Masters of the Universe Classics Feature: Ninja Warrior (Ninjor)

Ninjor is the February Club Eternia subscription figure and is the penultimate figure required to complete the vintage Evil Warriors in Masters of the Universe Classics form. It’s getting close to the end, can’t you feel it? Let’s take a closer look at Ninjor!

Ninja Warrior Bio

Real Name: Unknown
Armed with nunchucks, a longsword and longbow, this awful assassin was summoned from another world by a spell of light to serve Skeletor on Eternia. His mission is to eliminate all of the Heroic Warriors one by one until He-Man no longer has any help in defending Eternia. This Ninja Warrior, sometimes called “Ninjor” by his foes, always moves with great speed, skill and silence. His true motivation however has been kept secret from all. Even while serving Skeletor, he reports back to his true master, Horde Prime, detailing Skeletor’s weak points and how to exploit them. Ninjor appears out of nowhere to ambush Heroic Warriors!

The first thing that jumps out at me about this bio is, of course, the name Ninja Warrior. The new generic moniker is required due to some sort of copyright shenanigans, but at least the original name of Ninjor is preserved there. I’ll be calling him Ninjor for the rest of this feature.

I kind of like that his “real name” is left unknown, an air of mystery is fitting for ninja. It’s also an interesting new twist naming him as a spy for the Horde. That’s just the kind of little vague story starts that would have fired my imagination as a child.

Accessories

Ninjor comes with a good amount of stuff including all of his vintage weapons (Nunchakus, Bow and Sword), a removeable quiver, a removeable belt and an alternate head sculpt. The alternate head sculpt is unmasked and is included probably because you could take the cloth mask off the vintage Ninjor figure.

I think this was superior way to go as MOTUC has not included cloth accessories to date and the sculpted hood looks so much nicer than a cloth hood could ever hope to at this scale.

The weapons are a mixed bag. The sword is a classic katana-like sword and has a nicely detailed grip. The grip is thick enough that the sword can be held in the claw hand loosely. The bow, like the vintage version, includes an arrow and string molded in hard plastic. It’s a good match for the vintage design, but the fixed position of the bowstring and the arrow make for awkward posing and it just looks cheap.

I would have preferred no string and a loose arrow, personally. Maybe our 3D modelling friends are working on this, though I haven’t seen it like I have seen work done on the next accessory, the nunchaku.

The nunchaku is (are?) a solid piece of plastic. The chain holding the two pieces together is molded plastic. This, according to Mattel was done for cost savings. It’s pretty easy to add a chain to weapon like this if you want one, however. I did actually like the solid piece for a couple poses where it kind of looks like a weapon frozen in mid-strike, but I would have preferred a real chain.

The quiver plugs solidly into Ninjor’s armor and has a couple clips so the weapons can be held there. I love it when I can store my weapons on a figure, though one more clip would have been nice. The addition of a quiver is a logical step that the vintage figure missed and I think it makes for a more complete look for this character.

The belt is a 200x style belt meant for use on Jitsu to recall his Staction look, but it works well to 200X-up your Ninjor as well. It’s a little tougher to secure properly than say Fisto’s belt.

Sculpt

The vintage Ninjor had a cloth shirt and vest over the regular MOTU body and I think the designers of MOTUC wisely decided to sculpt. By making the chest symbol a raised piece and adding straps and armor, it feels a little more MOTU to me than a regular ninja outfit would. Design made a wise choice in leaving the armor off the upper lats so ninjor has no problem holding his arms at his sides.

I really like how the alternate head is clearly the same guy under the mask and both heads have the right proportions. Sometimes the MOTUC heads can skew a little small. I also love the choice to keep the demon arms and boots from the original figure. It makes him something a little more than a standard ninja – he’s got some demon in him and the eyes bear this out as well.

Paint

Paint is good on ninjor. Between his belt and chest symbol, there is a lot of detailed work and it’s all crisp. The idea of making his eyes red and black was pretty cool and it’s executed well.

Overall

Ninjor is one of those weirder, late in the line characters like Rio Blast that many fans dismiss as not fitting in because their theme is too related to earth and too far from the sword and sorcery origins of the line.

I prefer to look at MOTU as a bit of a genre mash-up and don’t have a problem with a ninja in my MOTU, but I can see where they are coming from. I think that Mattel has done a lot with sculpting and design to make this ninja fit in with the MOTUC aesthetic even more than the original Ninjor fit.