CYE

RONIN WARRIORS (PLAYMATES)

In the wake of the success of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, quite a number of Japanese action-adventure shows were imported to the US, with the hopes of finding the next big thing.  None of them succeeded in that venture, of course, but some were certainly better than others.  Ronin Warriors was one of the better shows of the era, but, like so many, it’s faded into relative obscurity.  It had a toyline, courtesy of Playmates, which was decent enough.  Today, I’ll be taking a look at one of the main team members, Cye Mouri, Ronin Warrior of Trust!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cye was released in the basic assortment of Playmates’ Ronin Warriors line, which was in pretty much consistent production for a good chunk of the ‘90s.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  The articulation is very different than any other line I’ve collected; the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees are all done via springs.  There aren’t any hinges, just cut-joints and springs.  It’s a little weird.  Not sure why this was the way they handled things, but it’s not awful; just different.  All of the figures were built on the same standard body, with unique heads and armor.  The base body is rather on the bulky side, especially when compared to the models from the show.  The hands and feet are particularly sizable, but he’s really just over bulky in general.  The body is also really geometric and inorganic, making him look more robotic than human.  It’s an odd choice, but it kind of reminds me of Micronauts/Microman, so I sort of dig it.  The head sculpt is decent enough; the hair is a little more matted to the head than in the show, but that’s to facilitate the helmet, I suppose.  Beyond that, it’s a fairly faithful sculpt.  He’s also got 11 armor pieces, which can snap into place on the body.  I’m not the biggest fan of the armor, since it just further bulks up the body. At the very least, it’s a decent recreation of his armor from the show, more or less, so that’s good.  The paint work on Cye is pretty clean.  It’s not really complex or anything, and there are a number of paint apps shown on the prototype that were cut from the final product.  The application is clean and sharp, and the colors are pretty vibrant, so he looks pretty decent overall.  In addition to the armor pieces, Cye included a tree of various weapons from the show.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Cye is an interesting development in my toy collecting habits: he’s the very first action figure I bought without being familiar with the source material.  I was at KB Toys with my grandmother, and I thought he was cool, so she bought him for me.  It was only years later that I finally discovered the show on Toonami, and actually enjoyed it a fair bit.  Sadly, the figure went missing over the years, and the costs on the aftermarket made getting a replacement infeasible.  But, as luck would have it, my brother asked to stop at Collector’s Corner two weekends ago and they happened to have this figure for $10, which was more than worth it for me.  He’s goofy and a little weird, but I still really love this figure, and he just makes me happy.