There are some things this figure does very right, and some things that are slight speed bumps.
Starting off, the sculpt came out really good. Lion-O's hair is the type that is really hard to translate well into 3 dimensions (like most anime hair, im looking at you DBZ), but it works to give him a realistic appearance while maintaining that trademark hairstyle.
most of the sculpting cues will feel very familiar and are similar to other figures of this type (like MOTUC and DCUC), and i was glad to see that extra attention was taken to fully sculpt his shirt instead of simply painting the various details. He also has a very nicely sculpted and wonderfully painted belt, with a very clean Thundercats emblem. I should note that the belt is not glued in place, and has the tendency to move around a bit when posing him.
One major difference in Lion-O's sculpt from other lines, is he has some leg muscle that is sculpted as part of the thigh cut, which actually gives his legs a more natural look when posing him
Articulation:
Lion-O here has one of the highest articulation counts that i have seen in a while, lets jump into a breakdown
*hinged neck (allows back and forth)
*disk/post shoulders
*bicep cut
*hinged elbows
*disk/post wrists
*ball joint hands (only allows for rotation)
-the wrist and hand articulation combine for a full range of motion at the wrist
*mid-torso (very tight, only minor front/back movement)
*ball joint waist (full range of motion)
*disk/post hips
*thigh cut
*double hinged knees
*boot top cut (rotation)
*hinged ankles
*foot tilt
Lion-O comes with 2 right hands, 1 relaxed hand, 1 sword gripping hand. he has a relaxed left hand that is interchangeable with the Claw Shield that clips directly on the ball joint. When not in use, the Claw Shield can hang from a small plastic strap that clips into a hole in Lion-O's side. One drawback here is that the Claw Shield is rather large, and doesnt hang on his side very well. You have to position the strap just right in order for it to stay on his side, and even then, Lion-O's left arm must stick out from his body because of the space the Claw Shield takes up.
The Sword of Omens is included in both dagger and extended forms. Both are a basic, yet nice looking silver with the Thundercats emblem on the sword and the Eye of Thundera on the dagger. The dagger can be holstered securely in the Claw Shield as well.
The extended Sword of Omens suffers from very soft plastic. Leaving the sword in ANY position will cause it to warp due solely to gravity. I thought i could combat this problem by having the blade's edge perfectly up and down, but the sword still warped, giving my Sword of Omens the overall shape of a katana.
This figure does have a few more glaring drawbacks, however. First, Lion-O has a very shiny appearance, especially his face and hair, giving him a decidedly cheap look. the beautiful sculpt is overshadowed by how boring and muddled he looks due to not having any paint apps other than the trim on his costume.
There was a SDCC exclusive version of this figure that had metallic paint and a serious wash over his body. The wash on that figure ended up being excessive and made the figure look dirty. For future figures, I hope that Bandai can find a balance between the overly dirty wash on the SDCC figure, and the overly basic look of this figure.
My main detractor of this figure is the scale. At over 8in tall, Lion-O towers over the majority of the figures in my collection. There had been hopes throughout the fandom that this line would be compatible with MOTUC, but that is far from how things turned out. Any figures i had that were not ridiculously small by comparison, ended up being ridiculously big by comparison. They have managed to scale this line perfectly to fit in with absolutely nothing. The only figure i could find in my collection that came anywhere close to looking appropriate next to Lion-O is Cloud from the Final Fantasy Advent Children line, which is itself a strangely scaled figure, and that isnt really a perfect fit either.
i read that this line was supposed to be scaled to fit with the original line of figures, but seeing the new figure next to the original, that makes even less sense, as the original line is about the same size as the current MOTUC line.
The articulation and sculpt give this figure all kinds of play value (or posing value), and this really shouldnt be that hard of a decision for fans of the original show, especially at $16.99 (unless you shop at Toys R Us, then it is $19.99), which is a steal compared to similar figures (MOTUC @ $20 and DCUC @ $ 15.99).
If you see him in stores, even if you are disappointed with aspects of the figure like I was, you will still feel like he is well worth the money
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