GENJURO KIBAGAMI

 Slowly, very, VERY slowly Storm Collectibles has been fullfiing the dreams of fight game entusiasts by giving us action figures of as many fight games series as they can. Sadly, the ocean of Street Figther and Mortal Kombat releases has been predating the rest of Storm collections but given the price range of this figures, its good we dont have them too often. And somehow the Samurai Shodown brand seems more promising than Soul Calibur for Storm (i am very happy for this but very sad as well...) soo they been keeping it alive releasing new characters since Haohmaru five years ago.

Five years ago and we only got four characters soo far!!! Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Rasetsumaru and Genjuro Kibagami!! I am stasting to doubt if i will live long enough to complete this...but i guess "complete" this line is a way too irreal concept. And while i missed Nakoruru and Rasetsumaru feel oddly....repetitive, Genjuro Kibagami is the very first important addition to the Samsho collection for my collection (tough he took his sweet time since he was supposed to come out last year).

Genjuro is actually a bit taller than Haohmaru (and by extention Rasetsumaru) and can stand on his own most of the time. I mean most because those thick plastic pants block his ankles artiuculation soo sometimes is kinda tricky adjust them for a standing pose. 

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet. All ball joints with the biceps having a simple cut joint and the elbows and knees a double articulation and shoulders have a buttlefly joint. Like always, the movement range is amazing since the chest piece is made with soft plastic soo his neck and shoulders moves wonderfully.

The pink top hanging from his waist is made with soft plastic soo it dosnt get in the way of the legs movement, but the pants nature make his legs very difficult to work with. I mean, his pants are thicker than Geese soo they kind kind of block each other and somehow, they are very heavy as well, soo i am afraid the leg articulation get lose over time. And like already say, the ankles movement is also very difficult to work with thanksk to said pants.

I guess it cant be helped, since this is the character design and give him cloth pants would make things more delicate and hard to work with but i wish they make his pants of softish plastic tough, that would makes things easyer to handle. His hair can rotate too, in a very basic way just like the other samurais but i wish it could move up and down too for some battle poses with a ball joint.

The sculpt is really really good, despite the simplistic look of Genjuro, every bit of this figure is perfectly sculpted, from the impresive musculature to the velvetish texture of his pants and sandals. Even the scar on his back is also sculpted and the face features are a perfect 3D render of the 2D design, with his chiseled face features, extremelly sharp jaw line and sculpture perfect nose and cold eyes.

He looks familiar, way too familiar tough....he looks pretty similar to Iori Yagami tough he debuted before Iori soo we could say this man was the very first version of Yagami and that deffinetly includes the red hair. I particulary love the few hair strands on Genjuro´s nape tough they are a great attention tod etail, they are made with soft plastic soo they can be broken by moving his head up!!

The hair have a very nice flow and at first i tough he needed a bigger ponny tail, but in the game the hair is never as abudant as Haohmaru´s soo i guess the amount of hair is perfect.

The hair is painted on a very nice red color with some black detailing that make it looks a little bit cartoony. The hair line is really perfect and dosnt mix with any of the skin tone despite its irregular shape. The skin tone is perfecly pale and fits Genjuro perfectly and looks much more natural than Haohmaru´s orange skin. The black line on the mouth and thin and delicate eyebrows are really impresive as well as the eyes detailing and pupils.

The rest of the skin matches the face colors, with some soft shadowing here and there to give a very discrete volume to the muscles, everything looks very natural as well as the scar on his back. The bandage son his abs as well as the white belt and the pink kimono hanging from his waist are to cimple tough, and dosnt have any paint aplication beyond the base color. The pants tough is another story since they have some baby blue strokes mixed with the grey that matches very good the velvet texture and gives them a pretty regal look that enhance the shapr shape they have. 

The brown base of the sandals and red tie around the white socks looks really good and thats it. Genjuro is strangelly simplistic looking, juts like Haohmaru and still, he is a very menacing figure that have a pretty strong presence, he is not fully realistic but the stylization Storm used here matches the Samurai Shodown artworks perfecly.

He also comes with a bunch of pretty softish hands that are pretty easy to swap: aside of the closed fist he have hands to hold his sword, hands in claw shape, relaxed hands, hands to hold his plate and hands on a "come here" gesture. They are pretty expressive for such an inexpresive character.

Ahe also have four different heands: aside of the stoci base head he have another one with an smile, another one showing his teeth and another one screaming. The sculpt and paint aplications is perfect on all of them and they are very easy to swap as well. The smiling head is my favorite tough, since despite the smile not being very noticeable, it have a pretty dark vibes on it.

The head with the teeth have a pretty impresive sculpt and the ones screaming have fantastic looking details inside the mouth. Again, all this are very expresive for such an inexpresive character and show how is possible to give variety to any character at all as long as the brand feel real love for the character design.

He have not one, but four hairs as well!!! And all this hairs have exactly the same sculpt and paint!!! Why add a hair piece to each head?? I mean i understand if they added hairs with different flow or sculpt, flowing around his head or something but no, Storm added four accesorys that looks exactly the same and thats pretty odd...

Next is Baioudoku - Poison of the Plum Nightingale: his katana and the most important accesory for the character. While the blade and handle are pretty standar looking, the the Tsube/guard have an amazing sculpt shaped like a flower with each petal completelly hollow. Its pretty difficult to see it on photo but once at close up, the sculpt is really wild!!

The blade have a very realistic metalic paint while the Tsube is painte din metalic gold and the handle is a mix of brown and dark greens. The paint aplicatio is perfect and contrast nicelly with Genjuro´s color palette.

He also have a wide red plate for sake, with a black kanji painted on the center. The colors is pretty intense and is one of the most classic items for Genjuro since he ises this in most of his artowkrs and his animation presentation.

He not only have a single badass effects, but he have two!!! One of them and my favorite is from his Oukazan move: he throws an energy ball with his katana shaped like a rotating card that once conects, it takes shape of an actual hanafuda card. The effect of the Oukazan is sculpted in trabsluscent plastic painted with some very soft pink tones and a white airbrush in the center that makes it looks like is shining.

This effects comes with its own base, a transluscent circular base with a post that conects to the back of the Oukazan. The white airbrush covers the post and the post can be adjusted to any height. Not only this is one of the best looking and simple effects Storm has ever done, but is also one of the most iconics from Genjuro.

His second effect Towa Koyokujin; a purple flame that comes out from his katan while cuting upward in the air. The effect consist into two pieces jointed together, a small flame with a hollow inside to insert the katana and a big flame that fits inside the two pieces and extend the effect, sculpted on transluscent plastic with some purple airbrish and white airbrush in the katan section, this piece is really heavy and Genjuro´s articulations can barelly keep it up for a short amount of time.

Despite of how troublesome this effect is, it looks really good and his huge and pretty different to the effects of the other sword wielding Storm Collectibles figures.

And my biggest dissapoint: the background scenario that traditional comes packed with each figure, printed in very high quality and with a descent size, i was expecting to have Susukigahara Field with the big Neo Geo moon on top, Genjuro´s stage since Samurai Shodown 2.

Instead we got Kyoto, Tenkakuza, the home stage from Karakuri Ocha-Maru from Samurai Shodown VI. The color palette is odd and the scene is really busy, with all the karakuri puppets behind tough is very colorful, i got the feeling this stage camouflages any figure very well. But WHY Ocha-Maru stage and not Susukigahara???!!!

Aside of this the figure is perfect. while i wish they gives us Gejuro´s little pet frog instead of soo many copys of his hair, or a top piece of his kimono to fit one of his arms, i cant complaing with the badass effects they give him and the pretty katana as well.

Genjuro is one of the best SNK designs, one of the most classic as well, just like his rival Haohmaru, he is very simplistic looking and yet pretty intense and unforgetable, a character designed to have an "adult appeal" - pointed out by SNK character designers - or in a more direct way, a character that was supposed to be sexy.

He is perfect to this porpuse tough, he is deffinetly more sexy than Iori Yagami and looks spectacular along side his rival on any videogames collection. Also this figure makes me want to hunt down Nakoruru but next will be Earthquake and things will get really wild with him. I just hope i live enough to have a Charlotte or a Galford or any other character beyond Earthquake.

NOSFERATU

 Woah, its been a while since last entry, rigth? Time sure flys and i will try to update more often (not like someone is reading this at all tough...) since thanks to NECA, this last years has been a dream for us fans of horror movies and action figures as well with lines like The Thing, An American Werewolf in London, Elvira, The Munsters or the Universal Monsters, NECA is also doing figures of some horror characters from the silent era as well, aside of the Universal Monsters, characters from London at Midnigth and Nosferatu a Symphony of Horror.

Is no secret i love Nosferatu a Symphony of Horror, it was one of the most disturbing films i see in my childhood and with the remake a few months away, many companys has been doing figures of this particular version of Dracula. A few mobths ago i got the Mezco version - remake of theyr first figure - that stands as one of the best figures i ever seen and pretty soon Super 7 will release theyr own version as well, and of course, the NECA version from this particular entry.

This guy is actually tall, just as tall as Goliath of the Frankenstein Monster from NECA, and thats quiet a surprise for me given the shape of his back. He is actually taller than Lugosi´s Dracula as well but fits with most action figures scale. He can stand on his own pretty good tough in my particular case, this figure have some weak ankles articulations and he likes to fall sometimes. Maybe his thin legs and tall size dosnt helpt his stability either but most of the time he stand just fine.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knees and ankles, ball joints like always with really good range of mobility. His coat is made with soft plastic, soo his head can turn and tilt with total freedom and his shoulders also have a big range of movement, tough his legs are very limited. I guess is inevitable with a coat but this is not a character with a lot of deep stances, specially from the waist down.

NECA has always been having a focus of great sculpt, specially on the horror genre, even if 20 years ago the paint of they figures was kinda of, the sculpt was always upstaidng, and with the last Universal Monsters line they show how faithfull to the actors they can be and this is not exception, this is 100% Max Schreck as seen on the silver screen.

The looong face, square jaw, the eagle nose and even the shape of the skull matches perfectly the actors face features mixed with a pretty natural texture and sculpting of realistic hair on the hair on top of his bat ears and thick eyebrows. At first i found the expression kind of boring but watching the movie again, is actually perfect, with the little fangs poking out of his mouth and the perplexed eyes with the empty expression is very faithfull looking for the scenes were the creature is roaming the city of nigth (or the ship as well).

The sculpt of the coat is very nice as well, with a very plastic texture to make it looks like leather and a nice and very natural looking set of wrinkles around his waist and around his arms to show how fit it is. The buttons at the front and the back are sculpted and under the coat it seems he is using a ruffled black shirt. 

His pants are very simple and natural looking as well as his shoes, but the hands are amazing, with the long fingers and knotty and veiny surface as well as the long fingernail, they are pretty menacing looking even in relaxed stand. 

The pants have a mutted black color with different tones of grey to make them look old and realistic while the shoes are simply black, the coat is sculpted on brownish plastic with some darker and ligthr tones to give it shape and volume, but theres nothign extraordinary looking here compared to the skin. 

Since this is a black and white movie, i dont think theres ever been a proof of the actual colors of the costumes or make ups, soo companys usually tend to add the colors they want, really, Sideshow gives Nosferatu a deep crimson coat with flesh color skin, while Mezco wen to dress hi totally in black at first and later in browns with a yellow skin, NECA decided to paint this vampire in a pretty ligth lilac, almost white.

Asice of the lilac theres darker purples around his checks and eyes to enhance his cadaveric face features. Actually the coloring looks too much like a silent movie make up, since they ahd to paint the shadows directly on the actors face soo the primitive cameras from back then could catsh the detaisl of theyr acting. This also gives Count Orlock a pretty ghostly appearance, almost like an ethereal being in contrast with his mute dark outfit.

The hair have different paints of black to make it looks realistic but really, the red eyes are a really good touch since they contrast way too much with the skin color as well as the outfit and makes his eyes looks very bulgy. More than a vampire, this monster looks like a ghost or a living corpse, perfect for the original concept of Dracula.

He comes with a lot of extras (unlike the last of the Universal Monsters): a rigth hand to hold the bottle thingy, a rigth hand to hold the quill, a rigth hand to hold the castle keys and a left hand to actually hold a key like he is about to open a door. Its weird they added a hand for each accesory but they all work really good but not as good as the open claws hands!!! Hands with HUGE spidery fingernails that looks really spectacular, the attack mode of Nosferatu.

There is also two extra heads. Its kinda tricky exchange them thanks to the neck section of the coat, but theyr work really good. One have a pretty icy and serious look, that ironically, looks more human. This is based on his look at the begining of the movie, when Count Orlock is on his castle. This aprticular head have the ears close to his skull soo the hat can fit.

The other head have a more playfull look, with a silly smile that show his fangs and his eyes looking at the rigth. He dosnt looks happy tough, he looks more devilish than cute. Both heads have a perfect paint that matches the paint of the base head.

Like i already mentioned, he comes with his turkish hat: a tubeteika. Its made of pretty softish plastic and have different tones of dark browns mixed with black to make it looks dirty and old. This can be pnly used with the serious head with the closed mouth since the pinty ears of the other heads keep the tubeteika away of his skull.

He also have the castle keys, like all other figures of the characters. The tubeteika and the keys are pretty much the esence of the very first time we seen the character on screen, soo they are the most important items. The chain of the keys is real metal and the keys actualy have different size and shapes tough they feel much more delicate than the Mezco version and fit them on his hand is really tricky thanks to his hard plastic fingernails.

His other accesorys are an ink well and a quill to recreate the scene when he is writting on the documents of the property he bought. The ink well have a very nice art deco design, with a copper texture and paint and actual ink on the top, looks very steam punk and the quill fits perfectly on the small hole on it and also on Count Orlock´s fingers. The grey and white of the quill have a nice contrast with the cooper colors of the ink well.

Then he have the letter he gets from Renfield. A real piece of paper with yellow color and actual prints on it, it shows a lot fo weird symbols and iconography only Orlok and Renfield knows how to read and some urabn leyends says this are real symbols of ocultism used in Germany 100 years ago. This piece of paper is really relicate and easy to lose tough!!!

And for last he have a black....thingy of unknown origina that at first i tough it was an enema but it seems is a bottle? A wine bottle maybe? I dont remember this item on the movie and it have a pretty futuristc and elegant design tough it have no texture, just black and shiny plastic here and i cant see how to use it.

Overall this figure is really really beautifull and different to the rest of the other figures of the character, with unique accesorys and a really interesting paint op. Is it better than the Sideshow version? Maybe...its deffinetly more natural looking, but is it better than the Mezco version? I dont know....

Quality wise, the Mezco ONE:12 version is better on everything, but its an stylized redesign, while this one is much much much faithfull to the on screen character soo i can really chose wich one is better since they have a totally different perspective.

The Super 7 version will be out soon but...idont know if i need it, not after this one since i am pretty sure Super 7 will not be able to do a better job than NECA but in the end, the Nosferatu licence is totally free soo i am pretty sure we will see more figures of him over and over again, specially with the remake next christmas. 

WOLFMAN

With The Mummy remake in the 90s there was a huge interest over the Univeral Monsters (that popularity was effectibly killed by Van Hellsing) and aside of Sideshows, the brand Jakks Pacific was also responsible to produce toys based on the Monsters. Soo far in the last 24 years, the toys of Jakks Pacific has been able to avoid completelly my interest soo i dont know too much about the brand, aside that The Mummy and Van Hellsing toys they produced were pretty awfull.

The original Universal Monster toys, tough, looked pretty rad since they came in big boxes full of windows, something pretty rare back then, and they also included a diorama/play set that set them appart to wath Sideshow was producing back then. They are pretty rare as well, at least in my country, i only see them twice at a very high price and all this made them even more important for the collection.

After 21 years i was finally able to get the Frankenstein Monster as well as the Wolfman. I am missing Dracula but from the 3, he is the most boring looking soo i am not too worried about him. The Franknesntein Monster tough, with all his set displayed with the chair and shackles is one interesting and atractive addition to the Universal Monster display but the Wolfman really stands out on his own as well.

He is on scale with figures of the beggining of the century; a head smaller to modern NECA or McFarlane Toys tough this guy in specifici is actually a little bit smaller given his legs position. He cant stand on his own, at all....not even with the base he stays uprigth thanks to the shape of his feet and, again, his legs position. The only way for him to stand is to hold him of the tree branch.

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knees and ankles tough this are all cut joints, theres not a single ball joint here. His head can rotate left and rigth but not up or down, and he can move his arms up and down but not open them, and his legs can move in diagonal soo he cant sit like the Frankenstein Monster and that makes him stand even more tricky. Very basic and simple articulations but that was the standar back then....

The sculpt is really good! The shape of the head, the lower lip with the tusk coming out, the hair deffinition is very very good as well, i am surprised they also reproduce the Lon Chaney Jr looks soo well and while the body is not that detailed thanks to his over simple outfit, the shape and wrinkles pf the shirt and pants around his body looks very very good. And while i hate he cant stand i am glad they keep the doggy shaped feet.

The paint is really good as well, unlike the Frankenstein Monster, the paint dosnt looks sketchy but is very very well defined, the pink on the lips, the white on the fangs, the black nose, the soft brown on the face and dark brown on the hair with different brownish tones on the hair to give it volume and details, even the eyes are extremelly livelly with the brown pupil, something i wasnt expecting from Jakks Pacific.

The green shirt and grey pants have no textures but they do have a wash of different tones to make them looks more natural while the buttons on the shirt and the belt are perfectly painted, as well as the black claws in both hands and feet, but wath really ruin this good looking figures is the shaved neck.....he have human hairless neck!! The hair of the ehad cover most of the neck tough but from the sides, the human neck is really visible.

The set piece is bigger than Frankenstein´s but not as heavy at the same time: a cementery scene with tombstones and trees and the nigth sky in the back. The sculpt in the ground have a dirty texture, stones and all around a very irregular terrain with a ditch in the center and two pegs in this specific part to stand the Wolfman. Theres a tumbstone on the back as well as a weirdlly shaped rock in the front and a cross........thingy that looks made with wood. The porpuse if this specifi items eludes my undertanding since is not a cross at all but i remember seen this in the cementery of Frakenstein, deffinetly.

There is a huge dry and dead tree on the side with a single articulated branch. The wood tecture as well as the stone and disrt texture are really good looking and the paint matched perfectly as well, The ground have different tones of greens to make some areas looks like short grass and its mixed very nice with the browns of the ditch in the center. The tocks have different greys and have also a weet texture while the cross thingy have different browns to make it looks like a real wood. The tree is a little too dark tough, it have ifferent tones of black but overall dosnt looks as detailed as the rest of the scenario and it dosnt mix too much with the ground colors. 

The background is not a carboard printed image but a thick plastic tablet that fits in the base and have trees scupted and painted as well. I wish tough they added more trees or tombstones since it looks kinda empty and i also wish they sculpted or painted stars in the sky clouds or something because the sky is just metalic blue and thats it, it looks too empty comapred to all the details of the ground or the Wolfman himself.

This time there is actual accesorys too, like a shovel. The shovel is very cute looking and looks too much like a toy, made with soft plastic and pretty plain and brigth colors. it fits on Larry Talbots hand but his place is agains the tree. There is also a lamp that fit on the characters hand and also can hang from the tree branches. The sculpt of the lamp fits to the overall tone but is just a black piece of plastic, with no color at all. I wish they painted the sides or they add a sticker to make it looks lit because its kind of difficult see wath this is.

There is also the action feature items!! Human feet, hands and head!! The sculpt and paint are OK and somehow, Wolfman can stand on his own with the human feet. The face sculpt is something more difficult, the face shape, sad expression on the eyes and even the messy hair are all close to Lon Chaney Jr Larry Talbot portrayal but each feature is exaggerated, like in a cartoon portrayal. The color on the eyes is very good, but the paint on his hair is very messy and they give him an odd orange wash too soo under direct ligth the paint looks pretty weird.

This is why the neck had no hair, i guess they tough it would be odd to add the human head to a furry neck and the wolf head hude the neck much better but i wish they did it the NECA way and make the neck exchangable as well but the swaping is pretty easy since the peg on the feet, hands and neck seems to be very strong (considering how old is this toy i was afraid the plastic would be britle).

Now the action feature: the sky block thingy have a hole shaped like clouds just behind the tree with a sky printing inside. In the back theres a lever, turn it and the sky moves like a clock and reveal a half moon half hidden by clowds, keep turning it to reveal the full moon in all its glory. This really helps make the sky piece much more complete and it works really good and is directly tied to the second action feature: transform Larry Talbot into the Wolfman.

Swap the hands and feet to have bin half changued with the half moon, swap the head to the Wolfman head for full moon to complete the mutation. Its a shame this has to be done manually, but this was the very first time they did a shape changin Wolfman figure and it stayed exclusive to Jakks Pacific for 20 whole years until NECA release theyr Ultimate Wolfman a few years ago and added the "changuing feature" again.

And laslty, the last action feature is the moon images glow in the dark. Is not mentioned in the box but its also pretty easy to see it, the half moon and ful moon are pretty brigth, a really awesome detail that makes even better and already brillant diorama.

This one, from the 3 Jakks Pacific figures, is the one i wanted the most, the best looking one and just like Frankenstein Monster, while the Wolfman figure looks not specially amazing, the whole diorama, moon changuin and accesorys all togetehr make this looks really rad!!

It sure is not as perfect as NECA´s Ultimate or even Sideshow version, but the human to wolf change and diorama stayed as a unique features of this version for 20 years and comparing it to wath was on the market back then (Palisades, McFarlane, Mexco) this was really such a unique premium figure in both sculpt and paint. It was really worth the long wait and made me wish Jakks Pacific managed to keep this quality for theyr Van Hellsing figures, maybe then they would had the chance to release the second serires with Karis the mummy, the actual Bride of the Monster and the Creature From the Black Lagoon.

FRANKENSTEIN

 At the end of last centiry and beginign of this century, theres was a boom of popularity of the Universal Monsters, thanks to The Mummy remake for sure, soo Sideshow release a HUGE collection based on those classic Monsters in all scales but the other company working on them back then was also Jakks Pacific, a pretty misteryous (for me) brand that was in chargue of The Mummy Returns action figures as well as Van Halleings´s.

But in between those two series, they also released figures based on the original Universal Monsters, tough only 3: Dracula, the Franlnenstein Monster and the Wolf Man. In my country those figures are very very rare and only saw them twice in the last 21 years and they are not cheap. I miss Dracula but i finally got the Frankenstein Monster after all this years.

Unlike all figures from back then, this one didnt came carded on a blister or in a clamshell but in a big box full of windows and artwork and it makes it feel like some kind of premium figure but in fact this Monster is not that big, he is on the same scale as most action figures like McFarlane or NECA had 21 years ago: one head and a half smaller than modern action figures, but still taller than a Figuarts or Figma (or Jada) this this guy is actually smaller to the Sideshow premium figures.

He can stand on his own perfectly with no problem and is articulated on the neck, waist, shoulders, elbows, legs, knees and ankles. The ehad is ball jointed soo it have a big range of movement up and down as well as the sides, all other articulations are basic cut joints - the standar articulations from back then - soo he can move his shoulders up and down but not open them to the sides, and elbows only bend to a certain degree.

I can judges the articulations all i can, they are extremelly stiff and useless but the reality is that all other companys used this same kind of articulation, including Sideshow. The Monster is not well known to be extrmelly versatile on his movement (aside of the circus freak version of Van Hellsing), soo the articulations match the character as well.

The sculpt is actually good!! Jakks Pacific actually did had contract with the Karloff familly and used Boris Karloff face feature instead of doing a generic monster. The sunken checks and sleepy eyes looks spot on as well as the shape of the nose, but also the face expression with half of his mouth open showing his teeth in a menacing growl is actually pretty close to Karloff portrayal of the creature.

The skin of the texture is that of a mummy and theres even the burn scar on the side of his face. His shirt and boots have a rugged texture and his hands have the same mummy texture the face have and all the stitches and open wounds are sculpted. The pants are extremelly simple as wella s the jacket but this last one is made with soft plastic soo the Monster can sit.

The paint tough fill me with doubts. Its not like this is the most colorfull or detailec aharcter out there but i feel the color palette is kinda dull. Totally black shirts and boots, plain green pants and grey jacket, with no shades or ligths or anything, just a plain single color for each part makes him looks very "toy-ish"The skin tone have a pale color (i am glad is not green!!!) and while the scars and open wounds show some red on theme, i feel like the white of his teeth, soft pink lips and eyes mix too much with the skin color.

Different tones of green, eye bags, the burn scar, all this details would looks much better painted but the paint is just way too....simple? This also mades me doubt a little bit if i can see Karloff in here or not, is like somehow, this figures looks like an unfinished sketch, i never feelt like this with other figure before.

This figure is actually not based on the Frankenstein movie, but the box says all over the place "Bride of Frankenstein" soo this is the reason why he have a brun scar on his face and his jacket is torn apart in some sections but more impostantly, this figure is based on a certain specific scene of the movie where the Monster is captured by the wosn people and took to the precint and chained to a chair inside a dungeon, soo this figure comes with said chair and even some part of the dingeon floor.

I dont know how to call this, a playset? Or a diorama? wathever is called, this is the reason this figure came in a big box and looked spectacular inside it. The piece is actually quiet heavy, is not holow plastic at all. The whole floor and chair are all made of stone. The texture is really reslly really impresive good and all the cracisk and divisions of the rocks that build thos primitive chair have a really crisp sculpt.

The back side of the chair is an imposing peice of raw wood with other two pieces to hold the Monster shoulders and a chain conecting both sections. Again, the wood texture is really impresive and realistic and the chain is real metalic chain, that put this figure above anything McFarlane is doing now day.

Theres two rings of plastic coming out of the floor at the side of the steps, with a real metal chain conecting to shackles around the Monster wrists. This shackles can be removed but given how thing they are and how old is this....i got the feeling they will breake the very moment i try to open them.

Give this is also an old school toy, not only he have a diorama/play set thingy, but he also have an action feature!! Push a lever in the back of the chair and the Monster will move his arms upwards breaking the chains and liberating himself!!!

Gladlly, the Monster articulations make it easy to fit him in the chair. He have a weird hole on his back (like seen in the second photo) that conects to the lever on the char. The rocky pieces with the chains cna be conected to the floor like puzzle pieces and they have a small hole and a peg to keep them in place.

But, the arms movement with the lever dont have enough power for the Monster to break lose of his chains unless his arms are almost all up, soo this action feature is pretty useless. An incredivly cool idea, but it dosnt work in reality. Despite of that, i would have LOVED something like this when i was a kid in the 90s......i think this would have been my favorite toy back then.

This Jakks Pacifis toys are soo difficult to find and soo hunted by collectors, but in reality the quality here is lower than that of Sideshow (and many levels behind NECA), the figure is kinda plain to be honest, but somehow, one he is conected to the big and heavy chair, with the chains surround him, this Frankenstein Monster is really really good looking and the fact it recreats an specific scene of a movie maks it even better.

This figure looks fenomenal on any horro themed colleection as well as Universal Monster collection but is also pretty relevant to anyone who collect figures based n movies as well. Shure this is not very fun to play with but visually speaking, this figure really delivers.