Capricorn Shura EX

Review by SentaiSeiya

Shura is the guardian of the house of Capricorn, one of the last strongholds in place before reaching the Pope's chamber in Athena's Sanctuary. When the Bronze Saints make their way through the houses in order to save Athena’s life, Dragon Shiryu squares off against Shura. Little does Shiryu know that Shura has one deadly technique, the Excalibur, up his sleeve. Faced with low odds of defeating Shura, Dragon Shiryu mounts a suicide attack that would send both Saints into the heavens, where they would disintegrate into the stars.

During their ascent into oblivion, Shura comes to realize that his way of thinking was flawed and saves Shiryu.

Shura not only saves Shiryu life, but he also entrusts the young Dragon Saint with his ultimate technique.

So here we are, on the last stretch of the EX Gold Saints and the highly-anticipated Shura has finally gotten the EX treatment.

The box for this release is just like any other EX Saint Cloth Myth release: a nice sturdy box shaped like the Pandora Box of the Saint, which is covered with a nice glossy sleeve.

The Object Mode for the Capricorn Cloth is a goat.

This Cloth is very easy to put together and stays together pretty well. Unfortunately, its simplicity is also one of its weaknesses. The Capricorn Cloth lacks size and presence, which makes it not as cool as similar Cloths, like the Aries Cloth.

The Object Mode also comes with a separate, more abstract face, which is used in conjunction with the smaller headpiece, to display the Cloth as it appears in the manga.

This makes the bland Object Mode look even blander, due to the addition of the nondescript face.

When you put the armor on Shura, however, he looks really great.

The fit between the Cloth and the Saint is also great. The only minor issue, and I do mean minor, with the fit is that the thigh armor slides down from time to time. This minute inconvenience with the EX Capricorn is nowhere near as bad as it was on the original figure; the thigh armor for the original release would slide off the thighs and tuck halfway into the top of the leg armor. Bandai kept this from happening with the EX release by having a set of kneepads underneath the top of leg armor. This keeps the thigh armor from straying too far from its proper place.Another major improvement is that the back of the waist armor has slots on it that the skirt armor slides into. This keeps the skirt armor from opening up to the sides, which was another issue with the original release.

Plastic content is kept to the absolute minimum with the release.

Only the helmet, waist armor and the covers for the backs of the hands are made of plastic. The rest is all shiny, sexy diecast metal!

Now I am not a big fan of the anime-only helmet of Shura. I much prefer the smaller, more sensible headpiece from the manga and the later part of the anime series. So that is the last of the big ol’ helmet we are going to be seeing in this review.

Articulation is top notch, even with all of the armor on the Saint.

Compared to the original release, the EX Capricorn Shura looks a TON better.

The proportions of both the figure and the armor are much more in step with how the character looks in the show. The color of the EX release is a toned-down gold color that lacks the orange accents and panels lines are present on the original’s armor. The EX release clearly aspires to represent Shura as he appears in the Hades chapter. On the other hand, the original release is based on how the character looks in the early episodes.

The EX release also lacks some of the liberties that Bandai took with the first design, such as the sideways “s” on the back of the skirt armor, the symbols on the back of the hands and the spikes on the shoulder pads. Whoever designed the armor for the original Saint Cloth Myth Gold Saints got kind of creative with some of the armors in order to make the look “cooler.” I personally prefer that the toy looks as closely to the original as possible. That is why the EX versions wins over the original.

Shura comes with a respectable 5 pairs of hands.

But who are we kidding, only one set of hands really matters for this Saint, whose arms are imbued with the razor-sharp Excalibur. With the nicely sculpted Excalibur hands, you can go nuts posing him pulling off his signature move!

Ekkuscalibar (Excalibur)!

One Excalibur!

Two Excaliburs!

Legs-calibur!

Shura also comes with four faceplates. Since he is not a very expressive character, his set of faceplates reflects his demeanor in the show. This does not make for the most exciting assortment of expressions.

Finally, Shura also comes with a nice two-color, three-piece cape.

So overall, Shura looks great and is a fun toy to pose... into whatever Excalibur pose you want to put him in. While there is nothing in this release that has not already been done in the line, this is another solid release in the EX line.

Plus, the EX Shiryu can finally face off against Shura in their most epic battle yet!

Janken Pon! (Rock, Paper Scissors)

WHAT!?!!

You always throw Excalibur! Stop copying my move and throw something else!