Samurai Neat, Armored, Swordsy Playmobil Specials Item No.: No. 4748 Manufacturer: Playmobil Includes: Helmet, 2 swords, wrist armor, grip Action Feature: n/a Retail: $3.99 Availability: ca. 2010 Other: Sat in my photo lab for a year
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Since I moved back to Phoenix, Playmobil distribution has been increasingly dire. I couldn't find a store with the Samurai until late 2012, and I'm mildly ashamed to say it stayed in the box for about 11 months before I popped it open. I got my four bucks worth.

The colorful 3-inch figure has everything you might want in a Samurai toy - big armor, a swell hat, swords, and places to stow his swords. One is on his back, the other is on his belt. Red and yellow boxes give this figure a lot of personality, as does the crest on the helmet. A few parts are recycled from existing toys, but that helmet is easily worth the price of admission. The hair is new to me, but I haven't been keeping up on these guys as well as I should have been.

Sword storage on the belt is awkward, but the one on his back fits nicely. Also increasingly awkward is the figure's head - the smaller slit eyes seem less and less appropriate as the future approaches. Playmobil figures were originally said to be designed to mimic children's drawings - this is why there's no nose or ears, as kids often leave those out. The uniquely shaped eyes here are painted on the normal head, so you can see where the molded eyes are still present. I can understand why adults in a non-Asian nation may see the need to distinguish one portion of humanity from another, but the more I look at this figure the more I understand why LEGO kept all figures yellow for so long.

Articulation is standard Playmobil stuff - shoulders and wrists rotate, the head can look left or right, and the legs move together as one. The figure has zero difficulty standing or holding his accessories, and he can easily sit. As toy figures go, you're hard-pressed to find anything engineered better than Playmobil. It's telling that the German toy line has had the same basic buck since 1974.

I generally like this figure, but I think the era of race-specific eyes has long since passed. It's kind of distracting, an eyesore on an otherwise stellar and quite cheap figure. The armored plates on the back are quite nice, with the fact that mobility is in no way hindered an added bonus. If you stumble on this figure, get one - Playmobil's Samurai is more Samurai-ey than its Ninja was Ninja-esque.

Additional Images

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