Monday, March 29, 2010
Review: [Bandai] S.I.C. Volume 51 Kamen Rider Decade
Figure Info:
Manufacturer:
Bandai
Series:
Kamen Rider Decade
Scale and Height:
Non-scale and approximately 18cm tall
Basically, Decade is introduced as the destroyer where the series started out with him destroying all the Riders at once, except for one Rider who stood up and fought with him. Decade is Tsukasa Kadoya, a photographer who stays with the Hikari studios with no memory of his past. When a twist of fate later had him and his colleague, Natsumi Hikari, jumping into different worlds and later on finding the Decadriver and remembering how to use it, thus, he transforms into Decade and the start of his long journey begins, he makes friends with the different riders from the 9 previous series by going into their worlds and as the story goes Decade gets more power ups; his favorite tag line is "Just a passing through Kamen Rider" and a notable power of Decade is his ability to transform into any of the 9 previous main riders. Decade's original design below:
Now I begin the review of SIC 51...
Box/Packaging:
Decade's box design is patterned after his chest design the one with the white cross like line and of course his trademark pink magenta color, it's pretty much the same as other one pack SIC boxes, not too thick. Anyway, like I usually say, I don't care much about boxes anyway. XD
Details:
As one can expect from the S.I.C. line, the parts are heavily detailed, his leg parts are transparent magenta, which allows you to see the insides making Decade look a little mechanical in terms of detail, his armor is sculpted in a manner which can make him look like he's battle damaged but still a pretty decent work. His Decadriver and belt are also well made and not much flaw can be found.
The head sculpt is a bit close to the original design with a few adjustments to the head shape and the shape of the eyes but still, Decade regular form was done pretty nicely and I have no objections with how he was done.
Accessories and Bonus Features:
Well, Decade is not decade without his Ganbaride cards and so, Bandai provides us with a sticker set for the Ganbaride cards. A BIG NOTE: Check his box properly as there should be a plastic filled with pvc card cuts for the stickers, it may look like a leg plate if you didn't check the instruction manual like I did, thus I ended up in a mistake folding the card stickers making a very thin ganbaride card. You are provided 10 Kiva Emperor cards, all first 10 Heisei riders and Decade's complete form from the ganbaride stickers.
Decade also comes with his Ride Booker, which can be morphed into gun mode or sword mode by attaching the blade part included. Decade also has his K-Touch, which was greatly detailed IMO even though it's just an accessory. The set also comes with Kivala for some gags probably.
Now, like most Heisei Rider SICs, Decade comes with parts of his Ultimate form, Complete Form. You simply switch the head and armor and the leg plates and you get Decade Complete, he isn't that hard to transform as well.
Details are still nice, Complete with the chest armor which holds the 9 Heisei rides as well as his big K-Touch in the belt while Decadriver is on the side. Decade complete is detailed pretty well as his Ganbaride cards are all S.I.C. designed as well. His leg plates are all in die-cast making Decade Complete a really heavy piece of S.I.C.
Design:
Though it's understandable that SIC loves to further "imaginate" designs, a little nitpicking here is that Decade Complete looks like a Football Player! Yes, his body looks too unproportional with the large chest armor and a little big head, at close up shots, he will look nice but once you zoom it out, you'll see what I mean. But I don't really mind, I'm used to S.I.C.s "imagination", one thing I would really like to nitpick is his arms, on complete form, the magenta colored parts on his arm should be silver but in here, it's left as magenta which actually is a little eyesore to me compared to how others would just complain on his proportions.
Posability:
Since Decade is on a latter release, his posability is really something, you can almost do every pose he does in the show and the joints are very very flexible.
A little nice addition in posing him is that the belt acts exactly as the show, pulling on the sides actually flips the Decadriver and you can also insert the ganbaride cards at his driver. Talk about really playable factor.
As Complete form, he basically can still pose the same as Decade's normal form. No limitations are applied upon transformation to Complete Form.
What makes Complete Form a total playable bonus is when you have at least an ultimate form starting from Ryuki's S.I.C. releases, since Ryuki was the landmark of S.I.C.'s expansion in posability. As Decade Complete uses his K-Touch Kamen Rides, an image of the selected Rider's ultimate form is projected boosting his power. As I only have King Form, here's a little something from Complete Form. ^^
Overall:
Well, Decade's a pretty good pack for me but others would just regard him as a failure for some reason. Or others would want only the regular form as they didn't like the outcome of the Complete Form. I dunno, but for me, Decade pack was worth it, it was a fun shoot and the fact that Decade has met a lot of Riders, it adds to his play factor.
Remarks:
Detail - 8.5/10
Accessories and Bonus Feature - 10/10
Design - 8/10
Posability - 10/10
Price - 9/10
Average: 9.1/10
Almost time to hit the sack, so just a few final words
Don't like it? Use
Well, for one, Decade's the way to go if you collected the previous S.I.C. packs from the Heisei era (well, even the Showa would do especially Apollo Geist) Well, if you don't like Complete's deisgn, just think of whatever excuse you can such as "I want to complete the Heisei line" or "I need to get all S.I.C.s" or whatever reason you can think of. Trust me when I say Complete Form's not that bad.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Murakami's Update (March '10)
Hello there! Been a while since I made a bulk update.
Anyway, BRS's the focus on today's updates ^^
Well, I'll start with some Rider news first...
SIC IXA and Dark Kiva official shots out!
The next in line from Bandai's Super Imaginative Chogokin line, featuring, IMO, Kiva's two best riders: IXA and Dark Kiva's official shots have just been out a few days ago. I must say they're looking mighty awesome, a lot of accessories too, Dark Kiva has Saga's Jacorder, the original Zanvat Sword and Otoya's Bloody Rose while, IXA comes with all his weapons and a Save Mode head. I'm really looking forward to getting mine on May ^^
Upcoming SICs
The next volume after the ones above would be Kamen Rider Stronger, which will be based on Ken's work. Looking good and the rendition looks like it's some work like how Ichigo, Nigo and V3 transpired to how the look on THE FIRST and THE NEXT movies. This sure is an instant get for me. :D
Next one is a colored preview of SIC Kiwami Tamashii's Den-O Sword Form, I don't really collect Kiwamis but they're obviously more posable and really cheaper (a lot smaller as well) compared to normal SICs.
He who loves Fuuto
Yes! It's the man who loves Fuuto. Basically my favorite character from Double, despite the fact that Shadow Moon won in the SHF poll on japan, Nasca gets the first head up for us and his SHF might just get me to buy one. XD
Tamashii Exclusives now trolls Armor Plus!
Yep, the newly expanding line Armor Plus has just been included in Tamashii Web Exclusives Items with their upcoming Tekkaman Evil, and dang I was looking forward to this a lot. :( Come on, Bandai, less exclusives for people outside of Japan >.<
Back with Model Kits...
Frankly speaking, one of my childhood hobbies was building 1/144 Gundam Plamos but of course, I quit a long time ago with MG God Gundam being my best output from all the model kits I've built. Anyway, Kotobukiya just announced that they'll be releasing a 1/10 Rockman Model Kit, and oooh boy, this is enough to get me into kit building again, such a classic hero should not be missed.
Now moving on to GSC and Max's new surprises...
Figma Teana previews!
Figma Teana previews!
Well, following the ActSta is finally a preview of an upcoming figma of Teana Lanster, what accessories comes with her, we don't know yet. Information has it she'll be released on the same month as Kokui which is on July (who's Kokui? find out in the last part of this post)
The Movie 1st Puchi Set
GSC also showcased last Tokyo Anime Fair their upcoming Puchi Nanoha Movie set, set includes 3 Nanohas, 2 Fates, Yuuno, Arf, Chrono and the killer inclusion, the best friends, Arisa and Suzuka, another really kawaii set to look forward to (not to mention it has 3 loli Nanohas OoO)
Upcoming GSC Large Figures
First off would be the Fate Stay series, we now see a preview of the Unlimited Blade Works movie version of Rin Tohsaka and to complete the 1/7 Sabers, we are also shown a prototype of another 1/7 Saber which completes the Saber Trio with this being Saber Alter. I have to say this is by far the best Rin ever and as for Saber a must have if you got Lily Avalon and ordered Saber Excalibur.
Moving on, we now see a colored protoype of GSC's Senjougahara from last Wonder Festival. And also as an additional to the series, we now see a prototype of Sengoku Nadeko. ^^ Still have to think about these since I'm pretty much wanting a lot of GSC large scales and my pre-order list isn't helping. XD
Hatsune Bagu!?
I really don't know what a Hatsune Bagu is supposed to do but it looks pretty cute, it if comes out regularly, I wouldn't mind getting one since it's too cute :x
Black Rock Shooter begins!
With just a month away from the premiere of the animation project, there was a Black Rock Shooter event that was held a few days back and to our surprise, a lot of improvements, mainly the colored prototypes of Dead Master's upcoming large scale figures.
I can't wait to get my hands on them and of course, an announcement of pre-orders for BRS's figma and nendoroid, which I have ordered already. Twitter information says BRS is the best selling figma to date with over 20000 orders recieved even though she's marked as an SP. XD
Anyway, to the main focus of the event (information on the anime), we are now shed light of their human names:
Anyway, to the main focus of the event (information on the anime), we are now shed light of their human names:
Kokui Mato - Black Rock Shooter
Takanashi Yomi - Dead Master
Also confirmed for the anime is the appearance of Black Gold Saw and one other unnamed character which was featured in BRS Visual Works 2. Anyway, to the official website to find out what's new with the upcoming OVA of Black Rock Shooter.
Whew, that's all for now :D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
