Ryujinmaru

A bit of info according to wikipedia:
“The story is about a 9-year old boy named Wataru Ikusabe who is magically transported to a magical realm of the gods called Soukaizan, which he is supposed to save from an evil, demonic ruler. The series incorporates many elements of RPG games including dungeon levels and quests for mystical objects. Soukaizan itself is represented as a series of tiered platforms each floating above the one beneath it in a rough pyramid shape. In order to progress to the next tier where he will meet the series’ ultimate villain, the show’s heroes must complete some task on the one beneath. In his quest to save the realm, Wataru manages to transform a clay sculpture into a somewhat autonomous (and small) Super Robot. He also befriends many of the Soukaizan natives, and forms some very strong friendship bonds. The term Sou-kai-zan can be broken down to its 3 parts: Sou (creation), Kai (realm, space, world, or universe), and Zan (hill or mountain), representing the pyramid shape of the world’s level.”

Most of you will probably recognize him if you’ve owned a TurboGrafx-16 Game system. The first game for that system was Keith Courage in the Alpha zone which was basically a US version of the Japanese PC Engine game with different storyline and character names.

Ryujinmaru comes in your basic recognizable Robot Spirits box.

I have him here in his basic mode before Wataru boards him. You will see what changes are made once Wataru boards him later in the review. He is made of high quality materials.

You can see how nice the jewels are done on his chest and how nice the clear red looks on his head. The gold paint looks really good on the crown.

Meet Wataru Ikusabe. He is rendered here in high quality PVC with very fine detail. This young man found a jeweled necklace on the way to school where he had sculpted a small robot out of clay.

After placing the beads on the clay robot sculpt, and using this sword…

…he is able to summon RYUJINMARU! Like a wild dream, Wataru boards Ryujinmaru through a beam and ends up riding a dragon. Ryujinmaru then gets an armor upgrade in the process.

Here is a video to better understand what I’m talking about.

You’ll see here its not that big of a figure, but it does have the same amount of mass or more than your typical Robot Spirits release.

Ryujinmaru is more poseable than his stubby proportion lead us to believe.

He even has fully functional knees. However because of their stubbiness, they don’t do much aside from show off some cool engineering of a knee joint.

He comes with some optional hands so that you can use his included Dragon sword. The sword is held onto the back with an included and also removable clip. Unfortunately, the clip does not like to stay closed so the sword falls out very easily.

I absolutely love the fact that he can hold the Dragon Sword over his head with both hands!

This feat is accomplished by a clever shoulder design that swings out on a ball joint. Here are the shoulders in the normal position…

…and here are the shoulders in the open position for a higher degree of articulation.

The very last piece of accessory is this clear orb which he tosses. It doesn’t really stay in the hand at all so it’s prone to getting lost. It is nearly invisible under normal lighting so be careful.

I must sound like a broken record, but this is a nice figure. Bandai has done a great job with this line. The only drawback to this line is the price. This figure will run you about $40 and that is before shipping. Considering that this was released in 2009 and the price remains stable, I wouldn’t expect any steep discounts in the future. Other than that, I have nothing bad to say about this piece.