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Fist of the North Star #23 - RAOH HOKUTO MUSOU
(Ken's Rage) VERSION
Revoltech - Kaiyodo
"The
following is a guest review. The review
and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford
or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the
guest author."
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Ridureyu is back with another
look at a great Revoltech figure - tell us all about him, R!
Every hero needs a great villain, and sometimes those villains overtake
their entire series. Darth Vader is easily more popular than
Luke Skywalker, for example. In Fist of the North Star, we
have Raoh. To give some context, Raoh is absolutely huge in
Japan. He's famous enough that they gave him a real-life
funeral to promote the remake movies a couple of years ago.
Those movies were even named after him, despite technically being about
Kenshiro, the series hero. Raoh also got himself a
thirteen-episode anime, Legends of the Dark King, which for some reason
got a region 1 DVD and full dub before the original Fist of the North
Star.
Raoh was the oldest of four brothers trained in Hokuto Shinken ("The
Divine Fist of the North Star"), a martial art that utilizes
acupressure points to completely obliterate opponents. It is
traditionally passed down from one master to one student, which means
that Master Ryuken had no idea what he was doing when he adopted four
kids at once. Raoh was the oldest and technically most
powerful, but Ryuken denied him successorship because of certain flaws
in his character. You know, the kinds of flaws that involve
trampling and destroying everything in sight. This is what
Raoh did with his life - taking the title "Ken-Oh" ("King of Fists"),
he formed an army and began conquering the post-apocalyptic
world. This soon put Raoh in conflict with Kenshiro, his
youngest brother, and that served as the meat of the series.
Ken and Raoh first fought to a draw, and then withdrew with the
understanding that the world would be worse off if both died than
neither. Raoh helped Kenshiro face Souther, had an epic duel
with raoh (in which he actually showed mercy), rampaged after his and
Ken's mutual love interest, and eventually faced Kenshiro in an
incredible, climactic duel.
Despite the fact that he basically depopulated an already ruined world,
Raoh was not pure evil. He held to a very specific code of
honor and morals, which manifested itself every so often, whether in
sparing raoh or slapping the head off a rapist. However, his
obsession with power, violence, and terror as the only way to control
the post-apocalyptic world was his downfall. Nearly all of
Raoh's generals, lieutenants, and henchmen were complete scum, and he
rarely ever tried to rein them in., He believed that the ends
justified the means, and thus personally slaughtered innocents in order
to quell rebellion or learn new martial art secrets. The
series insinuates that if he had been born back in the days of
conquerors and barbarian hordes, Raoh would have been a great
hero. Instead, he became the King of Missing the Point, and
nearly ruined a world that was already wrecked. However, he
redeemed himself at the end by killing off his worst henchmen before
facing Ken. After he lost, Raoh took his defeat very well,
treating Kenshiro like a brother for the first time in years.
He ultimately sent his life force into the heavens, giving light and
hope to the world and helping it rebuild. Again, Raoh wasn't
all bad. It's just that his way of solving problems was to
punch people in half until the problem went away.
Fist of the North Star continued for a while after Raoh's death, but
somehow every main plot arc and villain had some close relationship to
the man, with his long-lost brother, leftover henchmen,
previously-unknown birthplace, and suddenly-discovered son.
It got pretty silly after a while.
This particular figure is of Raoh as he appears in Fist of the North
Star: Ken's Rage (Hokuto Musou in Japan), the newest Fist of the North
Star game (Released in late 2010). The game advertised new
costume designs for the characters, which ranged from subtle changes
(Jagi) to massive overhauls (Shin). As for Raoh, his costume
is fairly similar to how he dressed when in Ken-Oh mode, except for a
few key differences.
Revoltech (pronounced like "revolver," not "revolt") is a company owned
by Kaiyodo which specializes in a very specific, modular
ball-and-socket joint. Their figures universally have great
articulation, and can be pulled apart or swapped around to accommodate
alternate hands, heads, or whatever. This figure is Number 23
of the Fist of the North Star line, and the most
recently-released. Technically, it came out in mid-November
2010, but some retailers still have it on preorder at the time of this
writing. In fact, mine only came in a few days ago because I
put in a preorder at a trusted outlet!
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Packaging
- ****
Revoltech
toys have standard packaging, and Raoh is technically no
different. He comes in a window box with a plastic tray designed
to hold everything. The pieces all fit without twisty-ties,
rubber bands, tape, or excess force needed to remove them. Raoh
is also well-protected with little soft sheets of plastic between his
body and cape, between his limbs, between the figure and tray, and
technically between any place where two pieces of plastic might rub
together. It works quite well, keeping the figure pristine in
package. His cape comes in three sections, two of which are
stored under the tray. You can also easily pack Raoh and all of
his stuff back in, thus making storage a breeze.
Sculpting - ****
Before
I explain the rating, allow me to explain the costume. As
previously mentioned, Ken's Rage dressed everybody in something
new. Raoh's costume at first looks very different from his normal
garb, but actually is pretty similar. The differences in total
are:
-He has long sleeves, whereas he went sleeveless in the series.
-The shoulder guards are more detailed.
-His breastplate is slightly more complex, and looks like padded armor rather than light plate.
-He has similarly-armored pants instead of just slacks with boots in the original.
-His cape is black and has a design around the hem rather than red and plain.
-His helmet has larger horns than the original, as well as a red ponytail.
The
sleeves are really the biggest change, and the overall effect is that
this is Raoh's Winter Wear. If it's cold out, he'll put on long
sleeves. And it's not like Raoh only wore one outfit, either - he
has a variety in the series, both in the course of the narrative and in
several flashbacks. The new remake movies and his spinoff even
gave him more outfits, thus making another variation even less of an
issue. Overall, this is one of the better in-game costume
variants, and it's cool that we got a figure of it. There have already
been three series-accurate Raohs released, after all (plain,
shirtless/final battle, and with his horse).
That said, the
sculpting is fantastic, although that should be no surprise. Ken
Matsuura is an excellent toy sculptor, as his work has reflected
throughout this series. Raoh is roughly 6 1/2" tall, which puts
him at half an inch taller than most of the other figures in this
series. Unfortunately, that means he's just about even with most
western 6" figures, such as Marvel or DC toys. It's unfortunate
because Raoh is a big guy. He's not a giant like some characters
in this series, but he is about seven feet tall, and a couple of heads
above just about everybody else. He is taller than He-Man, and
that's what counts.
Raoh's face is great. You get two
heads, and both have typical expressions for him - a blank, flat stare
(meaning that he's probably about to kill you), and an angry,
mouth-open glare (meaning that he is about to kill
you). It's got his facial shape, short-cropped hair,
and even the eyes - it's a little hard to spot them in the picture as
they are kind of sunken. More importantly, both heads have
perfectly reproduced Raoh's furrowed brow. Raoh has the most
serious forehead in all of fiction, and it's nice to see those
anger-creases intact.
His armor is also great, rendered to match
his in-game appearance. It's got quite a bit of small detail, whether
in the little rivets on certain armored portions, wrinkles in the
cloth, or an odd script on his breastplate that looks suspiciously like
Hebrew. And all this time I thought Raoh was a gentile!
There are little holes on his back to accompany the cape and shoulder
guards in addition to the hole for his stand, but none of that ruins
the figure. Also, oddly, in a detail kept over from his original
design, Raoh has both a belt and suspenders. I guess he really
doesn't want his pants to fall down. The suspenders can be
annoying, as they tend to pop out all the time, but they are easy to
put back in place. Importantly, he is proportioned like a large
man, but not a grotesque muscle freak. Raoh has always looked
more like a real-life bodybuilder than an exaggerated comic
villain. The helmet and cape are also important, but I will cover
those with the other accessories.
Paint
- ****
Mine has a
paint flaw, but it's one that I have not seen in any other Raohs
anywhere, so it's probably just a unique missed step. I'll get to
that in a moment.
Raoh's paint is fantastic, but that really is
not surprising considering this series. He has a lighter wash on
his skin than most Revoltech figures, which might make the furrows on
his forehead a little harder to spot, but it's no biggie. His
hair is also blonde, identifying Raoh as the most Aryan Japanese man
ever. This is also accurate to the original manga. The
anima gave him darker skin and black hair, but the manga portrayed him
as blonde, and thus all other adaptation (video games, remake movies,
spinoff series) have given him yellow or silver hair. This is
more on the yellow end of the spectrum, which is fine. Raoh maybe
the oldest brother, but he's too young to go gray. Ken's Rage
gives him a mixture between gold and silver for hair, so this may not
be a hundred percent accurate, close though it may be. The armor
is also pretty great, especially considering the in-game render's
naturally muted colors. Depending on the material, his clothing
is black, brown, silver, gold, or a very dark purple for the
breastplate. Each piece is painted to resemble the correct type
of material. Fabric looks like fabric, metal looks like metal, and the
combination is pretty good. There is even detailing on the
smaller rivets or straps holding his outfit together. His
breastplate also looks excellent, with purple used in just the right
proportion to look good, not cartoonish. His shoulder guards are
mostly silver and red, with black for the non-metallic parts. The
effect looks pretty good, with a gradient scale instead of flat color
changes.
The missed paint step is with Raoh's cape. The
cape comes in three segments plus a mantle, and is black with gold
trim. On my rightmost segment, the gold trim on the hem is
entirely missing. This is not the case with the other two
segments, nor does this show up in any other Raoh figures that I have
been able to find, so I think it's unique.
Articulation
- ****
Revoltech
articulation is pretty much an automatic four stars. The only
flaw with Raoh is that his leg armor gets in the way of some
poses. He can sit, kick, get into the lotus position, kneel, ride
a horse, leap, stagger, limp, or do pretty much whatever you want, but
the leg armor means that you have to be slightly creative. For
this line, that's unfortunate. Importantly, he can ride his
horse, but that's another story. With all of his gear intact,
Raoh's movement is slightly hindered, but his shoulder guards move to
accommodate different poses. I suspect that a lot of people will
pose him without his gear, one fist raised to the heavens, as this was
the really iconic pose in which he gave up his life. That's too
bad, as there are a lot of poses you can put Raoh in. If you give
him his cape, he won't even need his stand!
The cape is another
odd one. It's articulated just like others in this line - three
segments, each with its own revoltech ball joint. This is overall
great, except that each segment is straight and posed in such a way
that it's way too easy to accidentally give Raoh three mini-capes if
you don't pose it carefully. To put on the cape, you need to
follow a simple procedure: Remove his shoulder guards (and their
revoltech joints), plug the mantle into two small holes in his back,
then plug the three cape segments into the mantle, and replace the
shoulder guards. Now, if you REALLY want to be game-accurate, he
wouldn't have his shoulder guards without the cape. But if you
want to be series-accurate, he would. It's up to you based on the
individual pose.
Raoh's head and neck have slightly better
articulation than most figures in this line - instead of just a ball
joint in the head, he gets an extra one at the base of his neck, which
allows for more subtle head movements. Thankfully, it is
supremely easy to swap his heads and hands, more so than any other Fist
of the North Star figure I have messed around with. Nothing is loose,
and it's not just that nothing is stuck, none of the joints feel like
they could be stuck. That's really good. The ratchets are
clearly in place, but nothing feels like "forcing" Raoh's joints.
Accessories
- ****
Raoh
comes with an alternate head, three pairs of hands, his three-part
cape, his mantle, his shoulder guards, his helmet, a base, two
differently-sized stands from the base, a little double-jointed
extension for one or both of the stands, an orange accessories box, and
a little useless plastic token. The box is nice, and can hold
Raoh's hands, alternate head, and the little extension. By the
way, a little inscription on the bottom officially labels it as a
"Revocontainer." As for his base and stand, one is the same tall
"jumping" height as other Revoltech figures, whereas the other is short
enough to pose him standing. The little extension helps a lot
with more subtle poses, and also serves as a good anchor if you need to
use it when he has his cape - if the cape is flared out, then Raoh will
need his base. He is somewhat light on hands, which his only
options being closed fists, open hands, and flat palms. However,
the only other kind I could think of would be pointing fingers, from
when he pointed to the sky a few times, or when he lethally poked
people through the sternum. But for the most part, Raoh's hands
are quite sufficient. Maybe he could have come with that
three-pronged knife he used once, but again it really isn't much of a
big deal. The other Ken's Rage-style figures in this line also
come with energy blasts or special effects, which are absent
here. That is likely because of the material for his cape,
helmet, shoulder guards, and whatever else.
The cape is kind of
odd, as it is not made of soft, floppy plastic the way one might
expect. It's hard plastic, enough to make a light "tink" sound
when struck. Strange, and I hope this does not make it brittle, but it
has not given me any trouble yet.
Raoh's helmet is also hard
plastic, which might make the crest on top slightly brittle. The
helmet looks utterly gorgeous, and is given the same treatment as the
figure, not an "accessory." The horns are huge as they are in the
game, with a light wash near the tips. All of the gold detailing
on his helmet is great, as well, especially that cobra crest in the
front. His helmet's little red ponytail looks good as well, and
is actually articulated. It swivels and can be taken off if you
want to go for a more comic-accurate look. The helmet fits nicely
over Raoh's head, although it is not snug, tight, or secure. It
will fall off if he is upside-down, but that is not a problem.
Overall, it is excellent, and I kind of want a helmet like this in real
life. For work. And church. And higher
education. I lead a strange life.
Now, there is one
omission if you know the series, but it's also completely
understandable: Raoh's horse. His horse, Kokuoh ("Black King") is
as much a part of his design as his fists. It's the only vehicle
he ever uses, even refusing to walk if his faithful steed is nowhere
near. Anybody who wants to fight Raoh has to make him dismount
first, and that horse has crushed almost as many enemies as the man
himself is seen killing. Little-known fact: Raoh's very first
appearance in the manga included a splash page mirroring Frank
Frazetta's "Death Dealer" artwork almost exactly. Kokuoh actually
looks just like the horse from that painting, and it was an intentional
tribute. It's obvious why they did not include a gigantic black
stallion with this figure, because of what it would have done to the
price tag. For what it's worth, you can buy Raoh with Kokuoh, but it
will cost you about $100 suggested retail price. And that's why
you won't see him on his horse in any of these pictures! Yeah, it
gave me a heart attack, too.
Value
- ***
Eh.
I have already said my piece on Revoltech's $30 price tag for
everything. Painful, but only 33% more painful than a MOTU
Classic. However, Raoh actually seems closer to being worth the
price than many others. He's big and solid, has a detailed
sculpt, and his paint job is actually intricate. The accessories
are pretty thorough, too, especially with such an excellent
helmet. It still hurts the wallet.
Things
to Watch Out For -
You can't see his cape's paint detailing in the package, but I
doubt that other people will find the same defect on theirs. When
you have Raoh, remember to test out the joints on his stand, the same
as any other Revoltech figure. His cape and helmet might be
slightly fragile, so keep them safe.
Overall - ****
This figure
does have flaws, but none of them detract enough to take off
points. This really is a good toy and a great representation of
Raoh the Conqueror, even if it's his video game costume. I can't
really give any permanent complaints, and it's honestly one of the best
of the line.
Where to Buy
He is not on Amazon, although eBay
will undoubtedly have some. PowerAnime.com has him in stock (it's
where i bought mine), as well as plenty of other Fist of the North Star
figures, and they definitely get a vote of confidence from me!
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This product was purchased for the review by the reviewer.
Photos and text by Ridureyu.
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