If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Saurozoic Warriors figures were based on a ’90s syndicated cartoon that had two seasons of 65 episodes each and a figure line 35 characters deep. The designs capture that TMNT era, late ’80s, early ’90s cartoon vibe perfectly for me while also being fresh and new. Let’s take a look at the Raptor Samurai, Sokudo Legion!
The box art is crucial for a new line like this to sell the characters and the story and the excellent action-pose art of the Sokudo Legion warrior jumping through the air makes him seem even cooler. I love the story line info we get and it’s interesting because we learn these are meant to be an army of Samurai Raptors. Ooh. Don’t tempt me to get two more of these! One totally would need an eye patch. I also just really like the dino skin texture that makes up the backdrop for all the graphic elements on the box and the logo itself is really cool.
The figure comes with two swords, a gun, and a removeable helm. The gun is described in the box text as a shuriken launcher and I could totally see the hypothetical ’90s version of these toys having a disk launching feature. The Launcher is all red with a very cool silver techy insert that kind of reminds me of a slide deck. Before I read the box, I was thinking laser gun and a Cyclops optic blast would fit great in the barrel slot. I think it could use maybe one more color break like adding black or purple to the tubes on the launcher.
The two swords are slightly different sizes and fit securely into sheathes that can be attached to loops in the figure’s belt. I love how securely they stay on the loops, but I was also to get a lot of movement around them. Mostly, I just like the way they look on there. There’s a cool factor there for me with the very traditional samurai look.
The helmet fits a on the head in a specific way, but you can knock it off fairly easily when messing with the figure. Not a big deal, but I did have to find the thing a few times on the ground. I love the design, the way the raptor claws are integrated into the traditional samurai helm design is perfection.
Sculpting is rad on this guy. There is still a sense of solid power and weight even with the more spindly raptor legs. His skin has great dino-texture and the face itself is full of character with a great mix of cartoon exaggeration and realistic detail. I love that the armor bits all have some interesting texture and the Shredder-like spikes are perfect for a Samurai Raptor.
Articulation is very nice too and uses a lot of swivel/hinge joints to great effect, but I do have some nitpicks along with the highlights. The ball and sockets are so much more effective in range of motion than say a Hasbro figure, it kind of makes me retroactively mad at the rest of my collection. I was really impressed at how high and low the figure can look and the range of that jaw opening as well. I do wish the elbows had a bit more than 90 degrees of bend and some of the swivels in the legs are a little looser than I’d like, but I was still able to balance him on his skinny, segmented legs.
The shoulder pads did initially get in the way of lifting the arms all the way out for a t-pose and seemed much more integrated into the arm sculpting than I would have thought at first glance. The shoulder and forearm armor looks like different parts because they are, but on my figure they were kind of stuck on there like the paint wasn’t completely dry or interacted with the armor parts to stick it on there good. Once I loosened the armor up with some heat, there was more range of motion and I was able to orient the forearm guards to a more Shredder-like position. There was also what I think was a manufacturing error on my figure. The right wrist looks to be sculpted to hinge in/out, but the disc was injected into the figure to hinge up/down. You can barely see it when the hand is on, and it still moves pretty well, so it’s not an issue other than being slightly confusing at first. I do wish there was some butterfly action to the shoulders so I could hit a two-handed sword pose more easily.
The figure has the following articulation:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, extra dog-leg segment, wrists, and ankles.
- Ball and socket waist, lower neck, and upper neck
- Hinged jaw
The paint is solid. Usually I like a little more washes and drybrushing on my figures, but I don’t think that’s the aesthetic they are going for here, so the solid color blocks and clean detail work for me. There is a nice fade transition between the green and red parts of the face and there is a nice yellow tan to the teeth and gloss to the inside of the mouth.
Usually I’m pretty stuck in my six inch-ish scale and don’t venture outside of that very often. I’m glad I did this time to get started on a fun, unique line. We often complain in our adult toy collecting world of being tired of the same IP and wanting something new while buying our 70th Spider-Man figure, so I’m glad I put my money where my mouth is and tried this new line. It’s a lot of fun on it’s own, but I could see it working in nicely for a MOTU origins or TMNT villain.
The figure is $29.99 and is available on BBTS now. The price is a little higher than comparable mass-market figures, but Boss Fight is a smaller company making smaller runs of figures, so I expect that kind of pricing. There are also a couple of wave one figures up on BBTS for a discounted price if you wanted to give the line a try including the two guys I show fighting the Samurai Raptor in the above pics.
Source: The Fwoosh
