ENDEAVOR

 Its interesting how fixation works, specially on specific characters and not in whole series because i got a big liking for Endeavor from My Hero Academia but i dont like exactly My Hero Academia at all...actually i find most of its characters irritating but Endeavor have a very special place in my heart despite all his faults, and as action figures he have a most perfect design to shine as an excting sculpt.

Before the pandemic there was nothing about him but after 2020 he got a lot of love from figure brands, specially Banpresto and Bandai that started adding him to every My Hero Cademia collection and pretty soon, my collection growth pretty fast and now i cant even take a picture of all my Endeavor figures together because they are too many, and just randomly i found a brand new one i didnt even knew existed at all.

Again, like most figures of this character, this is from Banda/Banpresto and have a beautifull price tag....i really wish all other figure brands stick wth this price range but i guess that too fantastic to be real. The box names him MY HERO ACADEMIA THE AMAZING HEROES - PLUS - ENDEAVOR and it dosnt have any info of wath other characters form this collection but that dosnt worry me at all (up at this point i impsible to know wich character belongs to wath collection with the amount of Hero Academia stuff coming out). 

This guy is exactly the same size of the rest of the Endeavor figures i posted here - matches perfectly the NECA or McFarlane scale figures but given his pose, he is shorter than the rest. I am not sure if he can stand on his own but he comes with a base that consist on a thin yellow square plate with a hole in the middle with the shape of his boot. As simple as this small piece of plastic is, it works amazing to make him stand and keep his balance all the time. This kind of simple bases are such a wonderfull acesory that shows theres no reason to have a figure with no balance, just basic engineering works perfectly.

This is a statue soo no articulations and no accesorys asid eof the small base and he is divided only in two pieces: upper body and lower body tough put this peices together is pretty easy soo this figure is pretty effiscient from every perspective. Here we have Endeavor crouching, legs open and with a fireball on his back hand just about to throw it but wath stands out the most is that he hsi missing his fire mask and beard. This is pretty much the very first figure i see him with his face clean of fire!!

His cheeks are puffy and his eyes have no pupils and have a mad expression, he is evidently collecting all his strenght on the next attack and the sculpt pn the face details are really good!! The shape of his mouth, the cheeks, the whole pose with his head lower, the body expression is really good and let us know waths going on here perfectly and the anatomy of his muscles is, like always, way too good. Also he is missing his giant shoulder pads (and i am glad, i hated them but i guess they would not work in this specific pose).

The fire on his boots and hand looks really good specially the big fireball on the hand tough they are made of normal plastic, no transluscent bits here and that rest spectacularity to the figure. Also while theres scartches on the metalic ganutlet and the suir, theres no painted details at all and every section is painted in a single color, like the gauntlets are just plain grey, the suit is plain blue and the orange sections are just brigth orange an theres nothing to highligth the muscle structure.

Tough the red details on the suit are a little shacky and they invade the bklue or orange section pretty poorly, the paint on the face is pretty good with the mouth detail and the scare as well as the hair beard and eyes perfectly painted, the way the eyes are painted is evidently pretty cartoony and since there just plain colors on the entire figure, this gives it a pretty "cell shading" or anime look.

The boots tough and fire ball are painted with a soft mix of yellow and oranges that makes the flames stand out nicelly.

I am very happy with this guy tough thanks to his pose (before the action and not during the action) and simplistic color he dosnt stand out as much as the other Endeavor figures but the sculpt and áint details on his face are really good and i am loving to see his face finally under all that fire. Makes me wish they make more figures like this one with less fire soo my Endeavor altar keeps growing.

GARRADOR

 With Resident Evi 4 landing on the Playstation 2 and PC after the huge succes it had in Gamecube (and virtually landing on any other console shortly after), NECA was feeding on that hype with theyr two action figure series that covered the main characters (Leon and Ada), enemies (Chainsaw Ganado, Iluminados monks and Regenerador) as well as bosses (Verdugo, Krauser) and also they even added a few alternative versions of some characters (Leon dressed as a RPD police and the Regenerador in infrared view). Now day is hard to belive and imposible to see this many figures of a same series to be released at once but those were deffinetly other times.

The final Resident Evil 4 figure NECA released was Garrador, a kind of boss that eventually turned into a smaller enemie (i hate when they do that) but also one of the most unique designs of the game since he wasnt a monster or a "human" but he was a tortured creature more fitting into Hellraiser than in Biohazard, but this made him one of the most memorable enemies of that game.

Garrador is in human size soo he pretty much is the same size as Krauser or Ada and fits perfectly with any 1/10 scale figure of other companys. He can stand on his own perfectly like the rest of the figures (something i am gratefull) and like the rest, have very limited articulation. Like....very VEEEERRRRYYY limited making him the most statuesque figure NECA released soo far and almost not being able to get the action figure label....he have rotating swivels on his biceps, and thats it.

Theres no other articulation than the one on the buceps and rotating it broke the arms articulation soo dosnt looks too good but i guess NECA had no choice and they ahd to add this articulation in order to fit this guy into his clamshell since this is one of the most anoying figures i ever own; he takes wa too much shelf space.

Garrador is reposed like the main spalsh art of him in the game, growling at the sky with bot his arms open with the huge claws pointing out to the sides. The rorating biceps can help soo his claws dont take too much space but thats it. The sculpt is really good since the muscle structure is fantastic and he have a very realistic skin texture and the neck piece feels like made with leather while the chains hanging from his mask are real metalic chains.

The pants and claws are very simple but the Plaga parasite on his back looks really disgusting  and realistic, almost insectoid...and how it inserts inside his body and broke the skin around his back, the whole area is swollen with a red paint and the Plagua looks very alien with the brigth red pink mixed with white, really looks like an organ.

The skin paint is very good as well, specially on the front with the painted hair and the open wounds around his torso. Both the pants and neck piece have a mix with black and grey that makes them looks like real leather and while the metal helmeth looks kinda simple with only grey color, the sewn eyes inside the helmeth are masterfully painted since even the thread is visible.

The claws structure looks good and have some blood mixed with rust painted on them but i really find the claws the less interesting part of this design since the torture and parasitic nature of it makes this creature more disturbing than the rest of the Resident Evil fauna.

Its a shame this figure is completelly static, but just like the Regenerador, this guy fits nicelly on any horror collection and it really helps to mae the Resident Evil display much more exciting. At this poitn i trully regret not getting Leon.

REGENERADOR (IRON MAIDEN)

 

As much as i disliked Resident Evil 4 back in the day (the remake kind of fixed that for me), it wasnt a total waste either, i mean, aside of Krauser i also liked a lot the monsters of the game tough they had very few of them compared to the first Resident Evi games and they were bosses, they had a creature that stand out as one of the most dangerous normal enemy of the game but also one of the most frigting creature of the genre: Regenerador. This creature made a huge impression of anyone who played the game back in 2005 and i was to be expected NECA made an action figure out of it i theyr series 2.

Tough they didnt made the basic Regenerador, instead they did the Iron Maiden variant seen later on the game, and i find him kind of....less scary than the first basic version, but i guess they considered the fist version way too simple? Anyway, this Regenerador is taller than the rest of characters but shorter than Verdugo and he fits perfectly in scale with most 1/6 action figures.

He can stand on his own perfectly and just like the rest; he is mostly a preposed statue with only 5 articulations: the head, shoulders and wrists. Shoulders and wrists have a swivel that lets them rotate, ot on the shoulders part, only let them arms up and down while the ehad have a ball joint soo the head can sotate up and down and to the sides pretty nicelly. Given he is nude nothing get on the way of the artoculations.

But also, given how limited are the articulations, theres not many things to do with this guy. He is just staning and slowlly walking at the front but theres not more options to pose him differently. The good point is the articulations are very weell hidden and imposible o see soo the sculpt is not broken and is super detailed. Like the odd skin texture and the open wounds here and ter that makes it looks like his own body is bursting outside of his skin. The spikes is are very pointy tough extra care should be used while handling them not to broken them.

The head have no features aside of the huge mouth full of fangs opening like a meat eating plant. This section tough is the one that take the most attention since is the part with most color: White fangs with red insides while the rest of the body is black but it also have different tones of brown and green with red in the open wounds. The coloring looks way too simple buet theres in fact a whole lot going on here and NECA made a very realistic and gross looking paint job here that make this guy almost made of trash.

This is one of the most iconic monsters from Resident Evil 4 but his simple design and lack of articulations make him kind of stale.....or i guess depends of wath you are looking for, because this is one fantastic looking monster figure, NECA always makes an outstanding job with monsters since 20 years ago, he is dark, very detailed and frigtning for any horro themed collection.

KRAUSER

 Resident Evil 4 was such a turning point from both the series and the genre of survival horro but also for the videogame industry as a whole. For my favorite videogame series to be this important should have been great news but for me, the game wasnt wath i was expecting at all and i didnt manage to enjoy it as much as the rest of the world was doing it but still it had his share of awesome moments, like the boss monsters El Gigante or Verdugo but it also had one of my all time favorite characters from the Resident Evil series: Jack Krauser.

This character first and last appearance was in Resident Evil 4 soo he was mostly a temprary villian (tough he was on Rsident Evil Darckside Chronicles but that was a first person spin off soo i am not sure it counts), a character that encapsules perfectly wath RE4 was but also, with the march of time he manage to encapsule as well the spirit of RE as a whole, the mix of the military with mutations, Biological Weapons and an 80s movie flavor.

Soo this figure was pretty much my main objective when NECA released the second series of theyr Resident Evil 4 line and soo far he is still my favorite. Krauser is in perfect scale with the rest of the figures tough given his knees are mend he is supposed to be taller than most of them but still fits perfectly with anything NECA has done before as well as McFarlane, Storm and many other modern action figures brands.

He can stand on his own perectly and thats quiet a feat given his giant arm but he keeps it at balance. Like all figures form that long gone era, this man is preposed imitating the official Capcom art, with his knees bend and his mutant arm up blocking an upcoming attack soo his articulations are very limited.

He have a ball joint on his head and his mutant shoulder, a swivel cut on his human elbow, his wrists, waist and both boots. The boots articulation is useless since each time they are moved the balance of Krauser is affected soo is better to leave the feet alone soo most of the posing will comes from the head and elbow to rotate it up or down as well as move his mutant arm. This let him get a couple of nice looking poses but the mutant arm will be the point of atraction always.

The sculpt is amazing, with a more than perfect muscular build with his huge back muscles and biceps, they matched the in game model perfectly. The pants have a fabric texture and the boots with all theyr lases and the wrinkles from the military pants on the top of the boots are incrediblly realistic. The face is also screen acurate and even have his scar sculpted on the half of his face as well as the cold look on his eyes. 

The mutant arm mix a rock texture with an organic texture and an insectoid exoeskeleton like plaques. Everythting is here, from the tentacles to the 3 claws surroinding the extructure as well as the 5 different blades united by tissue. For someone who loves Krauser this was more than satisfactory.

The paint work is really good as well with a pale yet healty looking skin tone mixed with soft pinks. Both the head and the whole torso looks extremelly realistic thanls to the dark pink shades on it that enhance the musculature but they also paint blonde hair on his chest and hair!!! The areas where the skin is broking down and revealing the ekosteleketon structure is red and looks swollen thanks to an effect of red beins surroinding it and makes me wonder....if Leon had leave Krayser mutante completelly, wath would he looks like?

The structure under his skin and arms have a mix of grey purple, bloody red mixed with the wilver of the metalic blades and everything melts perfectly natural with the adition of the yellow "eyes" thingys that stand out from it. The pants also have a really good camo pattern that mixed different greens with browns and white dots. As a Metal Gear Solid fan i am ashamed to admit i dont know the name of this camo pattern.

The granades hanging from his belt canot be removed but the knife on his back can be removed and have a snake sculpted on it but sadly, his hand isnt sculpted to hold into it soo its more a decorative thing than anything elese and the only element that counts like an accesory, because he have non, just like El Verdugo, theres zero items to hold for him but i guess he dont need anything else after he gets that arm.

Theres not many figures of Krauser out there (tough he still have many more than Billy Coen) and a few years later Hot Toys released him in both human and mutant version but despite the high price and quality, they failed to capture his character completelly and dosnt looks like him at all, unlike this cheaper and smaller version of NECA.

For me this was the best release of the NECA series and almost makes me wish i got stupid Leon just to pose them fighting but even all alone and even outside of the Resident Evil line, this guy is incrediblly sexy and cool looking.

LOS ILUMINADOS MONK

 After the huge succes of both Resident Evil 4 game and its action figures set, NECA proof it was capable of produce figures almost at the same level as McFarlane Toys (they sure use the same limtied articulations) and it didnt take them long to expand the set with a series 2, this time completelly focused on the enmies of the game.

The very first figure of the series 2 was Los Iluminados Monks, a set of four monk enemies, each one with a different weapon like a scythe, a shield, a spike ball with a chain, and each one of them looking different with one with his head fully bald, another one with his hood one, another one with a skull metalic mask, another one dressed in red....but sadly, since i wasnt pretty fond on the game and its human enemies (i was actually pretty salty about the game back then), i only got one of them; the leader of the group dressed in red, just because he was the coolest looking.

This nameless guy is in scale with everything NECA has always done soo he fits perfectly with most action figures line and he can also stand on his own perfectly and have a very good stability. Sadly, this is mostly a statue, even much more than Ada since he can only move his shoulders, elbows and wrists. The Elbows have a ball joint soo they cna move up and down and to the sides but the elbows articulation is just a cut articulation soo they can only rotate but at the same time this cuts completelly the sculpt since the wrinkles of his outfit stop matching once you move the elbows.

The wrists can rotate and thats it, this limit the pose options awfully since his entire torso and head and legs are just a single piece of solid plastic, not even his bots can move but given the situation, it would had make no sence articulate his feet. Both the rope and the baner at the front and the back of his body are made of soft plastic soo thats a very nice touch.

The sculpt is really good since the robe flows perfectly around his non existant anatomy and all the wrinkles are very realistic looking, tough the face is completelly hidden, the animal skill on top of his head is deffinetly the best part of th entire figure since the sculpt is both ncrediblly realistic but the paint job on it is outstanding too, with a boony yellow color mixed with lots of browns to high light the scarct and details as well as the impresive horns.

The entire body is red with a shade of black to give shadows to the robe and this includes the baners in front and the back that have details in golden and the Los Iluminados crest in front. The hands are extremelly pale, with blue vains on them and looks very plastic but i think tha fits the characters and the blue eyes peeking under the animal skull looks much better in person than in photos since the painted details are soo tiny.

He have a single accesory tough; a crossbow made of wood and metal with an arrow on top of it. The design of the weapon is really ancient looking and the details of both sculpt and paint looks very good. This item fits perfectly on both his hands as the pre-sculpt demands it but he can hold it with a single hand as well.

I didnt take too much pictures of this figure because, theres not much going on in here. I mean, the paint and sculpt are good and the animal skull is extremelly cool looking, but from the entire series of figures this is the most boring one despite the bring colors. The lack of articulation dosnt help either but overall, he is not very fun at all. I think this figures work moch better as a pack tough, the entire groupd of Los Iluminados monks together, each one looking different to the next....but as a single character this guy is pretty forgetable and i am not sure NECA can be blamed for it since he didnt looked too much like a Resident Evil monster at all.

VERDUGO

 

The release of Resident Evil 4 was a pretty crazy moment to live, i remember every single magazine had the game on its cover for like a year and a half and all the games that got bad reviews or were diminished just because they were not Resident Evil 4 (like Haunting Ground). For me i wasnt impressed at all. Sure it had some really good moments but overall it didnt feel nothing like a Resident Evil but in the end it was a very important point of the survival horror genre: the game that almost makes the genre dissapeare.

But in the middle of this storm, NECA, a brand new company back in that moment, had the rigths to produce the action figures series and they did a pretty amazing job with it releasing a four figure collection: Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong, Chainsaw Ganado/Dr. Salvador and Verdugo. And since i am not a big fan of Leon or the human enemies of the game, i skipped both him and the Chainsaw guy but one think i trully love from RE4 are the bosses and few monsters on it, and the battle with El Verdugo was one of the brigthest parts.

This guy is big, a head and a half above of the rest of the figures soo he is in perfect scale with Leon and Ada tough he came in the same clamshell as the rest and despite him being digitigrade, he can stand on his own perfectly thaks to his tail that acts like a tripod like the modern Gargoyles figures, soo he have no need of a base. Also he is the most articulated figure of the series....actually, he is the most articulated figure NECA released in a long time.

He is articulated on the shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, a finger in each hand, chest, legs, knees and ankles and his entire tail is bendy. The elbows are ball jointed soo they cna move up and down but also at the side and the finger on his hands are also ball jointed and can rotate freely (and that makes his hands much more weird than expected) but the rest of the articulations are very basic cut that cna only rotate to a limit. For now days standars this is very limited but it actually gives him a much bigger range of poseability than wath we had back then.

The tail is very thick but the material let it moves all around perfecly and it hasnt degraded after 20 years.

This is one of the best creatures in the game: the perfect mix of a Xenomorph from Alien and a Yautja from Predator, the sculpt of his exoeskeleton covering sections of raw muscle looks really good. The rocky texture of the exoeskeleton sections contast very nicelly with the organic sections and the spidery limbs make it really firgthing. The soft plastc material on the tail dosnt loose any detail on the sculpt deparment either, specially with the big lance ending of the apendage.

The head looks extremelly alien with the insect like pincers on the bottom jaw like the Predator, and the skull looking top and this section is the most colorfull since its painted in white with two brigth red eyes. The skill is not just plain white but it have some very soft greys and yellows mixed on it soo it looks like made of bone and the jaws have also black, but some blue and greys as well.

The organic sections are painted in dark red but the rest of the exoeskeleton, while looking black, it is not but its a sinphony of colors mixing different tones of grey with yellows on the arms and deep nlues on the legs and soft blues on the feet and the tail have a beautifull purple mixed with the black, all this colors placed only to enhance the sculpt details. Not even playing the game is posible to see this many details soo this figures pretty much was the only way to seen this creature up close and Capcom did an amazing job designing it.

He had no accesorys at all, pretty much the rule back then but he didnt need anything at all since this was one of the most impresive Resident Evil toys back then and even today it still is since no other company has done a figure based on this creature.

ADA WONG

 In 2023 i started making reviews of my Resident Evil collection and i covered all the ToyBiz, Moby Dick and Palisades lines, the toy lines based on the original vision of Resident Evil before it changued genre, but for some reason i stop there and didnt talk of the rest of my collection and i think is pretty evident money has been short and i cant buy figures like i used too (thats why this years has been soo low on updates in here) soo i decided to review the second half of my collection, the figures based on the action era of Resident Evil.

After the wonderfully childish ToyBiz line, the stuning faithfull and huge Moby Dick line and the CODE: Veronica centred Palisades Marketing line we get the storm of Resident Evil 4, the game that changued the series forever and the Survival Horro as well (and almost make dissapeare the genre). Non of the already mentioned studios was around anymore (how fast times changues!!) soo while we were waiting for McFarlane Toys to do its magic, it was a pretty new and novice name that took the Resident Evil 4 licence: NECA.

Aside of The Nigthmare Before Christmas and a few movie lines, in 2005 NECA never before produced figures based on videogames soo collectors were curious to see wath they could do. And just in time for the game release, the serires 1 came to stores with 4 different characters: Leon S. Kennedy, Ada Wong, Chainsaw Ganado/Dr.Salvador and the boss monster Verdugo. Four figures, just like Plisades did a year before and while i am not a fan of Leon at all (and back then i saw his figures hundreds of times) i didnt get him....and i regret it, because now is super expensive.

But i did get Ada Wong on her magnifiscent Anna Willaims cosplay. This figure is on scale with all pther NECA figures (i really admire how they stick with a single scale after 25 years) and match with McFarlane Toys as well. Is twice the size a ToyBiz figure but pretty smile for the Moby Dick figures but it fits perfectly with the Palisades collection tough it dosnt have the comic book style those figures style and deffinetly not the articulations either.

She can stand on he own perfectly once adjusting her legs and thats quiet a surprise gven how long are her legs and the high heels, but NECA balanced her perfectly. Now back then the "adult collector" market was completelly lead by McFarlane and his figures were mostly statues with very limited articulation soo al brands around followed that thrend pretty close back then and NECA was not the exception soo this Ada is a preposed figures with very few movement points.

She have a ball joint on her head that give her good movility tough the back of the hair gets in the way with the chocker on her neck. She have cut joints on the biceps that are extremelly ugly and evident looking and they broke the scullpt and are not specially usfeull either since her arms are pretty close to her body no mather how much you rotate the biceps and looks pretty awkard. She have basic articulation on her wrists that let her rotate her hands but again, its only usefull to adjust her gun. And laslty she have a ball joint on her rigth leg to open it to the sides and front and back in order to adjust her leg to make her stand. This articulation along side her ball joint are the most usefull ones to give her a little bit of movement.

The sculpt is really good, the pose with Ada huging herself, i pretty sexy and elegant and full of confidence. Her shape matches the character model and the face sculpt is really beautifull and reminds me the Succubus from Castlevania. She have no texture aside from her hair and the whole dress is made with soft plastic soo the leg can be moved freelly. And i mean the whole dress, not just the bottom part, the top part is also a soft plastic piece on top of the plastic figure and that gives helps a lot to make the sculpt stand out.

The chocker is made with soft plastic as well and somehow the ribbons can be posed a little bit. The dress is dark red (i guess for not making it looks too cartoony?) and it have a soft black airbrush to give deep to the shadows and details of the wrinkles on it, The butterfly and flower looks like...plastic stickers? Or maybe the plastic is printed? I dont know but i am impressed they are still perfect looking after 20 years.

The skin is pretty clen and have a very healthy looking look thanks to different and soft tones or orange mixed on it, to cast shadows much better and the hair is a mix of black and shiny brown to make it looks shine. Sadly....i dont know wath color the use for the ehad part but the face skin is painted and of course, very different to the rest of the body, very pale and this paint is also mizing with the hair in the inside part.

And while the nostrils, ears and lips are perfectly painted and looks very natural, the eyes looks kinda .....cartoon? The eye lashes are too prominent and plain somehow. Its odd but this difference in skin color and eyes painting dosnt looks too bad in person but in photos is very evident.

Her accesorys are her pistol as well as a tommy gun. But weapons have a very good sculpt and paint mixing gunmetal black with grey and gives it an extremelly convincing metalic finish. The tommy gun have also wood parts and looks as good as the metalic parts. I actually find it off they give her two weapons despite her being soo limited on artculations but i guess both works well with the sculpt.

And thats it....back then figures didnt have too much accesorys to be honest, specially no hands or extra heads. Is this figures good looking in 2025? I really dont know...the paint aplication as well as the statuesue nature of this Ada may looks prehistoric at first sight but back in 2005 it was quiet the opposite; this was a really worth figure of the character and a huge upgrade over the more childish Ada Wong from Toy Biz soo NECA really make evident they were pretty close to reach the same level as McFarlane.