Pvblivs Samurai just when you think plastic figure makers have call it quits for the year along comes Pvblivs with one more offering for this year. Their final offering for the year is completely outside Russian history; Japanese samurai. The Japanese samurai were the military arm of Japan for many years. From the medieval period up to modern Japan the samurai were a dominant force and only started to lose power after the arrival Commodore Perry. Today the samurai have been quite popular in Japan in books, movies and television. The art of bushido has been incorpaeated into western culture as well because of the similarity to the knight’s code of honor.
Once again the Russian company Pvblivs has come of with six fantastic poses. The six Pvblivs samurai poses are samurai charging with spear or yari, shogun in a crouching pose, samurai with sword or as it is known in Japan katana overhead, samurai with spear overhead, samurai firing long bow or yumi and samurai with a katana at waist. The poses are very realistic showing that Pvblivs took sometime in looking into how the weapons are handled. I think my favorite pose is the archer. I like his stance and how he is holding the bow to fire it.
The Pvblivs samurai figures are already for sale on EBay. The price for the six figures are $49.99 plus $8.00 for postage. The Pvblivs samurai are being sold by Denitz a regular contributor from Saint Petersburg Russia. He has already sold one of the five sets he has available. If the link I have included under the word Ebay does not work then search by the title Publius samurai.
I will be curious to see how these figures sell as it the United States it might not be a big seller as in Japan.
As for the future items from Pvblivs we have an advance photo of a Russian sailor pulling machine gun. When will this be out we have no idea, but we are sure we will see a lot of exciting figures from Pvblivs in 2016.
These are nice figures but have some odd problems. The Diamyo figure looks like he should have a stool to sit on. The one with the sword overhead is using it left handed which is quite unusual for a samurai , the manuals I have seen seem to indicate that the katana is a right handed weapon. The figure with the sword at the waist also seems to be holding it left handed.
They are a nice additions to a collection as Samurai are not easy to find in plastic.
The figure with the spear overhead is modelled as a Monk or Priest with a head cowl.
I think the Archer is a great pose.
I would imagine that these figures will be available in metal shortly as with most of the other figures from this maker , it’s almost cheaper to buy them this way than in plastic 🙂
You are correct. Katanas are a right handed weapon. You draw from the left side of your body with the right at the top of the hilt and the left holding the scabbard. The left hand would then grasp the bottom of the katana and hold it in front of you.
This is why kimonos and gis(martial arts training uniforms) are worn left over right. The sword will not get caught in the fabric.
Other way around they are extracted or cloned from metal figures.most from these factory are as opposed to EB that design their own.
I’m my self a fan of samurai and collect the figures in plastic most from Japan and word in many scales. I do have a lot of odd figures to show if desire but I can guarantee the left hand was indeed practiced and adopted .
The sword was ALWAYS worn on the left side over hip, so it could only be drawn with the RIGHT hand. But…
This was the line of etiquettes followed all over Japan. Many of the famous swordsman were left handed, among them:
Miyamoto Musashi
the founder of Komagawa Kaishin Ryu
They were all under the constraints of the time and adapted differently.
Source(s):
2nd Dan, Iaido
1st Dan, Karatedo
4th Kyu, Jujutsu
Miyamoto Musashi developed a two-handed style, using swords in both hands. He developed this after seeing some Portuguese fight with sword and dagger. When he was fighting with one sword, he was right handed.
http://homepage1.nifty.com/hidex/left/left2e.html
Musashi was left handed, even thought it is true that he fought right handed when using one sword. the reason for this is that, for many of the reasons discussed above, the fighting stlye of the Samurai was to have the Katana on the left-hand side of the body, drawn with the right hand, this is how he would have been taught.
While there was some left-handed Samurai(about-18%) according to Japanese sources it was very rare for them to use a sword at all time, what many people seem to forget was that the Samurai were experts with bow and all other type spear too, either of these styles would suit a left-hender better than the sword. The figures depict correct adaptation of unique style.
But the actual pose in fact has his katana in correct side still not draw yet; what he has in hand is the heavy sword used only in battle against infantry formation to brake in lines of spearman usually. A derivate of Odachi type or may be cavalry style Tachi.
Last pose with extreme open legs represent the right moment before keippi action step, he suppose to retreat in wile complete kneel front leg against ground to let foe pass stroke over so he can deliver a lower direct strike in to oppose abdomen area=(Do)
Very nice Figures again !
One thing I notice is that Pvblivs plastic used is very fragile,specially in the ancient/medieval figures with blade/else weapons, they often broke easy.EB plastic is much better. Considering the very high price ,the company should change the material soon if they want to keep a good reputation .I had receive several sets in damage =weapons-condition, so other buyers I heard too. And to make matter worst I try different glues and it hold the part broken back but not too strong.
Ironically the first 3 sets ever done (Teutonic and romans ) were done in a very different and much better material.
These are plastic figures, they should be made today with better quality material, there is enough to choose from to avoid this.
I wish other companies would notice this problem too.
The new Airfix figures, the Pegasus Fallshirmjager and some others suffer the same problems.
Is this caused by using the cheaper limited production aluminium moulds ? The EB figures are made using some kind of centrifugal casting method and suffer the same problems as some of the Replicants figures, where the centre of the figure is not fully compacted , so when you cut through it the material crumbles, of course you only notice this if you are converting them.
Good advice Erwin !
AMEN, Erwin! I have a few of the Engineer Bassevich figures and, tho’ high-priced, are of very pure polyethelene: nearly unbreakable.
Yes, some Replicants don’t cut very well, it’s almost like they rip instead of a clean cut, not all of them, but some.
More excited about the Soviet Navil Troops.