ENDEAVOR

Latelly been feeling curiosity over My Hero Academia and i even starting read the manga, but despite its good looking art i wasnt able to get into it. I find all characters to be really cringe or plain horrible and toxic or obsessed. Maybe things get better soon but i got the feeling if i get into My Hero Academia i will start hating it instead of loving it.

I just have an hyperfixation over Endeavor, i love him, way too much....i mean, aside of the 4...i mean 5 very good reasons to love him, i find his character design to be completelly amazing and fitting perfectly for action figures and such merch and Bandai Spirits and Banpresto has been doing an amazing jov in the last years releasing prize statues of the character and the rest of the cast at an extremelly low price.

With the title "Ichibankuji - My Hero Academia: Hero vs Villians" this is figures "D" Endeavor with the rest of the collection consisting on Bakugo, Midoriya, Shoto, Hawks, Dabi, Himiko and Shigaraki and every single one of them looking really good with poses full of movement and ligthing and other elemental effects, my interest is focused only to Enji Todoroki.

This figure is in the same scale as the last Endeavor i review in here - tittled Ichibankuji The Top 5 Number 1 Hero - and it gives me the feeling both are sculpted by the same person since they are basically the same figure but in a different pose. A little bit taller than your average action figure, the perfect size to have a presence in the shelf but not big enough to not have room for it.

He can stand on his own perfectly tough given the pose is better to use the included base just to be extra safe with him. The base is a half donut shaped plastic made with transluscent material that fits on his rigth feet, just like his brother figure and the HUGE Master Lise one, the base works perfect and is really discrete.

This is a statue soo no articulated parts and this is actually a whole complete piece soo it dosnt need any assemble. While the other piece have an static pose with him arms crossed in a very stoic and manly way, this one shows Endeavor ready for action, legs open with his flames in an explosjon of combustion and shapped almost like wings, expeling all his power in a fierce roar.

The sculpt is really really good, all the musculature have that heroic shapes comic book characters always have, with every muscle perfectly shapped under his outfir and while theres a lot of natural wrinkles on the front, theres not much of a bulgue in here sadly....tough the ass compensate that as well as those magnificent and godly pecs.

One of the reasons i love this character soo much is the fire, this time havong a pretty clean sculpt with not much detail, the fire curls in a pretty unrealistic and stylish way that makes it look more like some kind of liquid and it helps a lot to make this figure looks much bigger than it really is and completelly cast on transluscent red plastic, the effect with a little bit of ligth is really spectacular.

All the lines and details on his uniform are sculpted and the wrinkles on it as well as the boots looks really natural and also i am starting to like the big shoulder pads as well. I love his face, looks really good and really stylish and the sculpt on the teeth is great as well as the spiky hair.

The hair is sculpted on brownish plastic while the head is sculpted on skin colored plastic and each piece is sculpted on the dominant color and that gives them a pretty clean look that fit an animated character. The white of the teeth and the pink on the tongue and inside of the mouth are perfect but perhaps the best paint comes on his eyes and scar having a lineart in black to make him look animated. The blue fierce eyes are really amazing here and even his beard and mustache are painted!!

The shoulder pads and arms armor are painted in metalic silver while the boots have a vibrant orange that is also on his uniform along some red lines, but i got the feeling the blue on his uniform is a little too dark....looks almost black and dosnt show too many panited details (unlike the cross arm figure that have a lot of tones to high litght the musculature).

The flames have some soft yellow on them and some vibrant crimson on each point but they are mostly clean to leave the ligth travel tought the trabsluscent material and this time around, the flame mask dosnt hidee his eyes as much as the last time either and i specially like the movement of his beard, flowing to the side to give space to his huge pecs.

I been seeing this figure for years and for years i was pretty close to buy him but gladlly i wait and with the help of my amazing boyfriend i was able to buy this guy ate a very very VEEEERRRRYYY low price at AmiAmi. Maybe this is why i like this figure that much...this Endeavor is soo good clooking, such ana amzing sculpt, pose and paint job and yet the price was almost for free.

Really, this was literally 1/4 a Nendroid.....this character not only have some of the best figures put there but also is very affordable and this particular figure is one of my favorite of him since this showcase the character perfectly and makes me want to get more of him.

TAKI

 Both the title Soul Calibur and its characters have an important place on the figth game comunity, for more than 25 years the tale of the two swords have been stuff of legends but somehow, that egend never arrive to the toy world. In soo long no company has ever done Soul Calibur figures aside of McFarlane that release a small collection of mini figures, based mostly on the creatures of the second game. But at last Storm Collectibles has come to the rescue and is giving us wath many fans has been wishing for soo long!!

It took them theyr times, years since the pre-order started but finally the Soul Calibur action figures are out. They didnt choce Siegfried or Nightmare or Sophitia tough, but Heishiro Mitsurugi as the start of the series and the second figure is no stranger for him: a character that has been from the very start and have a pretty strong rivalry with Mitsurugi, Taki.

Taki has been one of the most important names in Soul Calibur since the very first game in the Paystation, not only for her cool and oversexualized character design, but for her gameplay as well since she is one of the quikiest and more stylish warriors on any figth game. She is a joy to be watched and played since she is is like a scarlet windwhirl.

Also, this is pretty much my very first female action figure from Storm Collectibles, i mostly try to keep that collection as male only but i could not be able to ignore Taki, i knew i would regret later not having her in my collection and i actually doubt we seen another action figure of her ever again.

She is a little bit smaller than Mitsu and can stand on her own despite her small feet. Actually i think she can stand much better than Mitsurugi given how ligth she is and how her ankles have an extremelly flexible ball joint to adjust them. She is articuated on the neck, chest, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half feet as well as a simple cut joint on her pony tail to move it in one direction.

Ball joints all around, just like all other Storm Collectibles figures, with double articulation on the elbows and knees and a butterfly joint on the shoulders, but its weird to see this on a female figure, with less muscly build. Every single joint here have 100% of freedom, nothing gets in theyr way!!

Evidently, the chest makes poses with her hands together impossible, but thats pretty much the only limit she have since the simplicity of her design alows each articualtion to be used at max making this one of the most flexible Storm figures ever (Or maybe Chun Li and Cammy have the same level of freedom? I dont know, i missed them).

This is Taki´s Soul Calibur VI design, based on her Dreamcast version soo this is extremelly basic. She is really pretty looking, with a face that resemble of a doll, with her big eyes and delicate nose, tough i find her eyes not being specially expresive. The bangs of her hair as well as the pin that holds her pony tail are made with pretty soft plastic.

The...i dont know how to call it...vest....with the breast out, is also made wisth soft plastic as well as the big and cool looking demonic faces on her shoulders. Her skin dont have too much texture but the vest thingy looks like made of leather and while the metalic protection in one of her arms cannot be removed, the wrists band made with beads can be removed. Its pretty much the same Mitsurugi is using and i find that pretty weird.

The details on her back are spectacular, with a pretty intrincate design of straps and belts, she got one scabbard firmly on her back while another hanging from his back. The hanging one have such a cool design with a spyke design that looks like wings and a seal wrapped around it with with kanjis and symbols sculpted on it, its almost a shame to have such a good sculpt on her back, completelly hidden.

The front is....well, its hard not to see it. Taki is one of the most sexualized designs of Soul Calibur, along Ivy, soo she have a pair of pretty generous breasts with the nipples sculpted. I always find that detail pretty awkard, but she has been looking like this for more than 25 years soo somehow at this point it looks kinda natral, but i am sure for someone who dosnt know Soul Calibur this is a pretty hentai looking figure, maybe more in tune with Dead or Alive.

The rest of her body is on a tigth skin red suit soo theres not much detail in here aside of her abs and bellybutton. The musculature is pretty soft sculpted and maybe a stronger build would make her stand out but maybe they tough that would make her less pretty. I mean she deffinetly is not Chun Li and is natural to have a ligther build for a ninja (tough i am pretty sure is really difficult move fast with such huge boobs).

The shin guards are nicelly sculpted as well as her sandals tough the cord that ties them to her feet is much more simple than Mitsurugi´s, Taki´s attire is overall much more simple than Mitsu but i guess thats why she is much easyer to handle. Sadly this also means the articulations are much vident, specially on the waist since i seen many people complainging it looks like she is using a diapper, but theres no way to hidde this since the articulations means theres going to be openings here and there in such "nude" design.

The paint is really really good, she is pale, with a pretty clean look and also a really soft pink on her cheeks and lips. Here eyes are perfectly painted, she even have pretty tiny little eyelashes tough is pretty difficult to see them!!

Her whole suit has no paint at all and is cast on red plastic as well as her arms, have no texture or detail but the detailing comes in the small bits on her outfit. The vest thingy have an aged look, with brown and some grey wash as well as the shin guard on her legs, that have a pretty natural paitning that makes them looks like hardened leather. The knees protection and demon faces on her shoulders have also a very impresive metalic finish with a lot of rust and dirt and some small red details.

The gauntlets and bandages, the demon looking hair pin on her pony tail, the details are soo minuscule and soo perfectly painted is crazy impresive. Also the scabards on her back have some golden finish but the demonic one with wings is deffinetly the best, with a mix of red, gold and black it looks really elegant, even with the seal.

Is in the accesorys were this figure fall apart toug. She comes with 5 different áirs of hands!!! I mean Taki is deffinetly very expresive with her hands soo Storm really took advantage of that. Aside fo closed fist she comes with hands to hold her weapons, totally open hands, claw shapped hands, hands on a gesture to attract attention and hands with two finger standing. 

The two fingers hands are part of a trademark pose of Taki but the rest are extremelly helpfull as well to have more flexibility on posing her tough exchange hands is actually pretty difficult. Not only the wristsband keep in the way, but the wrists peg is soo incrediblly tiny....i am really afraid to broke them if i push in the wrong direction and they keep moving around as well.

She also comes with an extra head with an screaming expression. Actually exchange heads is very very easy and the sculpt of the open mouth is really nice and have a pretty soft pink tone inside, really different to the other characters of the brand, but....i still find the look on her eyes really blank, i really think they had to give her much more expresive eyes wich is evident specially on this head.

She also comes with her mask, made in soft plastic with a rusty copper texture and paint all around and resembling the open mouth of an oni. The mask just fit into her jaw and snd surpsiginlly, stays there as long as her head is not manipulated. Its sad to hidde her pretty face but honestly, this maks makes her looks much more cooler.

Then we got her weapons, the dual kodachi Rekki-Maru and Mekki-Maru. Both have exactly the same design, with a very simple handle painted in red and a clean grey blade, tough Rekki-Maru have a golden tip while Mekki-Maru have a black tip. 

Rekki-Maru goes on Taki´s back scabbard and is her primary weapon, used by her since Soul Edge. Mekki-Maru goes on the scabbard hanging from her back and posses a fragment of Soul Edge, wich gives it pretty strong demonic powers and is only used by Taki in a handfull of her techniques, this is why it goes inside the stylish scabbard with the sacred seal on it.

And thats it....nothing more than a bunch of hands, and extra head, a mask and her Kodachis. Nothing more at all, no effect, nothing. And thats really dissapointing...it would have been soo easy to give her some purple transparent flames for Mekki-Maru or just some yellow ones to add to the tip of each Kodachi, or even those bombs Taki always use on her low attacks, i dunno...at lasy Devil Jin had his huge wings to blame for his lack of accesorys but here i cant find any excuse.

Theres one single extra thing tough, her background ptinted in high quality material. This times is the Shrine of Eurydice: Cloud Sanctuary. This is Sophitia´s stage soo i dont know why Taki have it and while the print is good, the colros are way too dark. In the game the stage have this pretty soft colors with low contrast, pretty dreamy looking, but here the contrast is soo high the sky is dark blue.

Despite the high contrast, the blacks and dark blue contrast pretty good with Taki´s reds and browns soo i think this scenario fits her much better than Astral Chairs to Mitsurugi.

This is one of the coolest female characters from Soul Calibut and the quality of the figure is pretty high, tough i got the feeling Storm Collectibles just do the minimum here by not giving her any more accesorys or effects. Actually in 5 years they didnt show any other protoype soo i am almost sure they are done with Soul Calibur for good.

The idea of not having Ivy, Amy or any other character aside of Taki and Mitsurugi makes me really sad soo this two figures are a pretty confusing experience since they makes me very happy as well. Soul Calibur is one of my all time favorite games soo i am glad, in the end, Storm select this two for the collection. I just hope i am pesimist and they actually release more characters eventually.

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.