HEISHIRO MITSURUGI

 

As a fan of figthing games, Soul Calibur has been a very prominent title my whole life, while other series like Samurai Shodown or even Street Figther dissapeare from the radar for a few years to later come back, Soul Calibur has been a constant for 28 years and one of the prime names in the (almost extint) 3D fight games genre. While some of its games has been better than others, every single entry has been always fun and had the most legendary warriors designed with care.

Despite that, and like every single fight games series that is not Street Figther or Morta Kombat, Soul Calibur has been almost not existante in the toys collection department, except for some mini figures McFarlane did in 2002, no other company has even touched the title until now, with Storm Collectibles finally doing justice to the franchise!!!

They took they time tough since it was a 5 years wait since they show the figures in a ToyFair, i was almost sure they had cancelled them but against all odds, here they are, Soul Calibur action figures after soo long!!! And they started with one of my favorite characters as well!! Heishiro Mitsurugi!!

Taller than Haohmaru, Ryu or Sol and a little bit shorter than Paul of Geese, Mitsu is in perfect scale with the rest of the Storm Collectibles series and he has no problem standing on his own perfectly thanks to his big feet. He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet as well as his pony tail that have a cut joint to move to the sides.

All of this are ball joints like the rest fo the Storm figures, except the biceps that only have a cut joint to move in one direction. His whole chest section is made with soft plastic, soo his neckhave a very good range of movility to move up and down or to the sides. The butterfly shoulders gives him a lot of arm movility and since the whole armour is made with very soft plastic, his limbs have a lot of freedom tough despite having a double joint on the elbows, his big muscly biceps dont let him arms to bend that much.

He have problems putting his arms together, just like Haohmaru, soo pose him holding his sword to the sied is quiet challenging....its weird how such basic poses have soo much troubles but i guess it cant be avoided since his arms are made of hard plastic. His torso have a very good range of movility tough the soft plastic armour is kinda anoying es well as the.....thingy on his waist...is it a flag? I dont know wath to call the piece around his waist but its tied with a thock putple cord and while they dont get in the way of the legs articulation, is kinda tricky move them around.

His pants are soo puffy and made with soft plastic soo his knees have a very limited range of movement and is really imposible to pose him sitting on the floor. The red shin guards also limit a lot the ball joint on his ankles and is specially difficult to adjust his feet sometimes with more complex posing.

Mitsu has a lot of designs over the years, unlike other figth games, Soul Calibur always had pretty clear the advance of times and each character looks very different from one game to the next. For me, my favorite design of Mitsu is the Soul Calibur IV closelly followed by Soul Calibur III, but this figures is based on Soul Calibur VI that is a remake of Soul Calibur I soo this is a pretty easrly design on Mitsu.

Not his first version from the Playstation but this is the Mitsu from the Dreamcast game, a pretty young samurai. At first i had my doubts about the face but after closelly look at the ingame model, i can say his face sculpt is pretty perfectly, the shape of his nose, his lips, eyes shape, square jaw, a pretty handsome young japanese warrior. The pony tail and hairs on his face are made with soft and flexible soft plastic.

At times it gives me the impression his head is a little to small, but is the correct size, this effect is only for the armour. The armor sculpt is really beautifull and full of sculpted detail, to the demnic face on his shulders to the intrincate engravings on his chest and back side, all made with a pretty soft and rubberish plastic. 

Under the anmour his body is fully sculpted: i can see the scar of the Tanegashima bullet on his chest as well as some bandages wrapped around his shoulders bt all this is hidden by the armour and unfortunetlly i can remove it. I guess by removing the arms i can remove the armour but i am afraid to weaken the peg of ball jounts if i remove them and make the hard choice to keep the armour on.

Theres a scar on one of his biceps and his other arm have a sleev with kanjis engraved. The red guard on his arm is made with soft plastic and can be removed as well as the beads wristband. The wristsband is specially anoying while exchanging hands tough.

The ford on his waits looks soo rough and the flag tied to it is sculpted to flow with the shpe of his leg. At times i wish it was made with real fabric and wire to five it some some movement but that would clash with the look of the whole figure and would make it more fragile. The pants have the same texture his sleve have and his sandals are really fantastic. Not only have a perfect texture, but the cord that ties around his feet is soo complex!!! Maybe this is why companys dont make Soul Calibur figures.

The paint job matches the sculpt perfectly as well, his skin tone is perfect, not pale but not very dark either (or orange like Haohmaru) and the paint job on his lips and brown eyes is soo perfect and delicate. His brads is not sculpted, only painted, but while its perfec looking i wish it was more....hairy....i mean, is not pretty evident, while in the game the beard looks a little more obvious.

His hair have no paint at all and his neck, chest and freem arm are sculpted on the same skin tone as his face and the only paint is on the scars. The other arm as well as the paints have a greysh blue tone with some pretty delicate dhadows here and there to gives them volume but its not specially evident as much as the kanjis on his shoulder and bicep panted on golden (and lets not forget the golden tiger on his pants as well!!!).

The red of the armour complement the the blue of the pants pretty nicelly. In the box the armour looks pretty vibrant crimson and looks soo cool!! But in the actual figure the red pieces have some dark shadows that makes them look both metalic and old, with signs of wearing and this gives them a more mute red tone. Is not as cool looking, but is much more natural this way deffinetly. Aside of the red theres is also golden details as well as grey and blues.

Same for his legs, with the rich golden detailing on his shin guards as well as the brown cord that tie them to his legs. The thick cord around his waist is plain purple with no ther details but the flag have both brown and golden painted with a brush, soo you can see the brush strokes on them as well as some wearing or time details. The complexity of this figure is really evident the closer you look.

He dosnt comes with many accesorys tough. A set of 3 extra hands that are pretty easy to exchange: open hands, claw shaped hands and hands to hod his sword. The detailing and paint match the rest of the figure and the open hands are very expresive.

He comes with two extra heads: one showing his teeth in a fierce expression and another one shouting in anger with his mouth fully open. The ehads can be exchanged pretty easy and i specially like his fierce expression with his teeth out. The sculpt and paint of the open mouth is soo perfect, again, with each teeth sculpted and painted as well as his tongue. The level of detailing on Storm is really amazing. I wish they added a face smiling but i guess that would be too much.

The other accesory is of course, his weapon: the Shishi-Oh katana. In the game profile it says theres absolutelly nothing special on this weapn and he use it just because is proficent cuting people. And in fact, yes, theres nothing specially outstanding on the design of this sword, the sculpt on the tsuka hilt is nice but this is a really generic sword, even the tsuba handward  have no engraving of design.

Even the saya scabbard is plain, juts black with an old looking texture and an orange sageo cord on top. The sword fits perfectly on the scabbard and the scabbard fits on Mitsu´s waist, on the prople cord/belt. I am susprised the cord really keep the scabbard on place even while moving him.

But the best part is the effect: a wave of fire that fits perfectly into the katana blade, like a flag. Pretty much exactly the same kind of effect that comes with Haohmaru but much bigger and fire shapped to make it looks more violent. While Haohmaru´s is pink this one is crimson red mixed with yellow. Of course, this effect is heavy and makes Mitsu to fall over pretty easy, but once in the rigth angle or with a base is really really good looking.

And lastly, a background, a tradition in almost all Storm Collectibles figures. This time it shows the Atral Chaos: Tide of the Damned stage from Soul Calibur VI. And while the print quality is top notch its a little too dark. Browns, blacks and a lot of dark reds with a spot of ligth in the center and a little bt of electric blue in the floor, Mitsutugi dressed in red and brown and dark blue kinf of camouflages himself in front of this background. Also i feel like this stage would be much more fitting for Nightmare.

Overall, i am very happy with this figure. Not only is nice to FINALLY have Soul Calibur action figures, but the fact they decided to start with one of my favorite characters really makes things much better. My wish list is long tough....i really want Rock now, and Kilik, and Maxi, Hwang.....pretty much i would buy any character of Soul Calibur at this point, specially if they keep this level of quality.