Action Figure #721: Star Wars The Black Series The Ronin

 It was only a matter of time before we got LightKatanas...

 Full disclosure, I haven't watched Star Wars Visions yet. The first season seemed promising, but it was just a vehicle to make Season 2 just full on female led. Which is fine if you are the target audience, but I'm not. All that said, I did hear about each short and The Ronin was probably the standout, which is why we are here.

 This guy was released in two forms. A Two pack with a medieval R2D2, colored in black and white with soft goods... or this single release, that had colored skin and a soft-plastic jacket. The Black and White release while a nice novelty, wasn't something that would've meshed well with the rest of my collection, so I opted for the one that was colored. All that said, this is a fantastic, completely original sculpt. The guy looks like a badass, and while I'm sure the soft-goods jacket would fit better... I love what they did with it here, as both it as well as the belt are all sinewy and twisty, which makes it look very cool and very anime-esque. The entire sculpt of this guy is brilliant, but the jacket and belt do take the cake. He comes with two accessories. His katana, which comes with its sheathe, as well as a medieval looking pistol. The pistol is holstered and it can't be unholstered, which kinda sucks. Both items are meant to be slotted on his hip, but they come off easily... but it shouldn't matter, since the belt holds them in place very well by itself.

 The articulation is a bit of a mixed bag. He has butterfly joints, with very ample range allowing or some cool double handed poses. His elbows are single jointed, but the range on the bend is excellent. While the wrists are hinged, moving up and down, his forearms connect to his sleeves via ball joints, which adds extra range to how you can position his arms, which is a very neat trick. His waist is on a ball joint with pathetic range. I know that this is how Black Series works, so I never complain about it, but, in this case, an ab crunch of some sort would've been EPIC to give him some amazing unsheathing poses. It would've veered this figure into amazing territory. His knees are single jointed, but due to the size of his hakama, they barely reach a 90 degree bend. His ankles are swiveled. Overall, it's not bad, but if he only had had some more torso articulation he would've been one of the best black series figures ever. He is almost as tall as Bucky Cap.

 This figure is really, really good. Most of my grievances are small, for the brunt of the figure is really great, so it's an easy recommendation for anyone that likes Star Wars.

9.0