May 13, 2023

Channel 6 Ninja Crew: a Rant...

 I joked about this in a previous rant, but let's figure this out for the halibut...
So, we have Ninja April, but no Channel 6 crew... now we have Burne, Vernon, and Irma who for some zany reason are Ninjas now... but in a late 1980s to early 1990s toy company filter.
While this is not meant to be taken seriously, I will take it seriously and try to do the Best Ninja Crew that Channel 6 could ever have:

Ninja Burne:
Visually speaking he'd have some inspiration from Sumo Wrestlers due to his more rotund shape. Ideally, I'd like to share parts with Tattoo, but the Tattoos from the Toon and Archie Comics are far too big to share parts with Burne... so I'm going to Improvise. 
I'm thinking, have a normal shirtless fat body, with ninja styled dark blue pants and wrapped lower legs and sandals. A soft goods sleeveless light blue kimono that can be worn normally OR can hang down his waist like E. Honda's. Maybe ninja style wrapped wrists so his arms aren't completely bare. 
For heads, he gets 3:
Head 1:
Normal Burne head, but his face is painted white with the 六 numeral painted on his face in bright red. Yes, that's Roku, the 6 in Japanese. I specifically selected it because it's a 6 and mostly symmetrical in design and a huge nod to him being the Channel 6 Boss.
Head 2:
Open mouth head that can be used for laughing, screaming or scarfing down onigiri, with the same facepaint as head 1.
Head 3:
Normal Burne with a Samurai Oni themed Mouthguard.

For hands let's say about 10:
-C-grip hands with both vertical and horizontal
-Sumo slap hands
-Expressive hands that can hold another Sumo Wrestler's Mawashi or a couple of Onigiri.
-Fists 

For accessories:
-2× Onigiri (1 bitten, the other intact)
- Channel 6 Logo inspired Gunbai with hidden blade. (Gunbai is a wooden fan that is shaped like a paddle. Think the Uchiha emblem from Naruto.) That's 2 weapons in one.
- 2× Takoyaki on sticks... These are Burne's "Shuriken".
-studio light with stand. Normal studio light, but you can remove the light and stand from the pole and attach the gunbai and blade to make a "battle spear".
For Burne's heads I thought of heads that should come first with the normal Burne with the repaints being for this Ninja figure. I tried to stay on the Sumo Ninja theme and have some subtle nods to the Playmates toon Burne. The Onigiri are a nod to the sandwich, while the Takoyaki are a nod to the weaponized hoagie. 
Ninja Vernon:
Of course his outfit will be in Vernon colors.
He's a bit more inspired by the "stagehand ninjas" in appearance.
Traditional ninja pants and feet. He gets a sleeved top looking like a traditional ninja from the neck down.
For heads, he gets 3:
Head 1:
Ninja Headband covering his eyes. (Think blind swordsman Kenshi from Mortal Kombat)
Head 2:
WOOOOOOOO! head... (think Bruce Lee)
Head 3:
Masked head...
But with Vernon... if he came from the Toy Chest, I'd make a panty raid joke.
For hands let's use about 12:
-the 4 c-grips with horizontal and vertical hinges.
-fists
-expressive hands
-"Hadoken" hands.
-2 finger pointing hands (like foot soldier's)
Accessories:
-studio light with stand. Light hides a Zatoichi styled sword.
-Karai's kusarigama
-2× tonfa
-2× shuriken 


For Vernon, the Blind swordsman head is a nod to blindfolded Vernon head from NECA and the toon. The "WOOOOOOOO! Head is meant to be usable on the normal figure as well. Originally I wanted to go Heavily inspired by Jin Sakai, but Vernon is too cowardly to be Samurai-like. I ended up using Zatoichi as a huge reference, but keeping the Channel 6 theme made me deviate a little. Thank goodness for Burne to helping me find a better direction. It was a bit hard to make nods to the vintage toy stuff with him. Originally Irma had the tonfa and Vernon had the fans, but I switched them out. 

Ninja Irma:
Now this one is the hardest to picture. .y iriginal inspiration for Irma was Miko Mido from a certain genre that I can't mention here but sounds like Hen and Tie combined. Samuel L Jackson likes it too! But Miko's outfit is a bit too risque for a Nickelodeon character, so I went for a more conservative approach. But the whole Anime/videogame Kunoichi vibe kept me going with her.
Picture Irma in a knee length sleeveless catsuit. Over that, an outfit similar to Maki from Final Fight in light blue and purple. Lower legs and forearms should be similar to Aska's but in Irma's colors. Also she wears a Huge and removable purple Scarf on her neck.

Heads she gets 3:
Head 1:
Normal Irma with a red Bandana.
Head 2:
Irma in the "silly me" face (winking while sticking her tongue out)
Head 3:
Irma with puffed cheeks blowing (can be used as angry face too!)

Hands about 12:
-Fists
-karate chop hands
- 4 C-grip, horizontal and vertical hinges
-dramatic hands
- peace/Victory sign
Accessories:
-Blowgun, hence the blowing head.
-3× kunai
-2× fans opened
-2× fans closed.

So this is how I ended up with a Magical Girl/Anime Ninja inspired Irma. The idea behind her heads is that her silly me head and the blowgun heads could be used on the normal Irma as well. The fans are a nod to Mai Shiranui or Kitana. The Blowgun was originally for Vernon as well, but since I removed the Sakai out of Vernon, the Blowgun became Irma's. The only vestige left is the Bruce Lee WOOOOOOOO! Head on him. I originally wantwd to jave a blonde head as a nod to the manga Irma, but I decided against it.

I know this was a joke, but I did take it oretty seriously... so what do you think? Is there potential in these? Let's pretend their price isn't a factor and that normal versions would be released before these variants would happen; under these parameters, would you be interested in them? What would you change to make them more desirable? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment