Seripas - TCW [SOTDS] - Basic (CW61)

Seripas is a bounty hunter who helps Felucians protect their crops from pirates. The diminutive hunter sits inside a robotic suit to appear larger and more threatening. When the suit is destroyed, he discovers he can fight just as effectively without it – or as Ahsoka tells him, he doesn't have to look tough to be tough.

Seripas, or what we’d like to refer to as the "man" behind the curtain, is a long-awaited character to see presence as a basic action figure for The Clone Wars fans. The Bounty Hunters episode in season 2 piqued interest in not only the kids, but adults as well because, well, we just all love bounty hunters. For the first time however, we saw a full gamut of shapes and sizes applied to this hive of scum and villainy and Filoni should be commended for his unique approach in developing awesome new Star Wars characters for his franchise, yet making it fresh and new at the same time. In The Clone Wars, Seripas first interacted with Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker after they crash landed on the planet. A rather diminutive bounty hunter, Seripas was self-conscious about his size and built his much large body suit in an effort to make himself appear bigger. And that’s exactly what the suit does. And in true The Clone Wars fashion, there was a moral to the story and Ahsoka Tano comforted Seripas to show him that size really doesn’t matter. Hmm, we’ve heard that a time or two in Star Wars lore haven’t we? Hasbro works Seripas into the basic figure line (amazingly well) and we have to admit that this figure turned out great beyond our expectations. We think more could have been done to articulate the “true” Seripas "pilot" figure, but we suppose a pre-posed “accessory” works best to ensure a proper fit in the “cockpit” of the armored suit.

Unless we notate it differently, we are referring to Seripas as the armored suit, despite the true Seripas being the pack-in accessory. There will undoubtedly be some confusion because of this, but Seripas is not the actual mechanical suit. Seripas has an incredible 24 total points of articulation, but some in this count are more action features than anything else. Besides the standard articulation, Seripas also has two “weapons” that slide out from the arms and house different weaponry. The left arm has a buzz saw, complete with rotating blade and the right arm has a blaster. These hidden weapons are an awesome touch to this action figure and the engineering that went into making them seamless in the action figure is quite brilliant. Seripas is loaded with premium ball-jointed articulation. You’ll even find ball-jointed hips which are very important to this action figure. Seripas has a very daunting presence, although we have to admit that his “face” (the cockpit lid) is very reminiscent to Emperor Zurg from Toy Story 2. (It must be the eyes.) This of course isn’t a cut-down and it’s just our eyes seeing this strong resemblance. (Hey, even Emperor Zurg quoted a line from Star Wars.) Seripas has great structural detail and we believe that Hasbro has gotten this figure perfect right from the start. (Well, until we get an articulated pilot accessory that is!)

And speaking of structural detail, we can’t help but notice a strong Egyptian influence in his look. We see inspiration of Anubis, the jackal god of the dead from Egyptian mythology present in Seripas. From the ornate gold collar to the geometric shape of the head, we see these cultural aspects of the Egyptian strongly peppered throughout this figure. Even the symbols found painted on the armor are hieroglyphic in nature. With a great design comes an even better paint job. In fact, it’s the most impressive aspect of Seripas hands down. The base coat is a steel metal gray that is aged and weathered (but a lot of that is from the inherent nature of the plastic. There are a lot of imperfections which is quite fitting here. His upper body has parallel irregular and encircling double yellow stripes and few other random shapes. And his legs contain a similar pattern but in red. And there is a neat, but unidentifiable insignia on his back that ties everything together. We’re sure we’ll eventually find out what that is down the road. Despite the use of these bright colors, Seripas does not come across as too colorful. He looks perfect. Seripas will likely be the hot figure in this set. We’ve never had a “vehicle” with pilot in the basic action figure line before this. We should also note that Seripas contains a great deal of tooling and we’re thankful that Hasbro made him fit into the basic figure lineup. Find a way to pick Seripas up. He’s lots of fun and may become an all-time favorite amongst collectors.