 The last two videos have been collaborations. I worked with the Dragon Fortress and Byron from JoeMotionVideos82. As much as I love working with other people, I should try to do a video by myself. It's about time! What is it? Like you forgot how to make videos all by yourself? I mean every other video you have a cameo. What is it? You go through like 80% and then you're like, ooh, I'm tired. I mean what's going on over there? Ease! That's a good point. I need to keep my skills sharp. It's fun to have a guest every now and then, but I need to be able to stand on my own two feet. Are you sure you can make it through an entire video without having somebody come in and help? I mean, what do you do during the guest segments anyway? Go get a snack? I don't want people to think I'm lazy. For this review, I'll do the entire video without a single guest appearance or cameo. Good for you. You don't only say you have other people in your videos. You can do it yourself because you're good enough, you're smart enough, and dog gunny used to do your own work for a change. Truer words have never been spoken. No guests this time. I'm doing this one by hand. Don't say it! Solo! Oh, everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. 2020 is the year of the 90s. We'll be looking at a lot of GI Joe figures and vehicles from that decade. This week, we look at a pair of figures that should never be separated. They were destined to be partners. The Cobra Ninjas slice and dice. Ninja Force is a divisive part of GI Joe. Some GI Joe fans don't want any ninjas. Other fans appreciate ninjas in small doses. If you're one of those fans, Ninja Force will be a tough sell. Among the 90s neon ninjas, there were a few gems. Depending on how you measure such things, slice and dice may be gems. HCC788 presents the figures that took their name from the Ronco vegeomatic slice and dice. This is Slice, the Cobra Ninja swordsman, and Dice, the Cobra Bo Staff Ninja from 1992. These two figures were available for 1992 only. They were both discontinued for 1993. Slice and Dice are the perfect team. Their codenames even go together. These guys should be inseparable, yet Slice had later versions in the vintage line and Dice did not. Slice version 2 was available in 1993 only and was discontinued for 1994. This version was followed up by version 3 in 1994 from the Shadow Ninjas series. I don't have that one, so this review will just cover version 1. Sometime in the future, I will review version 2 and version 3 together. Even though Slice version 2 uses the same mold as version 1, except with orange instead of red. It changed more for the 1993 release than just the color. It also came with different accessories and it had different packaging, so it is a proper second version, not just a color variation of version 1. Ninja Force was a subset of Ninja characters that was introduced in 1992. The Ninja craze of the 1980s got Ninja crazier in the 1990s. G.I. Joe had to keep up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the martial arts themed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Ninja Force figures had action feature gimmicks, including Slice and Dice. We will look at them in this video. Ninja Force continued to 1993. After that, it was replaced by the color changing Shadow Ninjas. This video will cover both Slice and Dice, but I'm going to focus on Slice first. We will turn to Dice later in this video. I'm going to start with a word of warning right off the bat. If you're thinking of collecting these figures, these figures are extremely loose. Ninja Force figures did not have back screws, so you can't take the figure apart to replace the O-ring. The chest had to accommodate the action feature. So these figures end up becoming very loose and very hard to stand up. There is also a variation on this figure, which we will look at shortly, but first let's look at the card back so we can see how this figure was packaged. I have the full card back for Slice, so let's take a look at it. Unfortunately, most of the front of the card is torn away, but we can still see the artwork. Slice is doing his smell my foot technique. The card has this sort of hot pink background, which I really don't love. It has the Ninja Force logo here. It designates him as a Cobra character and he is number five in the Ninja Force series. Down here, it advertises his real ninja action, Spring Action Scorpion Slash. Flipping the card around to the back, we have more of that hot pink color. We have one flag point. That's a 90s style flag point. We have a partition here for the other Ninja Force figures that were available at the time. Then we have a lineup of the mainline GI Joe figures that were on the pegs at the time. We have this advertisement here. Watch the new TV adventures of GI Joe. Then we have the file card. I'm not going to look at this file card very closely right now, but we will later. This file card, like many other 90s file cards, has a list of the features and accessories, and I will refer to this when describing some of those features and accessories. Let's look at Slice's accessories. Surprisingly, these early Ninja Force figures had individual weapons related to their specialty, not generic accessories on a plastic frame. Other Ninja Force figures had the generic accessories tree that plagued so many 90s figures. First, he has this hook sword. The file card calls it a jab hook heavy sword. It's in black plastic. It's similar to the real world Shuang Gao, a Chinese weapon. The hook on that weapon, though, is usually on the front edge of the blade, not the back. The real world weapon is also often used in pairs. Slice comes with only one. However, if you can acquire an extra one, he looks cool with two. I'll bet he can make Julianne fries with those. Next he has a knife. This knife is in black plastic. The file card calls this a wide butterfly battle knife. This looks like a butterfly sword, another Chinese weapon, and another weapon that is usually used in pairs. Once again, if you can get a second set of Slice's accessories, he can be properly equipped with two butterfly swords. Lastly, but not leastly, he included a black figure stand, one of the great innovations of the 1990s. Figure stands were around in the 80s, but 80s figures did not include them. 90s figures did. And boy, does this guy need it. Let's look at the articulation on Slice. He did not have the standard articulation for G.I. Joe figures. He had a swivel head so he can only turn his head from left to right. That was unusual by 1993. Most figures had a ball jointed head, so they could also look up and down. His left arm is articulated like a normal G.I. Joe figure. He can swing his arm at the shoulder and move up at the shoulder. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to move his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees and a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to move his arm all the way around. The right arm, however, had the action feature. The right arm is mostly articulated like a normal G.I. Joe figure with the elbow joint and the swivel and the universal joint at the shoulder. However, on the right arm, if you pull the arm back, it will swing forward and that is the action feature. The card calls this the Scorpion Slash. You can use it with one of the weapons in his hand, or you can use it like an uppercut punch. This is an O-ring figure, but it's not constructed like a normal O-ring figure. The torso cannot be disassembled. There is no screw in the back, so he can't have a backpack, but he can move at the torso like a normal O-ring figure, but here is where we get into a variation of slice. While some slice action figures could move at the torso like this, others could not. They were just locked into place like that, so no articulation at the torso. I'm assuming this variation was the later release because version two from 1993 has that same articulation. He is locked at the torso and cannot move. On both variations, the legs have the normal articulation for a G.I. Joe figure, so they can move their legs apart about so far and bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color on slice. Starting with his head, he has a black helmet or hood. I think it's a hood that covers his entire head and he has a silver mask that covers his entire face. That mask has a great pattern on it. It looks like a fencing mask. Then he has a velvety cloth strip on the back of his head. It looks like that's where his mask ties in the back. On his chest, he has a red karate gi over a black shirt. You can see that black undershirt. And on the lower half of that red shirt, there is a black star pattern that goes around the front and the back. Are those sparkles? Is that like sparkles? There's a black belt around his torso, front and back. And on the right side of his torso, there's another strip of black cloth. His arms feature long red sleeves. There is a black four pointed star on his left upper arm. On both of his forearms, he has black, very small sigh or daggers. I get the idea of what they were going for here, but those are probably a little too small. He also has that black star pattern on his forearms, all the way around inside and outside of his forearms. And he has black gloves. His waist piece is red without a lot of sculpted detail on it, just a few cloth folds sculpted in. But it does have that black star pattern all around it, front and back. It kind of looks like Wonder Woman's underwear. His legs feature red trousers. It's all that same color of red, but that's okay. In this case, this figure benefits from having a unified and cohesive color scheme. The upper part of his thighs have that black star pattern. I do think that black star pattern is a nice touch since there isn't a lot of sculpted detail on here. There is some additional paint detail. He has black coverings around his lower legs. Looks like that's tied at the top and the bottom and there are laces down the front. And then he has red boots. The red and black look really cool. Red and black is usually a good combination and they work well here. I think that's why this guy is popular. He sort of looks like a ninja. I mean, that's what he's supposed to be, but a ninja force, that's not so common. The G.I. Joe series had red ninjas in the comic book, so we're used to seeing ninjas in red. The black and silver work really well with the red and the black cloth strips add another dimension. Let's take a look at Slice's file card. Unfortunately, the file card is printed on that hot pink color, which I think is hideous and hard to read. There's a close up portrait of Slice here and then a full body illustration of him here that's copied from the artwork on the front of the card. And that has the list of features and accessories, which we referred to earlier. His codename is Slice. He is the Cobra Ninja Swordsman. There is a quote here, presumably from Slice. It says, I fear no mortal man face-to-face combat, but my sword cuts easiest from behind. He's a backstabber. This paragraph says captured Cobra documents indicate that Slice may be a renegade ninja from Storm Shadow's very own clan. Storm Shadow's ninja clan refers to the Arashikage clan. Renegade remnants of that clan wore red. It's believed that Slice created his own evil sword technique by observing the battle strategies of scorpions and adapting the movement into a backhand sword slash that he calls the Scorpion Slash. Backhand sword slash, huh? That is not backhand, nor does it look anything like the movement of a scorpion. I guess this means he gave up hamster style. I don't think I'm gonna do hamster style anymore. That's nice. He's an expert with all-edged weapons, small handguns and explosives, and enjoys working with the Cobra Ninja cohort named Dice. Slice can usually be found driving the Cobra Parasite when he's not in his martial arts studio. The Parasite was a Cobra vehicle in 1992, and it had nothing to do with Ninja Force. Ninja Force wouldn't get its own vehicles until 1993. Now let's look at Slice's cohort, Dice. This is the only version of Dice in the vintage line. There wasn't a new version of Dice until the modern era in 2013. Like Slice, Dice also does not have a back screw to disassemble the figure and replace the O-ring, but this figure is not nearly as loose as my Slice figure. The entire mold for the Dice figure was reused and recolored to create the 1993 Red Ninja, another figure I don't have, but I so look forward to showing you that figure when I get it. There's something peculiar about the Red Ninja. Let's look at Dice's card. This card front is in better condition than Slice's card. It has some instructions here for his action features. It has that hot pink color again and the Ninja Force logo. Dice is number six in the Ninja Force series. We have the artwork here and it's fine. Instead of doing Slice's smell my foot technique, he is doing the smell my armpit technique. Here it advertises his real ninja action, the spring action flying dragon. We will look at that later. Clipping the card around to the back it is much the same as Slice's card back with the one flag point, the partition for Ninja Force, the 1992 figure lineup, the advertisement for the TV series and the file card. Let's take a look at Dice's accessories. He had a staff in silver plastic. The file card calls this a double bladed bow staff, but that's definitely not what this is. It has blades on each end. On one end it has a slicey blade and at the other end it has kind of a stabby blade. It looks like it has some decoration on both ends and it has kind of a crisscross pattern here for the figure to grip. This is not a bow staff. A bow staff is a long wooden stick so the Cobra Bow Staff Ninja does not come with the weapon he's supposed to. This is probably a guandao. I may not be pronouncing that correctly. It's a Chinese bladed staff weapon. It's similar to the Silver Naginata that came with 1986 Jinx. Next he comes with a silver battle axe and it is exactly as it's described. It's an axe for battle. It is a battle axe. Finally, Dice came with a black figure stand much like Slice's figure stand. Again, a great thing about 90s figures. It's just a standard figure stand but it's great that these guys came with them. Let's look at the articulation on Dice. He had mostly the standard articulation for a G.I. Joe action figure with one exception because he did have that action feature which we will look at in a moment. He could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He had a ball jointed neck unlike Slice's swivel neck. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure but it didn't have the standard articulation at the torso. Both arms had the same standard articulation but this figure had the real ninja action flying dragon and according to the instruction on the card you're supposed to move his right arm up like this and then twist his torso to the left like so and then let him go and he will spring back and that is his action. It actually looks more like the back-handed action as described on Slice's card. His leg articulation was standard. He could move his legs apart about so far. He had bent his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bent at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's take a look at the sculpt designing color of dice starting with his head and on his head he has a black hood. It's got a little tie in the back and over that hood he has a purple mask. It's pointy on the sides and it covers his eyes. He's got some eye holes so he can see through it and then over his face, how can I describe this? He has a grill. These purple lines cover his mouth and chin. The file card calls this a traditional dice clan face mask. Maybe this has some basis in a real style of mask but I haven't been able to find it and I think it looks crazy. On his chest he has a purple vest with black around the shoulders. He has a black strip down the front of the vest that stops at the waist. It does not connect to a belt. He has black crisscross bandoliers on the front and the back and on the front there are some additional details. On the black bandoliers on his chest he has some sculpted in pouches. He has a couple silver grenades which the file card calls delayed blast smoke bombs. He has some silver throwing stars. He has silver tranquilizer throwing spikes. There is a lot of detail on this chest. It's well done. The figure has bare arms with a muscular sculpt on those arms. On his right upper arm he has a black band with a black throwing star on it. And then he has a purple mark that looks like that same four pointed star that is on Slyce's sleeve. On his forearms he has purple bands, two purple bands on each forearm and then he has black forearm covers that also cover the back of his hands. His waist piece is totally plain and all purple, no sculpted or painted belt on it. On his legs he has purple trousers, plain purple on the upper legs and on his lower legs covering his knees he has huge knee pads. Those are some serious knee pads. He has purple bands around his shin and his ankles and then he has black boots. These lower legs are molded in black plastic, not in purple plastic like the upper legs and that creates a color mismatch at the knee joint. That would normally be a problem but these knee pads are so big they cover it up. Let's take a look at Dice's file card. It has the same file card format and color as Slyce, that unfortunate background color. A close up portrait of Dice up here and a full body illustration down here. His code name is Dice and he is the Cobra Bose Staff Ninja. This quote here presumably from Dice says, I'm a back breaker, a face stomper and a bone breaker. Don't mess with me or I'll mess you up. That's kind of an awkward quote. This paragraph says rumor has it that Dice was once a Cobra night creeper but was kicked out for being too evil. Night creeper refers to the 1990 night creeper, the Cobra Ninja that was a ninja troop builder figure. There was a ninja force and shadow ninjas version of the night creeper and those guys should not be confused with the 1993 Ninja Viper. Totally different guys. Dice operates as a partner to the Cobra Ninja Swordsman Slyce. So they are domestic partners specializing in choke holds, pressure points, snares, traps, blunt instruments and eye gouging. So they are kinky domestic partners. His weapon of choice is the Bose Staff. He does not come with a Bose Staff, which he can manipulate with blinding speed and bone crushing power. His most dreaded technique is a motion he calls the Flying Dragon. Dice is most troublesome when he gets behind the wheel of the Cobra Rat. The Cobra Rat is a 1992 vehicle and it's one of the chinsiest vehicles I've ever seen. No one is troublesome behind the wheel of the Cobra Rat. In fact, I think if you're in the rat it makes you less dangerous. Looking at how Slyce and Dice were used in G.I. Joe Media both appeared in the Deak era of the animated series. Slyce and Dice appeared in almost exactly the same episodes. They both first appeared in the episode, The Sword. The episode revolves around the Night Creeper Leader stealing a mystical sword of destiny and it features Ninja Force. Despite Slyce and Dice working as a team Slyce has one additional cameo without Dice in the Deak series. Slyce also has a couple post-vintage appearances. Even in the cartoon Slyce gets more attention than Dice. In the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics they both first appeared in issue number 120. They were occupying the Silent Castle when Destro and the Baroness returned to it. In that appearance Slyce had a sword and Dice had a bow staff. They're proper weapons. That storyline included Ninja Force and is too complex to recount here. At one point Dice gets that great thing cut off of his mask and after that he's drawn without it, good. At one point in the series they were under Firefly's mind control. In issue number 134 Snake Eyes freeze them from the mind control and Slyce and Dice deliver Firefly's comeuppance. Looking at Slyce and Dice overall I mostly like the look of both figures. Slyce in red and black looks really good. The cloth pieces are a nice bonus. They didn't go crazy with the colors which was hard for Hasbro to do in the 90s. Slyce lacks some detail but he makes up for it in style. Dice's purple uniform looks pretty good too. Dice has a lot of details and the black helps deepen the purple. There aren't a lot of painted details but the paint applications are appropriate. My biggest problem with Dice is that weird mask. Considering some of the colors used on other Ninja Force figures red and purple looks sane. I can live without the action feature on both of these figures. I was never a fan of that gimmick. Because of the action feature the articulation is limited and it's impossible to disassemble the figure to replace the O-ring and that leaves you with floppy figures. The accessories are puzzling. I like all of the accessories but the Cobra Ninja Swordsman didn't come with a regular sword. Instead he came with two accessories which each should have been pairs. And the bow staff Ninja didn't come with a bow staff. The biggest tragedy is Hasbro didn't commit to the marriage of Slyce and Dice. These figures belong together. I would have put them in a two pack while Slyce carried on to later years. Dice didn't. That was my review of Slyce and Dice. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to codename new to vero two painted plastic and green Yeti 907 for appearing in this video that didn't have any cameos. I really feel good about doing this video on my own. Thank you for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, I'm making more like it. So please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, hit the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media on Facebook and Twitter and I have a website HCC788.com. If you want to know if I've already reviewed a vintage GI Joe item, that's a good place to check. Special thanks to all my supporters on Patreon, including the names you see on the screen now. Support on Patreon helps keep this show going. So if you like the show and you'd like to support the show in that way, please consider checking out Patreon. You can get some special rewards including early access to reviews and you can find out how to decode the secret messages you see in these videos. Thank you for joining me on this adventure of collecting vintage GI Joe toys. I'll see you next time and until then remember only GI Joe is GI Joe. That's the way it went down, man.