Bushido (1993)

Have you ever seen a snow ninja? How about a snow ninja who wears a samurai helmet? How about a snow ninja who hails from Hollis, Queens, NY? How about a snow ninja from Hollis, Queens, NY who also wears high top sneakers?

Well, you’ve seen it now. This is Bushido, the Ninja Force’s snow ninja. Why does the Joe team need a snow ninja? Because it was the 90’s, and ninjas were everywhere, especially in the Joe universe. Plus you’d be a fool not to have one when you’re in a snowball fight. The story goes that Lloyd S. Goldfine here trained himself in cold weather to heighten his senses and increase his discipline. The file card even says that he trained in Iceland, which sounds appropriate until you realize that Iceland isn’t covered in ice. It’s actually Greenland. Oh well.

The mold is mostly a reuse of Nunchuk (another New York ninja–what’s up with that?) with a newly sculpted samurai helmeted head. The inclusion of samurai regalia and a samurai namesake (bushido means “way of the warrior” and is a samurai code of ethics) seems a bit strange for a ninja, but the file card says that he has great respect for tradition and family pride, which is why he wears the helmet of his warrior father. Wait a minute–isn’t his last name Goldfine? Doesn’t sound like a Japanese name. If his father wasn’t of Japanese descent, was he just some crazy New Yorker who ran around in a samurai helmet? Maybe he’s Japanese on his mother’s side. Okay, I should just stop.

The colors are pure 90’s vibrant, yet still make sense for the character. Light blue with white makes for nice snow attire, and the striped camo pattern on the legs adds some interest. As usual for the time, the accessories were numerous and all molded in one color. I can’t get away without mentioning the “Ninja Action” feature. All of the figures in the sub-line incorporated spring-loaded actions in their arms, legs or waists. Naturally this resulted in loss articulation at the waist, but that never bothered me as much as the side effect of chunkier torsos, and heads that tended to sit a little too high on the shoulders.