Friday, May 16, 2014
Review: S.H.Figuarts Shocker Combatman
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Bandai |
| Origin Series: | Kamen Rider |
| Scale: | Non-scale |
| Height: | Approximately 16cm tall |
| Original Price: | 2,940 Yen |
| Packaging: |
Shocker Combatman comes packed in a style similar to a majority of the SHF Showa Riders' boxes. The window and one side comes imprinted with the figure's name, the box has a variety of features shown in the box (along with him being beaten by V3 lol). Just pretty much your average showa era box and nothing amazing going on that is worth praising.
| Details: |
Your Shocker Combatman comes in really neat lanky mold of a man in tight black suit with a skeleton decoration on the body and a big ass buckle of a falcon on globe logo that is simply the Shocker organization's emblem. Aside from the white details and the big buckle, there's nothing much going on the Shocker mook as the rest is all black though, there are sculpted gloves and boots in there but barely even noticeable from afar. Lastly, the sculpted in face looks pretty neat as it does capture those Shocker mooks from the recent movies very well (and he looks like a pervert lol).
As stated above, these Shocker Combatmen are rather lanky, hence making them taller than your SHF Riders, so below is a comparison of him with SHF Kamen Rider Meteor and another one standing next to Ultra-Act Ultraman, as Ultra-Acts have always been a tad bit taller than your SHFs.
| Accessories: |
For accessories, the Shocker Combatman does come with quite a neat set; for starters you get a total of 4 pairs of hands: chopping hands (also used for their signature Nazzi Shocker salute), fists, open hands and gripping hands. Additionally, to reflect on their appearances in heisei movies, bandai gives a bonus right hand that's holding a cell medal as seen in the OOO x Den-O x All Rider movie.
For weapons, you get the standard machete that we see them wielding in the recent movies and a staff which I have no idea on since I haven't watched the original Kamen Rider yet.
| Articulation Points: |
Articulation wise, the mook's as decent as your riders, even more decent than some actually. His head movement is quite nice, allowing you to have a good flexing range sidewards, upwards or downwards.
Shoulder joints can raise up to about a little more than 45 degrees since the upper sleeve tips from the arms prevent it from doing a full 90, however, you can fully rotate the arms. The shoulder joints also allows you to swivel up the arms a bit.
You get the standard SHF double jointed elbows that helps give a realistic arm bending capability. And course, you hands are on a ball hinge mixture.
Torso has a very very nice stretch to it although it breaks the skeletal details if you over stretch the goon, which I wish that they could've put in some more skeletal details on the lower torso so that it wouldn't look as awkward. Bending the torso forward also has some nice range while tilting it sideways look a little stiff.
Going to the lower body articulation, the Shocker mook's hips are you standard ball jointed hips which can indeed split to a very good range on both sideways and forward or backward. The mold also retains that feature where you can pull the hip joints downwards via a connecting hinge that will allow you to raise the legs to an even higher degree; and like the shoulders, you also get a minimal swiveling point at his thighs. Lastly, the knees work exactly the same as the shoulders, giving the Combatman a really realistic leg bend capability.
| Poseability: |
The Shocker Combatman is definitely fun to pose around and that he's definitely highly articulated (as expected from the S.H.Figuarts line). Posing him around to do attacks or wacky goon poses was definitely a fun thing to do.
However, what truly completes the play value of mooks is when they interact with other figures, and since Shocker Combatman is a mook for an evil organization, he does work well with wreaking havoc on civilians, chasing them and taking them as hostages.
But then a mook will always be a mook and we all know what happens to Shocker Combatmen when they do try to fight with actual Kamen Riders.
Army building the Shocker Combatman is definitely a way to go posing them in beat up poses, attacking poses and whatnot while trying to overpower a single rider. And seriously speaking, they really work well for those purposes.
| Final Thoughts: |
I got my piece from Great Toys Online during Cosmania last year, and I must say that I'm a bit biased to mooks since they really deserve a place on any articulated figure collector. So, was the Shocker Combatman really worth it? Well, yes, the mold and details might look simple but the play value of these for dioramas, photoperfect scenes and just even normal action figure play is definitely high, as of this writing, I only have one but I really plan to expand my Shocker Combatman quantities to at least three and max of five, so yeah, definitely a good deal on these since they are quite cheap as well, really perfect for army building!
I give the mook a rightful 4.5 out of 5.
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