Tag Archives: SH Figuarts

#0284: Green Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

GREEN RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

GreenRanger1

Let’s just keep those Birthday Reviews coming, shall we? Today marks Part Five, and there;s still a few more to go! I’ll be looking at another figure from the set of Power Rangers I received this year. This time around it’s the Green Ranger, the first guise of frequent Ranger Tommy Oliver, way back when he was the original sixth ranger. The Green Ranger actually died in the original Japanese show, but he proved to be too popular to kill off in the US, so the producers did their best to keep him in the show, before eventually resorting to using footage from a different Sentai show, and having Tommy become the White Ranger. Tommy had actually stopped being the Green Ranger by the time I started watching, but for some reason, I’ve always like him more in that role than as the White Ranger. Go figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GreenRangerWilsonThe Green Ranger was the second release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a sub line of their main S.H. Figuarts line. He saw release last year, shortly after the Red Ranger. The figure is about 5 ½ inches tall and features 36 pints of articulation. If you want to be nitpicky, he should be a tiny bit taller, because he’s currently the same height as the Red Ranger, who he was definitely taller than in the show, but that’s minor. He actually doesn’t have as many reused parts as one might expect. He has new upper and lower arms, new shins, a sheath in place of the usual holster, an add-on piece over the basic torso for his armor, and an all new head. That’s a fair bit of new stuff. Everything looks pretty great, though the interrupting elbow joints do end up hitting Tommy pretty bad, completely cutting off the trim on the front of his gloves. The armor add on is removable in theory, I suppose, but I doubt it would go back on easily. The helmet is once again a near perfect replica of Tommy’s Dragon themed helmet from the show, which is certainly impressive. The paint work on the Green Ranger is pretty good, though there are a few areas that could be tighter, particularly the gold bands on his arms. Still, there aren’t any really bad screw ups which is always good. Tommy is a bit lighter on the accessories than others, with just a sword and dagger, and five pairs of hands: fists, dagger gripping, sword gripping, open gesture, and dagger playing. You know, so he can use the dagger as a flute, like the show. Don’t question how it worked through the helmet, just don’t!

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Green Ranger is the final figure in the selection of Power Rangers my really stupendous parents bought me for my birthday. I know what you’re thinking: “where’s yellow?” Yellow ended up being a gift to myself. She’s all here and ready to be reviewed in a few days, after all the birthday stuff. Anyway, the Green Ranger is a pretty great figure, and offers a nice bit of individuality to the Rangers display. Plus, he’s green, so…

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#0283: Pink Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

PINK RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

PinkRanger1

Well, the Birthday reviews continue at a steady pace. Today marks Part Four, and believe me, we still have a ways to go! One of my big gifts this year was a near complete set of the Rangers from Bandai’s latest take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. I’ve looked at three of them so far, and I’ll be looking at another one today. This time around, it’s one of the show’s two female characters (and the show’s ONLY female character in Japan), The Pink Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

PinkRangerWilsonThe Pink Ranger was the fourth release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers subline of the larger S.H. Figuarts line, released at the tail end of last year. The figure is just over 5 inches tall in height and features 36 points of articulation, the same as her male compatriots. Unsurprisingly, the Pink Ranger features a completely new sculpt, given the lack of potential re-use from the male figures. The body is decently proportioned, probably more accurately than the male body, in fact. Also, the elbow and knee joints seem less intrusive this time, which is funny, what with the arms and legs being smaller. She features an add-on skirt piece, which has been split at the sides to allow leg movement, although it still impedes it a bit. At first glance the helmet seems a tad oversized, but looking at some reference, it actually seems pretty accurate to the size on the show. The paint work on the Pink Ranger is just as straight forward as the rest of the rangers. It looks pretty good, although the plastic used for the elbow and knee joints is a slightly different hue of pink than the paint used on the arms and legs. It isn’t too noticeable in person, but it’s fairly apparent in the pictures. She’s got a pretty impressive selection of accessories, including a Blade Blaster in folded up form and a Thunder slinger, which are the same two pieces included with all the basic rangers, as well as her Power Bow, and eight hands: a pair of fists, a karate chop, a loose hand, a pair for gripping the Slinger, one for holding the bow, and a hand with an arrow molded to it. Pink Ranger has one of the better hand selections of the group, and they really add a lot to her display potential.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Pink Ranger was part of the selection of Rangers I received from my totally cool parents for my birthday this year. She offers a nice bit of diversity to the set, which is certainly cool, and it’s nice to see a female figure without super weird proportions. She also lucked out with some of the cooler accessories the line has to offer, which just gives her more points. All in all a pretty great figure!

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#0282: Blue Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

BLUE RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

BlueRanger1

It’s time for yet another day of post birthday bliss. I’ve got quite a few items to take a look at, so hopefully the bliss will last for a little while. Amongst my many gifts this year was a set of Bandai’s latest take on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, so for Birthday Reviews Part Three I’ll be looking at another one of those. Today’s figure is the Blue Ranger, who is incidentally the only of the original rangers to make it through all three seasons of the original show. Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BlueRangerWilsonThe Blue Ranger was sixth, and penultimate release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers subset of the S.H. Figuarts line, and he was released just last month. The figure stands roughly 5 ½ inches tall and has 36 points of articulation. From the neck down, the sculpt of the Blue Ranger is identical to that of the Red and Black Rangers. This isn’t all that surprising for the Rangers, and it’s not a bad body to re-use. I’m still not totally sold on the elbow and knee joints, but it could be worse. The Blue Ranger’s head is all new, and it depicts the Blue Ranger’s triceratops-themed helmet pretty much perfectly. Like the other Rangers before him, the Blue Ranger has a pretty straight forward paint job, with no real slop or bleed over. The blue certainly looks very nice on the body, so that’s cool! The Blue Ranger has a nice selection of accessories, including a folded up Blade Blaster and a Thunder Slinger, both the same as the ones included with Red and Black, plus his Power Lance in both separated and combined forms and four pairs of hands: fists, tight and loose grips, and a pair of flat fists. He also includes the Pink and Yellow pieces for the power blaster, which I’ll be looking at with the Yellow Ranger. The hands are useful over all, though the flat ones are a bit strange, and I wish that we had gotten the Power Lance in fully extended form, but it’s a pretty good selection of stuff.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Blue Ranger was yet another birthday gift, given to me by my super cool parents. The Blue was always my favorite ranger, so it was actually the announcement of his release that got me interested in the line. He’s a pretty great figure, and he’s definitely my favorite!

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#0281: Black Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

BLACK RANGER

BANDAI FIGUARTS

BlackRanger1

It’s that great time of year that is the days that follow my birthday, where I have a wealth of brand new toys to play with. Lucky for all of you, I also get to review them right here on the site. So, here’s Birthday Reviews Part Deux! Continuing on yesterday’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers theme, it’s the Black Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BlackRangerWilsonThe Black Ranger was the fifth release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers off-shoot of their S.h. Figuarts line, and he was released earlier this year. The figure is about 5 ½ inches in height and sports 36 points of articulation. Good or bad (mostly good), the Black Ranger’s sculpt is identical to the Red Ranger’s from the neck down. That being the case, he has the same strengths and faults as that figure. I still find the elbow and knee joints to be a bit distracting, but they aren’t terrible. The Black Ranger does have an all new head sculpt, depicting his mastodon themed helmet. It looks really good, and is easily the best part of the figure. The paint on the Black Ranger is pretty straight forward, with no slop or bleed over. The Ranger body looks especially sharp in black and white, so that’s a definite plus. The Black Ranger includes a pretty hefty selection of accessories, including a thunder slinger and a blade blaster, both of which are the same as the ones included with Red, plus he has his trademark power axe/blaster, and nine different hands: fists, three styles of gripping, and a loose fist right hand. He also includes the Blue and Red Ranger pieces for the power blaster, which I’ll look at when I have the whole team put together.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Black Ranger was another of my birthday gifts, given to me by my really awesome parents. The Black Ranger actually holds a bit more nostalgia for me than the others. Back in the 90s, I had one of the smaller scale Black Ranger action figures, given to me by one of my Dad’s co-workers. I wish I knew what happened to that figure, but I remember I really liked it. Anyway, this figure is certainly a worthy replacement to that one, and it looks great with the rest of the Rangers.

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#0280: Red Ranger

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

RED RANGER

BANDAI SH FIGUARTS

RedRanger1

So, it was my birthday yesterday. And you all missed it. Way to go. Just kidding! Anyway, birthday means opportunity for people to give me gifts, which, unsurprisingly, means that I get a nice assortment of toys. Which means I have new stuff to review! Commence Birthday Reviews Part 1!

Today’s figure hails from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a show that most children of the 90s will probably have a bit of familiarity with. Bandai, (Japan, not America, because Bandai America SUCKS!) has recently begun offering an assortment of figures based on Super Sentai, which is what Power Rangers was in Japan, and for the most recent round of Mighty Morphin’ inspired figures, North American distributers Bluefin have stepped in to offer some officially Power Rangers branded versions for those of us in the US. Let’s get things kicked off with the line’s Red Ranger!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

RedRangerWilsonThe Red Ranger was the first release in Bandai’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers off-shoot of their main S.H. Figuarts line. Similarly to Bandai’s Ultra-Act line, Figuarts doesn’t have a typical series lay out, instead opting for individual figure releases. The Red Ranger saw release in 2013. The figure stands about 5 ½ inches tall (a little bit smaller than an Ultra-Act figure) and features 36 points of articulation. He’s based on the basic Red Ranger design from Mighty Morphin’, which is also the same design as the Red Zyuranger in Japan. The Red Ranger got a new sculpt, which seems to be a pretty good approximation of the look on the show. The body is a little bit slimmer than the actual actor, but that’s probably more a stylistic choice than anything. The elbow and knee joints also interrupt the sculpt quite a bit, even cutting off the gloves a bit early in the front. It’s not too bad, but it is slightly annoying, especially since it isn’t an issue that the Ultra-Act figures suffer from. The helmet is by far the figure’s most distinctive part, and Jason’s T-Rex themed helmet looks really great here! The Red Ranger’s paint is fairly straight forward. Nothing too complex, but pretty good. There’s a few very minor issues of some bleed over, especially around the edges of the boots and gloves, but other than that everything looks ship-shape. The Red Ranger is impressively accessorized, with his Power Sword, his Blade Blaster and Thunder Slinger in varying configurations, and five pairs of hands: fists, two figure gesture, and three varieties of gripping.

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THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The Red Ranger was one of several gifts from my always awesome parents, given to me for my birthday this year. Back in the 90s, I was a pretty big Power Rangers fan, though I never really had any of the toys. Having these figures offers a nice bit of nostalgia, as well as a pretty cool set of action figures in their own right!