Red Hurricane

It’s that moment when you had no plan to buy it but you end up sacrificing your wallet. It was the last one on the shelf. I had no choice.

So here’s my mini review of the Red Wind Ranger from the 6.5 Legacy Collection, released in August, 2016 for $19.99. To be blunt, I didn’t expect much from this action figure because of the price, but the price turned out be one of the factors making this bad boy a great toy.

Included are the Red Wind Ranger, one megazord piece, and two weapons (ninja sword).

First thing’s first though, let's talk about the figure itself. The appearance of the body is very human-like. Not too thin or thick. The proportion is perfect.

The contours of the body are very smooth too, so certain poses, like bending the stomach, looks natural, rather than connected joints looking fragment.

(photo credit: www.powerrangers.com)

There is just enough detail to resemble the actual charter from the show. Sure, not the most detailed figure, especially the vaguely molded hawk symbol on the forehead, because of the price. But this shows that not all details from the actual thing aren’t necessarily needed to make an action figure look very nice. I guess this is also due to the fact that the human-like proportion does its job of covering the lack of details. The paint job on the accessories too are minimal, but is just enough to, like I said, look decent. Especially after playing with high-end figures, I always had a tendency to be picky about details, but perhaps I should stop.

Oh yeah, not necessarily about the details, but I really want to point out how on-point the helmet is. It looks just like the one from the show, no matter what angle you look at it from. Whether it’s a cheap or expensive action figure, there are many that fail to look accurate. It doesn’t give me an awkward “uh, this looks wrong….” moment. Congrats to Bandai for their great work.

With such natural body shape and enough details, the poses it can recreate are great and fun to look at. After all, action figures are meant to make poses. Articulation combining with great proportion makes a figure even better. Also, not many action figures of this price range, at least from my experience, don't move this much articulation. I just wish I had the necessary tools to take better pictures. Who knew I’d be writing a blog for class...

Now let’s talk about the price. Considering that Bandai plans to release every ranger from every season, $19.99 is relatively affordable because most seasons consist of 5 core power rangers. 5 for $120-ish with good possibility, not bad at all.

Nonetheless, some fans may still buy only their favorite rangers rather than full teams, so including a megazord (the robot the superheroes have on the show) piece for each ranger is good and makes collecting the figures fun. What’s a huge plus is that the megazord  that builds up by purchasing all core rangers of the same team too is an actual action figure rather than just a statue. The articulation isn’t as good as the Rangers, but still moves quite a bit for a bonus feature. A poseable megazord action figure isn’t something that exists a lot in the Power Rangers field.

So there you go, the Legacy Red Wind Ranger action figure. Cheap price, great poseability, enough details, and a megazord piece. I totally underestimated this product. The more I play with it, the more I dig it. Because many high quality action figures cost so much, it’s great to get something like this with just a $20 bill and a few coins. Will I buy this again? Definitely, if I'm not broke.

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The title has nothing to do with what I'm gonna write about. Heck, I didn't even create an outline for this post because it's just introductory.

Anyway, here's some things about the guy in the pic, Ignacio Toshiaki Tejada, probably the most red guy you will ever see in the entire universe unless you're an actual Red Ranger. I was born in and lived half my life in Japan, and the other half here in the States. Also about 8 months in China. I speak Japanese, English, and some Mandarin Chinese. Spanish? I forgot. I'm also learning a bit of Korean now for fun (becoming able to write in the Korean language system in an hour makes you feel like you're the coolest person in the world).

I'm a mass comm major with a concentration in advertising, and hopefully will minor in Asian studies with a Chinese concentration. Oh yeah, I'm also an executive officer of the Chinese Language and Culture Association (CLCA) in the university. Club meetings will start soon, so keep up with the updates (if I ever write about them here) and feel free to come by!

Also, I may be one of the very few people you know who like Power Rangers. In fact, this blog will be about anything Power Rangers and similar Japanese superhero (Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, etc) related. Whether it be a toy review, an article translated from Japanese, or even about an actor I like from one of the seasons. So yeah, this may be the most boring blog you will ever see unless you're a Ranger fan. But I will keep in mind that the audience of this blog isn't from the Power Rangers fandom.

So why do I like such a cheesy show? Here's an answer for you: I don't know.

OK, I exaggerated a bit. I think it's just natural for me to like it because I've been watching it since I was 1.What attracts me the most is the fact that they "morph" (or transform) into a super hero; they don't just morph silently, the heroes have their own devices that allow them to power up with a freackin' pose and phrase. In real life, you don't have to do that crap. But hey, it's entertainment. It looks cool. That's what matters.

Aside from this blog being about Power Rangers, I will use this opportunity to improve my vocabulary and writing skills. Ever since I started a personal blog again this year after a long hiatus and now that I'm in college, I realized that writing a blog can be way different than writing an essay depending on the content. Since my blog posts may have some degree of variety, it may become challenging. But that's the purpose of me writing this blog.

So yeah, I guess that's about it for now. It's only introductory so hey, what else can I write about? My language skills? That would be really fun actually, but like I said, this blog will be about Power Rangers and super heroes of that ilk.

Unless I become dumb enough to forget about this blog, the next post should be up by the end of the month or whenever we are given a certain date by Professor Pazdera. So util then, good bye!