Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Review: S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Ryuki & Dragreder
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Bandai |
| Origin Series: | Kamen Rider Ryuki |
| Scale: | Non Scale |
| Height: | Approximately 14 cm tall |
| Original Price: | 3990 yen |
| Packaging: |
The Ryuki line have this silver box which I think (but I'm not so sure) has a mirror background style for the front along with the shopped product shot, figure name and the window. Since Ryuki is from the original 10 Heisei series, it seems that everything before the fan-coined "Neo Heisei" are labeled with "Masked Rider" instead of "Kamen Rider" and I really do not know why.
Anyway, I didn't bother taking pictures of the sides since they're both just figure name plates; the back on the other hand presents the different features of the figure and it's presented in very unique way such that all those product shots are enclosed in a broken mirror design which perfectly fits the series.
But enough of the boring box discussion, let's get on and open Ryuki and his contracted mirror monster and discuss how good the figure is. Now, I was supposedly gonna split Dragreder into another full review but the thing is most of Ryuki's accessories are dissected from Dragreder, so, I had to include him in this review.
| Details - Ryuki: |
Starting off with the head sculpt, I find it really well made, the visor's very very intricate and the paint job is magnificent, the Dragon head logo is also done perfectly.
To further add to accuracy, aside from having the bulged out eyes, Ryuki has compound eyes beneath that knight visor, something which we see from the show often and also something which the figma line could not pull off with their Common Kamen Rider Dragon Knight line, which was the US adaptation of Ryuki.
Ryuki riders have pretty much the same build, a colored leather suit, which is red in Ryuki's case, a unique upper body armor, shoulder pads and forearms designs, generic belt and lower half designs. The choice of a darker red (darker than the show's red I think) really help in making it blend with the metallic silver that covers Ryuki all over. The details are very spot on and even those tube-like designs are very detailed inside those circular holes. The deck case's logo was also well made along with the impression of a vent card's back in there. Although standing-wise and proportion-wise, I'd still prefer the figma Dragon Knight ones, but trust me, it's just minor nitpick but obviously, the SHF versions are far superior, in paint, details and material.
Something must be off on the pictures above, that's because the Drag Visor hasn't been attached yet, the basic Ryuki frame is only really useful if you're taking a scenario wherein he's initiating Survive but other than that, you have yourself an extra tube (which is a blessing since I lost that part on my SHF Knight ;_;) since Ryuki's Drag Visor is technically permanently attached in his left forearm.
Do be careful with those tube-like details, some of them comes loose and may fall without you noticing it so always check if it detaches or not especially if you're outside.
| Details - Dragreder: |
(Sorry for the blurry Dragreder shot, it's hard to shoot tall things without a proper tripod :< )
Dragreder has about just 5 main points to focus on, the head, the limbs, the claws, and the tail; All of all which are painted in glorious metallic red and silver with the metallic yellow trims; the details are spot on and Dragreder looks boss. Probably the only nitpick I have is that the joints for his claws are suddenly normal red plastic, which kinda throws off the sweet color balance going on with the contract monster.
| Articulation Points - Ryuki: |
Ryuki's got a ton of joints in his frame and it's pretty surprising how much points you can tinker with him. As usual, I'll be starting from the head; it's on a ball joint in both the bottom and top of the neck, this gives Ryuki a decent range of looking up and down as well as a free 360 rotation.
The same application goes to the torso and this also gives quite a nice stretch to Ryuki from his abdomen; likewise, you can choose to rotate the torso via the abdomen or the waist as both have their respective joints.
Shoulders feature a mixture a of hinge and swivel so this doe give Ryuki a very wide range of movement from the shoulders; the connect from the arm to the body is on a ball joint, so this further widens his range of motion. He does have bicep and forearm swivels and the usual double jointed elbows. Wrists still retain the swivel + hinge + ball-joint-on-hand so you know how it fairs.
Lastly for the lower body portion, hip joints are similar to the Decade line frame where in it's only composed of a hinge and a swivel which somewhat works like a ball joint but it doesn't have the ability to kick to a higher degree like with Beast's so it is more limited in a sense.
Thighs have swivels on them so you can recreate those Rider Kicks and whatnot; knees are double jointed as usual and his ankles use the swivels + hinge joint so you can freely rotate it as well as adjusting the feet forward or backward to a neat degree.
| Articulation Points - Dragreder: |
Dragreder is one poseable dragon alright, his "neck" is held by a ball joint and it does have a decent range to allow to bend it sidewards and of couse, full rotation is allowed here!
To add to Dragreder's majestic look, you can open up his mouth since it's on a hinge; a true dragon indeed!
His limbs uses 2 of the same type of joints that formed Ryuki's ankle joints and it does wonders (aside from its color), having a full 180 hinge ability and full 360 rotations from its swivel connectors, you can freely play around with Dragreder's limbs.
Each section of the dragon's body is connected via big ball joints much like its neck and are freely rotatable and have decent adjusting range so you can curl up Dragreder as needed.
| Accessories: |
As stated in the packaging, the reason I included Dragreder in the review is because most of Ryuki's accessories actually come from Dragreder itself, Ryuki's sword and guard vents are to be dissected from Dragreder to actually count as Ryuki's "accessory" as the only real accessory and separate piece was a smaller head of Dragreder which attaches to Ryuki when he uses his Strike Vent; he also comes with small fully detailed cut cards to represent his card vents which come in Strike, Sword, Guard, Final and Ad Vents
He does come with a load of option hands as well as a customized tamashii stage (thankfully) with the deck case logo in there as well as 2 act 4 stand clamps and 1 act 3 stand clamp which is very very useful for helping Ryuki pose with his contract monster.
| Poseability: |
Posing Ryuki on his own is very easy and very fun, his frame proves to support quite a number of dynamic poses and it's not hard to do like in other riders. His frame is built quite smartly as he can indeed recreate a lot of his signature poses.
He's given a full disposal of weapons you can see in the show and this does help give SHF Ryuki a bigger wow factor, what I find great is that due to all great articulation points, you can really make TONS of poses out it, including those that require the arms to towards the direction of his torso, one which a number of articulated figures cannot do so well, the forearm swivel makes this ridiculously good.
Of course, since Ryuki is basically the 'Battle Royale' of Kamen Rider, it's good to pit him against fellow series riders...
But since this IS Shinji Kido we are talking about, you can also pose him with other riders like Zolda in one of their wacky misadventures in some of the funny Ryuki episodes.
Of course, to seal the deal, Dragreder is one of the cakes of this set, as what more can you pose him with Ryuki? None other than Ryuki's Final Vent sequence which is the most we see out of Dragreder aside from Ad Vent summons. Doing this is where the 3 clamped stand comes in use and you would be surprised on how pose accurate this figuarts can get for this phase; it easily blows away the figma counterpart (aside from proportions and more seamless joints) and I was just in awe when I actually did it.
| Final Thoughts: |
Is SHF Ryuki worth it? Heck YES, while I think the figma looks better in proportions, the SHF counterparts are just miles better with the rest; Dragreder was certainly a big factor in making the set ridiculously good. This is one of those releases where I feel Bandai (or Tamashii Nations at that) didn't come cheap as you have almost everything (since no effect parts lol) at your disposal, I seriously think that even if there's a "renewal" version in the future, it would be ok to pass on that already since this one's already great in its own rights. I highly recommend getting the set if you still haven't and you are aiming to get at least every title rider to your collection or basically if you just love the series like me. XD
This is another loot obtained from amiami, when he hit the re-release a few months ago, too bad I didn't get the bonus rider on stage base though.
I give the idiotic journalist a heroic 5 out of 5!
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Just ordered him today. I'm super stoked about this purchase. Can't wait to pose him and the contract monster. I'm here waiting like a kid at Xmas for box day. Awesome figuart as this review stresses.
ReplyDeleteGreat! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do too, haha.
DeleteIs there a chance this is still available in local stores? and all the other ryuki SHF figures? If so, what shop besides GTO,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late reply, I haven't seen any lately, you can try Robin's at Shoppesville but the price probably won't be pretty friendly if they have it in stock. Best chance of getting them aside GTO is to participate in some special batches that other online shops do.
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