Well, it is mighty nice to be all caught up and looking at a Matty Subscription figure in the same month that I received it. And that’s even with Matty’s slow shipping combined with February’s fewer days working against me. There were actually three figures for us Subbers in February, the first was Ninjor here and the other two were the Snake Armor He-Man and King Hssss 2-pack, which I’ll be holding over for next week. I gotta admit, I had absolutely no idea that Ninjor was a thing from the vintage line, but then I’ve never made my ignorance of all things MOTU to be a big secret. Another thing about me that isn’t a secret is I got tired real fast of what I like to call the “Ninja Saturation” of all the 80’s and 90’s toy lines. That shit practically took over GI Joe and can’t we all agree that straight up Teenage Mutant Turtles was so much better before Ninjas got involved? Wait, what?

There’s the packaging and it’s the same old awesome deco we’ve been seeing all along. There are, however, two things worth noting. First, it doesn’t say Ninjor on the front of the package, just “Ninja Warrior.” At first, I thought Ninjor just ran afoul of copyright law, but then I noticed he is referred to as Ninjor in the bio. What the hell, Matty? Of course, it concerns me not, as this package will be in the garbage two minutes after I bust this guy out. The other odd thing is the explosion of text that declares, “Uses special Ninja weapons to chop down foes!” Hey, Matty, I thought that exposition explosion was reserved for when you call reissued figures “The Original!” I just feel like up is down today. Anyway, I suppose one lone Ninja swimming in my Masters Classics soup can’t be all that bad. Let’s check him out…

Aww, yeah! This dude is bad ass! The black, red, silver and gold deco is so strikingly beautiful and that sculpted dragon and dagger emblem on his chest is superb. It almost looks like the dagger could be pulled out even though it can’t. Ninjor comes out of the package wearing one of those standard He-Man furry barbarian diapers, but he has a far more ornate belt and sash that you can attach around his waist. I think sans-belt sash is more of a vintage look, but there’s no way I’m ever displaying this guy without the sash. It’s gorgeously sculpted and painted and looks like the décor right out of a Chinese Restaurant lobby. Other finer points worth mentioning include the different texturing used for his shoulder straps and the little painted pins that are supposed to be securing his shoulder pads down. I wasn’t sure I was going to be sold on the creature feet, but in person I don’t mind them at all. They just make him look all the more freaky and intimidating. Yup, in the end, it’s obvious that a lot of love and attention was put into Ninjor’s costume and it surely paid off.

Ninjor includes two portraits. The stock head is masked allowing you to only see his narrow red pupil-less eyes and the bridge of his nose. With a quick head pop-and-swap, you also can display him with his unmasked head and might I say it is quite a phenomenal sculpt. Ninjor is sporting a fiendish looking stache and goatee and a pair of eyebrows that would make Peter Capaldi jealous. He also features some unfortunate male pattern baldness, but he compensates with a ponytail laced up and sticking straight out the back of his noggin. Toss in those gritting teeth and creepy red eyes and you’ve got one formidable looking foe wih loads of personality!

Despite his line of work, Ninjor isn’t any more nimble than any of the other male folk from Eternia. In other words, you get standard articulation here. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, swivels at biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and hinged at the knees. There are swivels at the tops of the boots and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. Ninjor can swivel at the waist, he has a ball joint at the neck, and despite his bulky vest, he can still make use of his ab crunch hinge.

Ninjor comes with a nice array of weapons to help him kill the good guys. You get a bow and arrow, a quiver of arrows, a katana sword, and a set of nunchuks. The bow and arrow is nothing special. It’s all sculpted in one piece and painted silver, so it doesn’t look particularly great and with Ninjor’s bulkiness and articulation being what it is, good luck getting him to hold it convincingly. I almost wish they had just sculpted it without the arrow knocked.

The sword and nunchuks on the other hand are both very cool. More then a few MOTUC accessories these days feel like they’ve been lacking paint apps, like… for example… oh, hey, the bow that I just looked at! That’s certainly not the case with the katana and chuks. The katana has a silver painted blade and the hilt and pommel are actually painted separately from the black braided grip making it a very impressive little piece of work. Even the simplistic paint job on the chuks, with the silver chain and black ends is a welcome treat.

Lastly, you have the quiver. It’s brown and textured to look like leather with silver painted arrows sculpted to look like they’re sticking out of the top. The coolest thing about the quiver is that it has clips for the bow and either the sword or chuks, so Ninjor can wield one weapon and comfortably wear the rest on his back. I always respect a figure that can carry all of their gear.

And so, Ninjor turned out to be the little Ninja that could. He won my heart over thanks to his great coloring, fantastic sculpt, and his fun little arsenal of killing tools. I’m going to be hard pressed to decide which head to display him with, as I love the work that went into the unmasked head, but the masked head looks great too. I’d be tempted to pick up a couple more and leave them masked as his goons, but Ninjor was a popular fella and he sold out. The only other downside of Ninjor is that he makes me wish I had picked up Jitsu back before he hit $75 on the secondary market. It would be cool to have a nemesis for Ninjor to fight, but even I have my limits on what I’m willing to spend on these figures. Too bad, Matty didn’t roll him out again for the February Sale. It seems like a missed opportunity.