Gold Samurai Ranger

aka "Samurai Ranger Light"

Height: 11cm

Articulation: 17 total points - Ball joint neck; 4 points each arm: Universal joint shoulder, hinge elbow, forearm swivel; 4 points each leg: Universal hip, hinge knee, calf swivel.

Colors: Molded Goldenrod Yellow, dark blue, light grey (accessories only) white (structural only); Painted dark blue, silver, black, white.

Accessories: Barracuda Blade with scabbard, Samurai Morpher

Release Data: Released in Fall 2011 in the US at a retail price of US$6.99

Author: ExVee

(more...)


I never ended up getting any of the 2010 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers figures while the line was going. Much later on I got a Power Up Green Ranger at a Marshall's just because the design and concept were hilarious, but I haven't ended up opening it so far. Samurai's Gold Ranger (or "Light" Samurai Ranger per the packaging) is the first example of the downsized Power Ranger figure build I've had a chance to handle.


The articulation model is similar to some of the older large figures, but with a notable omission or two. What really stands out to me is the absence of a bicep swivel, which severely limits the ways you can pose the figure especially with a sword. Meanwhile a swivel was added to the legs at the top of the boots, which serves little useful purpose in the otherwise minimally articulated legs. I'd hate to think a bicep swivel was sacrificed when this body style was being designed just to let the lower legs swivel. The other problem with letting the boots turn like that is in how the feet are sculpted to make a wide-legged stance. It ends up where if the feet are turned too much one way or the other, the figure loses its stability while standing. A waist joint is also completely absent, but that doesn't seem quite as hurtful to the figure's playability as the absent bicep swivels. The forearm swivels do a little bit to help in weapon posing, and even without a thigh swivel it hip joints give freedom for some decent posing. The head is on a very restricted ball joint and can mainly just swivel. The elbows and knees each bend to right about 90 degrees.

The body sculpt is okay. Sadly the style of less emphasized musculature died out with RPM, but it's also not ridiculously comic-booky looking. Really, only the front of the torso focuses on the muscle sculpting. The back is much more restrained, and the limbs don't look too badly inflated at all. There's a good bit of detail sculpting, but on some areas like the head, legs and belt these details are very soft. On the belt buckle this seems understandable as it's been painted over in silver. But the helmet and legs don't seem to be but bare plastic where these details have ended up being pretty indistinct. Meanwhile the gloves are pretty impressive, even having some basic fabric wrinkling and a try at sculpting the seam lines in. The hands are sculpted open to different degrees. The right is a good fit for the grip of the sword, even being angled a bit more than the left so the sword is more pointed forward, but the hand is too wide to hold the Samurai Morpher. The left hand works better for that, having fingers and thumb a little closer together.

The deco work on this figure is actually pretty good. There's only one area where there should be paint work that's missing, being the sides of the hips where the torso's gold should carry down a little past the belt. But more than anything else that seems to be a result of not having any gold paint on this toy whatsoever. And judging by how Bandai's history of matching gold paint to plastic colors has gone, this is most certainly for the best. Even the figure's back is correctly and adequately painted with the silver-trimmed blue triangles reaching behind the shoulders and meeting in the middle of the upper back. The color layout of the arms is slightly off since the gold reaches up past the cuff of the gloves, but it's a minor nitpick to what is otherwise overall a well managed deco for an American action figure budget. As I already kind of implied, all of Gold Ranger's gold is realized through bare plastic colors, but it's not exactly gold. As often happens it looks a bit more earwaxy than gold. Definitely a ways off from the much brighter yellow quality of the costume's gold as shown in the packaging photo, although I can understand they'd want to try to avoid confusion with the Yellow Ranger figure at the same time. Alas chrome seems not to have been in the cards, or I might have bought Mega Gold Ranger instead.



Accessories

-Barracuda Blade

Gold's standard fishy sword -with a sheath that the blade can actually slide in to! ...and becomes about as thick as a Cricket bat in the process, assuming you know what a crumpet is. Conversely, the sword blade is TINY. Very thin and probably a little shorter than otherwise it should be. Naturally it is also composed of soft plastic and will likely be warped fresh from the package. As might be the sheath. It was on my figure. The sheath pegs in to a small hole on the back of the figure's belt. It's not fixed to direction, so you could have the handle end face whichever way you prefer. Technically handle to the figure's left would be correct, but with no waist joint to threaten knocking it off, it really doesn't make a difference. It is possible to have the figure hold these parts more or less as seen in some show footage or Shinkenger, by wedging the open back of the scabbard in between the left thumb and index finger. You can even just manage to get the arms lined up to look like the sword is being drawn in this position. But naturally it would all work better with some damn bicep swivels.



-Samurai Morpher

A straight reuse of the Samuraizer piece the other Rangers come with. Appropriate for Samurai since the Samurai Morpher is a Samuraizer recolor. I have never seen such a huge flip phone in my life. In scale with the figure, this would be about 16 inches long phone open. It's so huge it even remains out of scale with Figuarts ShinkenGold! Size issues aside, it's a really well detailed piece, with most of the physical elements of the Samuraizer/Samurai Morpher toy represented, right down to the hinge and the latches - even the little clock display on the cover is there. And I'm almost positive that this is the exact same color of grey plastic as used on that toy. So besides lacking any paint to bring out the details it's an amazingly faithful piece.

Meanwhile I want to take this and build it in to a tiny Phone Braver figurine. It just calls out to me. ...no pun intended.


Closing Remarks

I'm disappointed with the jointing choices on this, and I think justifiably so. This body gets to be used at least four times with no changes besides the head, so I don't think adding a few more points of movement would be too great an investment to make. Sure, maybe I'm spoiled by the lengths Hasbro tends to reach in this scale, but this body style just compares so poorly with its counterparts. Though hey, at least it's not Mattel and the Big Five, right Basic Young Justice? But if you're not hung up on Marvel Universe or GI Joe level poseability, this is actually a decent representation of the Gold Ranger, with a degree of attention to detail in the deco and sculpting that really surprised me. The Barracuda Cricket Bat Blade being able to sheathe in the scabbard is a nice extra too, even if it results in a couple minor sacrifices. It's a Good figure for the price, although I'm not rushing out the door to go buy his team mates. I'd totally go get a Gold Mega Ranger if they had chromed it, though. That looks so cool in the show.