SY Sheng Yuan | Anakin's Custom Jedi Starfighter (With Anakin Skywalker and Asajj Ventress) (AKA Azure Angel) | SY500

Sheng Yuan's SY500. Star Wars, Anakin's starfighter with Asajj Ventress! 

Comes with 2 minifigures and an astromech. The figures are characters from the animated series that came out just a little before Star Wars Episode III, from what I remember.

Also known as the Azure Angel from the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon shorts a some years back. It was used by Anakin Skywalker as his personal starfighter. It was his ship before the more iconic, more popular yellow Jedi starfighter seen in Revenge of the Sith. 

    

The minifigures:

Anakin here is the same as Anakin in Star Wars Clone Wars (cartoon, before the 3D animated one) / Anakin from Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones. The hairpiece isn't as accurate as the show's in my opinion, but I guess that's Lego's fault and not Sheng Yuan's. They did add printing on the side of the head to show Anakin's padawan hair-tail-thing. 

The astromech, R4-P22. Really wished the astromech's head was the type that could spin. I don't know why R2-D2 wasn't used as R2 is Anakin's personal astromech, but I guess that's more of the show's fault instead of Lego's/Sheng Yuan's. I'm sure there's some sort of explanation for this, but I didn't really watch the show to know. 

The ship itself. Cockpit opens. If you observe closer, the ship itself is just like Obi-Wan's starfighter in Episode II. It resembles the Attack of the Clones Jedi starfighter without the two front engines and the extra black flaps and blasters. 

Where the astromech stays inside:

When you push that yellow part below, the astromech pops out. Like in the movies. It's a nice addition to the ship, and is more or less an authentic imitation of the movies/show, but I'm not sure how effective it is for kids to play with because the parts are under the ship and may be difficult for some kids to access, but more or less it works pretty well and without issues! 

The astromech fits well, more or less. Well, not as sleek as in the movies/shows where you can see the droid's head/upper torso only instead of the whole body with some space in the side, but no complains, at least they were able to fit a whole minifig droid inside and decided not to just place a head part on the ship. 

View of the cockpit:

There are binoculars in the cockpit for the minifigs to use, and the control panel looks great. These are stickers by the way. The whole set includes stickers for various parts instead of printed parts like other of SY's. 

Anakin sitting comfortably inside the cockpit: 

Unfortunate though that the cockpit, or the parts holding the clear part can be quite loose. If not lifted carefully, a whole 4x4 part would be removed and is quite a hassle. Despite that, it's easy to place back and the cockpit still closes and opens easily. 

Full views: 

Notice the similarities of the Azure Angel and Obi-Wan's starfighter (in Episode II).Just remove some of those flaps and you'll see a generic Jedi starfighter. 

The ship also has spring-loaded shooters on the sides. They shoot at pretty decent range, which is also scary as sometimes I do so accidentally and the missile parts become a hassle to find. I don't know if the shooters are faulty/over-sensitive or my hands are just clumsy, but I think that's worth pointing out. Other than the shooters, there are "fake" guns that are purely for cosmetics, they look great if anything. 

There's a stand under the ship that folds nicely: 

Helps when displaying the ship as landed. You can also fold it if you have some stands to make the ship look like it has taken off. 

3D design of the ship instead of printed parts/stickers makes it nicer. Meaning, instead of prints or stickers on the main wings, other bricks were instead placed making a 3D effect. This makes the ship look way better and more professional compared to just printing on a triangle shaped spaceship. 

Scale of the ship with the minifigures: 

The ship is pretty much on scale with Lego minifigs. It's hard to tell if you wanna base it off of the movies/shows because obviously, humans and minifigs have different proportions. Despite that, in terms of brick worlds, the size of the ship is in good ration with the minifigs; meaning it's as good as it can get if you wanna imitate the real thing. 

Overall a great set, but the one I had seemed to have too many loose parts, making the ship seem fragile, though it may be an isolated case. Also, the cockpit closed isn't closed too well, there's some space left when the clear part is down and it doesn't look sleek once you look closer, but it's not really a big deal and it still gets the job done: making the ship look cool and keeping Anakin safe and sound inside! Also, minifigs are of great quality! The lightsabers are great and so are the prints! 

Would love to get my hands on Lepin but still more of a SY fan, would love for SY to release new Star Wars (TFA) sets as well and compare them to Lepin's. Hate that SY releases late but good bricks AND minifigs while Lepin releases early with good bricks but average minifigs (not as good as SY's). 

Feel free to comment and suggest! 

-- U P D A T E-- 

Asajj Ventress' lightsabers from the original Lego set are actually different from SY's! Would have loved to have them look like Lego's copy, but sadly SY only provided us with the regular lightsaber lego parts! :(