Samurai Taisho Darth Vader

Review by Gazbot

Samurai Taisho Darth Vader was provided by Bluefin Distribution. You can order your
Star Wars Darth Vader Death Star Armor Action Figure from Entertainment Earth or Amazon.com

This melding of universes seems to make a lot of sense to most people, myself included. After all, George Lucas was heavily influenced by the Japanese Samurai films of Kurosawa (and others) when creating Star wars. The armored characters especially lend themselves to an easy translation to samurai type aesthetic. The line has been successful so far, and it will be interesting to see how it fares if they eventually move on to the likenesses of human or alien characters.

For now though, let's dive into Samurai Taisho Darth Vader!

The box has a matte finish with an artistic photo on the front with more standard poses and accessory photos on the back.

The top and bottom just have typeface.

Once side is typeface again, while the other side has a close up stylized head shot photo. The other boxes in the line have this as well. For collectors that like to display boxes I can certainly see lining these up sideways to be a good option.

The inside front has this little message for us:

Vader is held in a tray with his extra hands and other accessories. It comes with a plastic tray top to keep everything secure, which I have removed for this picture.

Here are all the accessories he comes with including:

Katana-style lightsaber
Inactive lightsaber hilt
Katana with scabbard
Death Star Helmet crest
Three sets of extra hands, holding, spread open, and force choke.

And the instructions:

Out of the tray he has a plastic bib protecting his midsection that must be removed.

He also has a plastic insert in between his legs to remove.

Thus freed and unfettered lets do a quick turnaround of Samurai Darth Vader!

And here is a blown out (with light) image to let you see the detailing a bit more clearly.

The cape is molded PVC, and though I personally would prefer cloth, it does a good enough job.
I DO like the ragged cloak bottom, looking as though he has spent time marching down a rough road.

It's held on with gold painted clasps.

Unfortunately one came loose at some point and was quite difficult to get slotted back in. PRO TIP- keep the cape pegs in.

Something I found a bit odd was the ball joint attached to his back that the cape slots into. It popped out by accident a lot, and near as I can figure you un-peg it to move the cape left, right, or back. But, to have it lay flat on his back you peg it in. I am not convinced this is a necessary joint. It also has the side effect of ensuring you keep the cape on since he back looks terrible without it.

Another thing worth mentioning about the cape, are the slats cut out of it near the top. They are not noticeable except up close, but I am not sure why they are there at all. They are not battle damage or simulated weathering. Maybe they aid in the capes flexibility, or are reference to something special with samurai cloaks? Otherwise I don't know their purpose.

The face sculpt on the helmet does a good job of emulating a samurai demon mask while still clearly resembling Darth Vader.

The main helmet/head is hard ABS plastic, but the back part of the armor covering the neck is soft PVC. Like the cape it has slats cut into it. Unlike the cape I can see the functional purpose. When tilting the head back it collapses a bit allowing more movement, and they are placed in a way that makes seemingly logical sense if it were a real helmet as well.

The head is on a large ball joint that can also be moved forward and back quite a bit.

While testing out his pose-ability, his arms and legs popped off. They were easy to pop back on, and I'm glad the popped off. This let me know how just exactly how far I could move them without permanently breaking them. :p

His articulation is good overall. Almost comparable to an SHFiguart, and a bit less restricted by his armor than the Ronin Boba Fett from the same line.

His head and torso can spin a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

He has a double jointed elbow and a bicep swivel that is under the armor.

His knees bend and swivel, but the armor keeps them from moving too far forward. the feet rotate and move up and down, with no side (rocker) joint.

The upper armor "bib" is soft PVC and allows the arm to move under it for poses that require it.

This is the second version of Darth Vader in this line, the first was released in December 2014 and was called simply "Samurai Darth Vader" This version "Death Star Armor" Has some differences to it. Most noticeable, is the Death Star-style crest on the helmet and thigh armor. These were the Imperial seal previously.

This version has a right hand which resembles a robot or prosthetic hand whereas the original had 2 gloved hands.

The extra hands have holes in them which pop onto the joint attached to the arm as is common with most figures with multiple hands.

The detailing on the mid-chest armor is closer to ribs on this version. It was more ornate on the original. I have read some people saying that this version has an area over the abdomen that resembles the breathing controls on his original Star Wars armor. That is true, but, as far as I can tell he had the same detail in the previous version.

Darth comes with a short katana (sword) and sheath. The sheath can be slid into a holder on his belt. The place for the light saber and the katana are switched on the belt from the first release.

The sheath holder can become unpegged, but unlike the cape it was easy to get back in.

For some reason I had a difficult time having him hold the katana in a reverse grip.

The final thing to look at is the Lightsaber Katana, that seems a bit redundant wording-wise, but you know what I mean. This lightsaber hilt has a pearl-like effect on it, the original however, was closer to the Classic Star Wars design.

I can imagine, that, to be period accurate maybe this is a sword made of Ruby, or colored glass. Making it more ornamental than functional. But we all know its still a laser sword.

The clear plastic of the red blade will glow nicely if correctly lit.

And now of course we must see him dual wield both blades!

I noticed that in certain poses the wrist joint is a little exposed. It's more noticeable in the "robot" hand which I kind of like to be honest, makes it look more artificial.

Here he is in my best approximation of the box pose.

And here he is conferring with that honor-less Ronin...Boba Fett!

In my Boba Fett video review, I mentioned that this scale is closest to the Disney Elite Figures as far as other Star Wars lines go. I stand by that, but I had used Kylo Ren last time, and it matched better, using a First Order Storm Trooper, (which is a shorter character and figure), the scale difference is a bit more noticeable.

Here is a more complete height line-up.

In addition to the other differences mentioned above, there are also some small color variations in the paint apps. For instance this version did not using purple on the armor like last time. Also, and especially noticeable is the mouth area of the helmet, which made the original look a bit like teeth, it is only black on this version.

Overall, it's a really nice well put together piece with clean paint and good quality control (at least on mine). Having reviewed Ronin Boba Fett previously, that figure still gets a higher recommendation from me in this line. But, that is not a slight on Darth here, so much as it is a compliment to Boba.

Overall I prefer this Darth Vader figure to the previous release with the exception of the Head crest. I found the Death Star crest to be a bit to large for my taste. I am actually displaying mine without the crest attached.

It is a bit pricey, but it's a quality piece. Also, being both Star Wars and BanDai /Tamashii Nations, there is every chance it will only go up on the secondary market, so if you are thinking about getting one, don't wait to long.

Jazz Hands!

Samurai Taisho Darth Vader was provided by Bluefin Distribution. You can order your
Star Wars Darth Vader Death Star Armor Action Figure from Entertainment Earth or Amazon.com