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Jun 26, 2023

Power Rangers Cobra Kai Lightning Collection Daniel Larusso White Crane Ranger review

I love the ingenuity of the Power Rangers team. They’ve been doing some fun mash ups with other properties from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter and now their latest collaboration — Cobra

I love the ingenuity of the Power Rangers team. They’ve been doing some fun mash ups with other properties from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Fighter and now their latest collaboration — Cobra Kai. I am a massive Cobra Kai fan, but don’t think they’ve had great figures so far. I liked the look of the Power Ranger ninjas, but didn’t have a great spot for them in my mainly MMPR display. But Cobra Kai ninjas? That can work.

Hasbro got a tad greedy with the original price point of these figures making them a non-starter, but the latest round of clearances made grabbing them a no-brainer for me. Especially since the first wave kicked off with my boy, Daniel Larusso as the White Crane (get it?) Ranger.

Let’s see if Daniel can kick it and prompt me to go all-in with the Power Rangers/Cobra Kai collection.

Packaging: The Power Rangers packaging was helpful in showing off all the accessories even if the package art wasn’t the most dynamic. Hasbro opted for a stylistic clean look and didn’t even include bios.

Since this line is all about the reuse, I don’t actually mind this more engaging setup with a full shot of the Daniel render and a backdrop with the Cobra Kai and Tiger Fang logos and silhouettes of a figure doing a jump kick.

To the left side of the lightning bolt is the ninja-ed up version of Daniel, an image reused for the left side. On the right side it’s a cool shot of the White Crane Ranger’s head. The back still lacks a bio but does feature Daniel in a slightly different pose and all of the accessories.

Likeness: This figure is essentially a 98% reuse of the White Ninja Ranger. The biggest difference is the head sculpt — obviously — and some Cobra Kai details that are included via the paint job. The ninja body is a good one with a nice flow to simulate a looser fitting outfit with some unique flares to make it stand out on its own.

The studded diamonds on the shoulder pads, forearms and shins are very nicely applied.

Daniel’s head sculpt is really well done with a pretty impressive likeness to actor Ralph Macchio especially at this scale. It even captures an older look for Daniel so he’s not as young and fresh faced as he was as The Karate Kid.

Scale: Daniel is just a little shorter than Johnny and as a grown middle-aged man should be taller than Miguel and Sam.

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Paint: White is the trickiest color to paint onto another base color but is just fine with no worries about the dominant color bleeding through. It’s fitting that Daniel would be the White Ranger in this universe since Johnny would think white is a wimp color anyway. The gold trim is nice and crisp.

Instead of the Miyagi-do logo on his chest panel, Daniel has a white crane. That’s fitting with the Power Rangers motif although I wouldn’t have been upset seeing the bonsai tree either.

Daniel’s head band isn’t all that accurate though the detailing is fine.

The rear of the suit does have the Miyagi-do logo, which is a nice touch.

Articulation: The articulation for the Lightning Collection has always been very solid and impressive in terms of hitting a variety of fun poses.

White Crane Ranger is no danger of breaking the streak and he can strike a number of terrific show-accurate stances.

White Crane Ranger has:

Accessories: Daniel has a masked portrait that is similar to the original white ninja portrait with a white diamond instead of black.

Other carry overs include the neck collar piece if you want to switch up how Daniel looks as a ninja and an energy swoosh that’s now a translucent yellow orange instead of white.

Finally, he’s got swappable hands. They’re skin tone instead of gloved like the white ninja ranger. Of course, the downside — and you know there had to be one – was my figure has two left flat palm hands. Ugh. I’ve reached out to Hasbro customer service. Let’s see where that goes…

Worth it? This line started at a ridiculous price point of $27.99. That felt like a licensing mark up for no good reason especially when you consider the only new work.

Not so surprisingly, they sat on the pegs until they hit clearance. I grabbed Daniel for $9, which is a tremendous price for a fun new entry in my collection.

This is a cool, fun addition to my Power Ranger ranks while providing me with my first figure entry into Cobra Kai. Hopefully Hasbro has plans to run this line for awhile as I could see myself going very deep into this subline.

Where to get it? This line was exclusive to Target so that’s your best bet. The weird thing is the website still has Daniel up for pre-order even though Wave 2 with Miguel and Johnny are already in stores.