Picspam: Figuarts Kamen Rider Knight and Shinken Red (Kaoru)

[akinoame]

First off, a couple of pics that I've been meaning to post and forgot about for some time. This is a cupcake I got some months back that I'm dying to see Publix make again. It's a Cookie Monster! Or as close as they can get to it without having to pay Sesame Workshop! And it was yummy. And I got this Princess Jasmine figure from a local jewelry shop in my mall that closed its doors last week. My parents had gone there for years to replace the batteries in their watches, and it was sad to see the place go after so long.

Well, that melancholy note aside, onto the Figuarts. The first to arrive was Knight, whom I ordered from Anime King on ebay. I highly recommend them. Very good prices, excellent selection, and shipping is reasonable. It helps too that they ship from California, so if you're in the U.S., you don't have as long a wait. And no customs, which I'll get to when I discuss Shinken Red.

As a note ahead of time, I apologize profusely for the quality of the photos, since my camera's on the old side, and for the glare, since my hands are ridiculously white.

This part of the rec is going to be longer, if only because this is the first Figuarts I've ever gotten and reviewed. So it'll act as reference for future ones (like Shinken Red and Ryuki, who I just ordered). First off, here is the box for Kamen Masked Kamen Rider Knight and Darkwing (insert every Duck joke here). It is a thing of beauty, with some pretty nice art on the side showing the two of them. When you open up the box, you're going to find two plastic packaging...things. The first is Ren and Darkwing, along with most of their accessories. The second has additional accessories, namely the cape and portions for the Final Vent. And finally is the stand, featuring the name of the Rider and his deck symbol.

So, let's start with Knight. The figure itself is highly articulated and obsessively detailed--all joints move, since they're on ball-joints (and I'll get to that in a minute), and just about every port on his body is removable--which can be a pain in the ass if you accidentally nudge one and it falls off, as I discovered with one on one of his arms. In the case of these ports, I have a feeling the Knight model was the same as Ryuki's, where all of those ports would need to come off, but I haven't yet gotten my Ryuki to compare. But yes, obsessively detailed. Even his deck can slide in and out of the belt, which also moves. He comes with an assortment of hands--which is par for the course with Figuarts and Max Factory's Figma--which allow you to attach his different weapons. There's a fist, an open hand, and different grips. His Visor (the sword he scans his cards into) fits in the widest grip, and the port on the side of his belt can be removed to fit on a holder for the Visor, which slides right in. And entering into the obsessively detailed portion, they don't skip on detail for the Dark Visor. Everything already looks show-accurate--barring a few things here and there, like the holder, that are there to accomodate the action figure--but they included a silver barbed-wire/thorn design around the hilt that I didn't even know was there in canon. If it's not, then that's one hell of a nice addition. Also, it comes with Advent Cards included in the bag with the directions (circled for your convenience), which as far as I can tell, look show-accurate too. Though I'd need a microscope to tell for sure. I was terrifed to take them out of the bag and risk losing them, but there's a special hand included to hold a card. You know, if you want to have him scanning a card. And yes, the Visor opens up--pull on the end, and then slide out the wings. Next, we come to the Dark Lancer, also known as Sword Vent. It comes with two different hilt sizes, presumably one for battle and the other for Final Vent. I used the tighter closed grip for the Sword Vent.

Leaving Ren aside for a moment, let's look at Darkwing. They've got some great details and articulation on him too, with a secondary wing that slides out for added detail during attached flight, and his wings can move higher up. And here's something I didn't know--the Sword Vent can fold down and attach to Darkwing's body. I always wondered exactly where that came from, since it didn't show well in the series. So...

...Oh.

...Oh dear.

...Is that a penis?!

God, no wonder Darkwing hates Ren so much! Every time he goes into battle, he's using Darkwing's penis as a weapon!

God, this is going to make the next part awkward.

Anyway, yeah. If you've seen the show, and especially if you've seen the movie EPISODE FINAL, then you know that Darkwing can attach himself to Ren's back--yes, go ahead and make your jokes now that the penis thing is fresh in your mind--as a shield or for flight. Here's the mechanism for that. Step one, remove the ports on Knight's back an attach the connector. Step two, remove the corresponding ports on Darkwing's chest, and avoid making jokes about how much more you're pulling off the poor guy. Step three, attach the two. You can spread out the wings for flight or close them together in Guard Vent, which I think Ren has completely failed to pull off effectively throughout the show.

Now, we turn to the cape and Final Vent. Darkwing's torso slides out of the wings and can slide into the cape to give Ren his trademark Batman look. It can also slide into the spiral cape pieces for Final Vent. It's tricky to get everything together for this, I admit, but you can at least follow along the "folds" of the cape to see how it all connects. The hardest part is getting the Sword Vent to fit in, but when the whole thing is complete, it looks pretty damn impressive. For this pose, you absolutely will need the stand it came with. As far as I can tell, Knight can stand fine on his own, as long as you're not moving the toes.

Now, onto Kaoru. Instead of ebay, I purchased her from Okinawam's middleman service, specifically his shop, Hobby Japan and More. His prices are in the expensive zone; where Knight cost me a little over $50 U.S. altogether, Shinken Red cost about $80. But he's got a great selection and excellent customer service, personally contacting me (and advancing, who ordered Kaoru the same day) to notify of shipment. advancing even said that he was great at answering her questions when she contacted him. So, yes, pricey but the service is well worth it. A definite buy when you've got the money. My biggest problem was just waiting for my package to clear through customs.

Kaoru's box isn't as impressive, if only because there's only one figure inside. Also, Shinkenger didn't have high-quality action figure competition, the way Ryuki Figuarts did with Dragon Knight Figma. But I would have liked some art rather than just the picture of the figure on the front. Open up the box, and you've got a similar setup: weapons and lot and lots of hands. Shinken Red herself looks pretty damn nice, with all the same articulation that I noticed with Knight. And yes, the belt moves too, but I'll get to that one a little later. I attached a hand for her to carry Shinkenmaru, and there's a spot on her belt that you can clip it into, similar to the holder for Knight's Visor. I used the looser grip for Rekka Daizantou, but the laws of physics were against me with that one. The sword is heavy compared to the hand, so you really have to do some positioning to keep it from falling out. There's a specialized grip, similar to the Advent Card hand for Knight, for Shinken Red to hold her Shodophone (view from one side and the reverse), but I had a hard time reattaching hands, so I decided not to risk it. The box shows the pose if you want to try that.

That shot also shows the secondary skirt, and this is the part where the movablity of the belt comes into play. Kaoru comes with a second skirt, which can replace the baseline skirt for more action poses. It's got "folds" and separates if you want to do kicks or the like, I imagine. But to attach it, you have to take the figure apart. Bisect it. I swear, I felt like I was taking a crime scene photo at this point. But you've got to take her apart to put in the movable skirt. I quite honestly don't like the way it looks. Maybe it looks better if I pose her with a kick, but I quite frankly don't have the heart to take her apart again like that.

As a note, unlike Knight, Shinken Red does not come with a stand, so I did order one from CS Toys (whom I've recommended in the past), along with one for my little sister's Chibi-Arts W.

Shinken Red came with a few inserts advertizing Gokaiger vs. Gavan and Fourze x OOO Mega Max. Two are coloring sheets. The reverse seems to give a little more information about the movies, I think, with the Kamen Rider ones sharing the same reverse.

My biggest complaint about the Figuarts in general? The hands. They are really damn hard to attach, and the joint will go all over the place when you're trying to get the thing in. I glossed over how much they annoyed me with Ren, but with Kaoru, I actually got scared that I was going to break those ball joints. She's sticking with the hands I gave her now. I'm not going to try attaching anything else on her. Maybe it's because I was sick when I did her photoshoot, but I scared myself pretty well. I love the articulation they provide, but those ball joints are tiny and seem pretty damn fragile. So be very careful with them. Otherwise, I highly recommend the Figuarts, and I have a feeling that it's going to take a lot of coaxing to get me to try SIC or Figma (though I will say that the SIC Orphenochs look beautiful and tempting).

And finally, though I need to keep them in their boxes for now, since I hope to move rooms within the next few months, I took a picture of Kaoru and Ren. I think they're going to be friends, don't you?

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If not, I suggest finding a Gentarou/Fourze Figuart somewhere down the line. He'd make sure they became friends! XD