The can of creepy crawlies has been opened wide with this one. When Bandai Japan showed off initial images of a radically redesigned Samurai version of the one and only premier Star Wars bad guy Darth Vader, I nodded in appreciation but didn’t think I’d be buying him. I dug the aesthetics from a detached standpoint, but I didn’t really feel the need to actually own him. Now, I’ve been down that road with myself plenty of times, and those same times end with me opening up a box containing a figure I didn’t think I wanted, but I thought I could stay strong this time.
But dammitalltoheckandback, it was a Samurai Darth Vader.
That takes one thing that’s already cool—Darth Vader—and adds in something else that’s not only extremely cool, but also very hard to come by in the action figure world, which is Samurai figures, and mushes them together. When I saw that not only would there be a Darth Vader but also a Stormtrooper and an Imperial Guard (in that lovely lovely red) I knew I was sunk, hooked and most assuredly screwed.
Well, I’m not sorry one bit. This is a glorious chunk of plastic and was, as AC/DC so aptly put it, love at first feel.
Over the past year I’ve acquired quite a Japanese fetish. No, not that kind with the schoolgirls and the tentacles and what-not, but the kind involving slightly elevated prices and foreign imports. Bandai Japan has been getting a lot of my money recently, and this is no different. Ever since the Star Wars license exploded all over the place, plenty of companies have been pumping out their own Vader figures. It’s been raining Vaders and it seems like the deluge doesn’t intend on quitting yet. We’ve already had a look at Bandai’s Vader model courtesy of Robokillah, and there’s Vaders also incoming from Mafex, Revoltech, Herocross and Figuarts. Oh baby, I am looking forward to the Figuarts one, mainly because I look at Samurai Vader as a teaser of that figure.
The Movie Realization stuff is not technically connected to the S.H. Figuarts figures from Bandai, but they might as well be because they share a similar articulation setup, so they’re definitely action figure relatives. If the Figuarts Vader is as good as the Movie Realization Samurai Vader it might just edge out the Bandai model as my favorite Vader figure, leaving the Hasbro Vader in a distant, distant last place.
Let’s look at the sculpt-work first. While this is clearly Vader, it’s been run through a feudal Japanese grinder, and the end result is mean and angry. He is fully armored, and while containing very distinctive notes of Darth Vader in his design, it’s been subtly altered while keeping the flavor. There is an absolute ton of sculpt-work on him, to the point where there’s not a plain or boring part on him.
Star Wars partly comes from a Samurai cinema background—to the point where George Lucas wanted Samurai mainstay Toshiro Mifune as Obi-wan Kenobi. Yeah, picture that one in your heads. So translating the distinctive Vader silhouette into Samurai form doesn’t require radical re-imagining. The helmet retains much of its distinctive shape. The armor itself is only a sideways shift away from the source material. Even the familiar lightsaber only needs a bit of tweaking, a little curving, a little reshaping and it transforms easily to a Samurai sword.
With the amount of armor he’s wearing, he looks like he’d be impossible to pose, but everything is made of a soft plastic from the back of his helmet to his cape, so he retains maximum range of articulation for all of those Samurai poses. He’s fully articulated, including double jointed elbows and knees, ball jointed wrists, hips and ankles and plenty of range in his waist and neck. The ball-jointed ankles allow him to be flat footed in just about any pose you want to put him in. The only issue I had was the tendency for his hip to pop off the ball joint if moved to far to the side. That’s one of the only problems I’ve encountered in the Figuarts-styled ball-hip setup, as if they don’t quite get the ball as snug as it needs to be. It pops easily right back on, and only becomes an issue if you move his leg too far out to the side. I’m sure there are methods of tightening the ball if it really becomes an issue for you.
While he has no bicep cut, there is enough range in his ball-jointed shoulder to allow for realistic human movement. This is a bit jarring at first as your natural tendency is to want what we’re accustomed to from marvel Legends-styled figures, but there’s some twist to his elbows and the shoulder range itself allows him to double-hand his sword just like a figure with actual bicep articulation would be able to. And there are some figures with the bicep articulation that still don’t have this much range, so I consider this a plus.
I found it pretty difficult to find a pose I wanted to put him in that I couldn’t.
Vader comes with a fully ignited lightsaber and an unlit lightsaber hilt that plugs into a slot on his waist in true Samurai fashion, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice. The lightsaber is clear, but has a reddish gradient that runs from vibrant red on top to clear on the bottom, which is a pretty cool effect.
In addition to his most necessary accessory, also comes with four sets of hands: a pair of fists, a pair of open hands, a pair of grasping hands and a pair of force-choke hands. I guess Samurai Vader can still force choke a feudal bitch if he needs to. It all makes me wonder what Star Wars would have looked like if George had gone all the way with the Samurai overtones and this was the Vader that strode down the halls of the Tantive IV in the beginning of the movie. I can’t wait to see what other characters look like when translated into this style. Hopefully this line goes on for quite some time.
This Vader towers over all previous Vaders, so it’s not really compatible with the Hasbro line in case you wanted to use it as Vader in your own personal Star wars canon unless Vader’s reeeeally tall in your canon. Which is cool if you want him to be. At 7 ½ inches, he’s going to fit in more with NECA or Diamond Select if you need him to fit in somewhere, but he’s really going to shine with his other Samurai-inspired Star Wars mates.
In case I haven’t been clear, this is an extraordinarily fun figure: well designed, well articulated and imaginative, and, though pricey, is for the lover of Star Wars and Samurai cinema.
