Bandai’s samurai-influenced Star Wars figures don’t seem to be letting up any time soon. We’ve already been knocked in the face with a swanky Darth Vader (which I reviewed earlier HERE), and now we’ve got a decidedly feudal Stormtrooper to keep the big ebony guy company. With upcoming figures like Sandtrooper, Emperor’s Guard, and Boba Fett himself, we fans of both the samurai and the Star Wars are going to be Kurosawaed to death.
Technically, though I will be saying “samurai,” the Stormtrooper is, like the title says, an Ashigaru, which means they are foot soldiers employed by samurai. Yep, makes sense. But he can serve as either a foot soldier for Vader, or as a samurai on his own.
Darth Vader set a pretty high standard for both fun factor and quality, so the Stormtrooper needed to be an excellent figure in order to maintain that high quality. I think he easily passed the test. It’s extremely interesting how the familiar designs that have been burned into our brains over years and years can so easily be tweaked into a completely different culture and still retain vibrant hallmarks of their original nature. There’s no doubt just at first glance that this is a Star Wars Stormtrooper, but there’s also no doubt that it could easily fit into not a galaxy far far away, but a Japan lost to history books. Much like Masters of the Universe is a futuristic-type society with advanced technology yet still maintains a medieval flair, you can easily imagine an alternate universe where the Star Wars world was created to be a futuristic ode to the samurai era.
Despite the similarities, the Stormtrooper is a completely original sculpt with no reuse from Darth Vader. Like Vader, elements that we are familiar with retain their familiarity while acquiring a slight twist to bring it more in line with the Samurai aesthetic. Both Vader and the Stormtroopers have very distinctive helmets, and the way both have been altered while retaining all the basic touchstones necessary for them to still feel accurate is my favorite part. The Stormtrooper has a unique-enough look that it can just be one of several as the regular Stormtroopers are, or it can be an individual character like Vader.
Despite the heavy, bulky look of his armor, the majority of the plastic is flexible enough to allow him a wide range of poses. The shoulder protectors are actually on a ball joint, which means his arm motion isn’t impeded at all.
Going against the usual all-white look of the regular Stormtroopers, there’s a dirtier, yellowish hue to the Samurai version, like he’s already seen plenty of battles. I kind of like that as I’m not sure if a pure white version would look quite right.
His articulation is similar to Darth Vader’s and will be familiar to those who have regularly purchased figures from Bandai’s Figuarts line. He has double-jointed elbows and knees, ball-jointed wrists, neck, shoulders and ankles, a ball-jointed waist, and ball-jointed hips — all of which give him a wide range of motion. There are occasions where certain ball joints can pop off with extreme posing, which seem to be the one downside to certain Bandai Japan figures, but the pros outweigh the cons as long as you know how to maneuver them correctly.
The Stormtrooper comes with his Sword and Scabbard, which slides into a mount on his waist and hods firmly so he can store his sword properly. Like Vader, he comes with a sculpted scabbard for his short sword but only has the single sword. The scabbard mount is jointed for poseability.
He wouldn’t be a Stormtrooper without his blaster, so he even comes with a feudal version of it, which looks like an ordinary flintlock made of metal and wood, and you can imagine fires an actual lead ball.
He comes with several extra hands, including two sword-holding hands, two trigger hands, two fists, and two half-open hands for holding the barrel of his gun and holding his scabbard (many used it as a secondary weapon for clubbing their enemies while slicing the bejeebles out of them) or for looking intimidating.
I knew I’d be all in with this line as soon as I had Darth Vader in my hands, and Stormtrooper has only verified that. These are expensive as singles, so, unfortunately, it will have to be left to someone else to build a Stormtrooper army to follow Vader into battle. For my purposes I’m fine using each as standalone characters.
He’s preorder sold out at BBTS, but keep checking back, they may have extras
