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.
