms articulation, but NECA managed to stay true to the original design and conect the wings from thigs to a "long finger" conected to his back and then it reconects again to his foreamrs.

The wings are made of a pretty thin and soft plastic, a first for the collection and it folds and curls around once the arms and legs are moved tough not entirelly. I mean, the legs conection dosnt block the movement, but the forearms conection make his arms movement kind of troublesome once the elbows are bent. Also moving up his arms is very tircky since the wings make a resistance since is not elastic at all. 

Also the wings keep pulling his forearms and twists his elbows articulation in a pretty alarming way. I hope this articulations are strong enough to not broke eventually but i got the feeling the elbows are a point to be carefull with. But in the end, i cant see how to make a figure of Lexington without this kind of issues, this is the best any company could do with such a design.

The sculpt is fantastic. This is the most cartoony design and the character with the biggest eyes soo far but while they keep this features, he fits perfectly fine with the look of the rest of the series. His face features are pretty sharp, specially on the section on top of his eyes and the ears and this guy deffinetly is the one that looks more like a vampire

The body have a pretty impresive musculature build, despite the small body frame, he is ripped and that makes him looks as menacing as the bigger gargoyles. The arms are much longer than usual but i guess this is natural since they are his wings after all. The veins on his arms, the wrinkles on his feet, aged texture on his loincloth, this are all the details that looks even more impresive with the small scale of this guy and the wings, despite the difference of material, share the same scaly/leather texture the other wings have with some veins inclided and on both sides.

The paint is great. Every peice is cast in green plastic soo the skin color looks natural and match each other, but theres is also a dark green wash and airbrush to high ligth every muscle and give it volume. The shadowing on his face looks really good as well tough, the little fangs are not that well painted and some of the eyes paint is kinda sloppy, wich is weird given how big the eyes are.

The blue on the loincloth includes a ligther grey wash that gives it the looks of a pretty old and ancient piece of clothing, looks dusty and dirty and the holes on it helps a lot to make it looks natyral. The wings have a pretty ligth brown color in the internal side with some darker shadows soo the veins and scale texture dont get lost and in the external side it have a darker brown paint mixed with a little bit of metalic finish soo the skin shines with a soft supernatural iridesence. This kind of details are wath make this figures soo amazing.

Aside of the closed fist hands he comes with two extra pairs of hands, one claw shaped and another one to hold accesorys. Sculpt and paint is consistent and they are pretty easy to exchange despite the peg being extremelly thin and looks fragile.

The extra head have Lexington in attack mode with his open mouth and eyes with no pupils. Of course without the cartoony pupils, those huge eyes are really menacing and the sculpt with the open jaw shows up the muscular structure of his skull pretty nicelly. I love the tiny piranha fangs as well as the small tongue inside but while the red paint on the tongue is perfect, the small fangs are pretty messy looking.

He also comes with a headset. Is pretty simple looking and painted only in grey and black but it fits his head perfectly. The earbuds enter into his hears and the speaker is just in the rigth place for his mouth, also they are pretty easy to fit but they dont fall from his ehad since the earbud inters pretty deep into his ears.

He have a remote controler as well with a big antena and two sticks, one for up and down movement and another one for left and rigth movement and a red button on the center. Looks cartoony but fits on his hand perfectly and i am not sure from where this is remote....is his toy car remote i think? Is pretty sad they didnt include his actual toy here tough.

And this is all about usefull items, now the useless acesorys: Kenner gives him a silly looking crossbow back in 1995 and NECA is repeating it recreating that same crossvow despite this thing never been on the actualy show. The design is extremelly cool looking and medieval, with a wooden center part and metalic sections with spikes and a chain as shooting mechanism. The chain is a real metal chain and the wood section looks pretty realistic and almost makes me wish they included this weapon on the show.

It fits nicelly on his hand as is smaller than the Kenne rversion making it less silly deffinetly. Very out of character but a pretty damn cool accesory for some other figure. Also it comes with four arrows that, unlike the crossbow, dont have anything special despite eing extremelly small and delicate. The arrows fit inside the crossbow but they goes all the way inside the weapon and they are pretty difficult to take out. For such a beastly and big crossvow, the arrows dont fit it at all.

And thats it. Not too many usefull accesorys aside of the extra head but thr worst is the msised oportunity to add Hudson, Brooklyn, Angela or Thailog closed wings since Lexington is much smaller than Bronx, Xanatos or Elisa, closed wings could fit here perfectly and they would justify the high price as well.

Aside of the missing chance for the wings, i cant seem to find anything to complaing in here. This figure is really really good looking, works great and is a lot of fun to display specially fliying around. I huge improvement over the Kenner original and much more exciting than Elisa and Xanatos, but more important, its very exciting to have the Manhattan clana togetehr at last.

It was a logn wait, a really long wait, but they are finally together and display them interacting with each other, specially the younger ones, is really really special. Armored Xanatos is coming pretty son and next year we will get Macbeth, Gabriel and Coldstone but as nice as those characters are, they are side characters. For me, the final piece of the puzzle is Lexington. Now he is here and everything feels allrigth and complete.