Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Review: [Bandai] S.I.C. Volume 57 Kamen Rider Double Cyclone Joker
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Bandai |
| Origin Series: | Kamen Rider W (Double) |
| Scale: | Non-Scale |
| Height: | Approximately 18cm tall |
| Original Price: | 5,775 Yen |
| Figure Box: |
Styled like most SIC packages, the design treatment of the box gets this wonder simplistic look of pure black with gaia memory's border outlines colored in green resulting in another simplistic beauty in terms of overall appeal of the box. The colors are of course reflective of the pack form(Cyclone Joker)'s colors which adds a good factor of it and hey you can even treat the window as the prism server for Extreme. XD Anyway, there's also a few lines of purple (secondary color of Joker) there and good thing there wasn't exactly any yellow/gold lines there else the overall visual appeal would be ruined XD
| Figure Details: |
Now details of Cyclone Joker; similarly to almost every SIC rendition we get a more detailed piece of work and this time applied to W are what seemingly looks like cracks in his armor which causes an exceptionally good effect on the rider. His W shaped trims are also adjusted a bit so they won't pop out as a literal W when you look at it and the scarf is pretty cool, it's defaultly huge which adds more cool factor to W in his Cyclone half forms (since Vol. 58 will be compatible with parts swapping with this).
Now the biggest improvement was for the face, I was actually doubtful when the first prototype shots came out as his mouth looks ridiculously ugly but as for the final product, the face definitely improved and now really looks like a heavily detailed Double head instead. Now, the most interesting catch is that knowing that Double has two colors, the colors are also separated, the Cyclone has the Metallic color finish pretty much like how they did it with Kabuto's while the Joker has matte finish similar to Kuuga's Amazing Mighty Form.While the colors are in a way not symmetrical, it does give a pretty finish since I practically do not like shiny metallic black. So yeah, pretty well played Bandai.
Now the biggest improvement was for the face, I was actually doubtful when the first prototype shots came out as his mouth looks ridiculously ugly but as for the final product, the face definitely improved and now really looks like a heavily detailed Double head instead. Now, the most interesting catch is that knowing that Double has two colors, the colors are also separated, the Cyclone has the Metallic color finish pretty much like how they did it with Kabuto's while the Joker has matte finish similar to Kuuga's Amazing Mighty Form.While the colors are in a way not symmetrical, it does give a pretty finish since I practically do not like shiny metallic black. So yeah, pretty well played Bandai.
Now we all know that SIC loves to surprise us with really fun gimmicks and as for Double, it's the friggin' split half gimmicks for his Joker Maximum Drives!
Being added as an extra frame, by a few parts swapping from the original frame, you get the split half gimmick and you can peg them with a tamashii stand connector included in the pack (and hey, the tamashii stand itself is included!).
The details are basically the same as the normal frame Cyclone Joker, less the Joker Memory inserted in the driver, but what's good to note is the really cool interior designs in it, it's really well outlined and you can practically see an outline of what it seems like a brain, so yeah, pretty neat.
The details are basically the same as the normal frame Cyclone Joker, less the Joker Memory inserted in the driver, but what's good to note is the really cool interior designs in it, it's really well outlined and you can practically see an outline of what it seems like a brain, so yeah, pretty neat.
So, the catch is is this the only thing the split half can do? Surprisingly, NO, it has one more untold function... Basically, if you look close enough, in the hip area of the inner details, there are two pegs in Cyclone's half while there are two matching peg holes on the Joker's half.
And optionally, you might want to create a peg stick as thick as the one tamashii stand uses to peg through the half body holes (in my case a cut ballpoint pen ink container with a little paper attached) and peg it on the holes. So what will it exactly do? Well, actually the two smaller pegs can hold W together but he also splits apart easily, so putting a DiY peg on the bigger tightens the connection.
So, basically, if you use the original frame for something else, thanks to the geniusness that is bandai, you can use the split half gimmick frame to form Double's Cyclone Joker though if you used the main frame for Extreme, you just lose the MD slot, inner shoulder pads which aren't quite visible to begin with and his neck and torso articulation but still, a good way of display both of the contents of the SIC pack.
Wait!? Did I just mention Extreme? Hell yes, as part of pretty much SIC tradition already, you usually get parts for the rider's other form(s) and for Cyclone Joker's case, it's none other than Extreme.
Through a complete breakdown of Cyclone Joker's body and limbs, and a whole process of major parts swapping, you now get his Ultimate(well, not really since there's CJGX) form. Now the SIC rendition of Extreme is extremely cool, I frankly didn't like how Extreme looked like in the show but hell yeah, SIC made another masterpiece. What's really neat is that his prism server is made really well and similar to Vol.9 V3's extra parts that gives it a crystalized feeling it's supposed to give off. The face though might look weird to others but yeah, it looks pretty badass if you ask me and to further compliment the badass look, the shoulder pads were made bigger and more stylized than just symmetrical top and bottom half X block shoulder pads he's supposed to have. The "cracks" still remain as well as the paint scheme of metallic and matte. So yeah, really a decent form especially since you practically change more than 90% of Cyclone Joker's structure to make this, and I could've wished they used for Decade so he didn't look like a ridiculous rugby player.
Probably the only real gripe about Double is that his wrists uses friggin' ball tips again instead of the already effective sliding pegs from the past few volumes; I don't know really why bandai used ball tips again. But anyway, lastly as trivia, ironically CJ or CJX doesn't have any die cast content with him despite the line having the name Chogokin in it.
| Accessories: |
Now as for accessories, aside from the parts already mentioned above (Extreme parts, Split half body and Tamashii stand), Double comes with a Double driver molded for Extreme version use, the Extreme memory, 5 Gaia Memories (Joker, Cyclone, Heat, Luna and Prism) as well as the Prism bicker(in its gigantic badass SIC version). Anyway, the Tamashii stand is basically the one for mechas with two option hands, one for the use of Joker Extreme attack and the other being the regular clamp. The Extreme memory can be split and the split parts are then to be inserted on the other double driver included.
The Gaia memories are, of course, insert-able into drive slots such as the double driver, the Prism sword's tip, the Prism bicker's 4 memory slots and the MD slot on Double's belt.
| Articulation: |
Starting with Cyclone Joker's part of Articulation; His neck is uses two ball points (top and bottom) which allows good range of neck tilting and a decent range to make him look down and above.
The torso and waist joints are also ball powered but due to how bulky his chest and ab parts are it's pretty limited in terms of movement and yeah, additionally, you can flip the Double driver in a closed manner to make memory changing poses or later on for Extreme's Double Extreme MD.
As for the arms, well, his shoulder joints are mainly connected through a ball joint with a hidden hinge thanks to the inner shoulder pads, thus, allowing a really good flex, but as common SIC problems that the shoulder pads are usually attached on the armor, it gives the usual rotation limit but sideways movement is perfect due to the bicep swivel included. And typically the elbows use a double jointed hinge to allow perfect arm bending.
The legs are made of up similar stuff as the arms and what's good about Double is that this time the crotch pads are actually very soft and flexible so you can fully raise his leg upwards to 90 and a bit higher since usually the hard crotch pads hinders easy poseability from my experience with past SICs.
Lastly, the Cyclone Scarf, similarly to Stonger's and Tackle's scarfs, the connector peg allows swivel motion while the middle point is a hinge; and lastly the point where the actual scarf is attached has a swivel on it, thus, allowing the single scarf to be really dynamic compared to the SHF version.
Playing around with Cyclone Joker is pretty fun, he does capture the coolness of how Shotaro and Philip does it in the show and the hand parts are just good enough to poses different kinds of punches and kicks which are ridiculously amazing when captured in the camera.
Now going to Extreme's part; basically the articulation structure is the same as CJ's but with a + and -; the plus being that his torso can go more lower now due to the body's construction and the minus being that his arms can't be raised as high as CJ's due to Extreme's large shoulder pads, but yeah, they still suffer from the shoulder pad limitation but I won't be deducting it anymore since particularly most SICs have this problem already and because of the points of arm articulation you can actually make those supposedly not possible arm plays.
Now the Extreme's more fun for me mainly because he has a weapon, the prism bicker. And you really can pull out a number of poses with this badass form although, also a pretty common problem with some SICs with really big weapons is that their arm joints fail to comply with its weight and double's not an exception, the bicker is just heavy enough to make his elbow joints give up on the process, so yeah, bandai really needs to consider this since this isn't the first time I encounter it. But yeah, one of the most notable thing about Extreme's poseability is that of all SIC I own so far, he's the one that can pull off the perfect rider kick, a really really awesome body flex that allows his rider kick pose to look awesome.
| Final Thoughts: |
As SICs continue to improve, Double is surprisingly a very good piece of work especially compared to when he was just in prototype. I mean, it's probably one of the most worth it 1 body frame deals since basically thanks to the split half gimmick, you can still display both CJ and CJX together. And again, aside from being a main rider, his design absolutely badass and despite a few flaws, I'd recommend it to any SIC collector as a MUST have as well for any Double fan. The pack's more than meets eye actually :>
| Rating (Out of 10) | |
| Details | 9.5 |
| Accessories | 10 |
| Articulation | 9 |
| Price | 10 |
| Overall: | 9.63 |
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Nice review. Definitely detailed review there. I also have this SIC but then I am pretty much disappointed at it. First of all, no metal parts and it was really that expensive when it actually didn't have any metal parts. Second is that, I dunno if this was just mine or it happened to everyone's copy, the joints quickly became loose after a few poses which is pretty much weird since even the older ones that I had took a lot of poses before the joints became loose. 3rd is that the hands easily fall off when you display it with the sword and the shield which made the pictorial really frustrating and aggravating for me. Well, I do hope you respond to this comment since I don't have anyone to share my gripes with.
ReplyDelete^ pretty much agreed with the 3rd point, SICs really have that problem when it comes to big weapons (Zeronos Zero's Denebick Buster, Taiga's axe, Zolda's shoot vent) Don't really know why bandai still hasn't improved on these problems. As for the 2nd point, mine's fine, the most common joints that get loose from my SICs would usually be their ankle joints which is sometimes annoying. XD And as for the first, well, I guess that depends on what the buyer is after, as for me it's fine since you do get quite a lot in compensation but it's really ironic that he doesn't have any die cast content despite being in a "Chogokin" line much like SIC Kiwamis I guess ^^; I really just get the SICs for their nice touch of detail, scale and sometimes the fact that their rendition is a lot better than the show suit designs
ReplyDeleteIt may be a little late to bring this up, but I think I found where the diecast parts are...its on Double's wristbands and anklets. Try feeling them with the back of your finger, you'll feel the slight coldness, meaning it's die cast.
ReplyDelete^ Thanks for pointing them out, I haven't really checked but I've also read and heard that those pieces were the die-cast components.
ReplyDelete