Ninjor [Masterverse / New Eternia]

The demon king from the Dimension of Noir silently searched the scattered remains of New Eternia for the Power of Grayskull so he may become an immortal force of evil.

It’s been way too long since I’ve talked about Masters of the Universe here on the site, and like many of you, the upcoming movie has me pretty excited. So what better time to get back into the He-Man groove than now?

I received this Ninjor from my mother as a birthday gift, and I was immediately into it. The New Eternia figures in Masterverse have been a real sweet spot for me since they were introduced, and Ninjor—already a favorite—fits right in.

New Eternia takes a more fantastical approach to the MOTU characters, often pulling from concept art or expanding on ideas that were only lightly touched on before. Ninjor has always been a demon ninja, but here they really lean into that concept. He’s got additional armor, more dramatic claws, and an overall design that pushes him further into that supernatural space.

There are some really nice details throughout. The red eyes stand out immediately, and he comes with alternate face options. One of them is a snap-on face showing Ninjor without his zukin, revealing a mean expression with solid white eyes that really amps up his spookiness. He also includes an Oni mask, which I absolutely love. Between that, the claws, and the armor design, the Oni influence is very intentional. There are even small touches like an Oni face sculpted onto his nunchuck holster.

I say this a lot with recent MOTU releases, but this feels more like a designer toy. It’s just a really good-looking figure.

Ninjor comes with his traditional weapons—nunchucks, katana, and a bow and arrow—all styled to match his look with red flame effects and sculpted demon details. Everything about it feels cohesive and well thought out.

This feels like a high-end figure, and it’s easily my top-tier Ninjor now that I have one.

Ninja Strike As If A Force... Of Ninjas

The new Snake Eyes movie is coming out soon and with it new toys. The GI JOE Classified series has been running since last summer and has been a challenge for most to collect. Fortunately for me, I haven't been too concerned. Between the Dollar Tree figures and the Jada series my needs have been filled. Though I would like some new action figures and the movie tie in line is delivering exactly what I'd like.

When it comes to GI JOE, I like the more far out stuff. Included with that is the various ninjas. This new core Snake Eyes line pretty much a modern version of Ninja Force... and I couldn't be more happy. I say core line as it's not in the Classified series (don't worry, there's new stuff for that line as well), but more of a mainline set of action figures. 

Like Power Rangers and Star Wars toys I tend to prefer those (but I do get the occasional 'collectors series' figure). These are not 3 3/4, but 6" figures with what looks like a fair amount of articulation. Similar to core class Power Rangers toys by Hasbro. Which I've been loving. There's some fun stuff here. Of course Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are there, as well as Scarlett and The Baroness. There's also Red Ninjas and Night Creepers which fills me with pure joy. I hope more characters follow suit in this new core class series. This is more what I look for in GI JOE toys than Classified. Not to mention... I don't anticipate having as much of a hard time getting these as Classified fans have trying to get their figures. Yikes.

Mortal Kombat

Like many others, I watched the new Mortal Kombat movie this past weekend. With a Doordashed order of Red Lobster (which in itself is another post), the Mrs. and I turned on HBO Max and started the movie. I just wanted to point out that I initially misspelled 'turned' and the spelling suggestion was turd. This is a reboot of the MK film franchise after the second movie was so bad that it took 24 years to hope people forgot about it. Sadly, this wasn't wasn't that great either. 

To be fair, Mortal Kombat doesn't have a solid track record outside of the games. The first movie is a pretty well regarded B movie. Video game adaptions are usually more miss than hit. After months of hype and an awesome trailer, this looked like it was finally going to be the breakout video game movie and really nail Mortal Kombat as most view it should.

I'm honestly not crapping on the movie. I enjoyed myself while watching the movie, as not so great as it was. It was a bad movie, but a fun bad movie. Actually, the first scene was great. I wish the movie was just more of that. Kano was generally fun. So was Kabal. Sub-Zero and Scorpion? Wonderful. I wish Goro has more to do, but liked what of him was there. Mortal Kombat didn't live up to my expectations, but I still enjoyed it.

Ninjor Will Sneak Up On Your Ass

Ninjor was introduced alongside Scare Glow when Skeletor conjured two of the most evil beings from all time and space. As you can see, Ninjor follows alongside the living Halloween decoration motif of MOTU. A standard black suited ninja, but with red devil boots and gloves.

That's because Ninjor isn't a human, he's a straight up demon. That conjuring that Skeletor did was during a special time when the veil between dimensions is weak for one hour (Halloween at 3am?) So what I'm saying is Skeletor just happens to have a demon ninja in his ranks. Why not? Carpe diem.

Battle Tribes Wave 21

SHOP NOW!

Spy Monkey Creations is rolling out their newest batch of Battle Tribes figures and a new mold set! These ninjas homage various toy lines such as Karate Kommandos, GIJOE, and Microman! I've ordered Shin Urai (the orange one) instead of the whole batch as I'm normally prone to (moving soon, saving my moneys for adult stuff) but I implore you to check out their store and support this awesome indie company!

Ninja Game- Shinobi!

Shinobi is a top shelf game. It's in that upper echelon of games that is untouchable by anything. Like an expensive bottle of wine or a gourmet meal from a premier chef. It's a higher quality family of games and I fully recognize that. My favorite of the series has to be Revenge of the Shinobi for the Genesis/Mega Drive, but today I'm looking at this great commercial for the Master System version of the original game. The live action segments of the ninja flipping around and what appears to be the first stage boss makes me wish for a tokusatsu show based on the games.

Ninjor likes to kick it

I'll never be a ninja. Mainly because I'm 41. Sure I've still got a lot of life to go... but there's a window for learning somethings and I'm pretty sure the life of a middle aged cnc programmer doesn't line up to that skill set. Ninjor is a ninja though. An evil ninja, who has all the cool weapons from that glass case at the gas station. The one by the cash register that has knives, dragon ash trays, and that one stuffed tie dye bear they all seem to have.

Ninjor is 100% the awesome ninja that has graced your favorite t-shirt and is probably exactly what you want to be for Halloween. The perfect evil doer to join the ranks of Skeletor in his quest to master the universe. Man... thanks to release timing, they liked to pair him off against Clamp Champ. Clamp Champ is a fine heroic warrior who worked with He-Man quite a bit in the mini-comics and magazine. Though... his special ability was a clamp (it's in his name). Pretty sure he's loosing in a fight against a ninja.

Ninja Ryukenden/Ninja Gaiden PC Engine

Demon Hunter Mitsurugi intro

Last night, before I went to sleep, I found myself watching a few episodes of Demon Hunter Mitsurugi. I had intended to watch some Godman when stumbling across this fever dream of a toku show that despite occasionally seeing images of, I have never watched. I dug it as it's really different. Before when I'd see pictures of the ninja team, I had assumed they were wearing pilot outifits. That was totally wrong as they're wearing stylish helmets with their ninja outfits and color assigned scarfs.

The bad guys are a threat called the Scorpion Army, whom are from space despite 100% being spooky demons and monsters practicing various evil magic. Most fascinating is that the giant battles are stop motion and not suits. This makes the scense come off just a little more nightmarish as there's a freaky nature to the scenes. There's only 12 episodes, so I should have no problem watching the show entirely. It's really cool and pretty ripe for Halloween Horrorcon fodder.