 Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here, and it's time for another VintageG.i.jo toy review, and this time I am doing a requested review. Somebody actually wanted to see this one. All the time people are saying to me, why don't you look at figures that are later in the Vintage line? Why don't you look at 1990s G.I.J.Os? You want to look at 1990s G.I.J.Os? Well here you go. You want to look at the 1992 G.I.J.O. Ninja Force Ninja Swordsman, Cha-Bong! Oh! Oh! Switch it off! Switch it off! Sorry about that folks. Now I think I'm ready to look at Cha-Bong. This is Cha-Bong, G.I.J.Os Ninja Swordsman. He was first introduced in 1992, and he was part of the first wave of the subteam Ninja Force, which was also introduced in 1992. Cha-Bong was only available in 1992. He was discontinued for 1993, so you could only get a Cha-Bong action figure that year. A note about Cha-Bong's name. His name is taken from the Indonesian word for the martial arts weapon that we commonly know as a Sai, and I believe his name would be pronounced Cha-Bong, not Cha-Bang. So that's how I'm going to refer to him. Even though Cha-Bong is named after the Japanese Sai, he does not come with that weapon, and he doesn't even have one molded onto the figure. That begins a trend with this action figure of misnaming things. Now as you can see, I have Cha-Bong still sealed on the card. Now I don't normally get carded action figures, but this one was so affordable I figured why not? We can take a look at how Cha-Bong was marketed on the card. You can see Cha-Bong sealed in the bubble here, and he has a catalog here, Secret of the Dark Lagoon is the title, and that's a catalog for some mail away offers. It has his name here and his specialty, and he is fourth in the series of Ninja Force. I don't know how they chose this particular order, but he's supposed to be number four. It has his accessories here, we'll talk about those. His card art makes it look like he's doing a cheerleader high kick. He's got a promotional sticker here, and here it has his real ninja action, Spring Action Silent Backslash, and we will take a look at that. On the flip side, it has the cross sell with a special partition here for the other Ninja Force characters that were available at the time. It has some of the other Joes that were available, and then of course it has the file card again in that really hideous sort of hot pink color. Here's something I find kind of sad. By this time, flag points had been reduced to this tiny little rectangle. Let's take a look at Chabong's accessories. Now on these cards, the card contents are really not very specific, but there is a description of the accessories on the file card. The file card calls this sword an ancient ninjutsu warrior sword. This looks like a Japanese katana sword with a slightly straighter blade. It has some detail here on the handle, and then it has this S shaped guard, which is a bit different from what you usually see on traditional Japanese swords. In a previous video, we complained about the light blue accessories of recoil, while Chabong's accessories are sort of like a brighter neon version of that blue color. And what's funny is both of these guys are supposed to be stealthy, but both of them have accessories that do not serve that purpose. Chabong's next accessory is what the file card calls a curved style double edged battle axe. I have Chabong carrying this weapon by the guard, which is not the way he's supposed to be carrying it. He should be carrying it by the handle here in the middle, but I cannot get that handle in his hand. Now I have seen pictures of Chabong carrying this weapon by the handle, but for me it's just too thick, I can't get it in his hand that way, and I'm worried about breaking the thumb. Despite what the file card says, this is not any kind of battle axe. What they've done here is they've taken a real world weapon, a Chinese hooked sword, also known as a Fu Tao or a Hu Tao Gao, and they've taken two of them and grafted them together into a single weapon. This really should be two separate hooked swords, but they've sort of grafted them together and put a single handle in the middle. Now this is ridiculous, they could have just given him a real hooked sword. It would have been a nice replica of a real martial arts weapon, or give him two of them. They are traditionally used as a pair, but instead they had to graft them together and make this goofy thing. Chabong's third and final accessory reflects one of the best things about later GI Joes. It is his figure stand. Later Joes came with figure stands. The Joes from the 80s did not. This is an improvement over the 1980s GI Joes. The 80s Joes did not come with these figure stands. If we wanted a figure stand, we had to get them either with the battle gear accessory packs or one of the little battle station play sets, but it would have been nice if the figure stands had come with the figures. Let's take a look at the articulation on Chabong. He did not have the typical articulation for 1992 GI Jo action figures because he had an action feature and we will get to that. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. His neck was on a ball joint. He could move his arm up at the shoulder about so far and he could swivel his arm up at the shoulder all the way around. He did have a hinge at the elbow so he could move at the elbow about 90 degrees and he had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. The articulation at the waist is limited because of the spring loaded feature. You could turn him at the waist to the right and he would spring back. That was his real ninja action, the silent backslash. The silent backslash would make a little click when you hit the stopper. When it stopped right in the middle there. And this is not really a backslash, it's a forward slash. His action feature, silent backslash, is neither silent nor a backslash. As a kid, I did not like action features like this. I wanted them to just give me figures with normal articulation and I would make them move any way that I wanted them to. As an adult collector, I still don't like these action features. Just give me normal articulation so I can pose the figure any way I want to. These action features just get in the way. He had no ab crunch and he could not turn to the left at all. He could move his legs apart about so far, he could move his legs at the hip about 90 degrees and he could bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt design and color of Chibong and wow he is really yellow isn't he? A little bit of blue, a little bit of black but mostly yellow. You may be thinking these colors would not work very well for a ninja but in fact he is perfectly camouflaged for infiltrating a Crayola factory. So as long as he can lure his enemies there, he's fine. On his head he has this yellow mask and this mask is tied off here in the back with this soft goods tassels here and actually kind of like that. That's not too bad at all and it has this sort of tiger stripe pattern painted on it. And I mean this is not a bad detail on its own. My only problem with it is it doesn't really fit the rest of the action figure. It's the only part of the action figure where you see this tiger stripe motif and it's sort of there just to add a little bit of extra detail. It doesn't really fit with the design of the figure overall. I think his mask looks kind of like a rip off of the Marvel Comics superhero iron fist. On his chest he has this yellow pad with his crisscross pattern and when I showed this to my daughter she said he looks like a pineapple and I can't disagree with that. He has a pineapple chest pad. He has some black straps that continue around to the back and we can see an extension of his black belt. Unlike most GI Joe action figures, Chabong does not have a screw in his back and that's because of his action feature. He's constructed a bit differently than most GI Joe action figures. Most GI Joe action figures in the back had this screw and that's also where you would peg in the backpack. The consequences of that, you cannot use a traditional GI Joe backpack with Chabong. Also you cannot take the figure apart if you need to do maintenance. Chabong's arms are sculpted with some muscular detail and these sort of black rope tassels sculpted around his biceps and then he has these yellow pads over his forearms and part of his hands and those are pretty well detailed. That's probably the best detail on this action figure. On his waist piece he has kind of a plain black belt, not much detail there and he has blue trousers and on his trousers he has some seams sculpted on. He has a seam that runs down his right thigh and another one that runs across and then on his left leg he has what the file card calls multi-fragment concussion grenades. These are the only modern weapons on Chabong but they do look like real concussion grenades. On his lower legs he has this yellow padding over his boots and knee pads, real knee pads so I have to give him props for that and here he has what the file card calls shin secured throwing stars. These do look like real Japanese shuriken, I'm not sure what the advantage would be of having them on your shin. The yellow padding covers the top of his foot, he has black boots and there is some detail here of where the padding is tied around his leg. Let's take a look at Chabong's file card. As you can see the file card is printed on the back of the card on which he is packaged and this sort of hot pink, purple color was apparently a theme for Ninja Force, I don't know why they chose this color scheme but they did the file card in that color too and that is so loud it hurts the eyes, it makes you not want to read it. On this file card we have sort of a double portrait, we have a close up of Chabong here and then we have this full view of him in the same pose as on the front of the card. And he's doing his cheerleader high kick and then he has these number references here to describe the different features on the figure. The listed features include the curved style double edged battle axe, the ancient ninjutsu warrior sword, the multi-fragment concussion grenades which are on the wrong leg, the shin secured throwing stars, the forearm armor plating, the lower leg battle armor, the ammo battle belt which contains no ammo and the bullet proof and puncture proof chest protector. His code name is Chabong and he's the ninja swordsman, his file name is Sam Laquale, his primary military specialty is martial arts swordsman, his secondary military specialty is infantry, his birthplace is East Greenwich Rhode Island and his grade is E7. Now this doesn't make a lot of sense, he has a military pay grade so he's not just a ninja, he was or is a member of the U.S. armed forces and he's from Rhode Island, he's not Japanese. Now it is possible for a Caucasian guy from Rhode Island to become a ninja but since a ninja training is a lifelong activity that should normally be started at a very young age, it just isn't very likely. Now Snake Eyes is another American who started his ninja training as an adult but we suspend our disbelief for Snake Eyes because Snake Eyes. This section has a quote and apparently it's a quote by Chabong about himself. He says of himself, I put my fear behind me and my skill before me, thus I am unassailable. This section says a former disciple of the master swordsman of Storm Shadows Ninja Clan, Chabong forged and honed his own personal sword precisely balanced for his ultra secret technique known only as the silent backslash. This is referring to Storm Shadow, the former Cobra ninja turned G.I. Joe ally and close friend of Snake Eyes. Chabong developed his ominous form by swiping at flying bats in the deep caverns in a remote mountain range. It just says he swiped at flying bats, it doesn't say he hit them, so maybe he's not very good at his ominous form and that's why it's an ultra secret. So he spent years swiping at bats in caves so he could learn how to do this. No one who has ever seen him using it has ever lived to tell about it. Well then how does anybody know he can do it? Maybe this is because anyone who sees him using it realizes that Chabong is not very good at his technique so Chabong shoots him. Chabong has sworn an oath of silence for reasons known only to his second cousin Storm Shadow. Wait, so he's the second cousin of Storm Shadow but he was born in Rhode Island? How did that happen? And what possible reason would he have for his oath of silence that would only be known to Storm Shadow? It was his New England accent. We all thought it was ridiculous for a ninja to talk like Ted Kennedy. When he's not engaged in deep meditation, Chabong charges into combat while flying the G.I. Joe battle copters. So you better run out to your toy store and buy some battle copters kids. So those are his only two activities, deep meditation and charging into combat. He doesn't break for lunch, he doesn't go to the bathroom, just meditation and combat. Chabong did appear in both the G.I. Joe comic book and in the Deke era animated series. Now I'm not familiar with either of those appearances but from what I've read in the animated series, he has lines. He actually speaks. So apparently somebody at Deke did not get the memo about his oath of silence. I'm not sure what Chabong brings to the table. G.I. Joe already had a much more famous non-speaking ninja, Snake Eyes. Looking at Chabong overall, this color scheme would not have been my first choice. Although I do like the cloth tassel on his head, overall I do not find this figure to be very well designed. This figure is an example of the changes in later G.I. Joe that did not appeal to fans of earlier G.I. Joe like me. I would have preferred to not have the action feature and have normal articulation. I'm sure there are fans of 1990s G.I. Joe that like Chabong. I respect your preferences, although my preferences differ. How would I rate Chabong? I would not rate him very highly. That was my review of Chabong. I hope you enjoyed it. I really hope somebody enjoyed it. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more G.I. Joe Tore reviews and for next week I've got something planned that's really cool. And don't forget to like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter. You get a lot of updates there you don't get anywhere else. Thanks for watching and tune in next week for a review that I promise is going to be pretty cool. I'll see you then. Soon all the Joe's will be mine. Never. Clone down. The Joe's attack with battle copters and air commandos that really fly. But Cobra counter attacks so the Joe's at least ninja force with real ninja action. The Storm set out Nunchuck and Shepanak. But Cobra's got Slice and Ace. Joe and Cobra ninja force battle copters and air commandos all serve in Cobra's fist.