Ryoga is an interesting character in his actions in the Ranma 1/2 series. He has this eternal rivalry towards the titular character in so many ways, down to them fighting over the love of Akane Tendo. They eventually mellow out, yet the two boys still fight, especially since Ryoga would later be cursed with turning into a pig after falling into the pond where an actual pig drowned. That pig is P-Chan, whom we last saw in Akane's review as an accessory. With all that said, is it me, or is Ryoga the Wario to Ranma's Mario? Anyways, let's review this guy!
Here we have Ryoga Hibiki in-hand, who is sculpted in an outfit similar to Ranma's, only with the yellow and black motif instead of red and blue. Of course, they don't reuse any parts beyond maybe the hands, as the wrinkles and attire are distinct. The general proportions match how he appeared in the series, though the gaps on Ryoga's shoulders are more noticeable than Ranma's, which might be due to the yellow color making some of these articulation cuts more noticeable than with red. I do like that he has some yellow straps (if that's what they're called) for his lower legs, as they're given a good few layers of paint so as not to look unfinished and cheap. As for the feet, they're shaped similarly to the shoes Ranma wears, yet they're somehow harder for him to stand upright than they should be.
His head sculpt is done as well as one would hope with the other characters in the Ranmaverse, with a bit of gray "shading" on the eyes as well as a bit of red paint to simulate the mouth on him. I do like that his headband is painted properly without any blemishes or faint coats of paint you'd find in other figures with yellow deco apps. His accessories include a backpack, an umbrella, and a storage piece meant to store his umbrella, an adaptor for the flight stand, three alternate faces (startled, yelling, annoyed), 6 pairs of alternate hands, a green case molded onto a left hand, and a base for his flight stand...with the claw and neck not included.
Getting to these display options is very annoying, especially with how little wiggle room there is to slide the backpack onto the arms (even worse with how the peg that goes into the backpack can only go in a certain way). I also don't feel comfortable attaching the case-holding left arm, mostly with how frail the string molded between the box and hand feels. It also turned out that the left hand either has been molded weirdly or some hands can't attach onto the ball joint. I know the gestural left hand that is close to being flat have smaller peg holes, and I hate it whenever a premium figure has molding errors like that. I also have a black dot on his left hand as seen in the third pic. It's almost like a weird birth mark, though I don't know if they're common on palms.
He has two ball joints (one for the head and another for the neck), two shoulder joints (one on a rotator cuff a la the McFarlane DC Multiverse line and another attached at the arm), past-90 degree bends at the elbows, and similar joints at the wrists like with the neck. The diaphragm and the torso are each on a ball joint, as are the hips. The knees bend past 90 degrees, ankles rotate, hinge, and pivot in addition to toe-ticulation.
Anyways, here is a random size comparison with The Penguin, seen here mostly with Ryoga doing the soyjak pointing meme. I honestly don't know how to feel about this one, as Ryoga's quality control issues take some points away from what could be an otherwise great addition to the small Ranma collection. Maybe it's just me not being comfortable with stuff like this, but with how rare this figure is, I have every right to be concerned for molding issues and quality control! He looks great, and the accessories are plentiful, but he could have been refined a bit more. If you want to get this figure, buy him at a reasonable price AND at your own dismay.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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