The interwebs were abuzz this week with the first image of a hip new version of the beloved 80’s cartoon ThunderCats. I was never much of a fan myself, but back in the days when martial arts-related action figures were a rare thing, I did snap up this figure of the series’ resident samurai Hachiman. Somewhere along the way I scored this teeny sort of “capsule” version, too.
Pretty simple fare from a simpler time of character design and action figure execution. A spring mechanism triggers a rotation at the waist to simulate a swinging sword strike.
I think this was only the second armored samurai figure made in the West, after the “Kung-Fu Warrior” costume for the 70’s Fighting Furies toyline. Too bad they never did the black-magic powered ninja nemesis…
