KR|Horizon Review #7: Sajron

Toy prototype details

Name: Sajron^TM

Subtitle: young apprentice hero

Line: KR|Horizon

Item type: action figure - Nº 6 in the line.

Character details

Name: Sajron

Classification: human with one-quarter primivod genetic material

Sex: male

Relationships: son of Desion (Masq-Lor) and Sei-Lha

Home: Tahron

Era: 15 years after Foundation

Affiliation: Theriom

Rank: trainee.

Background

First appearance: KR|Horizon #1 - The Destructomorph legacy

Brief bio: in the years following Deptilion’s defeat, Desion was elected Senior Minister of the Republic, and his wife Sei-Lha, the new enchantress at the service of the Therioms, gave birth to their son Sajron. The boy, blessed with paranormal abilities like his mother, grew up treated indulgently in Theriom City, knowing little of the past five hundred years' war between good and evil, until Nemhetra revived the Destructomorph threat. When Sajron's parents confronted Nemhetra's evil forces, he disobeyed their command to stay safe and instead set to fight alongside the Theriom army. His incredible potential was revealed to him the moment he wore his father’s helmet and, to everybody’s astonishment, successfully transformed into an enhanced warrior, helping turn the tide of the conflict. Because of his new-found passion for military combat, Masq-Lor trained Sajron in the ways of battle before greater evils could return to Tahron. Eventually, he made peace with Nemhetra and soon, together with his father's siblings, undertook the role of protecting the Key and the still-powerful multiversal walls from a fearsome and mysterious new menace. Though still young when first entrusted with the tremendous responsibility of defending Tahron from those baleful forces, Sajron followed in his father's footsteps by quickly growing into his role as a hero.

Articulation

Standard.

Description

Head: olive brown skin, very short box-braided dark-brown hair; his left eye is green, while his right eye is blue. He definitely resembles both his parents

Body: slightly shorter than the adult characters (only 14 cm, around 5.5"), olive brown skin, exposed arms. His hands wear a pair of black leather fingerless gloves

Wearables: an open mustard-yellow vest with silver edges and armholes, two silver bracelets, two silver boots, a belt with an off-white (i.e., a white colour with a grey tinge that looks like tarnished silver) buckle resembling the Theriom symbol (i.e., a seven-pointed star with the two side points elongated), and a pair of mustard-yellow trousers. The vest is worn over a short-sleeved frog-button black shirt (whose mandarin collar is open enough to reveal part of the big gold necklace –given to him by his father– underneath) accompanied by a shoulder belt. Both the shoulder and the waist belts are made of thick silver chain mail punctuated by braided black leather.

Action feature

To make up for being a bit smaller than average and for having few accessories, the figure comes with the materials needed for performing a magic trick, which relates to Sajron's passion for prestidigitation. In fact, in the comics he doesn't seem interested in developing his unfledged paranormal powers, except for performing magic tricks and making them more spectacular. The set includes:
•Two small, beautifully executed boxes, which resemble the two multiversal walls (one silvery/limestone-ish and one golden/sandstone-ish, with the two “portals” on their top sides) and open in a similar fashion to a match box

•Four pairs of cards (each identical pair representing one of the four KR|Foundation factions - Theriom, Destructomorph, Rexodon and Spektrosaur), which fit in either box

•A miniature version of the Key.

To perform the trick, you must open one of the two boxes, show that the drawer is empty, drop one of four different cards inside, close the drawer and lock the box using the small Key. You may want to shake the box, letting your audience hear the card rattle inside. Then, open the second box, show that the drawer is empty, close the drawer and lock the box. Make a big deal about the box being empty - shake it to prove there’s nothing inside. Do some tapping on the first box and say a few magic words, unlock the box, slide out the drawer and show that the box is now empty. Unlock the second box, open it and show that the card is inside it.

Here's how it works. When you lock the first box, you simply turn the Key clockwise (a sculpted curved arrow pointing towards a closed lock symbol will indicate the correct direction), without pushing it down; when you unlock it, you have to push the Key down while you turn it anti-clockwise (also in this case, a sculpted curved arrow pointing towards an open lock symbol will indicate the correct direction), in order to engage a mechanism that makes a hinged side-flap swing down and cover the card inside the box. When you lock the second box, you have to push the Key down while you turn clockwise, to engage an identical mechanism that makes a hinged flap swing up and uncover the card (hidden by you beforehand) inside the box; when you unlock it, you simply turn the Key anti-clockwise, to prevent the mechanism from working. There are little sculpted lines (one horizontal below the open lock and one vertical at the side of the closed lock) that indicate the position into which the flap will move when you push and turn the Key in a specific direction.

The trick has both advantages and disadvantages. The main benefit is that it can be repeated immediately (with the order of the boxes reversed) and with no need to move the flaps back into place before performing. The downsides are that you can't ask the audience to choose a card from the 4-piece deck (you have to choose and prepare it prior to the performance) and that the Key-turning action is a clear indication that some manoeuvring is going on. However, I think it is a quite nice addition, even if someone may see this trick as a rather pointless silly gimmick. Perhaps something that interacts with Sajron would be far more welcome. Update: the figure will include a pretty large, flat "magic burst" effect that fits over Sajron's left hand and shows off his magical powers in action. This yellow magic accessory is kind of opalescent and includes some white stars that are painted to give further depth to the effect.

Weapons and accessories

In the comics, aside from being a dexterous illusionist, Sajron is also depicted as a skilful flail-fighter. So, apart from his magic trick, Sajron comes with a magic wand composed of a relatively long golden-yellow staff that has a flanged silver top ornament on it. This wand has the ability to transform into a two-handed flail consisting of a cylindrical silver striking head attached to the golden-yellow handle by a short (no more than a few links to form a hinge) chain, so that the former swings from the latter. The cylindrical head of this weapon is shaped with seven knife-edged flanges, making it capable of penetrating the enemies' armours with no problem. You can make the staff into either its plain or weaponized version by way of two swappable top pieces.

The figure also comes with an alternative head that wears Masq-Lor's helmet (in its inactive form) as well as an alternate left hand that has sculpted coloured pellets and a plume of smoke emanating from them.

Final thoughts

Character value: ♦♦♦ I was initially against the entire concept of a son of Masq-Lor, which prevented me from digging this character, but his bio eventually grew on me. I’m into the past, present, and future of Tahron, and it looks like Sajron is pretty much an integral part of the last-mentioned one

Articulation: ♥♥♥ Being a fairly simple figure, he doesn’t suffer any particular loss of the KR-standard articulation, meaning that he can pose much like any other figure

Sculpt and paint: ♣♣♣♣ The head sculpt, both with and without helmet, is what makes or breaks this figure. He certainly looks related to his parents, and the detail is quite strong, but he also honestly looks a bit older than the teen he is supposed to be. His paint is overall clean, without any really visible errors, and I like that his colour scheme contrasts nicely with his parents' tendencies toward gold, brown or light-blue

Accessories: ♠♠♠ He features a neat smoke bomb hand that’s an interesting effect, even more than the magic trick itself in my opinion

Playability: ♪♪♪♪ Just judging him from a pure figure standpoint, Sajron can be a lot of fun. He can get into any number of battle-ready poses and looks great posing with his wand/flail

Overall: ☺☺☺ Basically, my least favourite figure in the series turns out to be a good toy. If you don’t like Sajron as a character, you will not want him. But if you don’t mind or even enjoy the concept, he’s actually a well-sculpted and decently-made part of the line. He doesn't stand out like some of the great prototypes produced so far in the Horizon series, but he’s a pretty good figure going by his own merits. On a different note - even if it only appears briefly in the comics, I hope one day we'll see the regular scale prototype of his enhanced form.