Bison King

Shinobi 9 of Shuriken Sentai Ninninger showcases the surprise appearance of StarNinger and his OtomoNin, Rodeomaru, just as the main team finds themselves in trouble as Yokai Ittan-momen turns Shurikenjin Drago to stone! Catching the wizard Yokai by surprise, the duo manage to completely curbstomp the opponent.

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Alright, let’s get to the toy.

First up is Rodeomaru.

Due to the way the toy works, the head is tiny and the shoulders bulk out longer than the arms. I don’t really mind and I think it’s cute, but to be honest I think for Rodeomaru I like “cool” better. If it bothers you that much, you can spend a bit of extra cash for an Artisan Rodeomaru.

There isn’t much paint on this guy, and what he has is enough, really.

Articulation is limited to the arms, legs, and neck, but hey, it’s fine.

Next is the big guy of the toy: the Bison King Buggy (not the “Bison Buggy”).

It’s really nice and bulky.

The Nin Shuriken sticks to the back as a booster.

The underside shows most of the robot.

As for the Nin Shuriken, the soundbox in this one is probably the largest out of all the mecha soundboxes. Because of the nature of the Ninja StarBurger, the thing comes with all the sounds necessary to replicate the summoning, which is great for someone like me who doesn’t buy roleplay toys.

The sounds included are:
“OtomoNin Shuriken!”
“Saa, come on! *standby tune*”
“*shuriken spinning noise* WHO ARE YOU? WHOA-OH-OOOOOH! RODEOMARU! *guitar noise*”
The two combination tunes
The noise when the shuriken is removed

As shown in the show, Rodeomaru can ride the Bison King Buggy.

However due to the nature of both the toy and the suit, you won’t be able to see Rodeomaru at eye level.

He looks a lot more natural when riding, though.

BISON CHANGE!

Transforming into Bison King is nice and simple. Remove the saddle, the gun and the Nin Shuriken from the buggy, flip the rear wheels forward so they act as feet, adjust the elbows, plop the saddle down and put the shuriken on top of Rodeomaru for the jingle.

“YEEHAW! BISON! YEEHAW! BISON! BISON KING! *engine noises*”

Bison King follows his motif straight and definitely looks like a wild western sheriff.

The figure is also gloriously under-painted. What I mean by that is that there’s hardly any paint to damage in the first place. They could’ve painted those little stars on his shins, but they didn’t and I’m grateful for that.

One of the biggest complaints that came out when this guy was released was that the saddle protruded out backwards too much.

This has been pretty much covered by all reviews, but you can fold it down if it bothers you. I like to keep it up, though.

The back is covered in screwholes, but at least that makes the front look better.

Unlike Shurikenjin, no articulation is present in the legs, but a bit of variety is included.

As usual, you have your shoulder rotation.

Both the elbows and shoulder move inwards, although only slightly. The elbows can bend outwards if you want as well.

And if you’d like, you can adjust Rodeomaru so the figure faces different directions.

You can look up…

Or to the side.

SHURIKENJIN!
BISON KING!

There are three possible official combinations between Shurikenjin and Bison King.

Our first one is nameless (from what little I understood from the instruction manual), but RangerWiki wants us to call it “Shurikenjin Texas”.

It’s basically replacing Shinobimaru with Rodeomaru. It takes a little getting used to, since the brown and light blue contrast a lot more in this combination.

It’s grown on me, though. And now you get some more dynamic poses thanks to Shurikenjin’s leg articulation.

Here’s a little unofficial “bow and arrow” finisher I made…

BISON KING DRAGO!

The appearance of a Gashadokuro in Shinobi 24 called for a new combination due to the absence of Kasumi and Fuuka and Takaharu and Nagi being occupied by Yokai Franken. So Yakumo and Kinji joined forces for the US/UK alliance, resulting in this guy.

This takes a bit less getting used to, since the only issue is that the arms aren’t aligned in the same direction. I do like the idea of a heavily-armed Bison King, and I think it pulled through well.

If the right arm not being able to point downwards without bending the elbow bothers you, you can move the wing pieces of the sword to the left arm for an even beefier fist and a long katana.

KING SHURIKEN GATTAI!

And here comes the main event! Once Takaharu obtained the Combination Nin Shuriken in Shinobi 12, he was able to use it in conjunction with Kasumi’s engineering to combine Shurikenjin and Bison King to create King Shurikenjin!

The thing is massive and looks amazing. There’s a lot of things to like about him.

The feet are given additional height by some footstools. In the show, they look like wrapped-up towels, which actually sounds pretty awesome. Here, they look like turbo-boosters.

The shoulder connectors of Bison King unfold to reveal larger fists.

The little engine piece on Bison King acts as leg support as the joints will likely be unable to hold up all the weight.

Shinobimaru is now completely visible in his little control seat.

The faceplate has a Native American motif, and the mask is done in a nice metallic red. I like how it exactly matches what’s directly behind it. If BoA completely removed this piece and just added a mask piece that clipped on to Shurikenjin’s face, no one would notice.

The Bison-Drago Sword combines both mecha’s weapons to create a giant sword that scales with the figure (unlike a certain mecha… *cough* Cho ToQ-Oh *cough*).

The support piece prevents the legs from moving, but you still get feet, so you can get a decent walking position.

If there were anything negative I’d have to say about the combination, it’s stability. If you’re not careful, the Nin Shuriken sandwich hat and Rodeomaru will fall off- something that ended up cracking an area on my Rodeomaru that weakened the knee joint. A bit of superglue helped it, but it’s still rather flimsy. With that said, if you’re just going to display the guy it’ll be just fine.

And other than that you can do some ridiculous random things.

NINJA ABARE BEAST!

After the insanity and greatness of Shurikenjin, Bison King is a worthy follow-up. Highly recommended!